Kierkegaard on Truth

Author(s): Matthew Gerhard Jacoby

Source: Religious Studies , Mar., 2002, Vol. 38, No. 1 (Mar., 2002), pp. 27-44
Published by: Cambridge University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20008389

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 Religious Studies 38, 27-44 ? 2002 Cambridge University Press
DOI: 10.1017/S0034412501005868 Printed in the United Kingdom

Kierkegaard on truth
MATTHEW GERHARD JACOBY
Department of Philosophy, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, 4ustralia

Abstract: The following paper focuses upon what is possibly the most
controversial passage in Kierkegaard's writings. On the basis of this passage
Kierkegaard's notion of truth as 'subjectivity' has been interpreted as being 'non
objective referential', that is, as having severed itself from 'eternal truth' altogether,
so that the emphasis in the question of truth is entirely upon the relationship a
person has to what he thinks and that the object of the relationship is a matter of
indifference. We shall defend here a reading of Kierkegaard in which the subjectivity
that Kierkegaard defines as truth is entirely conditioned by its relation to a specific
revelation of eternal truth. In line with this we will also interpret the passage at the
centre of the controversy as an 'impossible hypothetical' used for the sake of
making a provocation.

When the question of truth is raised in an objective manner, reflection is directed

objectively to the truth, as an object to which the knower is related. Reflection is not
focused upon the relationship, however, but upon the question of whether it is the
truth to which the knower is related. If only the object to which he is related is the
truth, the subject is accounted to be in the truth. When the question of the truth is
raised subjectively, reflection is directed subjectively to the nature of the individual's
relationship; if only the mode of his relationship is in the truth, the individual is in
the truth even if he should happen to be thus related to what is not true.'

This passage from the Concluding Unscientific Postscript is possibly the

most debated and controversial passage penned by Kierkegaard. It may not even
be going too far to say that the way we understand this passage will dictate how we
both read and apply Kierkegaard today. On the basis of this passage, Kierkegaard
has been read as a reactionary against the traditional cognitive-propositional
notion of religious truth, inasmuch as he appears to have severed religious truth
claims from their alleged objective reference and made them entirely self-refer
ential. In this sense also he has been seen as anticipating the post-liberal cultural
linguistic model of religion according to which religious truth claims derive their
meaning and legitimacy (or truthfulness) from their congruency with their own
linguistic and existential context.2 In Kierkegaard, it is thought, this is reflected in
27

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28 MATTHEW GERHARD JACOBY

the definition of truth as the relation of one's thought, not with the Kantian object,
but with one's own being. In contrast with Kant who had defined truth as the static
correspondence between thought and its object,3 Kierkegaard emphasizes the fact
that it is empirical being that is the object of thinking, and that with this everything
is placed into a 'process of becoming' since the object is unfinished.4 What ensues
from this is that truth is something that includes the thinking subject; it is the
manner of the relationship between the mode of the subject's thinking and his/her
concrete being. Whether this excludes the Kantian object altogether is the matter
of contention here. If Kierkegaard defines truth for the individual as wholly 'self
referential' then perhaps one might see a reflection of George Lindbeck's intra
theological criteria for truth (in which truth claims are legitimized by reference to
the linguistic-cultural context in which they are confessed). But if Kierkegaard
retains the traditional objective reference point in his truth claims, then he is far
less useful for Lindbeck's concerns than has been alleged recently by Stephen
Emmanuel5 and Timothy Houston Polk.6
The 'objective-referential debate' is exemplified in Louis Pojman's Logic of
Subjectivity,7 in which Pojman argues that Kierkegaard retains the relation of
subjective truth to 'eternal truth', in opposition to Louis Mackey, for example, who
argues that, for Kierkegaard, subjective truth has no relation to ' eternal truth'.8
What Pojman's objects to in Mackey's interpretation of Kierkegaard is the alle
gation that Kierkegaard 's notion of truth as subjectivity is only concerned with the
relationship one has with one's beliefs. Pojman concedes that this is indeed the
dominant emphasis in Kierkegaard but that Kierkegaard nevertheless retains the
objective reference. A more recent contributor to the debate who has taken up the
non-objective referential interpretation of Kierkegaard is Christopher Hamilton.9
Hamilton argues that Kierkegaard thinks it is not necessary to be related to the
right object in order to be in truth. Hamilton writes in opposition to Hannay who
defends a reading of Kierkegaard that retains a firm objective reference which is
itself the condition of the inwardness. Hannay points out that for Kierkegaard the
whole point of these passages is to emphasize that just having the right object is
not a sufficient condition for Christian faith. Hamilton agrees with this, but then
argues that the object of faith 'is not some metaphysical claim one must first
believe, on the basis of which one then develops inwardness'.10 One develops
inwardness first and the object of religious affection is entirely secondary and even
quite arbitrary. He suggests that this inwardness is completely self affecting
though it may 'find spiritual nourishment in a deepened understanding of Christ's
life and maybe such an understanding is the most appropriate place to find such
nourishment, as Kierkegaard suggests '.l However, as the following article will
endeavour to demonstrate, this interpretation is quite foreign not only to the
intention of the texts in question but also to Kierkegaard's whole authorship. We
shall respond to this issue by appealing firstly to Kierkegaard's wider authorship,
secondly to the overall drama of the Postscript itself, and finally with detailed

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 Kierkegaard on truth 29

attention to the passage in question here along with its alternative expression a
page or so later:
If someone who lives in the midst of Christianity enters, with a knowledge of the
true idea of God, the house of the true God, and prays, but prays in untruth, and if
someone lives in an idolatrous land but prays with all passion of infinity, although
his eyes are resting upon the image of an idol - where, then, is there more truth?
The one prays in truth to God although he is worshipping an idol; the other prays
in untruth to the true God and is therefore in truth worshipping an idol.U2

Kierkegaard's concern
Kierkegaard is a Christian writer with the agenda of leading people into a
true relationship to Christianity and thus to become Christians in the truly New
Testament sense. Throughout his authorship, Kierkegaard discriminates quite
sharply between Christians and 'pagans'. His preoccupation was that Christen
dom had become a 'baptised paganism' and that individuals within Christendom
had been taken up into a purely 'world-historical' Christianity, thus losing their
individuality before God. Each person was considered to be a Christian from an
objective world-historical point of view. This, for Kierkegaard, is exemplary of the
pagan attitude: 'an objective acceptance of Christianity is paganism or thought
lessness . It was thought in Kierkegaard's time that the way to becoming a
Christian simply involved the acquisition of certain objective truths. But
Kierkegaard says that 'to know a confession of faith by rote is paganism, because
Christianity is inwardness '.14 We should note that he is not saying that inwardness
is Christianity but that Christianity is inwardness. In an edifying discourse titled
'The narrowness is the way' Kierkegaard corrects what he sees as a popular
misunderstanding that if only it were discovered where the way is (the way of truth)
everything would then be decided: 'And worldly wisdom is very willing to deceive
by repeatedly answering the question of where the way is, while the difficulty is
ignored, that, spiritually understood, the way is: how it is travelled. '15
What distinguishes Christianity from paganism is not just the 'what' but the
'how.' In fact the 'how' is the 'what' since the entire content of biblical revelation
is an imperative to a certain type of active relationship. If the question is asked,
' what is the Bible about?', the answer, according to Kierkegaard, must be: it is
about how to live in a relationship with God. Certainly Kierkegaard believed that
the Bible tells us whatthe truth is, but it is central to Kierkegaard 's philosophy that
it be borne in mind that this question is asked in existence, and therefore the
question of what must naturally become how. That 'God is' is the truth, but this
is still not the truth for an existing individual. The Bible does not concern itself
with the fact that 'God is' but assuming this (since the question about the exist
ence of God cannot be posed in existence) it focuses on how an individual must
relate to God. The whole issue is determined by existence. In existence certain
questions are meaningful and others are meaningless. The question, 'what is

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30 MATTHEW GERHARD JACOBY

truth?' must become, 'how can I live truthfully?' The abstract question of what
when it is purged of the how, is meaningless for an existing individual. Hence th
'where' of the way of truth is: how it is actualized in concrete human existence
The foundation for the essential difference between paganism and Christianit
is laid in Sickness unto Death. This work is a psychological exposition of 'despair
which is essentially a means of escaping from the God-relationship - the how.
Human being is defined here as a threefold relation in which the self relates itse
to itself (since the existing spirit is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, th
temporal and the eternal, and of freedom and necessity) and thus to the one wh
established the relation - God. The threefold relation, with the God-relationship
as the key aspect, is the authenticity of humanness and is also the difficulty of
existence precisely because being human involves relating to God. Despair
essentially an escape from selfhood since this involves the 'problem' of relating t
God. Paganism, for Kierkegaard, is living in spite of the truth - and truth is a mode
of being that involves the God-relationship. Paganism is therefore an escape fro
this mode of being. In For Self Examination likewise, Kierkegaard is concerned
with this issue of escapism. Here the distinction between Christianity and pagan
ism (the 'secular' as it is expressed here) is exemplified by Luther. In this contex
paganism/secularism is the tendency either to works-meritoriousness or t
works-complacency based on a misunderstanding of the doctrine of 'salvation by
grace through faith alone':

There is always a secular mentality that no doubt wants to have the name of being
Christian as cheaply as possible. This secular mentality became aware of Luther. It
listened; for safety's sake it listened once again lest it should have heard wrongly;
thereupon it said, 'Excellent! This is something for us. Luther says: it depends on
faith alone. He himself does not say that his life expresses works, and since he is
now dead it is no longer an actuality. So we take his words, his doctrine - and we
are free from all works - long live Luther! '16

What Luther represents here is the fact that the way of truth is how it is lived
Kierkegaard points out that while Luther propounded the doctrine of 'salvation b
faith alone apart from works' yet Luther's life expressed works. The problem wit
the 'secular mentality' is that it focuses on what the doctrine says whilst ignorin
how it is to be actually lived. The doctrine itself is intended to liberate a person
into a life of active faith.
Kierkegaard is not therefore uninterested in the what, in the content, in the
objective reference of Christian faith. What he is saying is that the what is the how.
The objective reference of Christian faith is the infinite subject God, who is not an
object to know in a cognitive sense but a subject to which the individual must
relate. Hence the objective what which is the object of Christian faith is the
subjective how - the relationship. Hamilton wants to say that, for Kierkegaard, this
how is quite arbitrary so that any expression of subjectivity is legitimate. But
Kierkegaard explicitly refutes this. In Authority and Revelation (the 'Book on

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 Kierkegaard on truth 31

Adler') Kierkegaard insists that not every expression of subjectivity is Christian

subjectivity:

And one does not become a Christian by being moved by something indefinitely
higher, and not every outpouring of religious emotion is a Christian outpouring.
That is to say: emotion which is Christian is checked by the definition of concepts,
and when emotion is transposed or expressed in words in order to be
communicated, the transposition must occur constantly within the definition of
concepts.17

The connection between the view that Kierkegaard expresses here and that of
Climacus can justifiably be assumed without any detriment to the autonomy that
Kierkegaard wants for his pseudonym. The autonomy of Climacus is protected for
the sake of allowing what is said in the Postscript to be said from that particular
point of view. It does not involve altogether different definitions of concepts.
Climacus is Kierkegaard's pseudonym, created to serve his own agenda and con
victions, and it would therefore be unreasonable to read Climacus in opposition
to Kierkegaard. Hence, what Kierkegaard says here about Christian subjectivity
being of a certain definite sort may be used to shed light on what Kierkegaard
wants to or does not want to say about subjectivity through Climacus.
In Kierkegaard's distinction Christianity is truth in so far as it facilitates the
reconciliation of the relationship between man and God, and paganism is untruth
insofar as it seeks to escape from this relationship. The problem with objectivity is
that it is a form of escapism. And Kierkegaard defines the secular or pagan men
tality in terms of escapism. Objectivity is certainly not the only form of escapism,
and subjectivity is itself not a guarantee that the individual is not 'escaping'. When
Kierkegaard argues that 'not every expression of subjectivity is Christian subjec
tivity', it is the same as if he had said that there are forms of subjectivity that are
also forms of escapism - such as that of lunacy. The case of Adler is an example of
this point. Kierkegaard was faced, in this case, with a person whose subjective
revelation was quite deranged. If Hamilton regards Kierkegaard as advocating
subjectivity as something that is not predefined by its specific object then indeed
any kind of inwardness is legitimate and Kierkegaard can have had no grounds on
which to criticize Adler. But Kierkegaard has strong grounds on which to reject
Adler and he does this by, in effect, using the how-what distinction the other way
around. How one must be in order to be a Christian is limited by whatthe Christian
concept of the how is. Elsewhere, the emphasis of Kierkegaard's writing is on
qualifying the what as the how so that the perspective of the 'how' is emphasized.
The mistake in the non-objective-referential interpretation of Kierkegaard is that
it takes the how and ignores that this has a specific content. It is not any how but
a certain type of how. The manner of the God-relationship is distinguished from
pagan idolatry by a certain 'definition of concepts'. This definition of concepts is
the revelation upon which Christianity is based. Kierkegaard writes: 'It is true that
Christianity is built upon a revelation, but also it is limited by the revelation it has

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32 MATTHEW GERHARD JACOBY

received. 8 Christianity is defined by a distinct definition, as Kierkegaard puts it in

the Postscript, 'That an eternal happiness is decided in time through the relatio
ship to something historical [is] ... what I now call Christianity. '19 This relationship
is not just one amongst many ways to be in truth but rather it is the way. If the wa
is how it is travelled, then this relationship to something historical (the Christ
incarnation - Kierkegaard is not saying that it is a relationship to anythin
historical - he has something very specific in mind) is to be sharply distinguishe
from all other ways.
The biblical concept of Christ as the way was something that Kierkegaard too
with utmost seriousness and quite literally. This is expressed in Practice i
Christianity. Christ himself is the how and thus he himself is the way and the what
of truth. He both embodies the God-relationship and makes it possible throug
his work of atonement. Hence Christ is also the objective reference of faith. T
suggest, as Hamilton does, that Christ is merely one option amongst many (even
if he is the best option) for the sustenance of true inwardness is quite contradictory
to Kierkegaard. Here, Kierkegaard makes it clear that truth is a person - Christ
The discussion revolves around the question of Pilate who asked Jesus, "What i
truth? ". Kierkegaard poses a possible reply for Jesus: 'What any other person m
answer to the question "what is truth?" is indeed never entirely true, but I am th
only human being who cannot reply to this question, for I am truth.'20 Thus, he
again, Kierkegaard is saying that the how is not just any how but that there is
concrete objective reference for this how which is the way.
Despite how distasteful this may be to contemporary thought, Kierkegaard
must be understood as an exclusivist in every respect. Walter Kaufmann, for
example, criticizes Kierkegaard for his lack of consideration for other religions, but
there is simply no room in Kierkegaard's authorship for even the slightest co
sideration of other world religions.2' There are two categories in Kierkegaard'
thought: the 'Christian' and 'the pagan'. Kierkegaard is not writing so that, as
Lindbeck would urge at points in inter-faith dialogue, the Muslim may be en
couraged to become a better Muslim.22 Whether or not this exclusivist attitude
legitimate is not the question here. The question is: What did Kierkegaard really
think in this respect? Few philosophers have been so distorted through secondar
literature as Kierkegaard, who, in spite of the overtly Christian agenda expresse
throughout his authorship, has been read largely to the point where it has even
been questioned whether he was a theist.23 Kierkegaard was a Christian in the
Lutheran tradition who held unswervingly to Lutheran doctrine,24 and who, whi
he struggled with certain aspects of his childhood faith, never departed from th
basic pietist version of the Protestant confession. The major emphases of his
writing are conviction of sin, spiritual awakening, faith in Christ, and a life o
imitation of Christ. All these are wholly in line with a Christianity that is bot
biblical and based on a definite objective-truth-reference. The textual support fo
this from Kierkegaard 's sheer mass of Christian literature is quite conclusive.

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 Kierkegaard on truth 33

Johannes Climacus and the Postscript

We now turn, for an understanding of the passages in question, to the
Concluding Unscientific Postscript specifically, and to the overall purpose of the
work and the way in which Kierkegaard seeks to meet his goal through his pseudo
nym. It is important to note, if we are to understand any part of the Postscript, that
it is attributed by Kierkegaard to Johannes Climacus, and this for a good reason.
Climacus is of great significance to Kierkegaard's effort to 'wound from behind',
that is to communicate something indirectly. In the Point of View Kierkegaard
explains the importance of his pseudonym for his overall purpose:

Once in a while there appears a religious enthusiast: he storms against

Christendom, he vociferates and makes a loud noise, denouncing almost all as not
being Christians - and accomplishes nothing. He takes no heed of the fact that an
Musion is not an easy thing to dispel.... No, an illusion can never be destroyed
directly, and only by indirect means can it be radically removed. If it is an Musion
that all are Christians - and if there is anything to be done about it, it must be
done indirectly, not by one who vociferously proclaims himself to be an
extraordinary Christian, but by one who, better instructed, is ready to declare that
he is not a Christian at all.25

What evolves throughout the Climacean Literature (Fragments, Johannes

Climacus and the Postscript) is a kind of dialectical drama in which we gradually
come to understand the writer. Kierkegaard's use of Climacus is epigrammatic.
What Johannes accomplishes is, as Kierkegaard expresses it, 'the most superb
epigram upon [the German professor (the speculative philosopher)] '.26 In
Johannes Climacus Kierkegaard tells the story of this young thinker who honestly
and naively seeks to do exactly what the philosophizers tell him. In the first place
he takes the thesis that 'philosophy begins with doubt', but finds himself back
where he started since the thesis cancels itself out once it is sincerely taken up.
That philosophy begins with doubt itself must be doubted, and therefore one
simply proceeds nowhere. The problem for Climacus is that he cannot ascertain
how the philosophy of the philosophizers is to be done. He wants to know what
kind of relationship he should enter into with philosophy. In order to find this out
he inquires into the nature of the philosophical thesis, to find out whether the task
is simply to enunciate itor to receive itin a certain way. But the result of Climacus 's
sincere desire to do what the philosophizers say ends in disappointment, and as
a result he abandons formal philosophy in the conviction that he has been cruelly
deceived.
The question that opens the Philosophical Fragments is quite continuous with
the portrait we are given of the young Climacus in Johannes Climacus. The young
inquisitor asks whether truth can be learned. The answer is not a simple 'yes' or
'no'. The complexity of the issue has to do with the sense in which Climacus uses
the term 'truth'. We will be reminded that 'truth' for Climacus is to be understood,

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34 MATTHEW GERHARD JACOBY

not in the Kantian sense of the conformity between thought and its object, but as
the conformity of thinking with empirical being. The object of Kant's correspon
dence is not rejected altogether but is understood empirically and therefore every
thing is placed in a process of becoming. If one is to think in conformity with being
(the Kantian object understood empirically), then how one thinks is the dominant
concern in the question of truth. Since truth involves a certain way of thinking, the
subject is now included in the truth criterion. In this sense truth is a state of
personal being. In Kant, only the content of a person's thinking had to be in
conformity with the object. Here, the subject is left out of the equation. This is
objective reflection. However, in Kierkegaard, the thinker himself has to be in
conformity with being. This is subjective reflection. If truth were simply a prop
osition that laid claim to the Kantian correspondence then indeed it could be
learned - the task would simply be to enunciate it. Whether a person understands
it or not, or what the condition of the person is who enunciates is, is irrelevant.
Since truth is simply a conformity of thought with a certain object it does not
matter who it is thought by or how it is thought, as long as the correspondence is
realized. The case is entirely different, however, when truth involves a certain
mode of being. In this case truth must be received in a certain way. In order for
truth to be received in the right sort of way certain conditions must be present in
the subject. The person must be inwardly disposed to the exact kind of appro
priation that is truthful. This idea is expressed in the formula of Jesus, 'He who has
ears, let him hear'. In order for a person to receive the truth he must, in a sense,
already be in truth.
This is the crux of the problem in the first part of the Fragments. If truth is to be
taught, the teacher must provide the learner with the condition for understanding
the truth.27 The teacher must transform, not reform, the learner. But this is im
possible unless the teacher is the very God who created the learner. The intro
duction of God into Climacus's argument is not accompanied by any apologetic,
rather, Climacus proceeds with the assumption that man is created by God and
that when God created him He must have given him the condition for understand
ing the truth. What follows in the Fragments is a 'thought project' in which
Climacus arrives progressively at the major doctrines of biblical anthropology,
christology and soteriology. If man was originally given the condition for knowing
the truth, then he must have lost it at some time. Hence, at one point man,
obviously through his own fault, fell into untruth. Climacus calls this the state of
21
sin. Since man is now bound in this condition and unable to work himself loose,
he thus needs a saviour.29 The saviour is the one who desires to teach man
truth - 'the god'. This god-saviour must be one who bears the guilt of man's fall
in himself through a work of atonement.30 The rest is predictable. It is obvious that
Kierkegaard is bringing his pseudonym, via his thought experiment (his scala
paradisi), to Christianity (though not into Christianity since he does not become
a Christian). Once this saviour has achieved his act of redemption, the 'learner' is

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 Kierkegaard on truth 35

able to receive the condition for truth (and thus we move into soteriology). The
process in which 'the god' applies this redemptive work to the learner (in order
that he may be restored into truth) is called conversion3' and it involves conscious
ness of sin, repentance, and a new birth.32 The credit for this whole process from
creation to salvation goes to the teacher, 'the god'. No person can do this for
themselves it must be done entirely by 'the god'.
Here, Climacus reasons what must happen if a person is to learn truth. He has
abandoned the philosophical route and now reflects independently. We should
note that Climacus here is not a Christian (he expresses this in calling the teacher
'the god'). His reflection is entirely independent. Climacus does here what
Kierkegaard explains about him in Johannes Climacus: 'It was his delight to begin
with a single thought, and then, by way of coherent thinking, to climb step by step
to a higher one, because to him coherent thinking was a scala paradisi.'33 The
significance of Climacus's reflection in the Fragments for casting away the non
objective referential interpretation of Kierkegaard is evident here. Climacus is
convinced that the only way a person can learn the truth is by this specific act of
God, in which God becomes incarnate, makes atonement for sin, and applies this
to the subject byway of a conversion involving a new birth, penitence, repentance,
and faith. This is the how that is the what and the way of Christianity. It is therefore
either an inconsistent argument on the part of Kierkegaard or an inconsistent
reading on the part of the above mentioned commentators that has Climacus
express any degree of indifference toward the object of the God-relationship. In
the Fragments, Climacus has clearly expressed that truth can only be had in re
lationship with this specific 'god' who has done these specific things. How can he
then say that the object of the relationship is a matter of indifference? We concede
that Climacus appears to be expressing this. However, if the argument is followed
through carefully from the Fragments to the Postscript, and in the light of the
portrait we receive in Johannes Climacus, this apparent meaning becomes far less
apparent and even quite out of place with what Climacus is attempting to do. We
shall now discuss this.
Having 'discovered' that if the truth is to be learned it must be given through
certain acts of God, as we have mentioned, and received with certain capacities
that God likewise gives, Climacus then asks the question, 'How can God be teacher
and saviour and still be God? '.3 The answer is that He must become man: the
Incarnation. The way we relate to God is through the Incarnation.35 Here is the
ultimate revelation of God and the way of truth, and one that stands entirely alone,
for as Climacus says, 'any other revelation would be a deception '.3 But it is
precisely here that the great problem emerges, the very problem that gave
occasion for the Postscript. How can an eternal happiness (the Socratic accom
paniment to truth) be based upon something historical? The contradiction be
tween eternity and time, the fact that the eternal God exists in time and that one's
eternal fate depends upon a relation to something historical becomes the absolute

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36 MATTHEW GERHARD JACOBY

paradox that is the climax of the Fragments and a core theme in the Postscript. The
Postscript begins with the conclusion that the Fragments have come to and the
question that the Fragments leave unanswered. The way in question is, of course,
Christianity. Climacus had arrived at Christianity (though the word is not used) in
the reflections in the Fragments and now in the Postscript Christianity is the focus.
Now Climacus asks the very same questions about Christianity that he asks in
Johannes Climacus about philosophy. How must I relate myself to Christianity?
What is the nature of Christianity? Is it such that the task is simply to enunciate it
or must it be received in a certain way? The transition from the Fragments to the
Postscript is described in the following passage from the end of the Postscript:

I Johannes Climacus, now thirty years old, born in Copenhagen, a plain man like
the common run of them, have heard tell of a highest good in prospect, which is
called an eternal blessedness, and that Christianity will bestow this upon me on
condition of adhering to it - now I ask how am I to become a Christian. I ask only
for my own sake, yes, certainly that I do, or rather I have asked this question, for
that indeed is the content of the whole work.37

For Climacus, however, there is a significant degree of difficulty in finding an

answer to his question. The drama of Johannes Climacus repeats itself. Climacus
sees his contemporaries relating to Christianity in ways that are entirely incon
sistent with the nature of Christian truth. And the more Climacus elaborates upon
the precise nature of Christian truth the clearer the error appears. It becomes
apparent to Climacus that the relation of most 'Christians' around him to
Christianity is a purely 'outward' one. The origin of the problem is found deep in
the bowels of speculative philosophy and is evident in the nominal pseudo-faith
that the church proclaims. Hegel had taken the individual spiritual identity away
from the individual and spoken of a collective 'mind' (Geist). The relation to
Christianity thus came to be seen as a collective historical one in which the
individual is part of 'Christendom' and is therefore a Christian. Christianity was
understood by Hegel within his broader philosophical system so that he could
speak of a 'philosophy of religion'. As a finished system within a system,
Christianity presented itself as a series of systematically related propositions. The
task for the individual, therefore, was simply to enunciate these truths. This would
happen as a matter of course once various proofs of the truth of Christianity were
given. If only the individual was convinced of the truth, then intellectual assent to
these truths and enunciation would follow automatically. This was the objective
way. If any trace of subjectivity was present in this process the effectiveness of the
transition could be corrupted. If an objective series of reflections is the thing that
brings a person into Christianity, then the passions and bias of subjectivity could
shortcircuit this precise and delicate intellectual ascent and the individual would
remain only partially convinced and therefore could not enunciate Christianity
with the necessary degree of objective certainty.

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 Kierkegaard on truth 37

But here Climacus finds a dangerous deception and he devotes himself to

reversing the damage that speculative philosophy has done to Christianity. What
Climacus wants to know now is how he should relate himself to Christianity in
order that he might receive its eternal blessedness. He therefore embarks on an
inquiry into the nature of Christianity in contrast to its portrayal in speculative
philosophy. What we should note here is that Climacus is not asking the question,
'What is Christianity?' rather he is asking, 'How am I to become a Christian?'.
Here is where the portrait that we are given of Climacus throughout the Climacean
literature becomes important. Climacus is not interested in what Christianity is
but only in how he can become a Christian. His approach exemplifies that which
Kierkegaard commends in For Self Examination, where the person who finds the
truth is only the person who does the truth.38 Climacus simply wants to do what
Christianity says. His approach follows the same pattern that was set in Johannes
Climacus. This is also, for Climacus, the point at which speculative philosophy
reveals its deceptiveness, that is, when someone like himself comes eagerly to the
philosopher wanting to do what he says.

When a person as a learner enthusiastically relates in this way to such a German

professor, he accomplishes the most superb epigram upon him, because a
speculator of that sort is anything but served by a learner's honest and enthusiastic
zeal for expressing and accomplishing, for existentially appropriating his wisdom,
since this wisdom is something that the Herr Professor himself has imagined and
has written in books about but has never attempted himself. It had not even
occurred to him that it should be done. Like the customs clerk who, in the belief
that his business was merely to write, wrote what he himself could not read, so
there are speculative thinkers who merely write, and write that which, if it is to be
read with the aid of action, if I may put it that way, proves to be nonsense, unless
it is perhaps intended only for fantastical beings.39

What Climacus finds out about Christianity is quite simply that it consists in a
relationship of faith to God through Jesus Christ, and indeed, this is what he had
already anticipated in the Fragments. This relationship is the truth content of
Christianity's proclamation. Climacus also finds out that faith is an act of the most
intense passion for God - it is subjectivity par excellence, what he calls the 'infinite
passionate interest'. If faith is an expression of, and indeed the highest expression
of, subjectivity, then Climacus concludes, in contrast to what he has found out
from speculative philosophy, that 'truth is subjectivity'. He does not say that
subjectivity is truth as if subjectivity were being described as truth. The description
is vice versa. It is not subjectivity that is being described as truth but truth that is
being described as subjectivity. Subjectivity can be false, but truth for the existing
individual cannot be anything other than subjectivity. The reason it cannot be
anything other than subjectivity is because truth is found only through the God
relationship and the God-relationship is had only through faith, which is the
highest expression of subjectivity.

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38 MATTHEW GERHARD JACOBY

The passage in question

In the light of what has been said both about Kierkegaard's authorship in
general and about Climacus and the Postscript, we shall now deal in more detail
with to the key passage in question. The parable of the two worshippers is really
only an illustration of the point that Kierkegaard makes in the former passage
quoted above and therefore it is to the former that we direct our attention though
of course with reference to the parable.

When the question of truth is raised ...

The question of truth is that which Climacus has dealt with: 'what must I
do or be in order to be in truth?' Truth for Climacus involves the thinking subject
and therefore the question of truth is one of how rather than what: 'how can I be
in truth?' rather than simply 'what is the truth?'. The latter question will always
return to the former. What is truth? Truth is how one lives.

... in an objective manner...

The objective formulation of the question leaves out the thinking subject
and therefore becomes entirely a question of what. It is an abstract question
therefore, inasmuch as it does not concern the individual personally. It is merely
a question raised out of intellectual curiosity: the desire to look out upon existence
for the sake of understanding it. But this, for Kierkegaard, is already untruth since
the mode of approach makes the thinker into a fantastic absolute being who does
not himself exist. There is a contradiction in the manner of the questioning before
the question is even considered in terms of its content

... reflection is directed objectively to the truth, as an object to which the

knower is related...
The problem here is that the object to which the knower is related is a
subject, the eternal subject - God. The mode of approach, however, changes what
is approached in the mind of the thinker. The eternal subject, God, is thus replaced
with an idol. In order to relate to God objectively, God must be made into an object
that gives itself to objective inquiry. But if God is the eternal subject, then the mode
of objective inquiry will move further and further away from God as it attempts to
reach God in this way. The only way to know God in truth is to relate to God as God
has made this possible. Here, we must keep in mind the thought-experiment of
the Fragments. In order to know God, one must know God according to the way
in which God has made this possible, that is, through Christ by the faith that is
conditioned by Christ. Knowledge, therefore, is in this relationship and a person
cannot know God in any other way than through this relationship. The relation
ship must therefore become the central issue. But when the question is raised
objectively ....

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 Kierkegaard on truth 39

Reflection is not focused upon the relationship, however, but upon the
question of whether it is the truth to which the knower is related ...
Climacus sees a great irony here. The objective approach wants to know
whether it is the truth to which it is related. But truth is the manner of the
relationship itself. If they would proceed in the right manner (as set out in the
Fragments), they would come to know God personally since through this way (that
God himself has established) God, as the teacher and saviour, imparts both the
condition for knowing the truth and brings a person into communion with Himself
through the new birth, repentance, and faith. This specific way which God has
made is the truth for the existing individual.

If only the object to which he is related is the truth, the subject is

accounted to be in the truth...
Climacus, in effect, brings a Kantian critique to bear upon this approach.
The question of the correspondence between the thing as it arises in my mind and
the thing in itself, especially when the thing in question is transcendent, is simply
illegitimate. This is simply an impossible scenario, since God evades the human
intellect completely. The only way a human being can know God is by the means
which God might give.

When the question of the truth is raised subjectively, reflection is directed

subjectively to the nature of the individual's relationship...
The subjective way, as opposed to the objective way, focuses upon whether
the relationship is that which God has facilitated through Christ. Climacus has
made it clear that truth can only be learned according to the specific way through
which God has made this possible. Christ is the way in the sense that he conditions
the exact kind of relationship by which one relates to God and is thus in truth.

... if only the mode of his relationship is in the truth, the individual is in
the truth even if he should happen to be thus related to what is not true
And here is the focal point of the controversy. The problem is as follows. If
a person has his God-relationship conditioned by 'the way' that God has set forth
through Christ, and if Christ is thus the way to the true God, then how, if a person
has this very relationship in order (the relationship in truth), can s/he be related
to a false God? The answer is simply that he cannot. And this is precisely the genius
of this statement. What Climacus has set forth here is an impossible hypothetical.
The 'even if' is given as a provocation. And Kierkegaard can do this through
Climacus without compromising his orthodoxy because the hypothetical is im
possible. If a person has the mode of his relationship in truth (if he relates ac
cording the relationship that is conditioned by Christ), then he cannot but be
related specifically to the right object. The mode of the relationship, if it to be in

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40 MATTHEW GERHARD JACOBY

truth, according to Climacus, must be of a very specific sort, namely that outlined
in the biblical christology and soteriology. This way/manner leads only to the true
object of the relationship, since the object of the relationship is God who set forth
this way in the first place. The parable restatement of this bears this out also. The
hypothetical is: 'If someone who lives in the midst of Christianity enters, with a
knowledge of the true idea of God, the house of the true God, and prays, but prays
in untruth'. But here the hypothetical is likewise impossible and, just in case there
is any doubt whether Kierkegaard uses 'impossible hypotheticals', the text
explicitly states this. It is said of this one that he 'prays in untruth to the true God
and is therefore in truth worshipping an idol'. In other words, if he is praying in
untruth, the idea which he has of God cannot be 'the true idea of God' that the
former statement indicated. The statement about the first situation is therefore an
impossible hypothetical. We cannot therefore be accused of reading a foreign
meaning into the text if we regard the second situation as an impossible hypo
thetical also. And this is precisely what it is at close examination: 'and if [emphasis
mine] someone lives in an idolatrous land but prays with all passion of infinity,
although his eyes are resting upon the image of an idol ... [This] one prays in truth
to God although he is worshipping an idol'.
This is plainly an impossible hypothetical, and particularly so in the context of
the argument of the Postscript, because one cannot pray with 'all the passion of
infinity' to an idol. Why not? We will be reminded that Kierkegaard, through
Climacus, is not just speaking of any kind of passion. As Kierkegaard says in the
'Book on Adler', 'not every outpouring of religious emotion is a Christian out
pouring. That is to say: emotion which is Christian is checked by the definition of
concepts'. Kierkegaard does not think that idol worshippers cannot have passion
for their idols, what he does think is that the Christian passion which accords with
the specific biblical definition of concepts, cannot be had other than in the re
lationship that Christ conditions according to Climacus's thought-experiment. If
the relationship to the doctrine must be of a certain specific sort in order to be
qualified as truth, then the nature of that doctrine itself must be of such a sort so
as to allow only for this specific relationship to it. If the doctrine propounded as
true sanctions an approach to it that is itself untrue then the judgement of untruth
can be made because it is not with reference to the truth claim itself but is made
on the basis of the mode of approach that it sanctions.
Kierkegaard's point is to make a provocation. He writes to a society that distin
guishes itself sharply from the pagan world with no little degree of self-confidence.
Kierkegaard points out carefully and thoroughly that the objective relationship to
Christianity, which is enabling his contemporaries to be so confident, is one that
is pagan to the core. Hence, there is more truth in the pagan who worships an idol,
if he worships in the passion of infinity, than the 'Christian' whose relation to
Christianity is really only an idolatrous relationship to a set of doctrines. By chang
ing the notion of truth into something that involves the subject, Kierkegaard is

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 Kierkegaard on truth 41

able to turn his generation's confidence upside down. Kierkegaard wrote in the
wake of some of the most ambitious works of continental idealism whose boast
was precisely its hold upon truth. This was reflected in the church, whose con
fessional and systematic theological endeavours had 'flowered' considerably at
this point is history. This was reflected in the primacy that was given at that time
to the creeds and confessions in church practice, even over the Bible, and in the
widespread confessional literacy. And it is in this situation that Kierkegaard plays
the part of one nailve thinker who searches everywhere for truth only to declare
that it is not to be found either in philosophy or in the church. Provocative to say
the least.

Conclusion
Kierkegaard certainly does have an objective reference in his notion of
truth. The relationship itself is entirely determined by certain objective facts about
certain acts of God in history for the benefit of man. Kierkegaard's notion of truth
as subjectivity is itself based upon what Kierkegaard claims to be an objective
reference. On the basis of a revelation that claims to be, and one which Kierkegaard
acknowledges to be, eternal objective truth (the definition of concepts), he
defines truth as subjectivity. In other words, the truth maxim does not arise from
a kind of post-Kantian epistemological despair. Kierkegaard is not minimizing
Christianity so that it has a non-objective referential basis. Rather Kierkegaard is
maximizing Christianity so that by definition it becomes inseparable to its prac
tice. Its practice is not primarily outward works but an inward relationship. This is
the relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Only Jesus Christ can condition
the kind of subjectivity that validates this relationship. This is 'the definition of
concepts' that Kierkegaard is concerned with in the 'Book on Adler'. The point in
Kierkegaard is that the revelation itself is an objective absurdity. This objective
absurdity facilitates the subjectivity of faith, but does not itself cease to be ob
jective. Revelation is an objective reality (that God has revealed eternal truth in
time) that gives itself solely to subjectivity precisely because it is an objective
absurdity. Only faith can take hold of this absurdity. Kierkegaard does not say that
this truth is not verifiable. What he does say is that the truth revealed eludes all
objective verification. The subjective approach discards objective verification in
order to itself become the verification of truth. In subjectivity, a person knows the
truth by becoming truth. In subjectivity therefore there is no doubt. Kierkegaard
writes in For Self Examination:

Yes but who has doubted? I wonder, have any of those doubted whose lives bore
the marks of imitation? I wonder, have any of those doubted who have left all to
follow Christ? I wonder, have any of those doubted who were marked by
persecution? - and when imitation is a given, this follows. No, not one of them.
... The demonstration of Christianity really lies in imitation.40

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42 MATTHEW GERHARD JACOBY

And in Practice in Christianity:

For knowing the truth is something that entirely of itself accompanies being the
truth, not the other way around. And that is why it becomes untruth when knowing
the truth is separated from being the truth of when knowing the truth is made
identical to being it, since it is related the other way. Being the truth is identical
with knowing the truth, and Christ would never have known the truth if he had not
been it, and nobody knows more of the truth than what he is of the truth.4'

Here it is obvious that a person's knowledge of the truth will always be partial,
since a person's being the truth can only be partial (only Christ is the truth in pure
form). But this partial knowledge of the truth that one has through being the truth
to that extent is indeed of greater certainly to the individual that any amount of
objective verification can achieve. Moreover, the truth that one becomes is the
eternal truth, that is, it is the conformity of oneself to the objective divine impera
tive. Kierkegaard discusses the irony involved in Pilate's question to Christ, 'what
is truth?' when Jesus who stood before him was precisely the truth. In as much as,
in imitation, an individual, through his relation to God through Christ, becomes
like Christ, then to the extent that this is actualized in his own life, he himself
becomes truth - eternal truth. This is far from being a non-objective-referential
subjectivity. This point is noted by Pojman who makes the connection between
subjectivity and eternal truth in Kierkegaard on these grounds. He concludes: 'In
sum, subjectivity seems to be both a necessary and sufficient condition for eternal
truth, but because of the process nature of reality, we will never have a complete
understanding of the truth. '"1 Pojman points out that in a sense Climacus achieves
a result not altogether very far from that of Hegel. Through subjective reflection,
the individual arrives at a relation to eternal truth as close as that which Hegel had
(falsely) claimed to have achieved through his objective approach. 'In the end, it
seems there is a possibility of scaling the heavens and arriving at essential, eternal
knowledge - not through objective reflection but through subjective reflection'.43
This is evident from a comment made by Kierkegaard through Climacus. In the
broad context of his objections to the objective thinker's attempt to transcend
existence through realising abstractly the synthesis of the infinite and the finite, he
can nevertheless say of the subjective thinker: 'It is only momentarily that the
particular individual is able to realise existentially a unity of the infinite and the
finite which transcends existence. This unity is realised in the moment of
passion.'44 In this way, the subjective thinker reaches something that is perhaps
very close to the ambitious Hegelian goal, as Pojman says, 'via the back door'. The
difference between the knowledge that the subjective individual has and that
which the objective individual claims to have is that the latter knows through
being, as Kierkegaard says, he seeks 'to understand the abstract concretely',
whereas the former knows abstractly, he seeks 'to understand the concrete
abstractly'.45 When the truth is to be understood concretely, a person can know
truth, as we have said, only by being in truth, that is in the relationship with God

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 Kierkegaard on truth 43

through faith in Christ. If truth is to be understood in this way, then the only one
who can communicate truth is God. This, we should note, is the truth that
Climacus is speaking about, that which is communicated only by God. How any
one can then say that this truth has no relation to eternal truth is a matter of
wonderment here. If the truth that Climacus discusses is such that it is only
communicated by God, then God himself who teaches it is the objective referential
basis. How can truth, understood existentially, not be related to eternal truth
when, precisely because it is existential truth, it is only communicated by God who
himself is eternal truth? This relationship of subjective knowledge to eternal truth
is therefore an entirely necessary one. 'Forgiveness of sins ... involves a relation
ship between the eternal truth and an existing individual '.46,47

Notes
1. Soren Kierkegaard Concluding Unscientific Postscript, David F. Swenson and Walter Lowrie (transi.)
(Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1941), 178. Hereafter, when I refer to the Postscript, I shall be
referring mainly to Swenson and Lowrie's translation (in favour of its more dynamic rendering of the
text) though I shall at times prefer Hong's more literal translation.
2. As in George Lindbeck The Nature of Doctrine (Philadelphia PA: The Westminster Press, 1984).
3. Immanuel Kant The Critique of Pure Reason, Norman Kemp Smith (transi.) (London: Macmillan Press,
1993), 97, 532.
4. Kierkegaard Concluding Unscientific Postscript (Swenson), 169.
5. Stephen Emmanuel Kierkegaard and the Concept of Revelation (Albany NY: State University of New
York Press, 1996), ch. 6.
6. Timothy Houston Polk The Biblical Kierkegaard: Reading by the Rule of Faith (Macon GA: Mercer
University Press), 1997, 4.
7. Louis P. Pojman The Logic of Subjectivity: Kierkegaard's Philosophy of Religion (Tuscaloosa AL:
University of Alabama Press, 1984).
8. Louis Mackey Kierkegaard: A Kind of Poet (Philadelphia PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971).
9. Christopher Hamilton 'Kierkegaard and religious belief', Religious Studies, 34 (1998), 61-79.
10. Ibid., 65.
11. Ibid.
12. S0ren Kierkegaard Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, Howard V. Hong and
Edna H. Hong (transl.) (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 201.
13. Kierkegaard Concluding Unscientific Postscript (Swenson), 116.
14. Ibid., 201.
15. Soren Kierkegaard Edifying Discourses: A Selection, Paul Holmer (ed.), D. F. and L. M. Swenson (transl.)
(London: Fontana, 1958) 203.
16. Soren Kierkegaard For Self Examination/Judge for Yourself Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong
(transl.) (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1ggo), 16.
17. Soren Kierkegaard On Authority and Revelation, Walter Lowrie (transl.) (New York NY: Harper & Row
Publishers, 1955), 163.
18. Ibid., 92.
19. Kierkegaard Concluding Unscientific Postscript (Swenson), 330.
20. Soren Kierkegaard Practice in Christianity, Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (transl.) (Princeton NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1991), 205.
21. W. Kaufmnann From Shakespeare to Existentialism (New York NY: Books For Libraries Press, 1960),
182-183.
22. Lindbeck The Nature of Doctrine, 54.
23. E. D. Klemke 'Was Kierkegaard a theist?', in idem Studies in the Philosophy of Kierkegaard (The Hague:
Martinus Nijhoff, 1976), 69.

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44 MATTHEW GERHARD JACOBY

24. Kierkegaard For Self Examination, 24.

25. Soren Kierkegaard The Point of View for my Work as an Author, Walter Lowrie (transl.) (New York NY:
Harper and Row, 1962), 24.
26. Kierkegaard Concluding Unscientific Postscript (Hong), 191.
27. Soren Kierkegaard Philosophical Fragments/Johannes Climacus, Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong
(transl.) (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), 14.
28. Ibid., 15.
29. Ibid., 16-17.
30. Ibid., 17.
31. Ibid., 18.
32. Ibid., 19.
33. Ibid., 118.
34. Ibid., 25-30.
35. Ibid., 31ff.
36. Ibid., 33.
37. Kierkegaard Concluding Unscientific Postscript (Swenson), 545.
38. Kierkegaard For Self Examination, 67-70.
39. Kierkegaard Concluding Unscientific Postscript (Hong), 191.
40. Kierkegaard For Self Examination, 67-68.
41. Kierkegaard Practice in Christianity, 205-206.
42. Pojman The Logic of Subjectivity, 75.
43. Ibid., 60.
44. Kierkegaard Concluding Unscientific Postscript (Swenson), 176.
45. Ibid., 315.
46. Ibid., 201.
47. I would like to gratefully acknowledge Dr Ian Weeks as a key contributor to my early understanding of
Kierkegaard. I would also like to express my gratitude to an anonymous referee for Religious Studies
for comments made on this article.

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