Soren Kierkegaard

(Romina) #1

werefumblingandwonthedecisivebattleatthechurchdoorinWittenberg
where he silenced the learned tongue lashers and distorters of the Word.
Butthenthedarknessdescendedagainforthreecenturiesuntilthematchless
discoveryhereinScandinavia,when,inspiteoftheGermanschoolmasters,
the Living Word was liberated and given its due as the mother tongue in
Denmark’s loveliest field and meadow, and the mouth of the people and
thetongueofthepeopleshallnotbebound,butallwillspeakintheSpirit
whentheGoldenAgearrives,thematchlessfuture,whichtheseerglimpses
with his eagle eye and proclaims upon the mouth harp; when the Living
Word,the Wordof theChurch,the Wordof Godasit wasinthe begin-
ning,resoundsinthemeadowofDenmark.Soshallitbe,Amen,yes,inall
eternity,Amen.”GrundtvigcouldwritehisShort Synopsis of World History
as a Whole,butKierkegaard,whohererevealshisperfectpitchandhisgreat
talent for imitation, could do it even more succinctly. It takes him only
threesentences,andthat’sthatforworldhistory!
The“matchlessdiscovery”situatedinthemidstofthisverbaltorrenthas
sinceenteredhistoryasthestandardtermfortheepoch-makingrealization
atwhichGrundtvigarrivedin1825when,afterdecadesofinternaltheolog-
icalstruggle, hesawthat God’sword tomanis nottobe soughtprimarily
in the biblical scriptures, which have always been vulnerable to the most
various sorts of interpretation, but in “the Living Word,” that is, in the
Apostles’CreedandtheLord’sPrayerthattogetherwithbaptismandcom-
munion(themysteriesofinitiationandoffellowship)constitutetheunshak-
able foundation of the Church. Grundtvig developed this insight in a po-
lemic against the rationalist H. N. Clausen, whom he not only made into
thespokesmanfortheworstsortof“exegeticalpopery”butalsocriticized
so savagely that Clausen sued him for libel, which resulted in Grundtvig
havingtopayafineofonehundredrixdollarsandsubmittolifelongadvance
censorship of his writings. But even though Grundtvig’s “ecclesiastical
view” was already quite radical, Peter Christian Kierkegaard nonetheless
wentonestepfurtherandformulatedthetheorythatduringthefortydays
betweenhisresurrectionandhisascensionintoHeaven,Christsupposedly
imparted the Apostles’ Creed (“the little Word from the Lord’s own
mouth”)tohisapostles.
ItneverseriouslybotheredGrundtvigthatquiteafewhistoricalcircum-
stancesspeakagainsthisdiscovery,indeedtheycryoutagainstit.Andwhen
Kierkegaard called it “matchless,” it was only because itwasn’t: It seemed
to him rather to be “the abracadabra of the Living Word” or, if not that,
then a “neo-Platonic, Gnostic jumble.” With malicious impertinence the
Postscriptmakes Grundtvig’s discovery the object of an investigation de-
signed to define its “category”—aesthetic, ethical-psychological, dog-

Free download pdf