Excerpts from Kierkegaard's Practice in Christianity

" Can One Come to Know something about Christ from History?

No. Why not? Because one cannot know anything at all about Christ; he is the pradox, the object of faith, exists only for faith. But all historical communication is the communication of knowledge; Consequently one can come to know nothing about Christ from history. For if one comes to know little or much or something about him, he is not the one he in truth is. Thus one comes to know something about him that is different from what he is. One comes to know nothing about him or one comes to know something incorrect about him--one is deceived. History makes Christ into someone else than he is in truth, and thus from history we come to know much about--Christ? No, not about Christ, for about him nothing can be known; he can only be believed." pg 26

" 'History, says faith, "has nothing at all to do with Jesus Christ; with regard to him we have only sacred history (which is qualitatively different from history in general), which relates the story of his life in the state of abasement, also that he claimed to be God. He is the paradox that history can never digest or convert into an ordinary syllogism. He is the same in his abasement as in his loftiness--but the eighteen hundred years, or if it came to be eighteen thousand years, has nothing at all to do with it. These brilliant results in world history, which almost convince even a professor of history that he was God, these brilliant results are certainly not his coming again in glory! But this is just about how one understands it; it shows again that Christ is made into a human being whose coming again in glory cannot be or become anything other than the result of his life in history--whereas Christ's coming again in glory is something entirely different from this, something that is to be believed. He abased himself and was wrapped in rags--he will come again in glory, but the brilliant results, especially on closer inspection, are too shabby a glory, in any case a totally incongruous glory that faith therefore never mentions when it speaks of his glory. He still exists only in his abasement, until he, something that is believed, comes again in glory. History may be an excellent branch of knowledge, but it must not become so conceited that it undertakes what the Father will do, to array Christ in glory, clothing him in the glittering trappings of results, as if this were the second coming. That in his abasement he was God, that he will come again in glory--this goes not a little beyond the understanding of history; this cannot be drawn from history, no matter how matchlessly one regards it, except through a matchless lack of dialectic.'

How strange, and then history is the very thing that people have wanted to use to demonstrate that Christ was God." pg 30-31

Commentary:

These two passages come from the first part of Practice in Christianity in (sections) b and c of the subsection, The Halt. Struck by their relevance to discussions on biblical history, I wanted to share a few thoughts. Although originally written as warnings against the dangers of pro-christian positivist/enlightenment theology, these passages also serve as warnings against those of modern strands of biblical criticism (specifically, the historical-critical method). Take the following passage, "These brilliant results in world history, which almost convince even a professor of history that he [Jesus] was God, these brilliant results are certainly not his coming again in glory!" Here, Kierkegaard is rebuking those who would prove Christ's divinity through history ( He insists that all they really do is prove the divinity of a distorted literary Christ with no actual existence -- his argument is actually quite compelling, too bad Lee Strobel never read it :) . Today, Kierkegaard's rebuke applies to a different group of people who claim the exact opposite: the "brilliant results in world history" -- devious 1st century apostles, powerful censors from Carathage, and inconsistent textual traditions - show clearly that Jesus was most definitely not God.

So, how does Kierkegaard's idea come into play? It is by his definition of knowing. Christ is not known in history, but in experience (which Kierkegaard equates with faith); He is not known in the past, but the present. Therefore, it doesn't matter whether history suggests Christ is or isn't God; history is past, Christ is present -- and it is only experience of what is present that can prove either way. Sounds stupid, but I think he's making a good point (and it serves as a good reminder). According to Christianity, Christ is not dead, but alive. Why is it then that the church so often insists that he can only be known through 2000 year old accounts of His life? Do we come to know much about anyone by their fingerprints (besides identities of criminals)? In the first half of Practice in Christianity , Kierkegaard drives this idea home again and again: Christ must be encountered as a contemporary, a present presence in this world and not a distant figure of history; history is always of secondary importance.

More specifically, of history, he states,

History may be an excellent branch of knowledge, but it must not become so conceited that it undertakes what the Father will do, to array Christ in glory, clothing him in the glittering trappings of results, as if this were the second coming.

Modern biblical scholarship is devoted to the task of uncovering Christianity and Judaism's human roots. Personally, like Kierkegaard, I find this task praise worthy. Its findings help to remove unnecessary theological complexities and reduce unhealthy emphases on the supernatural. But its useful work often come with unwanted baggage -- the uncovering of the great humanness of the bible covers over its equally present divinity via divine inspiration. As a result, we should render the above passage as, "but it [History] must not become so conceited that it undertakes what Satan seeks to do, to disrobe Christ on the cross, clothing him in the blood and glistening sweat of man, stripped of everything divine, as if this was his one and bitter end." I am in constant need of reminder that the Christ I encounter is not the Christ of history -- a weak ideological Christ trapped in the pages of an ancient text -- but a Christ of the Present and the Now, a Christ who continually reminds me to come, tired and burdened by sin and strife, and find rest. Biblical scholarship, whether it affirm or deny the divinity of Christ, should never replace the living and present Lord we worship with a dead and mythic historical conception.