In all seven discourses, when it comes time for Kierkegaard to display the Christian response to the care under consideration, he always includes a gaze at the prototype, Jesus Christ. A few examples will help show this movement. With regard to poverty, the reader is encouraged to see the positive side of temporal poverty; specifically, it reminds the individual that ‘the life of holiness is lived here on earth in poverty, thathe[Jesus] hungered in the desert and thirsted on the cross; thus not only can one live in poverty, but in poverty one canlive’ (CD: 16). To have God is to be wealthy; in poverty to thankfully pray and receive from day to day is also to imitate Jesus – the prototype of poverty. Similar scenarios play out in the remaining writings. The task of forgetting one’s wealth defers finally to the teacher and pattern of how the rich should live in this world. The creed of the rich person is thus: ‘He believes . . . that a Christian’s wealth is in heaven; therefore his heart turns there where his treasure must be. He always bears in mind that he who possessed all the world’s wealth gave up everything he possessed and lived in poverty, that consequently the life of holiness is lived in poverty, and thus in turn in ignorance of all the wealth that is possessed’ (CD: 32). In this way, Jesus represents the prototype of artful living; above and beyond the bird and lily, he is the example of what a life looks like that, though infinitely wealthy, has extinguished the thought of possessions.
In the case of embracing lowliness, without worrisomely striving to overturn the external circumstances, Kierkegaard spells out further the ramifications of following after Christ: ‘As a human being he was created in the image [Billede] of God, but as a
Christian he has God as the prototype [Forbillede] (CD: 41).153 There is more to Christian lowliness than humble circumstances. To have God as one’s pattern is dialectically both a continual challenge and a constant source of bliss and purpose. Jesus embodies a worry-free relationship to status; his lowliness, however, differs from all other lowliness insofar as it involves an act of the will unsurpassed in the world.154Jesus radically identifies with those facing the temptation to become something in the world. Kierkegaard recites the Gospel accounts of how Jesus dodged the pronouncements of men that undulated back and forth between worldly greatness and inferiority and how he trusted unfailingly in his position as the one with whom the Father was well pleased (Mt 3:17). Worry over status is defeated through contemplating the prototype: ‘At such a blessed moment when he is absorbed in his prototype, someone else looks at him, the other person sees only a lowly person before him; it was just the same with the prototype – people saw only the lowly person’ (CD: 43). It takes eyes of faith to look at the life of Jesus and to envision and believe he is the exalted one; it takes the same kind of sanctified imagination to see oneself through the lens of the Gospel. True enlightenment about one’s self and one’s dignity comes from God’s pronouncement and from spending time in God’s presence.
A final instance of the connection between artful living and following the example of Christ is taken from the sixth discourse, ‘The Care of Self-Torment’. There Kierkegaard mentioned the importance of becoming contemporary with oneself. In the language of Practice in Christianity, the believer who does so is also experiencing contemporaneity with Christ. Beyond the message of the lily and bird and the anti-type of
153
The Hongs prefer prototype for the Danish wordForbillede. It also may be translated as example, paragon, model, ideal, or pattern. The term reiterates the idea of being before God, the Christian in front of the image.
154In this context Kierkegaard is featuring a person whose circumstances are ‘accidentally’ lowly; he does
not take into account the fact that it is possible for an individual to cast aside earthly status and choose an existence of abasement.
the pagan, ‘the Christian has learned or is learning (for the Christian is always a learner) from the prototype’ (CD: 75). Christ is the teacher and example of the artful living that defeats self-torment. ‘He came to the world to set the task, in order to leave a footprint so that we would learn from him’, says Kierkegaard (CD: 77). No one experienced greater trials and temptations to give in to the worry of tomorrow than he who omnisciently bore a future fraught with suffering, poverty, misunderstanding, betrayal, and crucifixion. The next day ‘had no power over him before it came, and when it came and was the today, it had no other power over him than what was his Father’s will, to which he, eternally free, had consented and to which he obediently submitted’ (CD: 77). The bird and lily grant an initial portrait of worry-free life; the pagans show the wrong way to go; Jesus Christ exemplifies how to maintain loyalty to the heavenly Father regardless of one’s external circumstances and internal struggles. This level of connection is not solely derived from 6:24-34; instead, for Kierkegaard, a good understanding of New Testament Christology in general is an indispensable aid in reading Matthew 6:24-34.
Jørgen Bukdahl sees Kierkegaard’s stress on imitation as a direct consequence of the persecution he experienced as a result of the 1846 events surrounding The Corsair
affair. He writes:
Kierkegaard developed a new view of Christianity, in which Christianity was understood as imitation . . . Now Kierkegaard’s memories of his home in the 1830’s, of the Copenhagen religious awakening movement, of Stormgade, of the religious gatherings out at the limekiln, took on a new relevance . . . Out of this crisis and persecution would arise a mature and decisive Kierkegaard, who knew what he wanted and who would steer his course directly toward the battle he was to wage inThe Moment.155
Bukdahl’s comments stress the contrasts associated with Kierkegaard’s religious upbringing. He was raised by a father who showed devotion to the State church and the ministry of Bishop Mynster and who also saw fit to introduce his children to the Moravian pietistic movement of the day: ‘It is clear that the most powerful single
155
Jørgen Bukdahl,Søren Kierkegaard and the Common Man, trans. Bruce H. Kirmmse (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 2001), 83.
personality in Søren Kierkegaard’s life, his father, was profoundly immersed in the emotional and anticlerical lay pietism of Herrnhut, a sect which seems to have served as the vehicle for the urban acculturation of stubborn and vocal forms of peasant religious radicalism’.156 Bukdahl’s comments also bring insight into Kierkegaard’s psyche during this time; still, he creates too much discontinuity between the earlier and later works by asserting that Kierkegaard had come up with a ‘new view of Christianity’. Even if the early literature does not use the terminology that suggests following after Christ, the idea comes across through the categories of subjectivity and appropriation, which permeate the earlier pseudonyms, especiallyConcluding Unscientific Postscripts. Instead of a new view of Christianity, it was a new way of talking about Christianity that characterizes the later literature. That being said, Bukdahl does demonstrate that the later literature emphasizes aspects of the pietism Kierkegaard experienced in his youth.
Kierkegaard was influenced by these ideas, but he did not take all these attributes on-board. In fact, Lee Barrett proposes that within Kierkegaard’s insistence on the unachievable standard of the Law there also lurks a critique aimed at the very ‘awakened’ circles with whom Bukdahl aligns Kierkegaard; among this group were those who had concluded ‘that as growth in the new life unfolded, the progressing saint would need God’s forgiving grace less and less’.157 In the post-1846 literature, Kierkegaard gives greater attention to articulating a proper balance between Law and grace and places emphasis on the life-long journey of sanctification, of imitating Christ. Though I maintain that the idea of following Christ existed before The Corsair, in fairness to Bukdahl, The Cares does support the explicit centrality of imitation of Christ. As the previous discussion has shown, imitation of Christ serves a mostly positive role inThe Cares; that is, the believer who looks to the prototype for direction finds treasures, blessing, joy,
156
Kirmmse,Golden Age Denmark, 34.
purpose, and adventure. This is contrasted somewhat by the 1851 Matthew discourse, ‘Christ as the Prototype’, with its more polarizing expression characteristic of the battle against the establishment mentioned by Bukdahl. I will return to this later approach subsequently.