There are certain things in my life that have convinced me that I am not really a bright person: my pathetic choice to be a die-hard Cubs fan, my enjoyment of fart jokes, and my career choice of teaching—quite possibly the most under-appreciated and under-paid careers in history. Now sure, I have had a good bit of academic training in Biblical Studies, and I feel am well-versed in that area. But once a few basic concepts and contexts are grasped, reading a book like Jonah, or Mark, or even Revelation, really isn’t that difficult.
But when I try to read guys like G.K. Chesteron or Soren Kierkegaard, I feel like the only words that form in my mind are those of Forrest Gump: “Mama always said, ‘Stupid is as stupid does!” I may have a PhD in Old Testament, but those intellectual heavyweights knock me out and send me to the mat within one or two pages. Fortunately, there are people who read and actually get what these men have written. One of my best friends, in fact, is currently wrapping up his PhD on Kierkegaard! I am in awe.
In any case, a few months ago I came across an introduction to Kierkegaard by Peter Vardy, and like the introduction to Nietzsche, it amazingly made a very difficult topic clear and understandable. Vardy was able to take the “graduate-school” intellect of Kierkegaard’s writings and explain it to my “5th grade brain” (at least when it comes to Kierkegaard!). In all seriousness, though, it was an amazing book, and I felt myself attracted to, and challenged by, Kierkegaard’s outlook. As will be seen in the next few posts, the fundamental core of Kierkegaard’s philosophy is actually strangely similar to that of Nietzsche’s. Both men lived in 19th Century Europe, and both men were sickened by the lifeless and stale brand of European Christianity that effectively reduced the Christian faith to mere polite moralism. But where Nietzsche went wrong, Kierkegaard hit the bull’s eye.
The introduction to Vardy’s book starts off with this quote: “Kierkegaard’s aim is straightforward: to strip you…naked at two in the morning, to sit you in front of a mirror and to force you to think about your life” (xi). Well now, that pretty much says it, doesn’t it? If that is not a wake-up call, I don’t know what is. Over the next few posts, I am going to share my thoughts on Kierkegaard from the front of that mirror…but I will be sure to put some pants on.
Like Nietzsche, Kierkegaard lived in a 19th Century “Christian” Europe that bowed at the altar of Enlightenment objectivity, rationality…and politeness. The “Christian theology” was all systematized and neat, and the “Christian life” was a thin veneer of a gentle moralism. It mirrored “The Gilded Age” of the Industrial Revolution: all shiny and bright on the surface, but just underneath that surface was despair and heartache. Kierkegaard, therefore, really wanted to “strip people naked” in that sense, for only by stripping off that “gilded mask” could there be any hope of anyone (a) coming to truly understand who they really were, and (b) reaching out to the Living God through faith.
As Peter Vardy states, “most of us forget who we are—we become so focused on creating a mask that is pleasing and acceptable to our peers, our colleagues, our parents, our partners that, beneath the mask, we never realize that ‘I’ as an individual has ceased to exist” (xiv). So how does Kierkegaard describe these sorts of people? He writes, “They use their abilities, amass wealth, carry out worldly enterprises, make prudent calculations, etc. and perhaps are mentioned in history, but they are not themselves. In a spiritual sense they have no self, no self for whose sake they could venture everything” (Concluding Unscientific Postscript 64-5).
Indeed, Kierkegaard’s description isn’t just of “those people”—let’s face it, it describes every single one of us at one time or another. We become so concerned and obsessed with impressing others, with making sure that other people are either proud or envious of us, that we do everything we can to project an image of the kind of person we think others will admire or approve of. And here’s the irony: while we are so busy trying to make our lives and idol that projects a false image of ourselves to others to worship, we end up becoming enslaved to the expectations and admirations of those very people. And since we become so afraid that other people might somehow find out “who we really are” (i.e. not like that idol/image we project), we drown ourselves in a flurry of activity in an attempt to keep up that image.
And why don’t we want people to find out “who we really are”? If we are honest, it’s because we don’t even know who we really are—we’ve been so enslaved in our own “self-idolatrous behavior,” we simply have lost sight of our own true humanity. As Vardy says, “We throw ourselves into activity of various kinds which is subconsciously designed to prevent us having to think deeply about ourselves at all” (xiv).
That is why spending time “away,” is so important—away from the iphone, the texting, the job, the blogging (!!!)…whatever. Silence and reflection is essential if we are to understand who we really are. It can also be frustrating and frightening at first—like any idolatrous addiction, we think we will lose the sense of who we are if we give up those activities. Well, hopefully we will lose the sense of who that person is, for that person is merely a mask, a hollow shell with eye-sockets. And let’s face it that person is not happy, because he’s not real.
So, do we have the courage to strip off those activities and masks and stand naked before…whatever is there? That is Kierkegaard’s challenge. And that is the topic of my next few posts over the next few days.
