Soren Kierkegaard by David Swenson 1921 Part 4 of 6
Channel: Craig Campbell
Date: 2012-07-06

In this section of David Swenson's 1921 essay on Soren Kierkegaard he discusses Kierkegaard's contempt for all speculation in Christianity. Christianity had become a subject for theological and philosophical debate in public universities and seminaries in Western Europe. These theologians and philosophers would stand between the "single individual" and God. Kierkegaard was against this because knowledge about God would replace faith in God and the special relationship between God and the "single individual" would become a relationship with common acceptable beliefs. Swenson reviews Kierkegaard's pseudonymous writings from 1843 (Fear and Trembling) to 1846 (Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments) and briefly mentions his Upbuilding (Edifying) Discourses 1843-1845. "The purer and so to say more virgin-like his problem was, the more he [Soren Kierkegaard] loved it; the less others had helped him forward with his thoughts, the happier he was, and the better everything went for him." Johannes Climacus, 1842 by Soren Kierkegaard p. 31 Croxhall translation.