Søren Kierkegaard

Life

Kierkegaard was born in Copenhagen in 1813, the youngest son of Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard, a wealthy merchant. His father's stern and melancholy piety is said to have left a deep mark on his thought.

He studied theology at the University of Copenhagen and in 1841 received his degree for a dissertation on Socratic irony. That same year he broke off his engagement to Regine Olsen, an event that forms the background of several of his works. Although he completed his theological education, he never became a pastor and devoted his life to writing.

In 1846 he became embroiled in a dispute with the satirical paper The Corsair and was subjected to public ridicule. Late in life, in 1854–1855, he publicly attacked the leaders of the Danish state church. He died in a hospital in 1855 at the age of forty-two.

Work and Achievements

His major works include the following; many were published under pseudonyms.

• Either/Or (1843)
• Fear and Trembling (1843): published under the pseudonym Johannes de Silentio
• The Concept of Anxiety (1844)
• Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments (1846)
• Works of Love (1847)
• The Sickness unto Death (1849)
• Practice in Christianity (1850)

Fear and Trembling deals with the offering of Isaac on Mount Moriah (Genesis 22). The book interprets Abraham's willingness to offer up Isaac as an act of faith that transcends universal ethics. In it, Abraham is portrayed as the "knight of faith."

Kierkegaard described human life in terms of three stages:

• The aesthetic stage: a life devoted to the pursuit of pleasure
• The ethical stage: a life governed by duty
• The religious stage: a life of standing alone before God

He emphasized that faith is not reached through rational argument but embraced through the individual's decision. This idea is commonly summed up in the phrase "leap of faith," although Kierkegaard himself did not use that exact expression.

Near the end of his life he published the pamphlet series The Moment. In it he argued that "Christendom," in which every citizen automatically becomes a church member, stands far removed from the Christianity of the New Testament.

Influence on the Korean Church

By way of existentialism, his thought influenced twentieth-century theology. His influence is commonly seen in the early Karl Barth's emphasis on the "infinite qualitative difference" between God and humanity. He is also said to have influenced Dietrich Bonhoeffer's understanding of discipleship.

In Korea, he became known as existentialism was widely introduced among intellectuals after the Korean War, and his major works have been translated into Korean. Within the church, his interpretation of Abraham and the phrase "knight of faith" are frequently cited in sermons on Genesis 22. The Sickness unto Death analyzes despair as sin, and this analysis is also mentioned in devotional books and meditative writings.

Assessment

Kierkegaard is regarded as a thinker who sought to rouse people from formal, habitual faith and who stressed the earnest decision of the individual.

He has also drawn criticism. Some within the Reformed and evangelical traditions contend that he severed faith from reason and objective truth, a tendency they believe can lead to subjectivism. Francis Schaeffer is a prominent proponent of this critique, which became known in Korean evangelical circles through his writings.

Interpretations also diverge over Fear and Trembling's reading of the Abraham narrative as an act that transcends ethics. Some see it as dangerously relativizing ethics, while others regard it as an expression of absolute trust in God. His defenders maintain that he did not reject reason; what he opposed, they argue, was the attempt to confine faith within a rational system.