Soren Kierkegaard

mercifulness be practiced or that the help is the help of mercifulness. ‘Raise
money for us, provide hospitals for us. That’s what is most important!’ No,
says Eternity, what is most important is mercifulness. In the eternal sense,
that a person dies is no misfortune, but itisa misfortune if mercifulness is
not practiced....Oh,ifonly I could depict the expression on the face of
Eternity when the rich man answers the question of whether he has been
merciful by saying, ‘I have given a hundred thousand to the poor!’ Because,
amazed, Eternity will look at him as someone who doesn’t know what he
is talking about; and then Eternity will again ask him the question, ‘Have
you been merciful?’ ”
It hardly likely that it is only Eternity that has an amazed expression on
its face; the reader is likely to have one as well, if not at this point, then
surely when Kierkegaard continues his discourse about mercy with such
theological radicalism that it might seem for a moment to be utterly unmer-
ciful: “So the discourse addresses itself to you, you poor and wretched per-
son!...Bemerciful, be merciful to the rich! Remember that this is some-
thing you have within your power, even though he has the money!...
Oh, be merciful! If the rich man is scanty and stingy—or even if he is not
stingy with money, if he is terse and rebuffs you—then you should be rich
in your mercifulness!”
The revolution presents itself in the form of a transvaluation of all values;
this is what Christianity sets in motion when the individual practices works
of mercy and thereby renders superfluous all political slogans about liberty,
equality, and fraternity. Mercy is connected to a specific situation, an actual
encounter, and an attitude, which is also why it will eternally maintain
its immunity to ideology. For this same reason, for Kierkegaard, a society
organized along Christian lines is some sort unimaginable nonsense, as is
made abundantly clear in this journal entry from 1848 which provides a
parodic depiction of the world after the worst imaginable ideological catas-
trophe: “The shape of the world would resemble—well, I don’t know what
I would compare it to—it would resemble one gigantic Christiansfeldt [a
strict pietistic community in southern Jutland]. And there will also be a
conflict between the two greatest possible opponents about how to interpret
this phenomenon:Communism, which would say, This is right, according
to the ways of worldliness; there must be absolutely no difference between
one person and other; riches and art and science and government, et cetera,
are all evil; all people should be as alike as workers in a factory, as inmates
in a poorhouse; they should be dressed alike, should eat the same food,
prepared in one huge pot, at the same hour, in equal portions, et cetera et
cetera.Pietism, which would say, This is right, according to Christianity;