[Sharon Krishek] Kierkegaard on Faith and Love(Book4me.org)

KIERKEGAARD ON FAITH AND LOVE

Kierkegaard’s writings are interspersed with remarkable stories of love, com-monly understood as a literary device that illustrates the problematic natureof aesthetic and ethical forms of life, and the contrasting desirability of thelife of faith. Sharon Krishek argues that for Kierkegaard the connectionbetween love and faith is far from being merely illustrative. Rather, love andfaith have a common structure, and are involved with one another in a waythat makes it impossible to love well without faith. Remarkably, this appliesto romantic love no less than to neighbourly love. Krishek’s original andcompelling interpretation of the Works of Love in the light of Kierkegaard’sfamous analysis of the paradoxicality of faith in Fear and Trembling shows thatpreferential love, and in particular romantic love, plays a much more impor-tant and positive role in his thinking than has usually been assumed.

SHARON KRISHEK is a postdoctoral fellow in the Philosophy Department atThe Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

MODERN EUROPEAN PHILOSOPHY

General Editor

ROBERT B. PIPPIN, University of Chicago

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GARY GUTTING, University of Notre DameROLF-PETER HORSTMANN, Humboldt University, Berlin

MARK SACKS, University of Essex

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KIERKEGAARD ON

FAITH AND LOVE

SHARON KRISHEKThe Hebrew University of Jerusalem

CAMBR IDGE UN I VER S I T Y PR E S S

Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo, Delhi

Cambridge University PressThe Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

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Sharon Krishek 2009

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In memory of Isaac Krishek, my father

1950–2006

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements page xList of abbreviations xii

Introduction: stages on love’s way 1

1 Lost loves 172 The sorrowful lover 463 The knight of love 754 Neighbourly love versus romantic love 1095 The double movement of love 1386 Faith-full romantic love 166

Bibliography 190Index 195

ix

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I was truly fortunate to be surrounded by the good will and extensive help ofsomany people, and Iwould like to try and express heremy sincere gratitude.

First, I would like to thank the two anonymous readers for CambridgeUniversity Press for their extremely helpful comments. In particular I’dlike to express my gratitude to Reader B, whose detailed reviews, sugges-tions, and insistence on clarifications have immensely improved mymanuscript. I would also like to thank Hilary Gaskin, the philosophyeditor at Cambridge University Press, who has helped me throughoutthis long process with her patience and kind attention.

I would like to express my gratitude to the philosophy department atTel Aviv University, and to the faculty of humanities at the HebrewUniversity of Jerusalem, for awarding me postdoctoral fellowships inthe academic years 2006–7 and 2007–8, respectively, and so providingme with the time and peace of mind needed for writing this book.

The beginning of this book is rooted in ideas developed in the contextof a Ph.D. thesis which I wrote at the University of Essex. I would like tothank Simon Critchley, my supervisor, for his enlightening philosophicalguidance, and for his vital encouragement both in easier and moredifficult times. The late Mark Sacks was the head of the departmentduring the years of my study at Essex, but his involvement in my workwent far beyond his official duties. The perceptive interest and trust heexpressed regarding my ideas helped me greatly, and the memory of ourlong conversations is dear and meaningful to me.

x

In the summer of 2005 I spent a most productive month at the HongKierkegaard Library at St Olaf College, where I was first introduced to thewelcoming and lively community of Kierkegaard scholars. I wish to thankthe people I was privileged to meet there, and in particular those whohave accompanied my work since then: John Lippitt, for acquainting mewith the Library and its denizens, and for sharing the clarity of his thoughtand the breadth of his understanding; GordonMarino, the curator of theLibrary, who remindedme to think in ways that are closely connected withlife, and whose invaluable feedback and warm friendliness I deeply appre-ciate; George Pattison, whose work on Kierkegaard had influenced melong before I met him in person, for the serious attention he gave to mythoughts, which was significantly motivating for me; and finally, EdMooney, whose approach to philosophy in general and to Kierkegaardin particular has been crucial to my own outlook, and whose intellectualenthusiasm and unlimited generosity have set an admired example andgreatly cheered me on many occasions.

My engagement with the study of philosophy is much indebted to thepeople who first initiated me into this field. I wish to thank my formerteachers at Tel Aviv University, and in particular Marcelo Dascal and ZviTauber, who have helpedme to develop vital intellectual tools, and kindlyoffered their experienced advice; and Ran Sigad and Hagi Kenaan, whohave, each in his special manner, formatively influenced the way I thinkabout philosophy. To Hagi I also wish to express thanks for his constantsupport throughout these years and for his enduring friendship.

Other friends significantly helped me in many ways, and I deeply thankthem for this: Ido Geiger, for his right-to-the-point tips and calming words;Vered Lev-Kenaan, for her strength, her heartening optimism, and her inspir-ing trust;DoritPeleg,whomIfirst knewonlyas anauthorbutwas luckyenoughto get to know as a wise friend; and Maya Michaeli, whose close friendship Ideeply cherish, for making everything easier with her love and care.

I would like to thank my very dear family, and in particular my sisterand mother, Einav and Tamara Krishek, and my mother-in-law RachelMeirav, for their endless patience, their selfless efforts on my behalf, andabove all for their love, which continually expresses itself in so manyirreplaceable ways.

And most of all, I would like to thank Ariel Meirav, my greatest critic andteacher,my greatest love, who sparedno intellectual, emotional, andpracticaleffort to help to make this enterprise possible; without him, both this bookand its author would have undoubtedly been in a less desirable place.

acknowledgements xi

ABBREVIATIONS

CA The Concept of Anxiety, Kierkegaard’s Writings 8, trans. ReidarThomte, in collaboration with Albert B. Anderson, Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1980.

CUP Concluding Unscientific Postscript, 2 vols., Kierkegaard’s Writings12, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1997.

EO Either/Or, 2 vols., Kierkegaard’s Writings 3–4, trans. HowardV. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 1987.

EUD Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, Kierkegaard’s Writings 5, trans.Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1990.

FT Fear and Trembling, in Fear and Trembling and Repetition,Kierkegaard’s Writings 6, trans. Howard V. Hong and EdnaH. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983.

JN Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, general ed. BruceH. Kirmmse, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007.

JP Søren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers, trans. Howard V. Hongand Edna H. Hong, assisted by Gregor Malantschuk,Bloomington: Indiana University Press, (Vol. I) 1967, (Vol. II)1970, (Vols. III–IV) 1975, (Vols. V–VII) 1978.

xii

PF Philosophical Fragments, in Philosophical Fragments and JohannesClimacus, Kierkegaard’s Writings 7, trans. Howard V. Hong andEdna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985.

PV The Point of View for My Work as an Author, Kierkegaard’s Writings22, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1998.

R Repetition, in Fear and Trembling and Repetition, Kierkegaard’sWritings 6, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong,Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983.

SLW Stages on Life’s Way, Kierkegaard’s Writings 11, trans. HowardV. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 1988.

SUD The Sickness unto Death, Kierkegaard’s Writings 19, trans. HowardV. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 1980.

WL Works of Love, Kierkegaard’s Writings 16, trans. Howard V. Hongand Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press,1995.

list of abbreviations xiii

INTRODUCTION: STAGES ON LOVE’S WAY

1 Kierkegaard, love, and romantic love

And yet it must be wonderful to get the princess, and the knight of faith isthe only happy man … to live happily with her day after day … this iswonderful. (FT, 50)

… erotic love is undeniably life’s most beautiful happiness. (WL, 267)

Romantic love, in contrast with neighbourly love or love for God, is rarelyviewed as an important issue for Kierkegaard.1Despite the textual evidenceregarding the centrality of this kind of love in his works, scholars in this fieldoften seem reluctant to take thematter seriously.When required to addressKierkegaard’s repeated references to love stories, the secondary literaturetends either to interpret this as a literary device or, more frequently, torelate this to his unhappy personal relationship with Regine Olsen, hisforsaken fiancee.2 This ‘biographical’ approach is common among inter-preters of Kierkegaard who believe that a complete understanding of his

1 I use the expression ‘romantic love’ in its loose familiar sense of a love between two individualsthat involves erotic aspects, without intending to connote any more specific notion such as theconception of love associated with the romantic tradition in literature.

2 Søren Kierkegaard and Regine Olsen became engaged in 1840. Søren met Regine, a youngand beautiful woman from an affluent family, years before the engagement, but proposed toher only in 1840, when she was 18 years old. A year later he broke off the engagement,without giving a convincing explanation. The broken engagement caused a great scandal inCopenhagen and much pain to everyone involved.

1

work requires a thorough understanding of his life, and vice versa. Such aninterpretative method was dominant among earlier scholars (P. A. Heibergand Walter Lowrie, for example), but it still has its ardent followers today(as demonstrated by Gene Fendt’s book onWorks of Love and especially bythe comprehensive biography of Kierkegaard by Joakim Garff).3 However,intriguing as this approach to interpreting Kierkegaardmay be, it is evidentthat it does not take his preoccupation with romantic love to be philoso-phically enlightening. And this is true alsowith regard to scholars who donotentertain the ‘biographical’ approach: they are equally inclined to overlookthe possibility of discovering philosophical insight in Kierkegaard’s discus-sions of romantic love. There appear to be two main reasons for this.

The first reason concerns the context in which these discussions areusually found. The aesthetic writings which most conspicuously elaborateon this subject are written under pseudonyms and conveyed in the formof ‘indirect communication’.4 There is a vast discussion in the secondaryliterature regarding Kierkegaard’s use of such indirectness, and the reasonsoffered for his decision to adopt this method are not uncontroversial.However, most of the commentators agree that the relationship betweenKierkegaard’s own views and those that he attributes to his pseudonyms is,at the very least, complicated. This complication not only challenges anyattempt to give a coherent interpretation of his philosophy, but often leadsto a sceptical assessment of the views expressed in the voices of his pseudo-nyms.5 The centrality of romantic love in the lives of Kierkegaard’s pseudo-nyms is thus disregarded because it is taken to represent their incomplete, orevenmistaken, understanding of existence – Kierkegaard’s apparent obses-sion with romantic love is understood not as a reflection of the importanceof thematter to him, but rather as a reflection of the interests of his unhappypseudonyms, and their problematic points of view.

The second major reason for not taking Kierkegaard’s discussions ofromantic love seriously has to do with his reputation as a philosopher whois interested exclusively in ‘the single individual’.6 Kierkegaard is seen asan anti-social philosopher, who has nothing to contribute to a moralunderstanding of the relationships between human beings. He is notori-ously portrayed as a philosopher who focuses his attention on the indi-vidual’s relationship with himself and with divinity, and is thus allegedly

3 See Fendt 1989; Garff 2005.4 The designation of a group of Kierkegaard’s writings as ‘aesthetic’ is explained in note 16below.

5 I refer to this complication in chapters 2 and 5.6 For Kierkegaard’s use of this expression see, for example, PV, 101–26.

2 kierkegaard on faith and love

indifferent (or even hostile) to social, inter-human relationships. The lifeof faith offered by Kierkegaard, it is often claimed, is very lonely, leavingno room for relationships with human others, including of course rela-tionships of romantic love. Martin Buber, in works such as The Question tothe Single One and What is Man?, has probably contributed the most toshaping Kierkegaard’s problematic image as estranged from morally sig-nificant relationships, but others have followed.7 With a reputation likethis, then, it is perhaps not surprising that one is hard pressed to findphilosophers and scholars who seek in Kierkegaard’s words enlighten-ment with regard to romantic love. Moreover, Kierkegaard himself hasdirectly contributed to this problematic reputation, by formulating quiteexplicit claims against romantic love in his important book Works of Love.

On the face of it,Works of Love should have presented a challenge bothto those who disregard Kierkegaard’s views on love due to the indirectnessof his writing and, in particular, to those who disregard them due to hisreputation as an anti-social philosopher alienated from morality. First ofall, Works of Love is a direct work, published under Kierkegaard’s name.Secondly, it is devoted entirely to exploring the relationships of love thatone ought to have with one’s neighbours in general, and with particularneighbours more specifically (including, of course, our romantic belo-veds). It seems, then, that this book provides a source for both a moraltheory and a theory of romantic love, and thus should constitute at leastthe beginning of a reply to all those who refuse to see in Kierkegaard aphilosopher who is interested in the subject of romantic love. However,this does not turn out to be the case: it is precisely Kierkegaard’s extensivetreatment of human relationships in this book which has drawn some ofthe severest criticism of his understanding of ethics and love.

In a harsh essay entitled ‘On Kierkegaard’s Doctrine of Love’ TheodorAdorno claims that Kierkegaardian love is so abstract that it ultimatelyamounts to ‘misanthropy’, ‘paradoxical callousness’, and even a ‘demonichatred’; Knud Ejler Løgstrup, in the ‘polemical epilogue’ to his influentialbook, The Ethical Demand, wishes to ‘[settle] accounts with Kierkegaard’sWorks of Love’; and Irving Singer, in his wide-ranging study of love, declaresthat the doctrine of love presented in Works of Love is ‘too remote fromhuman experience to be convincing’.8These views ofWorks of Love, needlessto say, have only strengthened the image of Kierkegaard as a philosopher

7 See Buber 2004. For some more recent examples see MacIntyre 1984: 39–56, and alsoMackey 1986.

8 Adorno 1940: 423; Løgstrup 1997: 218; Singer 1987: 48.

introduction: stages on love’s way 3

who cannot contribute anything positive or valuable to the understandingof love in general, and to that of romantic love in particular.

In recent years, however, a new interest in Works of Love has emerged.Leading scholars of Kierkegaard such as George Pattison and C. StephenEvans have published studies in whichWorks of Love plays a central role, andvaried essays on this work have been gathered into an interesting collec-tion.9 An especially noteworthy contribution in this context is M. JamieFerreira’s Love’s Grateful Striving which constitutes the most comprehensivecommentary on Works of Love to be published thus far.10 These new read-ings ofWorks of Lovehave tried to establish its importance as an ethical work,and to correct earlier critical views of its philosophical position.

Nevertheless, even these sympathetic studies seem to neglect the specialplace of romantic love in the context of Kierkegaard’s more general under-standing of love. This is admittedly in accordance with the ambivalent spiritofWorks of Love, as far as romantic love is concerned. After all, in this book,Kierkegaard draws a sharp distinction between neighbourly love and pref-erential love, and goes out of his way to demonstrate that the latter shouldbe purified and transfigured by the former. Romantic love is a form ofpreferential love and, as such, is unequivocally denounced. At the sametime, Works of Love praises love in all its possible forms, including theromantic. This inconsistent account of romantic love seems to have hadthe tendency to lead interpreters to assume that for Kierkegaard romanticlove is a relativelymarginal special case of neighbourly love. It is not surprisingthen that studies of Works of Love have usually been concerned with themeaning of love as directed at one’s neighbour, any neighbour, rather thanmore specifically at one’s romantic beloved. Indeed, the only recent studywhich focuses on Kierkegaard’s understanding of romantic love, completelydisregards the distinction between neighbourly love and preferentiallove.11 However, to consider romantic love merely as a manifestation ofneighbourly love is to diminish the importance of the former and to neglectits distinctive and unique nature.12

The interpretations of Works of Love, therefore, appear to leave us withthe need to choose between two options. If we take the distinction

9 See Evans 2004; Pattison 2002a; Perkins 1999. See also Andic 1998 and Walsh 1988, 1994.10 See Ferreira 2001. A detailed discussion of this book is presented in chapter 4.11 See Hall 2002. As its title suggests, Kierkegaard and the Treachery of Love offers a pessimistic

account of romantic love, which derives from Hall’s view of our failure to follow Christ’sexample of neighbourly love. I discuss Hall’s book in chapter 4.

12 Such conflation is especially problematic with respect to the issue of preferentiality.I discuss this problem at length in chapters 4 and 5.


between neighbourly love and romantic love seriously, then we have tofollow the critical interpretations of this book and end up with a strangeconception of romantic love which is negative at worst and, at best, simplyinconsistent. But if we follow themore recent readings ofWorks of Love andultimately disregard this distinction (or render it inessential), then itseems that we will have to conclude that Kierkegaard has nothing specialto say about romantic love in particular.

We seem to be faced, therefore, with two unhappy options as far as therelevance of Works of Love to a theory of romantic love is concerned.Either, as the critics argue, the book fails to provide any convincingaccount of love, romantic or otherwise or, as the sympathizers imply, itprovides a valuable account of love, but ultimately one that blurs theunique character of romantic love, failing to distinguish it from otherforms of love.

Should this, then, be our conclusion regarding Kierkegaard’s view ofromantic love? Does he indeed have nothing illuminating to contribute toour understanding of this specific form of love? In the present study I wish toargue quite to the contrary. I claim not only that the subject of romanticlove is important for Kierkegaard, but that he offers a unique understand-ing of its nature and significance. To see this, however, we must broadenour investigation and, in contrast with the customary interpretative ten-dency in this connection, focus not only on Works of Love but also on theaesthetic writings, and, in particular, on Fear and Trembling. In this centraltext Kierkegaard presents, side by side with stories of romantic love, anaccount of the double structure of faith, which includes two seeminglycontradicting movements: the movement of resignation and the move-ment of faith. There is an important connection, I claim, between thesetwo movements and a possible understanding, and fulfilment, of love. Notonly does the account of the doublemovement of faith in Fear andTremblinginterestingly parallel the stories of love that it relates, this account also helpsto address the inconsistent view of romantic love that we find in Works ofLove. Exploring love in the light of faith, then, opens a new way to theunderstanding of love, and romantic love in particular.

It is widely agreed that at the core of Kierkegaard’s philosophy is aconcern with the life of faith. In the present study, however, I wish to pointto the intriguing connection that Kierkegaard draws between faith andlove, and more specifically between faith and romantic love; this profoundconnection, I argue, may serve to illuminate the nature of the latter. Thisstudy therefore attempts to develop a Kierkegaardian account of love onthe basis of a detailed examination of Kierkegaard’s account of faith, and


in the context of this exploration to offer a theory of romantic love. As weshall see, the central themes of resignation coupled with repetition, ofself-denial coupled with affirmation, of the need to give away coupled withthe ability to receive back, are crucial for understanding the life of love noless than for understanding the life of faith.

2 The joyful security of the insecure13

The struggle of love

… love and life together first take something away from a person beforethey give. (WL, 154)

Years before writing these words in Works of Love, the young Kierkegaardarticulated the following reflections in his journal:

Often, as I stood here on a quiet evening, the sea intoning its song withdeep but calm solemnity … then the few dear departed ones rose from thegrave beforeme, or rather, it seemed as though they were not dead. I felt somuch at ease in their midst, I rested in their embrace, and I felt as though Iwere outside my body and floated about with them in a higher ether – untilthe seagull’s harsh screech reminded me that I stood alone and it allvanished before my eyes … I have often stood there and pondered mypast life and the different surroundings that have exerted power over me.And before my contemplative gaze, vanished the pettiness that so oftencauses offence in life, the many misunderstandings that so often separatepersons of different temperament, who, if they understood one anotherproperly, would be tied together with indissoluble bonds. (JN, 9)

Kierkegaard is standing at one of his favourite points in Gilleleje, thesound of the sea and the breadth of the sky envelop him, and in the midstof this grandeur he has a twofold vision. It begins with a deep longing forthose beloved ones who are gone. He encounters them in some in-between zone: they seem to be leaving the world of the dead, coming tohim; he seems to be stepping beyond the concreteness of his body, theconcreteness of the finite world, into their welcoming embrace. He feelsso comfortable in their other-worldly arms, as if he has found home. Butthen the cry of the seagull brings him back, reminds him of the impossi-bility of this love: they are there, lost to him, he is here, alone in the world.

13 The title alludes to the following statement of Kierkegaard (under the pseudonymConstantin Constantius): ‘Repetition’s love is in truth the only happy love … it has theblissful security of the moment’ (R, 131–2).


But then a second vision takes shape before his contemplative mind,and in this vision he clearly sees a possibility of love. The ‘pettiness’ and‘misunderstandings’ that usually keep people apart dissolve, and insteadthere emerges the option of being together; the joyful possibility of firmbonds between self and other. And the vision continues:

as I stood there alone and forsaken and the power of the sea and the battleof the elements reminded me of my nothingness, while the sure flight ofthe birds reminded me on the other hand of Christ’s words, ‘Not asparrow will fall to the earth without your heavenly Father’s will,’ I felt atone and the same time how great and how insignificant I am. (Ibid., 10)

There are two forces in conflict here. One reminds Kierkegaard of hispowerlessness, his nothingness, the other reminds him of God’s love forhim; a powerful and encompassing love by virtue of which everything ispossible. One force is that of resignation: he is reconciled to his nothing-ness, he dies to the world; the other is that of affirmation: he neverthelesshas his place in this world; his abode is not only among the dead, but alsoamong the living. Kierkegaard deeply wishes that these two forces couldalways be ‘amicably combined’. ‘Fortunate the man’, he says,

for whom this is possible every moment of his life, in whose breast thesetwo factors have not merely reached an agreement but stretched out theirhands to each other and celebrated a wedding … a marriage … that willnot be barren but will have blessed fruits visible also in the world to theeyes of the experienced observer. (Ibid., emphasis in the text)

We may read these words as expressing not only a wish, but also a ques-tion – a question regarding the way to achieve this desirable harmony,which drives one to creative and productive action that would bear fruit inthe world. Remembering his earlier reflection on the bonds betweenpeople, and given the metaphor he chooses (‘a wedding … a marriage’),we may suppose that the fruits he has in mind are the fruits of love.14

In a way, then, Kierkegaard is asking how he should live – so as to love;how he should form his life, so that love would become possible. After all,his vision begins with painfully feeling the impossibility of love: he yearns forthose beloved ones that are forever gone, those who were irrevocably takenaway, those whose death uncompromisingly separated them from him. Butsimultaneously he also envisions the possibility of love: he can feel theblissfulness that human bonds entail, and the providence of God that

14 See the first deliberation in Works of Love.


makes such bliss possible. Kierkegaard has a profound insight regarding anexistential position that wholeheartedly accepts one’s nothingness while atthe same timepassionately affirms and rejoices in life and,more specifically,in love. This powerful insight reveals the possibility of love in the face offinitude and limitedness: that is, in the existential context of the ephemer-ality, loss, separation, and death that seem to posit an impassable obstacleon the way of fulfilling love. We may therefore say that by depicting thispoetic vision, Kierkegaard is actually asking about the desirable way to love,about the right way to love. Given the conditions of our existence (that seemto work against the possibility of joyful love), what form should love take soas to become possible nevertheless?

Further, it is important to note that the kind of love that inspires thisvision is a special, particular love for concrete persons (‘the few deardeparted’). At the heart of the problem that stimulates Kierkegaard’sinsight regarding the paradoxical harmony between two contradictingpowers (an insight which is in many ways central to his entire philosophy)is therefore not merely a general, neighbourly love to any person what-soever. Rather, it is the kind of love that later in his philosophyKierkegaard refers to as preferential love. It is a concern with this kindof love that infuses his early existential reflections, and drives him toponder the possibility of satisfying relationships of love, thus implicitlyraising the following question. How, given the essential obstacles alonglove’s way (temporality, ephemerality, limitedness) should we love; what isthe right way to love?

Indeed, Kierkegaard’s writings seem almost haunted by this question,especially as it concerns preferential love, and more specifically romanticlove.15 The latter kind of love will also be the focus of the present study.Together with Kierkegaard (although not always in agreement with him),andby usinghis implicit and explicit discussions of love, I shall ask: what doesgenuine romantic love look like; what is the right way to love romantically?

Even though he himself does not explicitly formulate this as a question,Kierkegaard’s fascination with romantic love cannot be missed. His writ-ings are pervaded by the spirits of unhappy lovers, and their yearning forlost relationships of love. This is particularly conspicuous in the earlygroup of his writings – the group that includes the eminent Either/Or,Repetition, Fear and Trembling, and Stages on Life’s Way, which are known

15 The term ‘preferential love’ covers relations of friendship and filial love, as well as relation-ships of romantic love.


as his ‘aesthetic’ writings.16 In the first part of Either/Or we meet variouslovers, the most famous of whom is the notorious Seducer whose diary isbrought before us in its full sinister glory. In Repetition we meet a some-what more reserved lover, but no less elusive and unhappy, the Poet whocannot find in his beloved the mysterious thing that he is really after. Inthe second part of Either/Or we meet a married Judge who presentshimself as a happy lover: in two long letters he praises the beauty andtruth to be found in marriage. But beneath the apparently perfect surfacethere are hints of conflicting and darker attitudes, making the readerwonder whether the Judge is as happy a lover as he thinks he is. Andindeed in Stages on Life’s Way we meet the frustrated version of the Judge,the demonic lover, Quidam (i.e. ‘Someone’), who desperately wants tolove but miserably fails to achieve this. It is only in Fear and Trembling, awork which seems to be told in the voice of yet another unhappy lover,that the real possibility of a happy love relationship emerges.17

The group of the aesthetic writings which concerns us is distinguishednot only by its prominent preoccupation with stories of love but also by itsdelineation and presentation of the Kierkegaardian ‘theory of stages’.According to this theory, there are several paradigmatic ways in which onecan live one’s life. These are usually divided into three, and are knownrespectively as the ‘aesthetic’, the ‘ethical’, and the ‘religious’. The word‘stages’ implies that a person’s life may change from one of these ways toanother, and it suggests a hierarchical order – one stage will be either‘lower’ (less developed) or ‘higher’ (more developed) than another. Thedevelopment in question, however, is applicable not only to the views oflife, but also to the views of love that these writings present. In this study,therefore, I propose to explore the Kierkegaardian stages of love. My claimis that in correlation with the various ways available to the existing indi-vidual to live his life, so there are various ways open before him to fulfil his

16 Hannay divides Kierkegaard’s authorship into fourmain categories: the aesthetic works, thedialectical works, the psychological works, and ‘the non-pseudonymous and moralizingdiscourses’ (see Hannay 1982: 16–17). I think that this categorization is more illuminatingthan the more general one that follows Kierkegaard in dividing the authorship simply into‘the aesthetic’ (the pseudonymous authorship) and ‘the religious’ (the non-pseudonymousauthorship) because it expresses the diversity existing in the group of the pseudonymousworks. Of this vast group I shall therefore focus on the ‘aesthetic’ works, which include thefour pivotal works mentioned above.

17 The pseudonymous author of Fear and Trembling is Johannes de Silentio, who is oftenidentified with the unhappy young man whom he describes as being in love with theprincess. De Silentio speaks as one who has not achieved a happy love, but does considerit to be a real possibility.


relationships of love. And in a way similar to that in which one’s existencecan be developed – beginning with the aesthetic stage and culminatingwith the religious one – so can one’s love be developed as well.18

Now, in order to assess the development of love, we need a criterionthat will enable us to examine the extent to which a form of love is more orless satisfying or good or correct. Returning to Kierkegaard’s journalreflections, I suggest that the key to understanding the stages of love liesin their different responses to the essential loss threatening love. What doI mean by ‘loss’, and how does it pose a threat to love?

Actual, potential, and essential loss

Being finite and subject to the passage of time, our existence is pervadedby constant loss. Time goes by and seems to take with it everything thatgives meaning to our life. Most often this loss is quiet and inconspicuous,but at the same time it is unstoppable. From this point of view, becominginvolved in relationships of love – that is, becoming deeply attached to theessentially evanescent – cannot but lead to misery and pain:

My heart grew sombre with grief, and wherever I looked I saw only death…My eyes searched everywhere for him, but he was not there to be seen … Ilived in misery, like every man whose soul is tethered by the love of thingsthat cannot last and then is agonized to lose them. Only then does herealize the sorry state he is in, and was in even before his loss.19

Augustine, who laments the death of his closest friend, believes that it wasmadness and folly of him to love ‘a man who was mortal as though he werenever to die’.20 Loving a finite being who is ultimately doomed to decayand death seems to be in essence a state of sorrow: it is to cling in one’s soulto something that cannot last forever. Therefore, to become involved in a

18 There are debates in the secondary literature as to how the theory of stages should beformulated and understood. On the one hand there are scholars who argue that there arefour, and even five, stages of development (see, for example, Evans 1999; Westphal 1996)and, on the other hand, there are readings that refuse to see such a progressive orhierarchical connection between the stages at all (see, for example, Jegstrup 2004 andPoole 1993 and 1998). The focus of this study, however, is love and its development: the lessor more satisfying ways to fulfil it, the less or more genuine ways to experience it.Accordingly, the theory of the stages serves here only as a framework – as a backgroundagainst which the development of love can be clearly manifested. The interpretative ques-tions mentioned above, as well as other questions regarding the theory of the stages, willtherefore not be my concern here.

19 Augustine 1961: 76, 77.20 Ibid., 79.


relationship of love with a finite being is to put oneself in a profoundlyvulnerable position. It means that even before an actual loss takes place,the beloved and the relationship are potentially lost, and that the lover,accordingly, is always potentially on the verge of great suffering.

We need to distinguish, then, between two kinds of loss, actual andpotential. When we speak of loss we usually refer to the former kind. Thedeath of ‘the few dear departed’ that the young Kierkegaard writes about,the death of Augustine’s beloved friend – the most blatant expression ofactual loss is, of course, death. However, a love relationship which endsalso amounts to an actual loss, as do periods of time that are gone forever(childhood, youth, last year, yesterday). The latter expression of loss, thequiet loss involved in the passage of time, is less striking. It is a mundane,non-dramatic sort of loss, almost unnoticeable – and yet it is a form ofactual loss nevertheless.

Potential loss, on the other hand, is a loss that threatens to becomeactualized, that hints at a future possibility of actual loss. The inevitablefuture death of every human being, for example, amounts to a potentialloss at present, and it hangs over our lives as a gloomy promise which weknow must be fulfilled. The possible termination of a love relationship isanother example of potential loss – however, unlike death, this gloomypossibility can be averted (until death, that is). Potential loss, then, mighteither be actualized or not, but its threatening presence enfolds ourexistence all the same. It lurks beneath the surface of everything intime, and shapes our life accordingly.

Our finite, temporal existence, therefore, is characterized by constantloss, which is either actual (in those cases in which it has already occurred)or potential (when it has not). Everything in time is either actually lost orpotentially lost. Everything finite, if it has not yet been taken away from us,is doomed to be taken away from us eventually, or is at least under thethreat that it might, eventually, be taken away from us. Thus loss, whetheractual or potential, indicates that our hold on things is always profoundlyinsecure: nothing is really at our disposal. Everything is in essence (namely,either in an actual way or only potentially) lost for us. To describe thestatus of something that is either actually or potentially lost, then, I shalluse the term ‘essential loss’. My claim is that everything that we have,everything that we take to be ours, is in truth essentially lost for us.

Now, relationships of love are characterized by an intense desire tohave a secure hold on the beloved. Accordingly, loss (in its various forms)poses a deep threat to love. This threatmay express itself inmany ways, butall are essentially connected to the passage of time. Like many waters


flowing over a rock, the passage of time must affect the shape of even thestrongest of loves – and the lover is terrified by the unknowability of thisfuture.21 The shadows of death and sickness, the possible changes in thecharacter of the lover or the beloved, the possible changes in interests andwishes, the weariness of old desires and the temptations of new ones – allof these belong under the category of essential loss (always potentiallypresent and sometimes actually fulfilled). All of these are a consequenceof our finitude and limitedness, and all render our relationships of loveessentially insecure.

The question that we need to ask, therefore, is a variation on Augustine’ssolemn conclusion. When facing the threat involved in its essential insecu-rity, how is love possible at all? How can we find joy in our loves, and strive tofulfil them, under the shadow of their essential loss? If we agree withKierkegaard that ‘erotic love is undeniably life’s most beautiful happiness’(WL, 267), and assuming that loving the temporal good is meaningful andcentral to our humane existence, we face an uneasy task. Can we overcomethe obstacle of essential loss? Can we reconcile with the insecurity of love?Or, to put it as succinctly as possible, can we fulfil love even when we clearlysee its potential (and sometimes actual) ruins? As I have suggested above, theway to assess the different stages of love is precisely by exploring their diffe-rent responses to this unsettling question. In other words, the various waysof responding to the loss that threatens love constitute the different stagesof Kierkegaardian love. My claim is that we are presented in Kierkegaard’sphilosophy with three basic ways in which a lover can respond to loss: the wayof recollection, the way of resignation, and the way of faith. But only one ofthese constitutes the correct form of love.

3 ‘The only happy love’22

The claim of this study is that the correct way to love is in a manneranalogous to faith. Of the various stages of romantic love, of the variouspossible ways open to the lover to fulfil his love, the right way is thatstructured in the form of faith. My claim, then, is that to reach its highest,most satisfying fulfilment, romantic love should be modelled in the shape

21 At the same time, however, ‘Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drownit’ (Song of Solomon 8:7, the King James version). In a way, one of the tasks of the presentstudy is to inquire into – and justify – this biblical assertion against the background of theexistential fact just stated above.

22 R, 131. See note 13 above.


of Kierkegaardian faith – namely, in that of the paradoxical double move-ment of resignation and repetition. What does this mean?

There are several possible stages in the way of love and, as I explainedabove, I suggest that we delineate the differences between them by exam-ining their different responses to loss. I therefore begin by exploring the‘natural’, pre-religious responses to loss, which constitute the love ofrecollection. This is a love that fails to sustain real contact with its objectand collapses into the inner sphere of the lover’s mind (wherein the loverengages with his memories, his poetic imagination, or his aspiration touniversal ideals). In chapter 1, then, we will meet three types of lovers –the aesthetic, the ethical, and the demonic – who despite the noticeabledifferences between them share a form of love that is fundamentallymiserable.23

Those who love by way of recollection try to avoid the loss inherent inlove – they try to secure their love. And indeed they all manage to hold onsafely and securely to something – but not to what they had originallyintended. They all end up without genuinely relating to the actual objectof their love. Instead, they all relate to some substitute for it, some repre-sentation of it, some recollection of it – which exists in the ‘inner sphere’ oftheir mind and is therefore unthreatened by external contingencies. Thissubstitutemay amount to amemory of the beloved girl (replacing an actualcontact with her), or to a poetic recreation of the love relationship (replac-ing an actual fulfilment of the relationship), or to a self-righteous adher-ence to some ethical ideal regarding the perfect love (replacing a real effortto overcome the imperfections of the actual love relationship). In all ofthese cases, the lovers’ opting for an indirect relation to the object, insteadof a direct one, explains their falling under the same title of ‘recollection’.

After all, in ‘recollection’ we attain an indirect, representational, innerconnection to the thing – and leave the thing itself behind. Now, of thethree types of lovers at the stage of recollection, it is only the demonic whorecognizes the limits of this state. However, he cannot move beyond it: toleave the sphere of recollection, the lover needs to undertake a painfulmovement that carries him into the religious sphere. This is themovementof resignation, and the lover who undertakes it is the subject of chapter 2.

23 Since Kierkegaard’s protagonists are usually male, for the sake of simplicity and uniformityof style I will generally use the masculine pronoun, even when not discussing aKierkegaardian protagonist/story. Needless to say, this does not mean that the variety oflovers presented throughout this study cannot be females: all that I say about ‘him’ holdstrue for and is applicable to ‘her’.


In that chapter (chapter 2) we will explore the meaning of resignationas a wholehearted acceptance of loss. While the lovers in the sphere ofrecollection try to avoid loss in various ways, the knight of resignationacknowledges the essential impossibility of sustaining a secure hold on hislove, and he willingly releases any such hold. In spite of desiring thebeloved above all other things, he renounces the relationship with her.He does not try to secure a false hold on the beloved, but at the same timehe continues to love her. His attachment to her is therefore structured inan intriguing way. He cannot but see her as infinitely lost – and his love istherefore filled with pain and agony – but at the same time, and whileconnecting himself to her in a bond of sorrow, he initiates himself into aprofound relationship with God. Undertaking the movement of resigna-tion amounts to a religious submission of oneself – that is, of one’s will, ofone’s worldly desires and possessions – to God. Accordingly, the love ofthe knight of resignation is twofold, involving a new relationship bothwith the original beloved and with God. But this new relationship is farfrom being complete and satisfying. Despite the joy and richness involvedin his relationship with God, this knight is ‘a stranger and an alien’ in theworld (FT, 50) – as far as his romantic love for his finite beloved isconcerned, he cannot but be deeply unhappy.

Another step, another movement, therefore, needs to be taken: themovement of faith. Closely examining Kierkegaard’s knight of faith, inchapter 3 we will present the portrait of the knight of love. This religiousknight is a lover whose wholehearted acceptance of loss (through resig-nation) is paradoxically coupled with the affirmation of a possiblerenewal, or repetition, of the thing lost (through faith). He who loves byway of faith, then, initiates a renewed relationship with his essentially lostromantic beloved. This relationship amounts to a unique attachment tothe beloved – a full, concrete, and joyful attachment – which becomespossible through the relationship that the lover sustains with God. Theknight of faith-like love, then, is the only lover who gains the harmonydiscussed above – namely, between acknowledging one’s nothingness(resignation) and rejoicing in God’s providence (affirmation) – thatallows him to conduct a life of love, in the context of which romantic lovebecomes a real (and happy) possibility.24 In this chapter we will thereforesee how among the different stages along love’s uneasy way, faith-likelove – a romantic love which is construed in accordance with the model offaith – is the highest form of love.

24 See again our discussion of Kierkegaard’s Journal’s reflections on pp. 6–8 above.


In arriving at this conclusion, however, we have accomplished only a partof our task. We now face the challenge of validating the model of faith-likeromantic love against Kierkegaard’s own attack on romantic love in hismonumental Works of Love. It might be thought thatWorks of Love providesthe central reference in our exploration of Kierkegaard’s view of love. This,as mentioned above, is the only work which he devotes specifically anddirectly to a consideration of the nature of true love and of the way in whichitmight be achieved; it is signed by Kierkegaard and, arguably, written fromthe point of view of the religious life. However, my claim is that despite itsconspicuous advantages in this regard, Works of Love presents a confusedand inconsistent view of romantic love. On the one hand it contains someof Kierkegaard’s fiercest denunciations of romantic love (due to its prefer-entiality which, he claims, contradicts the nature of true, neighbourly love).On the other, it presents a powerful affirmation of the need (and even theduty) to maintain a love of this kind.

In chapter 4 I therefore discuss the problematic view of Works of Love,and in chapter 5 I argue for the following (possibly surprising) claim. Notonly is the implicit account of faith-like love in Fear and Trembling moreaccurate and enlightening than the explicit account of love in Works ofLove but, more importantly, we need the former in order to account forthe problematic position of the latter. In chapter 5 I therefore suggest thatwe ‘amend’Works of Love’s model of love in the light of Fear and Trembling’smodel of faith. My claim is that we cannot understand Kierkegaard’sconception of love (neighbourly and romantic alike) without understand-ing his conception of faith. Therefore, only when we read these twopivotal texts together can a complete understanding of Kierkegaardianlove emerge. And only against this background can we articulate anunderstanding of romantic love.

In chapter 6 I explore this new understanding of romantic love asmodelled on faith, by looking closely at a Kierkegaardian protagonist whomay be the nearest to representing a striving human lover: the Merman.Against the background of the pre-religious option of recollection and thereligious options of resignation and faith, we will be able to examine thestory of the demonic, sinful Merman in Fear and Trembling, and the variousways open to him when he tries to fulfil his love for Agnes. We will then bein a position to fathom Kierkegaard’s claim that ‘repetition’s love’ (that is,love modelled on faith) is ‘the only happy love’, and to understand why it isthe only love that achieves ‘the blissful security of the moment’.

Understanding romantic love in the light of faith, then, helps to addressseveral pressing issues regarding love. It supplies us with the tools to


distinguish between better and worse forms of love; it helps to solve theproblem regarding the tension between romantic love and neighbourlylove (as presented in Works of Love); and it offers a cautiously positiveprospect regarding romantic love: despite our finitude, despite our limit-edness, despite our almost hopeless struggle with the demons within us(namely, with our sinful nature) – a happy fulfilment of romantic love isconfirmed as a valid possibility.

Romantic love undoubtedly plays a significant and profound role inhuman existence, but at the same time it has often been treated inphilosophical and religious contexts as merely an expression of ourphysical, sensuous nature, and therefore lacking in positive interest asfar as our moral and spiritual lives are concerned. By contrast, to accountfor romantic love in terms which demonstrate its essential coherencewith, and even similarity to, faith, serves to validate and acknowledge thecentrality of this phenomenon, and to throw light on its moral, spiritual,and existential significance. And so, even though at first glance the con-nection I wish to draw between faith and romantic love might seemstrange, I hope to show how we can be inspired and edified by faith withregard to the way in which we can, and should, love (romantically andotherwise). And it is Kierkegaard, I claim, who effectively paves the way forus to see this. In this study I shall make use of his distinctive vocabulary(and especially of pivotal concepts such as recollection, resignation,repetition, the double movement of faith, the demonic) for a detailedportrayal of love and, specifically, of romantic love. I hope that such aportrayal can help to correct the prevailing, unjustified conception (notto say stereotype) of Kierkegaard as a philosopher who has nothing(except perhaps negatively) to contribute to our understanding ofromantic love. By showing that Kierkegaard can be eminently helpful inan exploration of various relationships of love, I shall try to reveal a lessfamiliar aspect of his philosophy. I therefore hope that by the end of thisstudy it will be evident why Kierkegaard may justly be considered not onlyas a passionate explorer of faith, but also as a thinker who opens before usa unique and fascinating way to understand love in general, and romanticlove in particular.


1

LOST LOVES

1 Recollection’s love and its three types of lovers

Recollection’s love, an authorhas said, is the only happy love…Recollectionhas the great advantage that it begins with the loss; the reason it is safe andsecure is that it has nothing to lose. (R, 131, 136)

Recollection’s love is the kind of romantic love which consists in recollection(something which flourishes in the inner sphere of the lover’s mind) ratherthan in a genuine encounter with the beloved other. As we shall see, thethree protagonists of this type of love – the aesthetic Poet (or Seducer), theethical Judge, and the demonic ‘Someone’ – share a fundamental failure toreconcile themselves with the loss that every relationship of love entails.1

The loss concerned is that involved in the passage of time and manifested inthe effects that timehas on love.Most conspicuous, naturally, is the loss of theinitial stages of love: these stages are strongly characterized by an enchant-ing excitement that the passage of time seems to weaken. However, the lossthat threatens love, to which each of the lovers responds in his ownmanner,is deeper than that. It is the essential loss of everything that time may – andsometimes must – eventually take away with it.

1 Quidam, the name of the young lover from Stages on Life’s Way, who represents the demonickind of lover, is the Latin for ‘someone’. Since of the various Kierkegaardian protagonists thedemonic (as I shall explain later in this chapter and in chapter 6) is inmany ways the closest tous, I think it is significant that Kierkegaard, rather than distinguishing the demonic as a ‘Poet’,a ‘Seducer’, or a ‘Judge’, characterizes him as ‘Someone’, perhaps in the sense of ‘any person’.

17

Essential loss, as specified in the Introduction, is the condition commonto all those circumstances in which the object of love is potentially lost, andthose in which it is actually lost. It consists in the lover being deprived of afirm, dependable hold on the object of love. It is expressed in the variety ofdifficulties and obstacles involved in being finite and especially in loving afinite human being.2 It is the kind of loss which always underlies love andafflicts those who wish to fulfil a relationship of love. Now, the commondenominator unifying the aesthete, the ethical, and the demonic is thatultimately they all seek immunity from loss. They therefore turn their loveinto a recollection, into an inner representation of the beloved and of therelationship. As we shall see, each of these lovers tries to achieve a ‘safe andsecure’ love that has ‘nothing to lose’ (that is, a love not threatened by loss),and therefore substitutes the insecure contact with the beloved with asecure mental representation of it. Rather than encountering the realotherness of the beloved (with all the difficulties and insecurities involved),they distance themselves from her and instead indulge in their memories ofthe relationship, or in a poetic recreation of it, or in the sublime universal idealsof a perfect relationship. In this way they manage to hold securely on tosomething, but not to the real relationship (or to the real beloved). Byrecollecting the relationship they turn their love into something that funda-mentally belongs to the past, and which is rooted not somuch in actuality asin the immanent sphere of their mind. They turn their love into somethingdead – they kill their loves. The following portrayal of recollection’s love(and of its lover) clearly depicts this:

The sun is shining brilliantly and beautifully into my room; the window inthe next room is open. Everything is quiet out on the street. It is Sundayafternoon. I distinctly hear a lark warbling outside a window in one of theneighboring courtyards, outside the windowwhere the pretty girl lives. Faraway in a distant street, I hear a man crying ‘Shrimps for sale.’ The air is sowarm, and yet the whole city is as if deserted. – Then I call to mind myyouth andmy first love – when I was filled with longing; now I long only formy first longing. What is youth? A dream. What is love? The content of thedream. (EO1, 42)

2 Namely, the shadow of the inevitability of death (that threatens to take our beloved awayfrom us); the changes that love must undergo (as well as the changes that the lover and thebeloved both undergo); the weariness and fading away of old desires (as well as the awaken-ing of new, potentially conflicting, desires thatmay eventually drive ourselves, or the beloved,away); not to mention the faults in the way we regard our beloved (when time and itsrepetitions make us forget that the beloved must not be taken for granted), and the weak-nesses of our will (that the passage of time usually strengthens).


The world surrounding the lover is colourful and beautiful, the air iswarm and all around there are singing birds and pretty girls and humanvoices – the passionate warbling of life is heard in the distance. But thelover, who can love only by way of recollection, is alone in his secludedroom, incapable of making any living contact with anyone and thus, forhim, the lively city feels deserted. Love is only a distant, faded, recollec-tion. Once upon a time he was filled with longing for a beloved, now theonly longing is for the longing: he is entirely defeated by recollection.

This kind of lover, recollection’s lover, who deeply fears the loss whichevery love entails, responds by eventually turning the potential loss into anactual one. Whether he literally terminates the relationship (as the aes-thete and the demonic lovers tend to do), or only ‘deadens’ it by main-taining an unsatisfying, solo-voiced rather than dialogical, relationshipwith the other with whom he shares his life (as the ethical, and sometimesthe demonic, do) – his love is fundamentally, essentially, lost.3

In what follows we shall therefore inquire into the loves of the aesthete,the ethical Judge, and the demonic ‘Someone’ and see how, despite theirdifferent responses to loss, all of them ultimately belong in the sphere ofrecollection’s love. We will see that they all attempt to find a securereplacement for their concrete, insecure relationships of love. The aes-thete who chases after ‘the first’ (a term given to the first stages of love bythe Judge) tries to capture love in its immediacy, but (inevitably) themoment evades him. Thus, the stable replacement that he creates is the‘frozen’ memory of the beloved and of the relationship. The ethical Judgetries to solve the problem of loss by turning ‘the first’ (the moment) intoan ‘eternity in time’. His way of stabilizing the essentially evanescent is tofocus on the universal, unchanging ideals (and ideas) of love, thus desiring‘the ideal marriage’ (rather than his concrete, imperfect, wife), turningthis into the real object of his love. The artificiality of his solution cannotbut push his love relationship into the deathly territory of recollection (so

3 It is important to note that using the notion of recollection for an analysis of the aesthetic andthe ethical – as well as of the relations between them – is rather unusual. This analysisemphasizes the common ground that these two stages of life share and, in particular, itfocuses on the failure, essential for both, to fulfil a satisfying relationship of love. Naturally,emphasizing this aspect comes at the expense of a more elaborate examination of thedifferences between the two stages and the complexity of the relations between them.Accordingly, I have also put aside the complex interpretative debate concerning the properunderstanding of the figure of Judge William (and of the view of life he represents). For amore extensive discussion of the Judge, and of the relations between the aesthetic and theethical, see Carlisle 2005; Davenport 2008; Davenport and Rudd 2001; Furtak 2005; Pattison2005; Perkins 1995, 2000; Rudd 1993; Taylor 1975.

lost loves 19

to speak). And indeed, the demonic – who in effect embodies the combi-nation and the struggle between the aesthetic and the ethical elements inevery human soul – is sensitive enough to see the shortcomings of theethical solution. However, while acknowledging the loss he fails to becomereconciled with it, thus despairing and becoming obsessed with it. Thedemonic understands that the way to address the essential loss involvedin loving – namely, the actual and potential loss that any relationship oflove must suffer – is to be found beyond the sphere of recollection. Being ademonic, however, he can only look to this horizon from afar, while hisfeet are still implanted deep in the soil of recollection.

2 Recollection and the aesthetic lover

A portrait of immediacy

When two people fall in love with each other and sense that they aredestined for one another, it is a question of having the courage to break itoff, for by continuing there is only everything to lose, nothing to gain.(EO1, 298)

The aesthete advocates a life of immediacy,4 a life devoid of any commit-ment or continuation that might pose a threat to the thrill and interest ofthe moment. After all, duration (the continuation of something beyond itsmomentary peak) has a structure of repetition: it consists in continuing the‘new’ (be it a job, a friendship, or a love affair) into a committing, repetitivepattern. To continue a moment into the future – where the limits of the‘moment’ are determined by the extent to which its contents are experi-enced as novel, fresh, unprecedented – necessarily entails a repetition of themoment. But repetition, from the point of view of the aesthete, is boring. Itis the ‘same old thing’ rather than the ‘new and exciting’.

The aesthetic life, then, is a life of immediacy, and to experience timein its immediacy means to adopt (and nurture) an attitude of full respon-siveness to that which is momentarily desired. An attitude whereby one

4 The following analysis of the aesthetic focuses on one possible aspect of the aesthetic life,which is manifested by themore reflective and sophisticated type of aesthete. There are otheraesthetic types (such as a frivolous youth, a decadent cynic, or a Don Juan, to name only afew) thatmanifest other possible aspects of the aesthetic life (such as responsiveness to noveltyand excitement, seeking satisfaction, and admiration of the sensual). However, from theperspective of the present study, it is the reflective type of aesthete (who is more conscious ofthe threats of loss than the other types) that is of interest forme. I therefore focus on this typealone and develop only one particular (and quite dominant) aspect of aestheticism: namely,recollection.


fully responds to any desire at any moment, without being able or willingto choose between the different desires (or between the courses of actioninvolved in fulfilling them). Choosing is about saying ‘yes’ to one thingand ‘no’ to the other; it is about turning a possibility into an actuality. Andturning a possibility into an actuality means adherence and dedication tothe thing chosen.5 It is about being willing to continue one’s commitmentdespite conflicting desires that tempt one to abandon the thing chosen infavour of submitting oneself to another thing; it is about continuing one’scommitment despite the difficulties and obstacles involved, despite thethreat of loss.

But the aesthete prefers to shape his life in the sphere of (promising)possibilities (rather than in the sphere of a fulfilled actuality) – he enjoysthe variety, not the actualization. He wants to keep everything open, to bereceptive of everything, and let life offer him as much as possible. Hewishes to enjoy only the offerings of life, and refuses to suffer over thatwhich life might take away. The aesthete, therefore, is a passive recipientof whatever comes his way. He acts according to his momentary passionsand inclinations, enjoys what he fancies at any particular moment, and isnever bothered about the next moment. To him, it matters not if in thenext moment he fancies something that is not compatible with, or mighteven contradict, what he fancies at the present moment. This is themeaning of not making a commitment to anything whatsoever, and oflimiting oneself only to themoment – amoment that has no continuationand therefore does not commit one, or oblige one, to whatever it is thathappens next. Today I want to be a painter, yesterday I wanted to be adoctor, tomorrow I might want to be a world explorer – so be it. TodayI want this lover, yesterday I wanted the other one, tomorrow I might wanta different one. So be it.

Now, on the face of it, the aesthetic life may seem very tempting: onecreates oneself every moment anew, one acts spontaneously, faithful towhat one really wants. The problem is that this life is necessarily veryfragmented, composed of a series of episodes that ultimately belong onlyin the past. If one does not want to choose, because choice entails acontinuation of the moment in the form of a commitment that means

5 Such adherence is one of the main characteristics of the ethical life (see the discussion of theethical below). Thismight be the time to emphasize that sharing the fundamental problematicattitude of recollection does not mean an abolition of the essential differences between theaesthetic and ethical forms of life. There are some crucial distinctions between them, and thesedistinctionsmake the ethical life – despite failing where the aesthetic life fails (namely, in addressingloss properly) – more advanced and desirable in many senses. (See also note 15 below.)

lost loves 21

saying ‘no’ to all the other possibilities, then one also confines oneself to alife of constant ‘endings’. And to be constantly ending things (in order tobe receptive to something new) means to be living mostly in the past – thecontent of this life is composed of a long series of recollections. The aesthetemight be a hedonist who enjoys the moment without any worries orcommitments with regard to what happens next; but his life is alwaystinged with constant death. In order to submit himself to the new, hehas to kill, as it were, the old. Accordingly, the love of the aesthete mustalso be the unsatisfying love of recollection. This love is focused on thefirst phase of love, on the first moment of love. The joy of the aestheticlove is always brief and its peak (in which the aesthete is interested) isconfined to a very limited period of time, beyond which there is nothing:

There are, as is known, insects that die in themoment of fertilization. So itis with all joy: life’s highest, most splendid moment of enjoyment isaccompanied by death. (EO1, 20)

Thedeath referred to here is thedeath of thedesiredmoment of enjoyment.Once fulfilled, this moment is lost, dead. Continuation of the momentbeyond this peak of enjoyment (and interest) has only the void and darknessof death to offer. It is no wonder, then, that the aesthete declares that

My misfortune is this: an angel of death always walks at my side, and it isnot the doors of the chosen ones that I sprinkle with blood as a sign thathe is to pass by – no, it is precisely their doors that he enters – for onlyrecollection’s love is happy. (EO1, 41)

And why is ‘only recollection’s love’ happy? ‘To live in recollection is themost perfect life imaginable; recollection is more richly satisfying than allactuality, and it has security that no actuality possesses’ (EO1, 32). Inactuality, indeed, there is no security. Time is characterized by bringingalong with it change and loss and (boring) repetition. Therefore, in orderto secure the pleasure of the passing moment – the intensity of the newlyfelt love – one has to end it before it gets spoiled. One has to freeze thefirst moment of love, as it were, and to turn it from a living, continuingpresent into a recollection; one has ‘to kill’ the ‘chosen ones’ (that is, therelationships one has had with them, the moments one has spent withthem) – in order to recollect them. There, in recollection, they can becherished as beautiful and happy, as intact, as one wishes them to be.

The aesthetic love contains an inner contradiction. The aestheticmoment defeats itself, as it were: its fulfilment is necessarily also itsdestruction. It is not something one can hold on to, something whose


possession can be extended into the future (because, again, when thusextended, it turns into something else, something ‘boring’). Thereforethe aesthetic love can be maintained only as a lost love; as a part of thepast – it can be maintained only in the form of recollection. To put itdifferently, in his fear of losing the intensity and thrill of love, the aestheterefuses to continue the relationship, and thus turns it into a recollection.Thereby he dooms his love to loss:

For me nothing is more dangerous than to recollect. As soon as I haverecollected a life relationship, that relationship has ceased to exist …A recollected life relationship has already passed into eternity and hasno temporal interest anymore. (EO1, 32)

In a way, the aesthetic lover wants to turn the first moment of love into aneternity. He wants to ‘freeze’ the moment of interest and create for himselfa sphere devoid of the threatening passage of time (that for him is thecause of everything he is afraid of: the loss of the interesting, the loss ofimmediate pleasure, the loss of the thrill of the moment, the encounterwith the committing and potentially painful). However, this eternity is, ofcourse, a false one. The moment is over and the ‘eternity’ the aesthete isleft with is only the memory of the moment, its recollection, its existencein the past. It is not surprising, then, that the aesthetic lover is character-ized as ‘the unhappiest one’ – he is ‘the envoy from the kingdom of sighs,the chosen favorite of suffering, the apostle of grief, the silent friend ofpain, the unhappy lover of recollection’ (EO1, 229, emphasis mine).6

From the perspective that asks about love’s possible responses to theproblem of loss (that essentially pervades and threatens it), we may saythat the aesthetic lover offers quite a miserable solution. He cannothandle the passage of time and the loss it entails, and his reaction consistsof his futile attempt to freeze the love and transform it into a recollection.Recollection is indeed protected from the passage of time; it constitutesthe little inner kingdom of the one who recollects. The aesthetic lovercloses himself within himself, as it were, and creates an alternative world tothe one outside of him – an immanent world of a false eternity, ‘safe andsecure’ against the ruins of time.

6 The strong criticism expressed here against aesthetic love does not mean that what is usuallyassociated with aesthetics – the senses, appreciation of the beautiful, etc. – is withoutimportance for the philosophy of Kierkegaard in general, and for his understanding of thelife of faith, and of love, in particular. On the contrary: as I shall demonstrate in later chapters,the body and the sensuous (as well as sensitivity to beauty – the concrete beauty of thebeloved, the beauty of the world) have a central role in the Kierkegaardian understanding ofboth faith and love.

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Now, the solution of the aesthetic lover may be a false and divertedsolution, but the problem is a real one. At the basis of recollection’s lovelies a deep longing for time past. After all, time always seems to take alongwith it something valuable belonging to our love (a feeling, a passion,something about the way we were, something about the way our belovedused to be). This longing and its ‘twin brother’ – namely, the wish to get thelost thing back – characterize the poetic love of the protagonist ofRepetition.

The Poet’s love of recollection

Repetition – which presents a melancholic Poet as another type of thelovers belonging to the sphere of recollection’s love – is a book that tellsa story within a story. One story is that of Constantin Constantius, thenarrator, that revolves around an experiment he undertook when he triedto reconstruct – to repeat – a successful trip to Berlin (the experiment hasfailed); another story is the one that Constantius tells us about anunhappy love affair of a young friend of his; and another significantstory is the biblical story of Job, which the young man considers as asource of inspiration for him. The book Repetition, then, echoes the desireto receive something back, to gain a ‘repetition’ of something lost (anenjoyable trip, desirable love, a beloved now dead). But while the title ofthe book implies an event of repetition, the book itself demonstrates afailure of repetition. Constantius fails to get back (that is, to relive) hisdesired trip to Berlin, the youngman fails to get back his love relationship,and only the story of Job is about a real repetition, but this only empha-sizes the mistake committed by the protagonists of Repetition with regardto their own understanding (and performing) of repetition.7

Constantius is a reflection of Either/Or’s aesthetic prototype. The Berlinexperiment demonstrates his aesthetic focus on the past and his imma-nent, self-contained, approach to reality – Constantius, after all, uses thematerials of reality to relive his memory. He wants a ‘repetition’ of his tripto Berlin but, instead of being open to what the world has to offer, he triesto control it by a futile attempt to externalize his inner recollections andgive them an ‘outer’ validity (see R, 150–76). However, a more interestingcharacter in the book, from the point of view of our inquiry, is the youngfriend of Constantius, the Poet.

7 Repetition becomes a valid possibility only in the context of the religious life of faith. I shalltherefore return to this concept when discussing Fear and Trembling’s model of faith (seechapter 3 below).


The Poet is presented as a melancholic youth who chose Constantius ashis confidant. But the very close affinity between them – expressed in thefact that Constantius seems to understand too well the motives for theyoung man’s strange behaviour, i.e. he knows exactly how the young manfeels and predicts, quite accurately, what he is about to do – gives us goodreason to suspect that the Poet is in fact a younger version of Constantius:8

namely, a young double of his whom Constantius, in a poetic enterprise,brings to life. Looking at the love story of the young Poet, we can traceback the reasons leading Constantius to his present position: an unhappy,lonely man, enclosed in his room and in his recollections, just like thelover from Either/Or who cannot contact the passionate city (that is, theworld) outside his room, outside his inner frozen world of recollection.9

Let us examine, then, the love story of the young Poet.

He was deeply and fervently in love, that was clear, and yet a few dayslater he was able to recollect his love. He was essentially through with theentire relationship. In beginning it, he took such a tremendous step thathe leaped over life. If the girl dies tomorrow, it will make no essentialdifference. (R, 136)

This love is sufficient unto itself, regardless of the existence of its object. Itis a love which exists as recollection. The young man is not interested incontinuing, developing, and living the actual love for the girl. The begin-ning of this love was so intense that for him it exhausted the wholerelationship. It fulfilled and devoured (as it were) his entire expectationsfrom love – no wonder, therefore, that he did not need the girl any longer.All he needed was a recollection of her.

Moreover, the girl was only a trigger to something else, something thathad nothing to do with her, the beloved, but rather with him, the lover.Strangely enough, the young man was nourished by the absence of the girlrather than by her presence. Constantius contrasts specifically between‘loving’ and ‘longing’ – the latter, of course, indicating an absence. Theyoung man, he says, truly loved the girl and will never love any other – buthe does not still love her:

the adored young girl was already almost a vexation to him. And yet shewas the one he had loved, the only one he would ever love. Nevertheless,

8 I thank Dr Ran Sigad for the suggestion to look upon the two protagonists as reflecting theolder and the younger versions of the same person.

9 See again the quotation on p. 18 above.

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he did not still love her, because he only longed for her … The young girlwas not his beloved: she was the occasion that awakened the poetic in himand made him a poet. (R, 138)

The love was an event, an ‘occasion’, forever to be carved into his soul – andentirely belonging to the past (it had happened, once, and is now over).What is now being loved, therefore, is not the actual girl; it is rather the girlin recollection. The unhappiness and frustration of recollection’s love, wemay say, is a result of the painful demand that defines it. Recollection’s loverequires the (actual) loss of the concrete other, rather than the other’sactual presence. In order for this form of love to exist, the love of theconcrete person in her actuality has to stop: ‘[s]he had made him a poet –and precisely thereby had signed her own death sentence’ (R, 138).

The loss of the girl was the constitutive event thatmade him into a poet.But even before her actual loss, the young man had felt that he had losther (after all, he had lost her long before actually leaving her). What kindof loss was it, then? The loss that made him leave the girl (and become apoet) was the loss of the aesthetic ‘first love’: the initial stage of any lovewhen everything is new and exciting. The theme of the ‘first love’ willreappear in the ethical theory of Judge William, but we have alreadyencountered the desire for it in the figure of Either/Or’s aesthetic person:he who craves only the immediate moment of pleasure, after which thereis nothing but death.

What the young man longed for, and what he wanted to get back, wasnot the actual girl, but rather the way he had felt for her at the beginningof the relationship. It is quite consistent of him, then, to find his solutionin poetry and recollection. By becoming a poet he creates a world ofrecollection, a world of (his own) creation, in which he loves her just ashe had at the beginning. In this context he loves her just as one does ineternity – time becomes irrelevant, and so does the threat of loss andchange, which might damage his pure feelings.

The Poet demonstrates very clearly the essence of ‘recollection-hood’and he no doubt forms a notable manifestation of the kind of loverbelonging in the sphere of recollection. One who prefers to indulge inthe pain of the loss, to praise the ‘what has been’ and to stay ‘there’; therein the past, deep within recollection (of the love and the beloved). Painfulas it is, it is tempting to love in this way for the simple reason that one willindeed no longer have anything to lose (see again R, 136). This kind oflover sacrifices the future but knows that nothing can ruin his past – nonew experiences would overshadow the sweet past, no disappointments.


When one relives what has already happened, the events one is concernedwith are under one’s control; when one chooses to live in one’s imagina-tion, one takes no risks. We can characterize this kind of love in the samewords that Constantius uses to explain, at a later stage, the Poet’s behav-iour. When someone is loving – and living – in his own world of recol-lection, he ‘limits himself to a cozy domestic diversion, together withmental activity and pastimes of the imagination, which are the mostperfect substitute for all erotic love’, and at the same time ‘are not at allaccompanied by the inconveniences and disasters of erotic love’ (R, 183).

The Poet’s detachment from reality is also expressed in his under-standing of himself. He is inspired by the story of Job, and sees in himselfa kind of modern manifestation of this biblical figure. For him, Job is theepitome of one who has undergone great misery in losing everything; hetherefore finds consolation in Job’s story because in his (false) under-standing, he, the Poet, has undergone a similar ordeal. Accordingly, inone of his letters to Constantius, he declares that just like Job, he hasgained a repetition:

I am myself again … Is there not, then, a repetition? Did I not get every-thing double? Did I not get myself again and precisely in such a way thatI might have a double sense of meaning? (R, 220–1)

The Poet feels that he has won a repetition. But he did not get the girlback – rather he got himself back. Moreover, it was precisely the girl’smarriage to someone else (i.e. her conclusive, actual loss) that allowed thePoet to experience a repetition. Is this a real repetition?

It is true that, in a way, receiving oneself back is a repetition. It is clearthat losing an object dear to us, let alone a beloved person, can be viewedas involving a loss also of ourselves. Receiving ourselves back in the senseof regaining meaning and coherency in our lives may justly be consideredas a true repetition.10 However, this is only one aspect of repetition and,important as it is, it is still only a part of what constitutes full repetition. ThePoet did not receive anything back except himself, and even when hereceived himself back, he gained no new understanding of himself orof the world. In a sharp difference with Job – who confronted the ultimateotherness of God that made him realize the profundity of the truth that‘the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of theLord’ – the Poet never confronted anything beyond himself and beyond

10 I am indebted to Professor George Pattison for suggesting this idea to me in conversation.

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the powers of his own will and imagination.11 And now that the girl ismarried, and he need not feel responsible for her pain anymore, he cansink back peacefully into his lonely world, a world in which there is no realroom for anyone but himself. The love story of the Poet, therefore, couldnot be more remote from the story of the loss and suffering of Job. Ratherthan exemplifying a modern version of the biblical story of repetition (asthe Poet would have liked to think), he is deeply absorbed in recollection.

Ultimately, recollection’s love uses the other as material for building ahouse in which one lives alone. This love nourishes a rich and productiveinner world, and can be very sensitive and poetic (it can even drive one topoetry, as we have just seen), but it is not strong enough to break throughand plunge into the concrete world – it is not strong enough to actuallyencounter the other and create a genuine relationship with that other.12 Itis a kind of narcissistic love in which one is sufficient unto oneself, and inthe context of which the focus is on the self, not on the other. A strongmanifestation of how little the concrete other takes part in recollection’slove is exemplified in the love of the Seducer.13

The Seducer’s love of recollection

I am an esthete, an eroticist, who has grasped the nature and the point oflove, who believes in love and knows it from the ground up, and I reservefor myself only the private opinion that no love affair should last morethan a half year at most and that any relationship is over as soon as one hasenjoyed the ultimate. (EO1, 368)

11 Job 1:21, the King James version.12 In chapter 4we will see how critical Kierkegaard is with regard to the love of the poets, which

he condemns as selfish. It is reasonable to assume that the kind of poet he has inmind is thatwhich belongs in the category of recollection’s lovers.

13 Kierkegaard’s use of a Platonic vocabulary in relating to the Poet’s story of miserable love,and in particular his use of the Platonic term ‘recollection’, is hard to miss. Kierkegaardpresents the young Poet as someone who substitutes the concrete object of his love with anIdea (of both the girl and the love), and creates an inner ‘eternal’ world which abides in thesecure sphere of his imagination, thus detaching himself from the real world of temporality.This presentation may be understood as an implicit criticism of the metaphysical projectthat, in Kierkegaard’s understanding, began with Plato. A philosophy of this sort,Kierkegaard claims, is preoccupied with reflecting upon existence, rather than with existing:‘What philosophers say about actuality is often just as disappointing as it is when one readson a sign in a secondhand shop: Pressing DoneHere. If a person were to bring his clothes tobe pressed, he would be duped, for the sign is merely for sale’ (EO1, 32). However, it isbeyond the scope of the present study to elaborate on the complex and intriguing relation-ship between Kierkegaard’s thought and Plato’s philosophy.


The aesthetic lover, we said, is interested in the first moment (or phase) oflove, but since this moment is transient the aesthete can never really takehold of it. His life, therefore, moves between future-oriented planstowards the desired moment and past-oriented recollections of the ful-filled – and thereby lost – love. The aesthete is interested in the momentonly as long as it contains within it some new and unfamiliar experience,and thereby he can never continue the moment beyond its peak (ofpleasure or interest). He is afraid of boredom and therefore constantlyseeks the new, ‘the first’. Anything experienced more than once – that is,anything advancing beyond its ‘first’ manifestation – is doomed to ‘bekilled’ by him. He wants nothing to do with it again, he wants to keep it asbeautiful and exciting as it was the first time. He is afraid of the signs thatthe passage of time may engrave on his love. He therefore refuses tocontinue his love relationship: rather, he recollects it.

The epitome for such an aesthetic recollection’s love is embodied inthe love of the seducer. The seducer is someone entirely receptive to thesensual beauty surrounding him in the form of various women. ‘The art isto be as receptive as possible to impressions’ (EO1, 361) he says. From thispoint of view focusing one’s attention only on one woman seems, ofcourse, senseless:

one can be in love with many girls at the same time, because one is in lovein a different way with each one. To love one girl is too little; to love all issuperficiality; to know oneself and to love as many as possible, to let one’ssoul conceal all the powers of love inside itself so that each receives itsspecific nourishment while the consciousness nevertheless embraces thewhole – that is enjoyment, that is living. (Ibid.)

This love-theory discloses that for him love is like a tour through thebounteous beauty that the world has to offer. The seducer is the wander-ing world-explorer who refuses to settle in one place. He is willing to paythe price of being rootless, even detached, the price of being involvedonly to a certain degree (not too little but not too much). He is a collectorof images, a collector of experiences.14 Like the Poet of Repetition, he isinterested in the other only as a means for creating his secluded, self-sufficient, world:

My Cordelia, You know that I verymuch like to talk withmyself. I have foundin myself the most interesting person among my acquaintances. At times, Ihave feared that I would come to lack material for these conversations; now

14 See EO1, 390.

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I have no fear, for now I have you. I shall talk withmyself about you now andfor all eternity, about the most interesting subject with the most interestingperson – ah, I am only an interesting person, you the most interestingsubject. (EO1, 401)

And yet, there is a sad emptiness in his life. His love is structured in such away that its fulfilment is also its extinction: ‘now it is finished, and I neverwant to see her again’ he says having his desire for Cordelia fulfilled. Anddespite his cruelty we can also sense the desolation he is left with – a sadand lonely man who is defeated by his own victory: ‘[h]ow much I havegathered into this one moment … Why cannot such a night last longer?’(EO1, 445).

3 Recollection and the ethical lover15

The ethical lover, unlike the aesthete, lets the night of desire and rapturecontinue into a day of commitment. This kind of lover is embodied in theaustere figure of Judge William, who presents his unequivocal opinionsboth in the second part of Either/Or (in two letters addressed, presumably,to the aesthete from the first part) and in Stages on Life’s Way.16 The Judgetakes upon himself the task of defending the ethical against the aestheticway of life, and in particular against the aesthetic way of love. Both inEither/Or and in Stages on Life’s Way he speaks ardently about marriage (formarriage is the socialmanifestation of love, a point that will turn out to bevery significant), and praises the sort of life that transfigures itself from

15 An important note of clarification is needed before beginning the following analysis. Thediscussion of the ethical presented here is focused on the failure common to the aestheticand ethical stages of life (namely, their ‘recollection-hood’). However, this should notmislead one into thinking that there are no essential differences between these two attitudesto life and love. While the aesthete is guided by adherence to his momentary desires, theethical person is guided by the attempt to adhere to moral ideals; the ethical person, unlikethe aesthete, tries to reach the kind of goodness that transcends his momentary satisfactions.Accordingly, the ethical person tries to understand what his overarching wishes are, and heis thus more dedicated and committed to his will. Such differences between the stagesqualify the ethical stage as more advanced (or ‘correct’) than the aesthetic one. It is there-fore important to emphasize that the following presentation of ethical love – althoughfocused on the conclusion that such love, just as the aesthetic love, ultimately fails to fulfil asatisfying love relationship – does not claim that these loves are equally problematic in alltheir aspects.

16 In the present study, though, I will discuss only the position presented in Either/Or. Thereare subtle nuances distinguishing between the Judge’s positions presented in the two works,but fundamentally they represent the same view. Formy purposes, therefore, it will suffice tofocus on Either/Or’s observations alone.


immediacy into ‘the universal’. What does this mean and does the love ofthe Judge succeed in being more satisfying than that of the aesthete?

‘The esthetic validity of marriage’

Marital love, then, has its enemy in time, its victory in time and its eternityin time. (EO2, 139)

The first letter of Judge William aims at establishing ‘the esthetic validityof marriage’.17 The Judge wishes ‘to show that romantic love can beunited with and exist in marriage – indeed, that marriage is its truetransfiguration’ (EO2, 31), as against the position of the aesthete, whoconsiders that which goes beyond the immediate moment(s) of pleasureand excitement to be dull and un-erotic. We have seen above how deeplyEither/Or’s aesthete objects to anything that requires a continuationbeyond the climax of pleasure; here the Judge identifies this approachto love and existence as a longing for ‘the first’.

‘The first’ is ‘the first time’: the first time in which I did x, the first timein which I experienced y. Attributing an unparalleled significance to ‘thefirst’ (the first time that we kissed, for example) necessarily means con-sidering ‘repetition’ as undesirable and problematic. If one bestows upon‘the first’ the special meaning of having a unique position above any otherrank on the scale of experience, as it were (there is only one ‘first’, afterall), this means that ‘the first’ cannot repeat itself (because if it does, it isno longer ‘the first’): ‘the more meaningful that is which in its “first”manifests itself for the first time, the less the probability is that it can berepeated’ (EO2, 40). But do we really need to approach ‘the first’ in sucha manner, to bestow upon it so heavy a meaning? The aesthete certainlydoes so – especially when it comes to love.

What the Judge calls ‘the first love’ can be understood as the equivalentof the phase of ‘falling in love’ (or ‘infatuation’). This is the first period inthe development of love before it is shaped into a stable relationship(i.e. before it is continued in time into a certain pattern and under acertain commitment). Now, sincemarriage is clearly a continuation of thefirst love in time, it is evident why the aesthete is so unenthusiastic about it.However, in his reluctance to continue the first love he dooms it, as theJudge claims, to be only momentary: ‘[y]ou must therefore hate all lovethat wants to be an eternal love. Youmust therefore stop with the first love

17 EO2, 3.

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as a moment’ (EO2, 126). Indeed, as we explained above, this is theparadox of the aesthetic experience (that defeats itself). The aesthete’sworship of ‘the first’ means that one focuses all of one’s attention on acertain event which must be momentary (since it is confined within thevery narrow limits of the phase defined as ‘the first’). To carry this phasebeyond the moment is indeed to turn it into something else. The kisses,the gaze, the touch are not ‘the first’ anymore, and thus – from theaesthete’s point of view – not as exciting and desirable as they used tobe. To keep something as ‘the first’, therefore, means to do it only once,or, in the case of a ‘phase’, to do the things included in this phase only aslong as they feel like a ‘first’ – which of course turns this phase into a veryshort-lived one, because sooner or later everything becomes a repetition(of x and y) rather than ‘the first’ (x and y).

Hence, if one does not want to continue ‘the first’ (because one wants toretain the uniqueness of the event, a uniqueness which depends on its notbeing repeated), one has no choice but to abandon it when the moment isover, keeping it as a cherished memory rather than as a living present. Andif we think of ‘the first’ as ‘the first phase of love’, the paradox becomeseven clearer. If ‘the first’ cannot be continued in time, then the only way tocontinue to have ‘first-ness’ is by entering a new situation which has a ‘first’of its own. But when it comes to love, entering a new situation in which ‘thefirst’ will indeed be the first (as the aesthete demands) means to find, eachtime anew, a different object of love. Accordingly, to give ‘the first’ itsaesthetic significance necessarilymeans that the object of one’s love cannotremain the same and that, ultimately, means that the desired thing is not somuch the beloved but rather the (excitement of the) situation. As theJudge puts it: ‘[w]hen you say that the first kiss is the sweetest, the mostbeautiful, you are insulting the beloved, for then it is time and its qualifi-cation that give the kiss absolute worth’ (EO2, 126).

How can this paradox be solved? Can we both retain the beauty and thevalue of ‘the first’ – preventing the inevitable loss of ‘first-ness’ – and yet lovein a way which is not confined to fragmented, scattered, dispersed experi-ences of love? Or, to put it differently: what is the ethical response to theloss – the loss of ‘the first’ in particular, but also the essential loss inherent tolove in general – that threatens one’s love? The Judge believes that theethical is the answer to the paradox of ‘the first’. The ethical, according tothe Judge, entails taking part in the universal (i.e. social) realm, where onechooses to engage in a task that gives continuity and meaning to one’s life.Thus, the secret is to turn the momentary ‘first’ – that as such cannotbecome something more than an ideal (as this kind of love vanishes


upon being realized) – into an actuality. And in turn, says the Judge, the‘first’, the moment, becomes an eternity: ‘[i]t is an eternity in which thetemporal has not disappeared as an ideal element, but in which it iscontinually present as real element’ (EO2, 137–8). While the aesthetic‘first’ is more dramatic in the sense that it can easily receive an external,artistic expression (a longing glance or a passionate kiss can be more easilycaptured in a moment and depicted aesthetically), marital love lives itsdrama in the continuation of time. The married man, says the Judge, ‘hasnot fought with lions and trolls but with the most dangerous enemy, whichis time’ (EO2, 138). However, his marital love, to repeat the point quotedabove, has not only ‘its enemy in time’, but also – andmost importantly – ‘itsvictory in time and its eternity in time’ (EO2, 139). It seems, then, that theJudge believes that the ethical response to the aesthetic paradox of ‘thefirst’ is a transfiguration of ‘the first’ into an ‘eternity in time’. In order tounderstand better what this might mean, we need to turn our attention tothe ethical theory expressed in the Judge’s second letter.

Resisting loss rationally18

The life of the aesthete – as expressed, for example, in his attitude to loveand to ‘the first’ – is fragmented, dominated by spontaneous responses todesires and momentary fancies and inclinations. This life lacks continuityor any unifying principle to give it harmony and meaning, since theaesthete is reluctant to engage in any committing activity. In Kierkegaardand the Limits of the Ethical, Anthony Rudd delineates this inconsistency inthe aesthete’s life-narrative as leading to despair. The aesthetic despair isrooted in a lack of personal identity (involving persistency and activelymaintaining roles commitment), which is vital for a sense of stability andmeaning in one’s life:

For one’s life to acquire this continuity, for one todevelop apersonal identity,it is necessary to commit oneself to projects. To embark on a significantproject, from which one does not ‘sheer off’ when the whim takes one, is togive one’s life at least some aspect of secure narrative structure.19

18 The ethical man, as will be demonstrated here, is paradigmatic of someone whomaintains aHegelian world view. However, in essence he actually represents a more generalphilosophical-rational state of mind. In his views he exemplifies a belief (typical of thephilosophy of the Enlightenment) in the ability of human understanding, and a will topossess an all-encompassing grasp of the world and to solve existential problems completelywith the power of human rationality alone.

19 Rudd 1993: 93.

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And he continues: ‘It seems that most – if not all – projects that aresignificant enough to give one’s life a purpose and meaning will involveat least some degree of social interaction, and will therefore have somekind of social definition.’20 Giving one’s life meaning, then, entails get-ting involved in projects, becoming engaged in tasks that posit a purposeand goal for one’s actions andmanner of living. And indeed, projects andtasks are not maintained in a vacuum – they gain their meaning in a socialcontext. There is a clear mutual relationship between acquiring a per-sonal identity and becoming a part of society.

Now, becoming a part of society as a means to fulfilling oneself is thehallmark of Hegelian morality. In Hegel’s philosophy, as Rudd explains,‘[m]an finds his true fulfilment not in the abstraction of Kantianmorality,but in conformity to the laws and customs of society – but a society that haslearnt to understand the value of the individual’.21 The locus of value inan individual, which needs to be ‘learnt to be understood’, is his freedom–and freedom is precisely the subject of the Judge’s second letter.

The central issue of this letter is the meaning of either-or; the meaningof choosing. Making a choice is a crucial ingredient in the development ofone’s character, of one’s personality. It is important to understand thatthe determining factor from the Judge’s point of view is not the contentof one’s choice (which is a question that can only subsequently beaddressed), but rather the act of choosing, whereby one constitutes one-self as a free agent:

But what is it then that I choose – is it this or that? No, for I chooseabsolutely, and I choose absolutely precisely by having chosen not tochoose this or that. I choose the absolute, and what is the absolute? It ismyself in my eternal validity … But what is this self of mine? … It is themost abstract of all, and yet in itself it is also the most concrete of all – it isfreedom. (EO2, 214)

The point regarding either-or, then, ‘is not so much a matter of choosingbetween willing good or willing evil as of choosing to will’ (EO2, 169).22

Choosing to will, choosing to choose, constitutes me as an ethical personbecause I thereby take responsibility for and control over my life (I am not

20 Ibid., 94.21 Ibid., 16.22 That is, choosing in a serious way that defines one’s identity and forms one as a responsible,

self-committing agent. For an illuminating discussion of the Kierkegaardian ethical choicesee John Davenport’s ‘TheMeaning of Kierkegaard’s Choice between the Aesthetic and theEthical: A Response to MacIntyre’, in Davenport and Rudd 2001.


a passive recipient of external forces) – I discover myself as a free personwho has the capability of shaping his life and bestowing meaning upon it.Therefore, this absolute freedom discovered in the act of choosing is notan abstract factor in my life, a rational conclusion arrived at after deepcontemplation. The meaning of being absolutely free takes shapethrough acting. And acting (in this focused, will-committed way) amountsto becoming involved in projects and tasks, becoming a part of society.23

The insistence of the Judge on actualizing the individual’s absolutefreedom in the form of the ready-made models offered by society (such asmarriage) indicates his commitment to Hegelianism.24 To use MeroldWestphal’s eloquent assertion: ‘Nothing could be more Hegelian thanthe move by which Judge William makes the meaning of marriage the keyto the ethical sphere.’25 We may therefore say that the connection drawnby the Judge between choosing, eternal validity, and freedom articulateshis Hegelian understanding as to the way in which eternal truth is embod-ied in society.26 Accordingly, an initial answer to the question regardingthe meaning of ‘gaining eternity in time’ (and therefore defeating tem-porality) seems to emerge: eternity is gained by the temporal individual byhis taking part in the truth embodied in society.

23 This is also, from the point of view of this position, what secures the ethical choice from‘willing evil’. Society is taken to be the realization of truth, of the human spirit that hasarrived at the highest stage of fulfilling itself as free and virtuous (see note 26 below).Choosing to become a part of such a society is thereby to will good.

24 This view is not uncontroversial. There is an interpretative debate regarding the extent ofthe Judge’s Hegelianism on the one hand and his affinity to the Kierkegaardian religiousbeliever on the other. (See, for example, Carlisle 2005; Davenport 2008; Davenport andRudd 2001.)

25 Westphal 1998: 106.26 The Hegelian connection between society, ethical truth, and freedom can be briefly

explained as follows. Hegel believed that the historical process in which consciousness hasbecome self-consciousness (thus understanding that it is absolutely free: everything is part ofit, nothing limits it from the ‘outside’) – has reached its culmination, i.e. its end. Spirit (thehuman mind and understanding) is free: it understands that it is actually identical with theworld. Human spirit has arrived at the point of having a total possession of ‘absoluteknowledge’ since it understands that ‘truth’ consists in Spirit’s self-understanding.Accordingly, since Spirit is now free and total, its realization of itself in the present societyis the ultimate realization. Themorality maintained and required by a society established byfree Spirit is truth itself, and therefore the free individual who is a part of the society knowsthat there is a correspondence between his self-realization and his becoming a member ofthat society. In other words, the individual knows that the way to realize himself – to fulfilhimself – is to become a part of society, to become assimilated into society. After all, this(namely, society’s structure, duties, and roles) is the ‘site’ in which truth itself (namely, freeSpirit that knows itself) is embodied.

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Now, as Michael Weston explains, the metaphysical project (that inKierkegaard’s view began with Plato’s philosophy and culminated in thatofHegel) has fourmain features: aiming at finality and totality, consideringitself as prior to and necessary for any other intellectual (spiritual orscientific) activity, seeing itself as autonomous, and operating in themode of self-reflection – ‘thus [having] the character of “recollection”’.27

The Judge – who believes in self-fulfilment through assimilation into soci-ety, who has confidence in his absolute autonomy and adopts an optimisticview which does away with every element of pain, fear, or uncertainty – fitsvery well the profile of the philosopher. Indeed, the Judge criticizes thephilosophers, saying that ‘[p]hilosophy turns toward the past… itmediatesandmediates. It seems tome, however, that it does not answer the questionI am asking, for I am asking about the future’ (EO2, 170). However, as wehave just seen, the ‘future’ in which the Judge is interested amounts tobecoming a part of the already-established society. The ‘future’, therefore,is a ‘closed’, known future – already achieved in the past (at the point ofhistory at which it was established), and manifested in the status quo of thepresent. The understanding of this future-present, therefore, requires arecollection of the past. After all, society as a genuine expression of ‘abso-lute freedom’ (i.e. of the eternal Spirit, of truth)may be fully understood assuch only when one knows – when one recollects – world-history (i.e. theprocess of the Spirit’s development). This world-history is of course thepast, which leads dialectically to the ideal future-present.

The Judge does not criticize the philosophical aspiration to achieveabsolute freedom, totality, and autonomy – he criticizes only the method bywhich this aspiration is taken up. In this the Judge is revealed as having falleninto the same mistake which he attributes to the philosopher. By directingoneself at a ‘truth’ already known and achieved (i.e. the eternity of Spirit asembodied in social institutions such as marriage), one is actually preoccu-piedwith the act of recollection. The struggle is over and truth is arrived at inthe manner of the established society; the threat of time, loss, and death isonly a memory for the Spirit which has accomplished the movement of self-realization, and now reposes in an eternal tranquillity of self-knowledge.When truth is thus defined, and when arriving at this truth is the goal, lifebecomes a movement directed at the past (due to its aspiration to recon-struct this once-and-for-all, historical truth), and the individual becomessomeone who focuses more on rational, perfect ideals than on mundane,imperfect concreteness. Life, then, turns into one of recollection.

27 See Weston 1994: 6


From a phenomenological point of view, the picture emerging fromthe Judge’s didactic speech lacks the ability to provide a satisfactoryaccount of human existence. Although he identifies the problems asso-ciated with the aesthetic way of life quite impressively, the answers he givesignore the complexity of human existence in time and, in particular, thepressing problem of loss. In his view, truth – absolute freedom, the goodlife, the perfect love – is here at hand: ready to use and simple to reach.Becoming a part of the universal, a part of society, is the key to a full andsatisfying life, regardless of the non-individual nature of this ‘solution’and its (necessarily correlative) ignorance of any personal, private expe-rience of loss, fear, and death (actual or potential).

Indeed, the ethical account of life and love is different from theaesthetic account, and it offers a more developed and desirable under-standing of genuine relationship, in which the lover makes an honesteffort to recognize an ideal of goodness regarding his relationship, and toadhere and commit his will to this ideal.28However, the failure involved infulfilling such a relationship, in as much as this failure amounts to mistreatingthe passage of time by resorting to recollection, is ultimately the same as theaesthetic one. From the point of view of the problem that concerns ushere – namely, the loss (essentially inherent in our existence as temporalcreatures) that posits an imminent threat to our loves – both the aesthetic andthe ethical solutions are eventually unsatisfying.

The aesthetic ‘solution’ is to attach oneself to immediacy, creating a falseeternity that collapses into itself, becoming – instead of a transcendenteternity – an extended recollection. In his fear of the future (because it isthe loss of the immediate, of the present), the aesthete turns his life into ahuge gallery of recollections. Since the cherished, immediate moment isnot allowed to have a future (so to speak), the only way to keep one’s holdon it is through recollection – a movement directed at the past.

And the ethical ‘solution’ (as far as the problem of loss is concerned) isno better. The ethical Judge reduces the open future into a ‘closed’ present(by finding one’s fulfilment, one’s task, in pursuing an anticipated paththat has already been paved for him by society), thus preventing an indi-vidual search which might lead to a yet-unknown conclusion. And so whilethe aesthete tries to avoid the loss associated with his temporality by holdingto immediacy, and thus actually falling into recollection – the ethical manholds fast to himself. In his submission to the rational understanding ofeternal ideals, and in believing himself to have fulfilled these ideals by

28 See again note 15 above.

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becoming a part of society, the ethical man holds fast to the delusion thathe has conquered loss and temporality, while in fact he has been preoccu-pied with recollection. His eternity is as false as the aesthetic one. It existsonly in his rational, contemplative accounts; it never faces his private,phenomenological experience of living, and loving, in time.

The Judge, then, no less than his aesthetic friend, is deeply immersedin recollection. And recollection, ultimately, amounts to the attempt todeny the loss essential to one’s life and in particular to one’s love, anddistract one away from it. Denying the loss is manifested in the aestheticattempt to create a world independent of the passage and ruling of time –a world of fantasy, for example, or a world of artistic creation such aspoetry. And in the ethical life this denial is manifested in the rationalconfidence that one has conquered loss and gained a secure ‘eternity intime’. Now, we saw how recollection shapes the aesthetic love. How does itshape the ethical love?

The Judge’s love of recollection

The great nineteenth-century novel Middlemarch tells the story ofDorothea Brooke, who tried honestly to maintain a perfect marriagewith the pompous, unloving Mr Casaubon, whom she had willingly (andeven ardently) chosen as her husband. The conclusion she arrives at,however, is quite grim:

Marriage is so unlike everything else. There is something even awful in thenearness it brings. Even if we loved some one else better than – than thosewe were married to, it would be no use … I mean, marriage drinks up allour power of giving or getting any blessedness in that sort of love. I know itmay be very dear – but it murders our marriage – and then our marriagestays with us like a murder – and everything else is gone.29

In his letters to his aesthete friend, the Judge expresses the confidencethat he has found the secret recipe for the happiest, most fulfilling love.He believes that by the determination of his will, and by choosing right, hehas conquered all the possible difficulties of love. This is how he describesthe ideal lover (i.e. himself):

He has perceived that it was an insult and consequently ugly to want to lovea person according to vague forces in his being but not according to a clear

29 Eliot 2000: 797. Dorothea says these words upon acknowledging that despite her earnestefforts she had actually fallen in love with someone else.


consciousness, to want to love in such a way that he could imagine it possiblethat this love could cease…Hehas perceived that it was an insult to want to beattached to another person in the way one is attached to finite and acci-dental things, conditionally, so that if there should prove to be problemslater one could undo it. He does not believe it possible that the one he loves canchange, except for the better, and if it should happen he believes in the power of therelationship to make everything good again. (EO2, 301, emphasis mine)

According to this utopian vision there are no problems, no possiblechanges in the love or in the beloved, and no obstacles that a determined(and rational) relationship cannot overcome. It seems that the Judgeignores the possibility that a marriage, in spite of being willed and decidedupon by the two parties involved, can fail. But if marriage, once decidedupon, cannot fail, can one really affirm it (as the Judge claims to be doing)?How can sustaining a relationship of love be truly valued, if one does notaccept the possibility ofnot always being able to hold on to this relationship?How can the complacent self-assurance of the Judge not lead him to thekind of marriage in which the partners – who are so sure that the marriageis safe and secure – take their love, and each other, for granted?

[T]he way that marriage becomes legitimate is by its being chosen, butthis can happen only if one acknowledges the dialectical possibility ofdivorce. The possibility that the bonds of marriage are ever subject tobeing broken tells us that their bonding effect is something we are calledon to decide, and to decide continually. A legitimate marriage is a con-tinuous remarriage, a continuous commitment of ourselves to what is oursto refuse.30

Basing his model of ‘legitimate marriage’ on the principle guiding him informing ‘an existential faith’ – namely, that the affirmation of somethinghas meaning only against the background of rejecting it (a ‘yes’ is a ‘yes’only if we know what ‘no’ means) – Ronald L. Hall justly claims that for amarriage to be valid, the partners should acknowledge the real option ofdivorce.31 ‘What makes the security of such a marriage different from thejudge’s’, he says, ‘is that it is a security established within the full awarenessof the possibility of divorce. As I see it, divorce is, for the judge, not even aremote possibility, not to mention a real and wrenching existentialthreat.’32

30 Hall 2000: 143.31 I elaborate on Hall’s interpretation of faith in chapter 3.32 Hall 2000: 82–3.

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I agree with Hall that it seems that for the Judge a divorce, or any otherbreak in the love, is not a possibility. And indeed, if one knows a priori theanswer to the question one asks – in what sense is the question a real one?In the same manner, if the marital freedom is the freedom to choose onlyone path – where is the freedom? Therefore, when the Judge declares thatthe ethical view of marriage ‘sees the relationship as the absolute andtherefore looks upon love according to its true beauty – that is, accordingto its freedom’ (EO2, 305), we cannot but wonder whether he is beinghonest with himself. Maybe he ignores the fact that the picture of mar-riage is more complicated than the one that he wishes to acknowledge?33

There is something immodest and lacking in humility in the Judge’sconfidence. He seems proudly to disregard human limitations and thehuman susceptibility to acting wrongly, stumbling, and sinning.34

In their essay ‘Erotic Love in the Religious Existence-Sphere’ Greenand Ellis point out this problem. Judge William, they say, ‘does nottypically bring sin, guilt or repentance into relation to the ethical realityof marriage. Marriage’s challenge resides for him primarily in the ethicaldecision to commit to another person.’35 Accordingly, the Judge does nottake into account ‘the real stresses that threaten marital continuity’.36

These are stresses such as ‘infidelity on the part of either partner … thesense that the beloved has become hostile or alienated … changes in thebeloved (or the self) that are extensive enough to raise the question ofwhether either is any longer really the same person to whom one haspledged eternal devotion’.37 Stresses of this kind indeed pose a realthreat, which is completely ignored by the Judge. The latter does nothave even the slightest doubt that his ‘feelings about love or [his]beloved’ – despite his choice – ‘may change’.38

33 It is true that choosing honestly x (choosing to marry, for example) amounts to focusing onx and investing emotions and energy and goodwill in this choice in a way that makes turningback to not-x harder. In that sense the Judge is right when he focuses his attention on theone path that has been chosen. However, even if once choosing x the path leading to itsannulment becomes narrower, this does not justify ignoring the possibility of this pathcoming true nevertheless. Here I completely agree with Hall that for truly validating (andvaluing) choice x, onemust continually take into account the possibility that this choice willbe annulled (either by one’s own will or by the will of someone – or something – else).

34 In chapter 6 below I will discuss Kubrick’s film Eyes Wide Shut (and Schnitzler’s novellaDreamStory which inspired it) as a vivid example of ethical naıvety and the unavoidability of itsfailure.

35 Green and Ellis 1999: 352.36 Ibid., 357.37 Ibid., 356.38 Ibid., 366.


Another effective criticism of the Judge is brought by Amy Laura Hallwho emphasizes the invisibility of the Judge’s (unnamed) wife. We neverhear her opinions, we know hardly anything about her and, indeed, onehas to admit that for someone in love the Judge speaks very little about her.Whenever he does speak about her, it is in relation to himself – he mostlyspeaks of the benefits that her existence as his wife bestows upon him. Hallmakes a good point when she claims that the hubristic, self-centredperspective of the Judge does not allow him to see his wife as a realother, separated and independent of him. Rather, Hall claims, theJudge sees her only as far as she revolves around his needs and desires.Not only does he take for granted that she is preoccupied from morningto evening with domestic tasks that concern his well-being, he sees in herhis ‘saviour’: ‘William lauds his wife as his “salvation” – as the means bywhich he is able to “centralize” and “acquire” himself.’39 In a mannersimilar to that of Green and Ellis, Hall warns against the confidence of theJudge that his love relationship will remain intact, and she foresees theday in which he will be forced to face his delusional love and the othernessof his wife:

Currently hemay know that he is ‘everything to his wife’ andmay think his‘consciousness’ resolutely ‘integrated’, but William’s treatise assumes thatthis will continue to be the case… if his wife eventually refuses carefully tocontort her form to fit his mood, William’s esteem for her and his hope of‘salvation’ through her may collapse.40

Having said that, however, we should not dismiss the Judge’s world view asentirely wrong and unfounded.41 As opposed to Hall’s reading, I thinkthat the portrait he presents is not an entirely distorted one – rather, it isincomplete.42 The Judge needs to go through a painful process of edifi-cation – but his love is not hopeless, it is only naıve. At the same time,there is indeed something vital that is missing in his love, and the variouscriticisms presented above clearly indicate this. The main problem with

39 See Hall 2002: 113, 117.40 See ibid., 130. Despite my agreement with Hall on this point, I think that her overall

understanding of Kierkegaardian love is quite problematic. See my discussion of her viewin chapter 4.

41 As already emphasized above, I acknowledge that despite failing in committing the samemistake of ‘recollection-hood’ as the aesthete, the Judge’s failure might be easier to correctbecause he holds a view of life, and of love, which is more advanced than that of the aesthete.Thus, he might well be more prepared for advancing to the next, and required, stage ofresignation.

42 This reading is similar to Hannay’s: see Hannay 1982: 80–2.

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the Judge’s position is that it encourages a state of mind which is obliviousto the need to carry out themovement of resignation. In the next chapterswe will see what resignation (and its counterpart, self-denial) actuallymeans and how it is connected to loss, but we can already observe thatthe Judge’s self-deluded view blinds him to the possibility of loss. Hisdepiction of love is too perfect, too brightly clear – but love is not likethat. Love involves pain, and sacrifices, and anxieties. Love can be darkand complicated, and it definitely does not amount to only sheer joy: ithurts to love. Those aspects of love (not to mention its demons) arecompletely absent in the Judge’s account of love. Being absent from theaccount of love, however, does not mean that they are defeated andremoved from (the experience of) love itself. And this is the point atwhich the demonic raises its head.

4 Rebellion against the ethical: the demonic lover

[I]f a marriage could be built despite my inclosing reserve, then thisunion is indeed my wish … and yet I cannot renounce my inclosingreserve for that reason. (SLW, 369, 373)

In Stages on Life’s Way we are introduced to the diary of someone – aQuidam – whose story depicts a demonic love. While the Judge believesthat determination of thewill and choosing tomarry are enough to secure asatisfying love, Quidam the demonic and his tortured diary thoroughlycomplicate the optimistic love-view of ethical rationality. Quidam is not anaesthete – hewants tomarry and he chooses tomarry. Unlike the aesthete, hewould have liked to adhere to the ethical ideal of love. He sees the beautyand attractiveness of a secure and committed love that someone such as theJudge advances, and he seeks the ethical continuity of love. He deeply wantsto take a part in the utopia offered by the Judge and to succeed in livingpeacefully with himself, with his beloved, and with the threats of loss (as theJudge claims to bedoing). But he fails. He cannot fulfil the love relationshiphe desires, he cannot proceed with the engagement andmarry theQuadamwhom he loves. This failure stems from the demonic in him, which rebelsagainst the ethical solution to the problem of loss.

Being demonic, Quidam objects to the ethical hubristic position; to itspresumption to overcome loss. Being demonic, he is too sensitive to theunyielding nature of loss, and is well aware of the threats overshadowinglove. He understands that love is insecure, that there are many powers –external and internal alike – that work against love. In other words, he sees


all too vividly the obstacles standing in the way of love, and is defeated bythem. Moreover, the distinctive characteristic of the demonic lover is thathe becomes obsessed with the various obstacles in the way of loving. Hebecomes obsessed with the essential loss that threatens love, and with hisfailure to reconcile himself with this loss, to learn how to love in spite of it.The demonic lover surrenders to failure, thus actualizing the essential loss(by, for example, breaking off the relationship, sinning against thebeloved, driving the beloved away). Failing to overcome the obstacles,he demonically rejoices, or at least indulges, in them. He sets all hisdemons free, as it were – he lets his fears, weaknesses, conflicting desires(and other demonic powers) condemn his love to loss.

Quidam’s diary is a reflection of the demonic failure to fulfil the ethicalideal, and it demonstrates how his defeat in the confrontation withessential loss (namely, his demonic inability to accept the essential losswhich threatens love; his demonic refusal to reconcile himself to thisloss) turns the loss from potentiality to actuality. Quidam breaks off hisengagement to Quadam, and the diary is a documentation of his hauntedmind. It presents the self-torturing attempt of Quidam to justify his act, byasking himself over and over again ‘Am I guilty or not guilty (in behavingin this way, which has caused her – and myself – misery and pain)?’Quidam thinks that he might not be guilty after all: his reason for break-ing the engagement was not a whimsical fancy in the aesthetic manner,but rather a secret that he cannot disclose to her. However, despite thecentrality of that mysterious secret to the broken engagement (it is thissecret that allegedly stands between him and his girl; between his will tomarry her and the possibility of doing so) – the diary never spells out whatthe secret actually is. And it does not do so because, ultimately, theparticular secret of Quidam is not what really matters. It does not matterwhat the secret is, it matters what it indicates. The specific secret is but amanifestation of themore fundamental inability of the demonic to acceptthe essential loss (in the form of various obstacles and difficulties) whichthreatens his love.43

43 The meaning of the beloved being essentially lost to Quidam is that his hold on her istentative: her presence and her love are not something that he can absolutely secure. In orderto share his secret with the beloved, then, Quidam would need to accept her as tentativelyheld – as vital to him and yet not truly ‘his’. For example, her knowledge of his secret mightchange her attitude towards him, causing her to lose respect and love for him, and even toleave him. It is this tension, of loving without truly having a secure hold of the beloved, thatQuidam is unable to sustain. The essence of his demonic love concerns this inability, ratherthan the presence of some particular dark secret or other.

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Quidam, we saw in the quotation above, refers to his secret (that is, towhat he understands as the obstacle preventing him from marryingQuadam) as an ‘inclosing reserve’.44 This term testifies that the demoniclover, despite seeing the shortcomings of recollection’s love (whether inits aesthetic or ethical form), cannot break through this kind of love. Hisfocus on himself in the manner of ‘inclosing reserve’ renders him amember of the club of lovers who love by way of recollection. Like hisfellow recollection-lovers he is incapable of transcending himself andinitiating a genuine relationship with another. He is closed within himself(this, after all, is what it means to be inclosed) and so precludes thepossibility of being in a relationship; he is closed within himself and cannotopen himself to any other.

In The Concept of Anxiety an explicit connection is specified between thetwo notions: ‘[t]he demonic’, it says, ‘is inclosing reserve’ (CA, 123, empha-sis in the text).45 Now, the content of ‘inclosing reserve’ can be ‘the mostterrible, the most insignificant, the horrible, whose presence in life fewprobably even dream about, but also the trifles to which no one paysattention’ (CA, 126–7). The ‘inclosing reserve’ – that is, the demonicfailure to love – is therefore not somuch about a particular secret (or evena particular deed). Rather, it amounts to an inner obstacle, a limit thatimprisons the self and does not let one fulfil one’s love (and thus it can beeither a ‘most terrible’ obstacle or just a ‘trifle’).46 To be inclosed is toattend to the demonic powers within one: the powers which refuse tofollow the ethical solution and rationally ignore the loss, but at the sametime also object to a resigned acceptance of the loss. Therefore, in order toovercome the ‘inclosing reserve’, a leap beyond recollection is needed – aleap into the religious sphere:

his inclosing reserve contains nothing at all but is there as the frontier,and it holds him, and at present he is depressed in his reserve… inclosingreserve can scarcely be taken from the reserved person and there is no realhealing for him except religiously within himself. (SLW, 428, emphasismine)

44 It is important to emphasize that ultimately, it is not the secret that ruins the love but ratherQuidam’s inability to disclose this secret in resignation and repentance. The connectionbetween the demonic, resignation, and repentance will be explained in chapter 6.

45 On the link between the demonic in The Concept of Anxiety and Quidam see Gonzalez 2000.46 However, submitting oneself to the demonic (rather than trying to overcome it) indeed leads

to one acting in a problematic way (that may terminate love, for example), and amounts tobeing in a state of sin. The connection between the demonic and sin will be considered inchapter 6.


However, the demonic fails to carry out the religious requirement andmove forward into a different sphere of existence. Surrendering himselfto the demonic powers in him, then, the demonic lover is immersed inrecollection. He can therefore only look yonder, at the horizon beyondrecollection, but as long as he chooses the demonic he is inclosed withinhimself and cannot break through. Breaking through beyond thedemonic, beyond recollection, requires a profound change of heart andmind and a submission to the demanding requirement of the movement ofresignation.

Of the various lovers of the sphere of recollection, the demonic comesclosest to representing the essential condition of a human lover. Baffledby the struggle between the aesthetic and the ethical powers in him,coming up against his limitations, failing to fulfil his love completelyand sometimes failing to fulfil his love even in part – of the three lovershe reflects most convincingly the struggle of love.47 The demonic loverseeks a way out of his present condition and, in this sense, he is a border-line figure as it were – he is deeply immersed in recollection (in the pre-religious sphere) but he sees its shortcomings. He is therefore lookingfurther. He aspires to transcend recollection, but to do this he needs toundertake the demanding, painful movement of resignation, and such anundertaking, as we shall see in the next chapter, is far from easy.

The demonic lover, then, stands on the verge of the religious sphere. If,indeed, he manages to leap beyond recollection (by making the move-ment of resignation), he will be facing new possibilities for love: thesepossibilities will be presented and explored in the next four chapters.Having inquired into the different forms of love in the religious sphere, inthe sixth and last chapter of this study we shall return to the demoniclover, this time in the form of the intriguing figure of the Merman in Fearand Trembling.

47 The demonic, in his attempt to address the loss threatening love, is well aware of the tensionbetween aesthetic sensitivity (to the moment and its passing desires), and ethical higheraspirations (to continuity and universal ideals). Now, as the common lover is usually neithera pure aesthete nor a sheer ethicist but rather someone who wavers between the attitudesrepresented by these two protagonists, it is reasonable to suggest that the demonic comesclosest to representing such a lover. At the same time, the demonic is, by contrast with thecommon lover, highly conscious of the struggle within himself, and of his frustrated andunhappy condition. In this the demonic may be standing in a higher position than such acommon lover: he knows and acknowledges that something is wrong; he is painfully aware ofthe misery infusing his unsatisfying state.

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2

THE SORROWFUL LOVER

1 Fear and Trembling and the concept of resignation

Introduction

[The knight of resignation] infinitely renounces the love that is thesubstance of his life, he is reconciled in pain. (FT, 46)

, The concept of resignation is presented in Fear and Trembling as anessential part of Kierkegaard’s analysis of faith. Fear and Trembling, whichwas published in 1843 and is probably the best known of Kierkegaard’sworks, tells the story of the Binding in a strikingly unusual way. It discussesthe structure of Abraham’s faith, and characterizes it as a paradoxical doublemovement. The two movements, of resignation and of faith, and the para-doxical relation between them, are the core of Fear and Trembling: this is thebasis on which Kierkegaard construes his famous polemical discussionregarding the ‘teleological suspension of the ethical’ (‘Problema I’) andits implications (‘Problema II’ and ‘Problema III’). However, most of thereadings and interpretations of Fear and Trembling tend to overlook thesignificance of this fundamental analysis of faith (which constitutes almosthalf of the book), and rush to address the problem of the three‘Problemas’.1 It is not surprising then, that along with the movement of

1 The notable exceptions areMooney, Hall and Lippitt, whose readings will be discussed in thenext chapter.

46

resignation, the knight of resignation is also pushed aside – and so is hispainful love for a princess. But before doing justice to this love story (as wellas to the concept of resignation which is crucial for a correct understandingof faith), there is a need to say a few words on the supposed author of Fearand Trembling, that is, the pseudonym Johannes de Silentio.2

Johannes the obscure: the loud voice of the silent one

Johannes de Silentio (whom I shall refer to simply as Johannes) – thename, or rather the persona, under which Kierkegaard chose to presentFear and Trembling – is someone associated with silence. As his nameindicates, he is someone who in some sense cannot, or does not, speak.Johannes, of course, does speak (otherwise there would be no book to bediscussed); his declared silence, therefore, refers to his inability to under-stand Abraham. He claims, most persistently, that he cannot understandAbraham, cannot understand the knight of faith, cannot, therefore,understand faith. But should we take his word at face value? MaybeJohannes understands more than he wishes to admit? After all, he claimsnot to understand but, surprisingly, he has a lot to say about faith – awhole book, to be precise (and indeed a very rich and condensed one!).To begin with, Johannes can recognize a knight of faith: he knows thatAbraham is a knight and he is very fluent when it comes to defining hisknighthood. Johannes knows how to tell the difference between resigna-tion and faith, and he even has something very interesting to say about thenature of the relationship between these two movements. So why doesJohannes present himself as someone who does not understand, when hisbook provides written evidence against this claim?

A plausible suggestion may be that the failure that Johannes is preoc-cupied with is not one of understanding faith, or of giving an accurateaccount of it. It is rather a failure in performing it. Johannes does notunderstand howAbrahamwas capable of performing the wondrousmove-ment of faith. However, the fact that Johannes himself is not someonewho has faith does not make his understanding of faith – or rather theunderstanding of faith that emerges from his text without his willing to

2 This is a pressing matter because the pseudonymity of the work is too often taken to indicatethe alleged problematic status of Fear and Trembling as an unreliable source for assessingKierkegaard’s understanding of faith. I will discuss briefly the issue of the pseudonymouswritings in chapter 5 below, but since the weight I give to Fear and Trembling’s account ofresignation, faith, and love is evident already at this stage, it is important to clarify the reasonsfor regarding Johannes de Silentio as someone whose views deserve serious attention.

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admit it – inadequate or deficient. We can learn a lot about faith fromJohannes’ account, even if he himself is not someone who lives up to hismodel (and in a Kierkegaardian fashion we can say that this is the same asin the case of love: we can learn a lot about love from the account of aheartbroken lover who attempts to love but fails).

Now, there are commentators who do take Johannes’ word and believehim that he does not, and cannot, understand faith.3 What Johannes hasto say about faith, according to these readings, is therefore necessarilylacking. Johannes is an outsider who is lacking something importantabout faith; something such as an understanding of sin:

To really understand the positive character of the religious life, includingof course faith, one must understand sin, but Climacus says that nopseudonymous book prior to The Concept of Anxiety manifested such anunderstanding … From this it follows that it is a mistake to take Fear andTrembling as giving us a positive account of faith.4

Evans, of course, does not dismiss altogether the importance of the text.The significance that he finds in the story of Abraham (and especially inJohannes’ account of it) is that of showing us that ‘a person of faith is aperson who has a direct and personal relationship with God’ and that ‘it isat least possible for God to encounter a person directly, not simplythrough social ideals, and that such an encounter can provide a newself, a new identity, and a new understanding of the purpose of humanexistence’.5 However, the text as a whole is only ‘a poetic anticipation ofthe situation of the Christian believer’ and ‘[s]ince it is poetry, one shouldnot look to the story for detailed information about the character ofChristian existence’.6 In other words, Evans suggests that for an adequate,positive model of faith we should look elsewhere, not in Fear and Trembling.

A similar direction is manifested in the reading of StephenMulhall, whothinks that the absence of sin, from Johannes’ account as well as fromAbraham’s life, renders Fear and Trembling – and the model embodied inthe figure of Abraham – insufficient for a valid understanding of faith:‘Whereas Abraham, according to de Silentio, did not become the singleindividual by way of sin, Christianity teaches that the only way to God is

3 See, for example, Jackson’s criticism of Johannes de Silentio, whom he takes to be distant inhis opinions and understanding from Kierkegaard himself (Jackson 1999: 192–200).

4 Evans 1993: 22.5 Ibid., 23.6 Ibid.


through sin – through recognizing our sinfulness and our inability to over-come it through our own resources.’7

This kind of interpretation – which indicates an essential failing both inJohannes’ understanding of faith and in the faith he tries to understand –points to other texts (delivered by another Johannes), for the purpose ofunderstanding and edification:

At one point in Fear and Trembling, where Johannes de silentio says hedoesn’t understand Abraham, he also says that to understand him weneed a new category. This is almost certainly the Christian concept of faith(not Abraham’s) defined and elaborated at great length in PhilosophicalFragments and particularly Concluding Unscientific Postscript.8

Indeed, in the texts of Johannes Climacus (the Fragments and theirPostscript)a differentmodel of faith is presented: amodel that specifically includes thedistinctively Christian features of sin, God in time, the issue of eternalhappiness and so on. It is also true that these texts present Religiousness B(the distinctively Christian faith) as the highest, and that may lead to theconclusion that the faith of Abraham belongs more in the category ofReligiousness A.9 If such a conclusion is adopted then on the face of itFear and Trembling may seem like a problematic source to rely on for anadequate model of faith. My answer to such a possible objection is twofold.

First, one can ask about the extent and cruciality of the differencebetween these two models. Perhaps, after all, the difference betweenthem is not so profound or essential. For example, one of the moredecisive differences between Religiousness A and Religiousness B is thatthe former is characterized as ‘immanent’ (a religious consciousness thattakes into consideration only that which is in the realm of human will andpowers alone) while the latter is defined as ‘transcendent’ (a religiousconsciousness that manages to put its trust in that which is beyond therealm of human abilities, that is, divine intervention).10 However, asPattison points out, this distinction is not entirely accurate because wecan find, already in those writings that are ‘supposedly representative ofthe merely “immanent” form of religiousness’, ‘transcendent’ elements

7 Mulhall 2001: 386.8 Hannay 2003a: 32.9 For the relationship between Johannes de Silentio’s book and those of Johannes Climacusin terms of the different stages of life they occupy, see, for example, Westphal 1996 andEvans 1999.

10 ‘In Religiousness B, the upbuilding is something outside the individual; the individual doesnot find the upbuilding by finding the relationship with God within himself but relateshimself to something outside himself in order to find the upbuilding’. CUP, 561.


such as ‘the human need for repentance, for Grace’.11 Although Pattisonrefers here to the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, I think that his observationholds true with regard to other supposedly ‘religiously immanent’ writingsas well, among them Fear and Trembling. Also, another ‘charge’ against thelatter is its alleged ignorance regarding the issue of sin. It seems that thecrucial topic of sin and repentance, while central to the model ofReligiousness B, is quite marginal to the model of Fear and Trembling.However, this quite common interpretative view is based on the failure torecognize the pivotal role of the Merman in the story (and model) of faiththat Johannes tells us. TheMerman and his story – a story of romantic love –is the topic of the last chapter of the present study, and it is in that chapterthat I shall try to justify my understanding of the importance of sin alreadyfor the faith presented in Fear and Trembling. In the meantime, however, wemay say that at the very least, and despite their differences, there is noevident reason to think that there is something in the Postscript’smodel thatinvalidates the one of Fear and Trembling and, moreover, there are reasonsto consider the former as a specific manifestation of the latter.12

However, it is not my task here to compare the two models. At anyevent – and this is my second answer to the possible objection tomy takingFear and Trembling to be themain text from which to learn of faith – even ifthemodel of the Postscript goes beyond that of Fear and Trembling, and evenif it does indeed add new features that qualify it as a more accurate modelthan that of the faith praised by Johannes, the latter is rich enough toshow us something very interesting about our lives, and in particularabout the loves that give them a significant content. The faith ofAbraham, then, is definitely a topic worth discussing, and Johannes isdefinitely someone who does so. Which brings us back to our originalquestion: if Johannes has so much to say, why does he claim to be silent?

One way to settle the dissonance between Johannes’ (alleged) silenceand confusion and the fluency and insightfulness of the text is to see inJohannes the messenger from the motto, who does not understand themessage that he carries.13 In the light of such a reading Johannes is taken

11 Pattison 1991: 156.12 For an interesting discussion of the essence of Kierkegaard religiousness as not being

confined to (dogmatic) Christianity (hence, also, exceeding the Postscript’s ReligiousnessB) seeMooney’sOn Søren Kierkegaard: Dialogue, Polemics, Lost Intimacy, and Time, in particularthe first part ‘Kierkegaard: A Socrates in Christendom’.

13 The motto reads: ‘What Tarquinius Superbus said in the garden by means of the poppies,the son understood but the messenger did not’, quoting from Hamann. See, for example,Lippitt 2003: 177.


to represent the understanding of Kierkegaard’s contemporaries, whoheld a Hegelian conception with regard to faith – a limited conceptionthat indeed makes it impossible to understand Abraham. As AlastairHannay explains:

Johannes’s platform is still that of his (contemporary) readers … Reallywhat he uncovers is the extent of the inability of those who accept theHegelian principle to understand Abraham. But that is because the read-ers Kierkegaard has designed him for are wedded to that principle.Kierkegaard’s overriding aim is to divorce them from it, but he believesthat has to be done with their own consent and therefore with due regardto their own conceptual and attitudinal presuppositions.14

This reading may also explain why Kierkegaard chose to attribute hisinteresting ideas about faith, expressed in one of his most intenseworks, to Johannes the silent. Presumably, by doing so, he indicates thatit is Johannes – as a Hegelian or simply as someone who is not a believer –who does not (and cannot) understand Abraham (and faith). ButKierkegaard does – and so potentially can we.

I think that this reading is plausible and even compelling but, as Isuggested above, maybe we can think of Johannes as someone who doesunderstand after all, someone who chooses to present himself as silenteven though he can (and does) speak, someone who is closer toKierkegaard than we might at first be tempted to think. Maybe his non-silent silence, his refusal to spell out a less enigmatic account of faith, andwhat Mulhall calls his ‘confusion’ are rather intended, as Mulhall pointsout, ‘as a signal, all but unmissable, that he expects his readers to work alittle harder to earn their bread’.15 Keeping inmind who were the readersof Kierkegaard – the bourgeois society of believers who took themselves tounderstand what faith involves and to have progressed far beyond it (tothe realm of reason) – we can see the point of narrating the account offaith in the voice of someone who insists on faith’s unintelligibility.Kierkegaard wanted his readers to understand, to take a minute tothink, and to realize, how profoundly difficult it is really to have faith.Kierkegaard wanted his contemporaries to face and acknowledge the factthat faith is not the triviality that they believed they acquired simply by

14 Hannay 2003a: 31.15 Mulhall 2001: 368. The confusion Mulhall is referring to is Johannes’ position regarding

the literal: on the one hand, Johannes insists on a literal reading of the biblical text, on theother, he himself fails to do so and provides an inaccurate reading of the words thatAbraham uttered (see pp. 359–70).


virtue of being born Christians. And what can be more effective for thepurpose of demonstrating this than to create a protagonist who strugglesto understand faith?

2 Resignation: the relationship with the beloved16

Desire and loss17

Conceptually speaking, to describe an attitude as ‘resignation’ is eo ipso tosay something about the meaning and importance of the thing beingrenounced. Resignation truly counts as resignation only when we arerequested to give up something of importance to us. To renounce some-thing means that we have an interest in it – we do not renounce somethingthat we do not want. When we renounce something it has to be, bydefinition, something we want and have an interest in, it has to be some-thing that we desire. Resignation, therefore, is necessarily a difficult andpainful act. There is something that we want – a romantic relationshipwith a desired person, for example – and we have to ‘let it go’, to give it up,to not have it. Themore strongly we are attached, themore intense our willand the greater our interest – the more painful and difficult the resigna-tion. Such a story is told in Fear and Trembling:

A young lad falls in love with a princess, and this love is the entire substanceof his life, and yet the relationship is such that it cannot possibly be realized,cannot possibly be translated from ideality into reality. (FT, 41)

This young man, despite the advice of ‘the slaves of the finite, the frogs inthe swamp of life’ to take him ‘the rich brewer’s widow’ instead (see FT,41–2), does not want any substitute for the princess – he cannot love anyother woman. However, on the way to resignation, and before actuallyundertaking the movement, the lad honestly enquires into the status ofhis love. He wants to be sure that this love is indeed ‘the entire substanceof his life’ (i.e. a true, enduring love and not merely a fleeting infatua-tion); and that this love is indeed lost for him, a real impossibility:

16 I am deeply indebted to Ariel Meirav for his invaluable input regarding the understandingof resignation that I present in the rest of this chapter. His own work on the concept ofresignation, as well as his challenging comments onmy work, have significantly contributedto developing the ideas I present here.

17 It should be emphasized that in what follows I use the word ‘desire’ to indicate a strong andpassionate wanting of some particular thing. Thus, in its being focused and overriding will, itis different from the aesthetic desire, which is momentary and transient (and accordinglyalso unstable and quite feeble).


He examines the conditions of his life, he convenes the swift thoughts thatobey his every hint, like well-trained doves, he flourishes his staff, and theyscatter in all directions. But now when they all come back, all of them likemessengers of grief, and explain that it is an impossibility, he becomesvery quiet, he dismisses them, he becomes solitary, and then he under-takes the movement. (FT, 42)

In the previous chapter we characterized recollection’s love by means ofits distinguished response to loss (the essential loss involved in the passageof time, consisting both of actual and potential losses). Resignation’s lovealso emerges as a unique response to a loss, but here the loss is emphati-cally actual; the loss concerned is the actual loss of a princess.18 Now, theexperience of losing something exposes the way in which our will isrestricted by reality. When we lose something (especially something ofimportance to us), we feel the resistance that the world applies against us.There is something that we want which is taken away from us, and it istaken away from us despite our will and regardless of our efforts. Loss,then, is something external to us, something that is imposed on us,something beyond our control. We may therefore say that loss is anexternal event to which we respond, first and foremost, in an innermanner (by pain, anger, or denial, for instance). This inner response tothe loss, the inner attitude taken to it, is akin to what Kierkegaard regardsas a ‘movement’. Resignation, then, is an inner movement – a movementof the spirit, of the will – which can either be carried out as a response tothe loss, or not. But what kind of a response is it?

The knight, then, makes the movement, but which one? Will he forget itall … ? No, for the knight does not contradict himself, and it is a contra-diction to forget the whole substance of his life and yet remain the same…The knight, then, will recollect everything, but this recollection is pre-cisely the pain, and yet in infinite resignation he is reconciled withexistence. (FT, 43)

First of all, resignation does not amount to forgetfulness: the knightrenounces the princess but does not, by any means, forget her. Thisimplies that the knight continues to desire the princess, continues tolove her. He does not abjure his strong desire and does not deny hislove for her. Accordingly, his love is sorrowful: strongly desiring that whichis lost for him cannot but result in intense pain and sorrow. The pain that

18 However, it is important to emphasize that this does not mean that resignation is relevantonly when actual loss occurs. As we shall see in the next chapter, resignation is highlyrelevant also when the loss concerned is only a potential one.


characterizes resignation, then, indicates not only that the knight keepshis desire conscious and alive (‘this recollection is precisely the pain’), butalso that he fully accepts the loss of the princess, is fully reconciled to it. Heis ‘reconciled with existence’, Johannes says, and to be reconciled withexistence means precisely to accede to those aspects of existence thatresist one’s will; those aspects that disagree (as it were) with what onewishes, and hurt one. It means, in other words, to comply with theprofound imperfection of existence, an imperfection that expresses itselfin various forms of loss. Fully accepting this loss means that one does nottry to deny the loss or render it insignificant (by forgetting the lost thingor finding a substitute for it). And at the same time it also means to be atpeace with this painful existence – not to rebel against it or become bitterand angry with regard to it.

Resignation, then, is a unique response to the different losses that ourexistence essentially entails. In resignation we entirely accept the loss (say,of a princess), but at the same time we entirely continue to desire the lostthing and to suffer over its loss. Wemay say that in resignation we sustain a‘relationship’ of painful desire with the lost thing, the latter always belong-ing to the realm of actuality and finitude:

Spiritually speaking, everything is possible, but in the finite world there ismuch that is not possible … The desire that would lead [the knight] outinto actuality but has been stranded on impossibility, is now turnedinward, but it is not therefore lost, nor is it forgotten … He keeps thislove young, and it grows along with him in years and in beauty. But heneeds no finite occasion for its growth. From the moment he has madethe movement, the princess is lost. (FT, 44)

Johannes draws a clear distinction between the ‘external’ loss of the prin-cess and the ‘inner’ response to this loss, which is expressed in the move-ment of resignation. The latter does not consist in the loss of the desire andlove for the lost thing (it is not a loss of the spiritual, ‘inner’ relationship withthe princess), but it definitely amounts to accepting the loss of the thingdesired and loved (in other words, it is a loss of the concrete interactive,‘outer’ relationship with the princess). In resignation, although his love forthe princess is not lost, the princess herself (and the realization of arelationship with her) is wholeheartedly regarded as lost for him.

However, something further happens in resignation. Not only is theknight’s relationship with the finite deeply changed (from an actual holdon the princess into an inner connection of painful desire), but anotherrelationship, a relationship with the infinite, is created:


His love for that princess would become for him the expression of aneternal love, would assume a religious character, would be transfiguredinto a love of the eternal being, which true enough denied the fulfillmentbut nevertheless did reconcile him once more in the eternal conscious-ness of its validity in an eternal form that no actuality can take away fromhim. (FT, 43–4)

What does this transfiguration mean? First it is crucial to keep in mindwhat it does notmean. As we have just seen, renouncing the princess doesnot mean that the knight stops loving and desiring her. Therefore, thistransfiguration does not amount to a simple replacement of one object oflove (the princess) with a different one (God). Resignation does notmean that the knight loves God instead of loving the princess. To do sowould be to act aesthetically, not religiously.19

The aesthetic person, who fails to accept the loss of his ‘princess’,changes the object of his love in a way that helps him to evade the lossand the pain over it – he exchanges one desire for a new, different one.The seducer in Either/Or loses girl A and immediately falls in love withgirl B. The young poet in Repetition first wants the girl and then wants to bea poet. The latter’s story of unhappy love may seem similar to the story ofthe young lad in Fear and Trembling, but this is only a superficial resem-blance. While the young lad, in the context of his knighthood of resig-nation, continues to want the renounced princess and is therefore deeplysuffering, the young man of Repetition is not in the same situation becausehe has found a substitute for the girl. Having lost the girl it is not herthat he wants: he wants to be a poet. His initial desire (for a concreterelationship with the girl) was not kept alive but was rather replaced by anew desire – the desire for writing and reflecting on the idea of love(i.e. becoming a poet).

In resignation, on the other hand, rather than substituting one desire(or an object of desire) with a different one, there is a paradoxicalsustaining of two contradictory desires, two contradictory wills. Theknight of resignation desires the princess and continues to will a relation-ship with her but, in his resignation, he willingly submits himself to thewill of God. It is said specifically that the knight of resignation recognizesthe eternal being as that which denies the fulfilment of his love for theprincess (i.e. the eternal being is recognized as ‘responsible’ for the

19 Indeed, it is easy to confuse themovement of resignationwith the aesthetic position, and as wewill see in the next chapter, this confusion is found even in the context of careful interpre-tations of faith.


loss).20However, despite recognizing God as the source of this denial, theknight is not angry with him, he does not rebel against him, and does notfeel bitterness towards him – he loves him. Can there be a deeper expres-sion for a wholehearted acceptance of loss than this? He recognizes Godas the one who takes away from him what he wants (the realized relation-ship with the princess) – and he willingly gives this to him, he willinglyrenounces it, he willingly accepts the loss.

Wemay therefore describe the movement of resignation as a submissionto the will of God. Submission, by contrast with change of will, has apeculiarly dual character. In resignation the knight continues to will anddesire what he lost, while willingly accepting that loss. What constitutesresignation as resignation, then, is precisely this quality of submission of thewill rather than a mere change in the will or a replacement of its object.Resignation is a paradoxical position of deeply desiring a lost thing, whiledeeply accepting its loss.

Unfolding the two-sided value of the beloved

Understood as a submission to the will of God, resignation amounts to therecognition that everything finite (that is, everything in time which, inother words, is everything that we have) is not really ours but rather God’s.We understand that, fundamentally, we do not ‘have’ anything, not eventhe things that we consider to be our most cherished things. After all, it isnot for us to decide (or even to understand) when and how the dearest,most important things in our lives are given to us – and when they are tobe taken away. To recognize our limited control over what constitutes theheart of our existence (so to speak) is to acknowledge our nothingnessbefore a greater power that far transcends our frail hold of everything. Wedo not, actually, have anything. Our loves, our achievements, our life –everything, ultimately, belongs to that infinite power. In resignation,then, we understand our nothingness, and thereby we understand thatthe real value of the things in our life is independent of our hold of them,independent of our relation to them. We are not the value-givers – thingshave value in themselves, in their belonging to their real source ofexistence.

In the introduction to his translation of Fear and Trembling, AlastairHannaymakes a similar point. Explaining the paradox of faith, he suggests

20 Note again the quotation above: ‘His love for that princess…would be transfigured into a lovefor an eternal being, which true enough denied the fulfillment…’ (FT, 43–4, emphasis mine).


that we understand Abraham’s complex story of resignation and faith assymbolizing a particular attitude to the things given to us in the world, theprecious things we consider as ours and wish to attain. On Hannay’s read-ing the story of faith is a story in which we learn that it is not we who endowvaluable things with whatever value they have. Their value is bestowed onthem by the source of existence itself, i.e. God:

Johannes de silentio’s ‘lyrical’ account of resignation … could be read assymbolizing the way a person must look upon everything that he values,whether or not it is unattainable. It could symbolize the attitude that saysthat nothing in the world has value simply because one values it … Faith wouldbe, correspondently, the attitudinal appendix to this, that things have theirvalue nonetheless, but they have them on their own account or from God. It wouldbe plausible to attribute this compound attitude … to Abraham and hisbelief that what he is giving to God will be returned, as it was but with itsstatus clarified.21

In resignation, then, there is a crucial shift in our understanding of thestatus of those things which we consider as ours. Resignation exposesthem as independently valuable – thanks to their belonging to God,regardless of what we feel about them. We may call this new understand-ing the unfolding of the ‘objective’ value of everything finite: namely, thevalue pertaining to them regardless of our attachment to them (anddespite their fleeting, ephemeral nature).

At the same time, resignation also unfolds the ‘subjective’ value ofeverything in time, the value of the thing for us. The loss of somethingdear to us – and the full acknowledgement and acceptance of this loss inresignation – exposes the thing in its fullness and focuses everything wefound valuable in it. A non-resigning way of life constitutes a state offorgetfulness with regard to our fragile relation to everything we holddear and important in our lives. We take it for granted that we have familyand friends, freedom (and abilities to carry out various activities), love, andlife – and we forget (or are too distracted to notice) how important andvaluable those things are for us. In the context of a non-resigning way ofexistence (that takes everything for granted and forgets to appreciate it) wequite ironically see the thing – see it clearly and fully – only when it is gone.(Think of how we feel when we lose and have to renounce something: alltoo often, it is only at such moments that we understand how valuable thething is for us.) To make the movement of resignation – to sustain the

21 Hannay 2003a: 24 (emphasis mine).


resigning gaze, so to speak – is to be focused constantly on the frailty ofeverything that we have. And it is precisely thereby that we remember thatwhat we have is something that we have been given; given – because it is notours: in a profound sense everything in time is lost for us, everything in timeeludes the absolute hold we wish in vain to have over it. What we have,therefore, is ours only as a gift – a gift from God.22

The importance of resignation, therefore, is twofold. By shedding onour existence the light of infinitude, as it were, resignation edifies us toappreciate the value of things both in their relation to God (their inde-pendent value as belonging to God) and in their relation to us (their valuefor us). Resignation, I claim, is the unfolding of the two-sided value ofeverything finite. In contrast with a common (or even intuitive) under-standing of this concept, we therefore see how resignation deepens andstrengthens our relation to finitude.23

A relationship of pain with the finite beloved

I can give up the princess, and I will not sulk about it but find joy andpeace and rest in my pain. (FT, 49)

Focusing on resignation from the point of view of the relationship withthe finite in general and the beloved in particular, we may sum up thefollowing points.

Resignation is amovement (a movement of the spirit) – it is a response to astate of affairs, a state of loss, in the external world. This loss can bemanifested in various ways (in the impossibility of sustaining an importantrelationship, for example), but the crucial thing to remember is that whilethe occurrence of loss is something beyond one’s control, something thathappens to one, the movement of resignation is a spiritual responseundertaken by the individual who faces the loss. Resignation, then, isthe inner submission to some external will, the latter being manifestedand experienced as loss.

However, resignation can be justly defined as resignation only if twoessential features are present: acceptance (of the loss) and desire (towards

22 I return to this idea in chapter 3.23 In the next chapter we will see readings of Fear and Trembling that tend to overlook the

importance of resignation or even belittle it. A different understanding of resignation ispresented in the readings (to be discussed in the next chapter as well) of both Kellenbergerand Adams. Both emphasize the importance of resignation as a crucial religious movementin the context of which not only do we understand our relation to God but alsomaintain ourcare and pain with regard to that which we renounce.


the lost thing). Thus the young lad, for example, renounces his beloved(acknowledges and accepts her loss) but being in a state of true resigna-tion, he still wills to have her. Indeed, he is convinced (and reconciled tothe fact) that he will never get her back – but he still wants her back.Resignation, then, can be described as a unique response to loss. It is agenuine, non-bitter, even loving acceptance of not having what one, verypassionately, still in a sense wants to have.

And against this background we may say that resignation edifies us toappreciate the value of finitude. Through the pain of resignation weclearly see and understand what many a time we fail to notice – howimportant and valuable finitude is. Accordingly, acknowledging boththe ultimate loss and the ultimate value of the thing we renounce, whilecontinuing to desire this lost thing – the connection of the personresigning to the thing renounced is one of ultimate pain and sorrow.

However, as we have already said above, resignation goes further thanthis. Themovement of resignation is not only a creation of a bond that tiesus to the finite beloved in a relationship of sorrowful love; it is also, andcrucially so, a creation of a bond that ties us – in a relationship of love, arelationship of ‘joy and peace and rest’ – to God.

3 Resignation: the relationship with God

Johannes’ enigmatic statement

Johannes emphasizes the significance of resignation more than once.‘[O]nly in infinite resignation’, he says, ‘do I become conscious of myeternal validity’ (FT, 46), and a little later he declares what seems to be avariation of this: ‘what I gain in resignation is my eternal consciousness’(FT, 48). But what does gaining one’s ‘eternal consciousness’ mean?‘[M]y eternal consciousness’, Johannes says quite enigmatically, ‘is mylove for God’ (FT, 48).24

In the spirit of Johannes, who is deeply bewildered by the mystery offaith, we may say that the connection he indicates here between resigna-tion and love for God is a puzzling mystery in itself. Although Johannessays these powerful words casually and almost as if they represent a trivialfact, they seem to be a key to some pivotal truth. And we cannot butwonder: why is it that resignation – a painful movement that as we have seen

24 And remember that earlier in the text he also specifically claimed that in resignation his lovefor the princess becomes ‘the expression of an eternal love’ and is ‘transfigured into a loveof the eternal being’ (FT, 43).


demands of the believer that he renounces what he loves the most – is sointimately connected to the possibility of loving God?

Johannes does not even formulate this question (let alone answer it),and therefore I suggest that as a clue to a possible answer we turn to adifferent Kierkegaardian text, to the Sermon of Either/Or’s Ultimatum. Inthis Sermon Kierkegaard makes a connection between the notion of‘being in the wrong’ and love for God; my claim is that ‘being in thewrong’ (ormore accurately, as we shall see, accepting oneself as ‘being in thewrong’), is a form of resignation. Understanding the connection between‘being in the wrong’ and love, then, may help us shed some light onthe connection between resignation and love for God. But first let us ask:what does ‘being in the wrong’ actually mean, and how is it related toresignation?

Resignation and the thought that ‘In relation to Godwe are always in the wrong’

The Sermon in the Ultimatum is the very last part of Either/Or. JudgeWilliam says that it was composed by an old friend of his, a pastor in asmall parish in Jutland. The Sermon is called ‘The Upbuilding That Liesin the Thought That in Relation to GodWe Are Always in the Wrong’ andit opens with the following prayer:

Father in heaven! Teach us to pray rightly so that our heartsmay open up toyou in prayer and supplications and hide no furtive desire that we know isnot acceptable to you, nor any secret fear that you will deny us anything thatwill truly be for our good, so that the laboring thoughts, the restless mind,the fearful heart may find rest in and through that alone in which andthrough which it can be found – by always joyfully thanking you as we gladlyconfess that in relation to youwe are always in the wrong. Amen. (EO2, 341)

What does the pastor mean when he speaks of ‘being in the wrong’? Onthe face of it, it seems most reasonable to interpret ‘being in the wrong’ assimply ‘sinning’ or ‘having sinned’. When the pastor claims that ‘inrelation to God we are always in the wrong’, it is natural to think thatwhat he means is that in relation to God we are always in a state of sin.However, his central move in the Sermon renders this interpretationquestionable because he speaks specifically about wishing to be in thewrong. When the pastor explains the reason for considering the thoughtthat ‘one is in the wrong’ as upbuilding, he turns to love and declares thatwhen we love someone we wish to be in the wrong in relation to him:


Why did you wish to be in the wrong in relation to a person? Because youloved. Why did you find it upbuilding? Because you loved. The more youloved, the less time you had to deliberate upon whether or not you were inthe right; your love had only one desire, that you might continually be inthe wrong. (EO2, 349)

Now, if we understand ‘being in the wrong’ as sinning, this is a verystrange claim: why would we wish to be in a state of sin in relation tosomeone we love? I therefore suggest that we understand ‘being in thewrong’ in a slightly different manner, using two textual ‘hints’ for this.The first is the prayer, which expresses the wish of the believer to be giventhe strength to trust that God will never deny us ‘anything that will truly befor our good’. This kind of trust is put to the test when we suffer a loss orinjury that seems unjust, undeserved. And indeed, such a situation isdescribed in the text that follows the prayer – a retelling of a scene fromthe Gospel according to St Luke, in which Christ foresees the destructionof Jerusalem. This dreadful event – when ‘heaven remained closed, andno angel was dispatched, except the angel of death, which waved its swordover the city’ (EO2, 342) – ‘fell on the innocent’, as the pastor says, ‘just ashard as on the guilty’ (343). This disaster serves as a paradigm for cases inwhich wemight tend to fear that God has not acted for our good, that Godhas unjustly caused us suffering and loss, that God has been ‘in the wrong’in relation to us. The risk which the pastor speaks of in this connection isevidently that of thinking it appropriate to blame God, to think that one isin the right in accusing God of injustice.

The pastor also reminds us that according to the scriptures, ‘you arenot to argue with God’ (344), paraphrasing a point expressed in the Bookof Job, which offers the most dramatic presentation of the gap betweenthe fact that a person suffers loss and pain apparently undeservedly, andthat person’s being in the right. Job was a righteous man who suffered anoverwhelming sequence of losses and injuries. His response was not toblame God or to rebel against him – rather, he tore his clothes and said:‘the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of theLord’.25 And the biblical author says: ‘In all this Job sinned not, norcharged God foolishly.’26 That is to say, Job’s righteousness was demon-strated precisely by his refusal to accuse God of wrongdoing. Had Jobblamed God for his terrible losses, then he would have been in the wrong.

25 Job 1:21, the King James version.26 1:22.


The prayer and the examples that follow it, then, indicate the kind ofwrongness that the pastor is concerned about. There are two aspects, orlevels, to this wrongness. It begins with our sense of being hurt, or ofsuffering injustice – we feel that a wrong has been done to us. However,when we thus feel, we often tend to blame someone else for this ‘wrong-ness’ that we suffer. We feel strongly motivated to affirm that someone is inthe wrong in relation to us, and that we are in the right in blaming him for this.Here it is crucial to pay attention to the second hint that the text providesregarding the meaning of ‘being in the wrong’: namely, the pastor’s claimthat we wish to be in the wrong in relation to someone we love.

When we feel that a wrong has been done to us by someone we love, weare notmotivated to find our beloved guilty in causing us this injury; we arenot motivated to be in the right when seeing him as being in the wrong.Instead, we wish to find that the appearance of the beloved’s guilt wasmistaken, that in fact the beloved is not in the wrong, and that we havebeen in the wrong in blaming him. What the pastor is actually saying,then, is that when we love someone we wish to be always in the wrong whenit comes to blaming him for causing or having caused us suffering. The secondlevel or aspect of being in the wrong, therefore, may be understood asreferring to the wrongness (on some occasions) of a position that we aredisposed or commonly tempted to find ourselves in; that is, the humantendency to blame someone else for a wrong that we suffer. In this sense,to be ‘in the wrong’ in relation to God is to blame God wrongly for havingwronged us; to accuse God unjustly of injustice in causing or allowing us tosuffer pain and loss. Accordingly, the upbuilding thought of the Sermon –that is, that ‘in relation to God we are always in the wrong’ – is the thoughtthat we are wrong whenever we blame or even tend to blame God forcausing us loss or suffering.

Now, to acknowledge that we are in the wrong in relation to God – that is,to accept this thought and recognize the wrongness in blaming God –ultimately expresses resignation. Resignation, as we have seen, has to dowith a submission to the will of God. The knight of resignation renounceshis will before God’s will, and despite the fact that he still wishes to sustaina relationship with finitude (with the beloved princess, for example) hereleases all hold of it. He accepts that everything belongs to God, and thathe has no claim to, or right over, anything. By contrast to this resignedattitude, thinking that one is in the right in blaming God for the loss ofsomething valuable involves the emphatic affirmation that the valuablething belongs to one and has been unjustly taken from one. The thoughtthat one is in the right, therefore, is clearly opposed to resignation, and


accordingly, the thought that one is in the wrong is equivalent to resig-nation. In thinking that I am (or would be) in the wrong to blame God forany loss, I express a resigned attitude towards all the finite things whichI am susceptible to lose. (Just as Job, in his refusal to argue with Godregarding the terrible losses that he has suffered, expresses the highestdegree of resignation.)

Love and the thought that ‘In relation to God we are always in the wrong’

We already noted that in order to explain the upbuilding in the thoughtthat ‘in relation to God we are always in the wrong’, the pastor turns to love:

[If] a person who is the object of your love were to do you a wrong, is it nottrue that it would pain you, that you would scrupulously examine every-thing but that you then would say: I know for sure that I am in the right;this thought will calm me? Ah, if you loved him, then it would not calmyou; you would investigate everything. You would be unable to perceiveanything else except that he is in the wrong, and yet this certainty wouldtrouble you. You would wish that youmight be in the wrong; you would tryto find something that could speak in his defense, and if you did not findit, you would find rest only in the thought that you were in the wrong.(EO2, 347–8)

Now, we said that more specifically the claim here is that when we lovesomeone we wish to be in the wrong in our tendency to blame him for aninjury or loss that we have suffered. But why is this so? Why do we want tobe in the wrong in this way when we love?

The pastor says that finding that the beloved has wronged you is inconflict with the possibility of finding ‘rest and peace and happiness’ inyour love (EO2, 350). Clare Carlisle, in her book Kierkegaard’s Philosophy ofBecoming, presents two points in explaining this conflict:

When one loves another … one is not made happy by finding fault withhim. One wishes to admire, not to blame him – for one’s own love suffersas a result of this blame. Wanting to be in the right is an assertion of theego that makes love more difficult and painful.27

First of all, love involves admiration for the beloved, and to blame thebeloved for wronging you is to view him as less admirable. Secondly, loveinvolves a compassionate concern for the beloved, and to feel that one isin the right in blaming the beloved is to focus in an incompatible way on

27 Carlisle 2005: 64.


oneself, on one’s ego. It is to justify (and intensify) feelings of anger andbitterness that are in conflict with loving. After all, when we love we do notwant to feel anger, bitterness, or defensiveness – feeling like this stainslove and limits it rather than allowing it to ‘[flow] out unhindered’.28

There is another reason, however, for our wish to be ‘in the wrong’(when we blame, or tend to blame, someone we love). When we love, notonly do we not want to find fault with the beloved, or to hinder the love forthe beloved (by marking it with anger and self-righteousness) – we also donot want to find a fault with the love of the beloved. If we are in the rightin blaming the beloved for doing us wrong, that means that the love thebeloved gives us, or has for us, is limited and faulty. And when we love, thisis the last thing we want to think of our beloved (that he or she loves usonly partly, or even, painfully, does not love us at all).29

Taking ‘being in the wrong’ to mean ‘being in the wrong when blam-ing someone for having wronged us’, then, makes it quite intuitively clearwhy it is that someone who loves will wish to be in the wrong in relation toone’s beloved. However, as far as the connection between love and beingin the wrong is concerned, I think that we can go further than the pastorsuggests here. Thinking that one is in the wrong in relation to a person (inblaming him for injury or loss) is not only a typical consequence of lovingthe person – it can also be an attitude that makes love possible, an attitudethat leads to love. By adopting the attitude of thinking that one is in thewrong in relation to the other person, or God, one can change from notloving (or from loving only in an incomplete way, in a distracted andhindered way), to loving that person or God (in a focused, unlimited way).

To demonstrate this point, I propose to look closely at a recentlypublished Israeli novel, On the Way Home, that presents a love that evolvesas a consequence of recognizing that one has been in the wrong.30 Thisnovel presents the somewhat surreal story of Dina, who one night meetsGod – in the figure of aman in his thirties – on a late bus on her way home.After their first meeting, when Dina realizes it was God and thinks that shewas never going to see him again, she reflects:

28 Ibid.29 ‘You loved a person, you wished that you might always be in the wrong in relation to him –

but, alas, he was faithless to you, and however reluctant that it should be so, howevermuch itpained you, you proved to be in the right in relation to him, and wrong in loving him sodeeply’ (EO2, 350).

30 On the Way Home, Dorit Peleg, Zmora-Bitan Press, Or Yehuda 2006. All the quotations fromthe novel are translated by Sharon Krishek, in collaboration with Dorit Peleg.


I felt quite sorry at the beginning. After all one does notmeet God everyday,and if one does then there are somany questions that one could have askedhim, for instance why is it so lousy down here and why did he arrangeeverything so badly and why is it that whatever you do, you always come outwrong.31

As one can already understand at this early stage of the book, Dina is notvery happy with her life. She is a single mother of a young boy, divorcedfrom Yoni, who failed her (or so she thinks), works as a software engineerin a demanding job that she does not really like and,more profoundly andmovingly, feels that she has no home, a real home, to go back to. ‘Dearfather’, she writes in her notebook to her beloved, long-dead father, ‘Dearfather, where have you taken our home, and did it ever really exist?’32 Inactual fact, Dina does have a home, and even quite a nice one: it is locatedin the heart of Tel Aviv, surrounded by ruggedly charming streets thatoffer all the good things that Tel Aviv has to offer. But Dina cannot seethis – what she mostly sees is the disarray in her life. However, after Godbecomes a part of her daily existence, she grows extremely sensitive to thesorrow and pain and injustice in the lives of others, especially the literallyhomeless people in her vicinity. God’s coming into her life starts aninteresting process. It is a very quiet, almost imperceptible, process, andyet one which changes her fundamentally. What happens to Dina, then,on her long way home?

Soon after the encounter on the bus, God does meet her again, andindeed moves in to live with her. At first Dina finds it very difficult toaccept his decision to limit himself to the form and powers of a regularhuman being. She does not understand why he cannot at least givehimself the advantage of getting a decent job (he works as a garbage-collector). And when a friend of hers becomes a father to a child withDown’s syndrome, she demands of God that he perform a miracle, and isvery angry when he refuses to do so: she clearly accuses him of doingwrong.33 Generally speaking, Dina is a cool-tempered person who doesnot expect much from anybody, but in relation to God she finds herself inthe position of believing that she is in the right. She blames God for whathappened to her friend’s child, she blames him for the injustice andmisery of the world, she blames him for the misery and difficulty in her

31 Ibid., 10.32 Ibid., 18.33 Ibid., 28–9.


own life. Looking at an old photo of Yoni, her divorced husband, she evenblames God for the loss of the love that she once had:

And suddenly I rebelled against this loss, which was for me, all at once, theloss of everything: how can it be that I have lost him, how can it be thatthese eyes, these hoping-fearing eyes, are no more, where has this fine,quivering vulnerability, gone, where has it all gone. And I raisedmy eyes tothe bedroom door with a real enmity. You, who will never die, for whomnothing will ever be lost, give me back this look, the hope and the fear init, the place over which it hovered, so fleeting and evanescent.34

In spite of Dina’s feelings of bitterness and anger towards him, however,God soon becomes an anchor of stability in themidst of her turbulent life.And her life is turbulent indeed. Strangely, she begins to lose everything.First she loses her job. Then she loses hermotivation to find an alternativejob. And then, along with her willingness to work, she also loses her dailyroutine. Occasionally she goes to a job interview, but mostly she justwanders around on the streets of Tel Aviv. Day and night she walksabout, seeing familiar things in a new way. She encounters the wretched-ness of Tel Aviv: its neglected buildings, its sad inhabitants, its worried andpainful existence. She notices more and more homelessness around her.People literally live and die in the streets – forsaken, invisible, begging formoney, for a home, for love. All of this is suddenly very painful to her. Andthe process of losing things continues. Her friends disappear, her photoalbums, her money, even her bank disappears. She loses hold of every-thing. It is only God who remains, who can be relied upon to wait for herat home while she walks aimlessly in the streets.

Almost a year passes by before the most meaningful event in herrelationship with God takes place. Dina, who at this point of the novel iscompletely penniless, thought she could earn some money by letting theflat she owns, renting a cheaper one instead. She finds such a flat in apoorer neighbourhood but changes hermind at the last moment, and thenight that follows is filled with despair. Her home does not feel like ahome; her belongings are still in boxes; her child is at his grandparents’place. God lies next to her, but she is resentful. ‘The despair’, she says,‘clenched into a kind of ball inside me, and the ball hurt.’35 And in themorning it gets even worse:

34 Ibid., 399.35 Ibid., 435–6.


The room was awash with sun and it was hot … The ball tightened againinside me, one oppressive layer after another. All at once the sun dimmedand the light went grey, and I knew it was going to be one of those days Ihate themost… a grey heat-wave day… I turned over and then I felt God’shand touch me and I looked at him. His face was raised towards me,pleading, quite grey. Hug me, he asked.36

But she is incapable of doing this. She cannot reach out to him, eventhough she knows how deeply he wants her to. And then everything turnseven greyer and he walks away from her and leaves the house. At thismoment she is suddenly overcome by a painful recollection. She under-stands that she has already been there before, in a situation of the verysame kind. She remembers the face of her father, reaching his hand out toher, when she was a child. She remembers his words back then: ‘It’s true,’he said, ‘isn’t it, that nothing really matters, the only important thing isthat we love each other.’ And she lay in her bed, unable to respond to hissorrow, to his unspoken need, and looked at his arm extended towardsher and was not able to take hold of it and to do what she knew was theonly right thing to do, which was ‘to throw myself at him, to hug him withall my strength and tell him, “Yes, that’s right, father, we do love eachother so very much.”’ But she did not do this, and now the poignantrecollection hasmerged with the presentmoment,making her leap out ofbed and rush outside, because

the need to feel him was so agonizing, his large body where, so I suddenlyunderstood, I had one more chance, perhaps the last chance, to hug. Buthis steps had already seeped away from the stairwell, and as always all therewas left was to throw myself on the bed and cry, with the grief of one whocannot hold others nor let them hold him, of one who is left outside thecircle of holding, forever.37

And after a while she goes out again to the familiar streets, but now with adefinite aim. She wants to find him, she needs to find him. But he isnowhere to be found. And she walks round and round and then itcomes – the insight that was slowly rising, or rather building up, withinher throughout the novel but only now could break through:

only then was this understanding born in me, very lucidly, not like thelump of pain I had felt before but like a pattern of light that was nowfalling into place, the knowledge that I could no longer live without him.

36 Ibid., 436.37 Ibid., 438.


I saw the living room with the sofa and the two armchairs standingempty … without him sitting in my mother’s brown armchair and solvingthe weekly newspaper quiz … and the kitchen without the heap of applesthat he piles up on the counter every Thursday, and an emptiness rose inme and took hold of this image as when you set a burningmatch to a pieceof paper and the fire eats into it more and more, slowly at first and thenfaster and faster till all at once the paper collapses and if you don’t let go itburns your fingers, and I understood I could no longer live in a house thatdid not have God in it.38

And then, completely exhausted and empty, she sees him. He is collectinggarbage – this, after all, is his job – and he is sweaty and dirty and smelly.But she does not care. She simply throws herself upon him and embraceshim ‘for him, for my father, for Yoni. For myself’.39

The next morning she wakes up and knows that God is no longer in thehouse. It is empty, as if he had never been there. And so begins a verystrange day, with which the book ends. A chain ofmysterious events makesthis day look as though it is the end of the world. First of all it snows – itnever snows in Tel Aviv, particularly in the hot days of September, but onthis day it snows. And then there is an earthquake, and then a big fire, andthen she sees God and knows it is for the last time. Dina is sitting alone ona bench on Dizengoff Street; he looks at her, smiles apologetically, andleaves. But the reader knows that she is no longer alone, because some-how, she no longer needs God to be there physically, in order for her tofeel God’s love. Thus, in an important sense God has not really left herand now, finally, she has found her home.

Now, from the point of view of the question we are asking here (that is,the question regarding the connection between ‘being in the wrong’ andlove), what is interesting inDina’s story is that the turning point, the crucialpoint at which her spiritual transformation reaches its highest stage, iswhen she acknowledges that she is in the wrong in relation to God. Let usthink again about the relevant scene (see the quote fromp. 436 above). Sheis despairing, in a house that does not feel like home. And she is resentful,secretly blaming God for the unhappy state she is in. But then God asks forher love, begs for it, actually, and she cannot respond. She cannot give himwhat he asks for and, as a result, he leaves the house. His going away bringsback a dreadful recollection, andmakes her realize, for the first time in thenovel, that she is in the wrong in her accusations of God. She is the one to

38 Ibid., 439–40.39 Ibid., 440.


blame, not him. This recognition has a great transformative power overher. It is as if a barrier has been broken, and now she can finally love;acknowledging that she is in the wrong in relation to God leads her toloving him. She is literally pulled out of her reserved inactive position, andis driven outside by the desire to give him her love. What exactly is it thathappens to her at this critical moment of transformation?

What happens is that against the background of the possibility of losinghim, Dina suddenly discovers God’s love for her. This love is clearlyexpressed in his appeal: ‘Hug me’, he asks, imploringly. She sees that heneeds her, and this makes her see also that she is very important for him,that he cares about her, that he loves her. And seeing this, she can no longeraccuse him of any injustice towards her. Whatever loss and pain she hassuffered, it was not throughGod’s not taking her suffering into account. Totreat her unjustly, to wrong her, would have been to act in a way that doesnot take her interest sufficiently into consideration. But now that she isconvinced of the greatness of his love, it is clear that no suffering and noloss has ever come about through any such injustice. God has not wrongedher. She has been in the wrong in holding him to blame. And so, realizingGod’s love, she comes to think of herself as being in the wrong, and thisacknowledgement opens her, and drives her, to loving him.

The novel convinces us of this, by prompting us to imagine the situationin which Dina, who may represent in this context each and every one of us,becomes completely confident that God (both as an omnipotent being andas a human lover) loves her, and that all that he has done derives from hisgreat love for her. Imagining such a situation, it seems necessary to agreethat she could no longer accuse him of having wronged her. It seems clearthat she would feel, upon discovering his love, that she has been in thewrong. After all, when we are confident in the love of someone for us, weare not easily disposed to see this person as being in the wrong; accordingly,we should be more disposed to see ourselves as being in the wrong when thetemptation to accuse this person of wronging us arises. The deeper ourconfidence in the love is, the deeper is the trust that we have in this person’sintentions, and the less we are inclined to see ourselves in the right inrelation to him or her (when we suffer injury or loss that seems to be causedby our lover). We trust that there is a good reason for the lover’s seeminglyoffensive behaviour, and that this reason by no means contradicts his (orher) love for us, or his (or her) concern for our well-being.40

40 Here it is of course important to remember the difference between love by God and love byhumans in this respect: only in relation to God are we always in the wrong. When the lover is


And back to Dina, now that she acknowledges that she has been in thewrong, she realizes that she loves God – she gains her love for him (to useJohannes’ expression in Fear and Trembling, see p. 59 above). Becauseblaming another for having wronged us sets up a screen of anger andbitterness that blocks our ability to love the other. Once we acknowledgethat we are in the wrong in blaming him, this screen is set aside, and theobstacle to loving is removed; the foundations for loving are thereby set.When we felt angry and bitter and self-righteous we were enclosed withinourselves in a way that did not allow us properly to see the other, let alonelove him. But now we are led to love. The other, whose love is now clear tous, appears as an eminent source of goodness, and our love emergesunreservedly as a response to him, to his benevolent presence in ourlife. We are now capable of seeing him, of recognizing his value andappreciating his goodness. And we thereby find ourselves loving him.

4 The upbuilding that lies in resignation

It takes the acknowledgement that we are in the wrong, then, to gain theability to love those that we had previously blamed for doing us wrong. Thisacknowledgement is akin to resignation – it is to release our hold of things,it is to stop blaming the other, or God, for taking away from us somethingwe think we deserve to have, something that in some basic sense we con-sider as ours. And I hope that now we are in the position to understandbetter Johannes’ claim that in resignation he gains his love for God.

The knight of resignation loved a princess, but she was taken away fromhim. As this was the most important thing in his life, we can imagine thatthe knight was disposed to feel angry with God and to blame him fordoing him wrong (namely, taking the princess away from him by denyingthe fulfilment of the relationship). However, resigning is precisely reject-ing this tendency. It is to see himself as being in the wrong in hisdisposition to blame God. This happens when (in quite a counter-intuitive way) he discovers God’s love for him through the event of loss.Resignation, we have said, is a unique response to a loss. Losing theprincess, the knight (being a knight) realizes that the princess does notreally belong to him – he discovers her radical apartness, her radicalalterity, and understands that she ‘belongs’ to a greater power that tran-scends his will and intentions. Thus, he now understands that her

a human being, however, we may sometimes be in the wrong but sometimes, unfortunately,we can find ourselves in the right. Humans are not perfect; nor, regrettably, is their love.


presence in his life was from the very beginning something that he wasgiven, something that he has to be thankful for. Kierkegaard depicts thislatter point rather emphatically in his Discourse of Job:

The moment the Lord took everything away, [Job] did not first say, ‘TheLord took away,’ but first of all he said, ‘The Lord gave.’ The statement isbrief, but in its brevity it effectually points out what it is supposed to pointout, that Job’s soul was not squeezed into silent subjection to the sorrow,but that his heart first expanded in thankfulness, that the first thing the lossof everything did was to make him thankful to the Lord that he had givenhim all the blessings that he now took away from him. (EUD, 115–16)

To make the movement of resignation, then, is to be in the position ofJob. It is first of all to realize that ‘the Lord gave’, and thus to see andrecognize God’s love for us (the bestowal of a good thing is one of the morecentral aspects of love as we usually understand and experience it). Seeingthis love, then, the knight of resignation has no reason to be angry, noreason to blame God for doing him wrong. Seeing this love, he acknowl-edges that he was in the wrong in blaming God, and is and will be in thewrong in his tendency to blameGod. And acknowledging this, he gains hislove for God, his love for God is built up.

In the Sermon the pastor explains this upbuilding (i.e. the upbuildingthat lies in resignation; meaning, in the thought that ‘in relation to Godwe are always in the wrong’) in the following terms:

[T]his thought … manifests its upbuilding power in a twofold way, partlyby putting an end to doubt and calming the cares of doubt, partly byanimating to action. (EO2, 351)

The action that this thought is the platform for (as it were) belongsalready to the realm of faith. The knight of faith, as well as the one wholoves in faith, is someone who incorporates the movement of resignationin the slightest of his actions, and this movement (as we will see in the nextchapter) is in a paradoxical way a necessary condition for faith. The pastortherefore speaks in his sermon on the state of faith, but he focuses on onecomponent of faith – namely, on the movement of resignation, herediscussed in terms of acknowledging one’s wrongness before God. Thisresignative thought (‘in relation to God we are always in the wrong’),then, generates the conditions for a correct action in the world (that is, forfaith), and it does so by ‘putting an end to doubt and calming the cares ofdoubt’ (ibid.). But what does this doubt amount to? To put it differently,which doubt does resignation calm and put an end to?


Being humans, we are fundamentally vulnerable and essentially sus-ceptible to loss and suffering. Sometimes we are the ones to blame (weare the cause of the loss and pain in our lives, we are doing wrong toourselves), and sometimes we are not (someone or something else, exter-nal to us, is the cause of our pain). But whichever is the case, our all-too-human tendency is to blame someone else for the pain that we suffer, andto channel the pain into anger. This unsettling state of mind is shaped bydoubt and accompanied by it – we are constantly searching for the one toblame, constantly asking who is in the wrong. This tendency is typical ofour relationships with the people surrounding us, but its severest expres-sion is in the context of our relationship with God. To be in doubt heremeans to accept the possibility that we are right in relation to God, we areright in blaming him for doing us wrong. But such a thought is ultimatelya rejection of the idea of a loving divinity altogether (to consider God asunjust is in effect to doubt the idea of an omnipotent goodness that caresabout us; that is, to doubt the basic understanding of God), and this,Kierkegaard claims, cannot but lead to a chaotic existence of despair:

If a human being did not have an eternal consciousness, if underlyingeverything there were only a wild, fermenting power that writhing in darkpassions produced everything, be it significant or insignificant, if a vast,never appeased emptiness hid beneath everything, what would life bethen but despair? (FT, 15)

On the other hand, to be genuinely in the position of always being in thewrong in relation to God is never to doubt his goodness and his care forus. It is to be able to see God as an eternal source of loving benevolence,even when we suffer terrible and unexplainable losses and injuries. It is tohave a complete confidence in God’s love and goodness while renounc-ing the human presumption to fully understand this love and goodness innatural (logical, juridical) terms. It is, again, to be in the position of Job,having gone through the dramatic encounter with the Whirlwind. AsStephen Mulhall puts it:

The new terms that the Voice proposes do not ask us … to becomeindifferent to actuality; they ask us to revel in its glories, to acknowledgethat the wealth of God’s creation exceeds anything wemight have thoughtor imagined, and in particular to acknowledge that its bounty is notexpressible or containable in terms of either natural or moral law …Thepoint is to shatter Job’s reliance upon juridical terminology altogether –to stop himpicturing the realm of experience and existence as answering tohumanmoral worth, to take a step beyond the idea of God as exercising his


Will through the natural order, as if nature was simply and solely responsiveto human good and evil.41

Our natural stance in the world is that of being distant from God. We areimmersed in finitude, in a state of oblivion or anger, indifferent to God orblaming him for the sufferings that are inherent to our human condition,and doubting thereby his care and love for us. To put an end to this doubt,to make themovement of resignation and to acknowledge that in relationto God we are always in the wrong (in our anger towards him, in blaminghim for doing us wrong, in mistrusting his goodness), is to be reconciledwith existence, to find rest and peace in the pain. The knight of resigna-tion trusts God’s love for him, and responds to this with love:

Therefore this, that in relation to God you are always in the wrong, is not atruth you must acknowledge, not a consolation to alleviate your pain, nota compensation for something better, but it is a joy in which you win avictory over yourself and over the world, your delight, your song of praise,your adoration, a demonstration that your love is happy, as only that lovecan be with which one loves God. (EO2, 351)

Winning a victory over ourselves and over the world is in a way overcomingour finite condition by gaining our ‘eternal consciousness’. The meaningof this ‘overcoming’ is the peaceful reconciliation we now attain – thereconciliation with our finite condition and with the constant loss itentails. Experiencing loss, after all, is to find ourselves opposed to exis-tence: actuality seems to be working against us, against our will. We desiresomething or someone, but actuality does not allow us to fulfil our desire.The thing is taken away from us, we are deprived of it – it is lost for us.But in resignation we accept this loss with love, we are reconciled to thisloss, and find ‘peace and rest’. We find a new happiness, which is nowbased, rather than on our relationship with finitude, on our relationshipwith God:

If your one and only wish was denied to you, you are still happy … if youlost not only your joy but even your honor, you are still happy … If youknocked but it was not opened, if you searched but did not find, ifyou worked but received nothing, if you planted and watered but saw noblessing, if heaven was shut and the testimony failed to come, you are stillhappy in your work… you are still happy – because in relation to God youare always in the wrong. (EO2, 353)

41 Mulhall 2001: 408.


However, this happiness has a deeply painful side to it. If we think of theknight of resignation as reaching one hand to God, but another hand tothe finite, it is only the first bond that gives him happiness. The knight ofresignation does not disconnect himself from the finite – he is, as we havesaid above, tied to it with pain.

In this chapter we have inquired into the concept of resignation, and itsintriguing connection with love (both for the finite and the infinite),by referring to three different texts. One Kierkegaardian text, Fear andTrembling, indicates this connection specifically while another, theUltimatum, discusses the connection between being in the wrong and love.We have also used a different text, the novel On the Way Home, in order toexplore the Sermon’s insight regarding the connection between ‘being inthe wrong’ and love. This novel presents the upbuilding in the thoughtthat one is ‘in the wrong’ by vividly showing the way in which this recog-nition leads one to love, paving the path that is one’s way home.

Having taken these steps, we may conclude by saying that resignation isundoubtedly a fundamental brick in the building of love that the philoso-phy of Kierkegaard construes. However, resignation is not enough. A trulyhappy love, which incorporates harmoniously our love both for God andthe finite (in an interdependent relation), is possible only in the context ofa different realm: that of faith.


3

THE KNIGHT OF LOVE

1 ‘By Faith You Will Get Her by Virtue of the Absurd’ 1

The paradox of faith

To exist in such away thatmy contrast to existence constantly expresses itselfas themost beautiful and secure harmony with it – this I cannot do. (FT, 50)

By undertaking the movement of resignation, as we saw in the last chapter,the young lover comes to participate in a twofold relationship. On the onehand, this movement ‘binds’ him to his renounced princess in knots ofpain; on the other, it gains him a relationship of love with God. Anddespite the profound nature of the first, it is the latter relationship – therelationship with God – that constitutes the core of resignation. This isthe focus of the young man’s interest, this is the new content of hisresigned life.

But important and meaningful as it is, resignation does not amount tofaith. ‘The act of resignation does not require faith’, says Johannes, ‘but toget the least little bit more than my eternal consciousness requires faith,for this is the paradox’ (FT, 48). Indeed, renouncing finitude is anextremely difficult act, but nothing more than the human power of will

1 FT, 50.

75

and determination is required for performing it.2 There is a correspondencebetween the act of resignation and the reality it generates (a reality of beingapart from the princess, of not sharing a life with her) – the consequences ofthis act correlate with the knight’s expectations, with his beliefs regardingthe way the world operates. In the context of faith, on the other hand, thereis a contradiction between the way the knight acts and his expectations andbeliefs regarding the world (i.e. the realm of finitude):

By my own strength I cannot get the least little thing that belongs tofinitude, for I continually use my strength in resigning everything. Bymy own strength I can give up the princess, and I will not sulk about itbut find joy and peace and rest in my pain, but by my own strength Icannot get her back again, for I use all my strength in resigning. On theother hand, by faith, says that marvelous knight, by faith you will get her byvirtue of the absurd. (FT, 50)

Faith, it is important to remember, is defined by Johannes as a doublemovement – in spite of being very different from resignation, it necessarilyincludes resignation as an essential part of it. Resignation is a permanentcomponent within faith. Accordingly, the knight of faith also makes themovement of resignation – but in contrast with the other knight hebelieves in receiving back his renounced princess. This is the paradox offaith: the knight of faith undertakes the movement of resignation andanother, simultaneous movement, that seems to contradict it. Havingrenounced everything, by virtue of his faith he receives everything:

Through resignation I renounce everything … This movement I make allby myself, and what I gain thereby is my eternal consciousness in blessedharmony with my love for the eternal being. By faith I do not renounceanything; by faith I receive everything. (FT, 48–9)

It is quite evident that faith amounts to an interesting attitude to finitude.While resignation is concerned with the infinite, faith concerns the finite:‘Temporality, finitude – that is what it is all about’ (FT, 49).3 However,

2 ‘I make this movement all by myself, and if I do not make it, it is because I am too cowardlyand soft and devoid of enthusiasm … ’ (FT, 48).

3 It is worth emphasizing this point because one of the more common dogmatic stereotypesregarding faith is that it is focused on eternal happiness and is indifferent (or even hostile) tothe affairs of this world. Johannes himself mentions the related confusion between resigna-tion and faith: ‘It is said that faith is needed in order to renounce everything. Indeed, onehears what is evenmore curious: a person laments that he has lost his faith, and when a checkis made to see where he is on the scale, curiously enough, he has only reached the pointwhere he is to make the infinite movement of resignation’ (FT, 48).


faith is very different from the aesthetic interest in finitude – its concernwith worldly happiness is constituted by a simultaneous renunciation of it.And this is, strictly speaking, the paradox of the doublemovement of faith.How are we to make sense of it? This question is sharpened when weconsider the paradox of faith against the background of the story of thefather of faith, who serves as the prototype of the life of faith – the story ofAbraham. And so, before attempting to understand how faith allows theyoung lover to get back his princess, let us turn to the story that fascinatesJohannes: the story of the Binding of Isaac.

The paradoxical faith of Abraham

And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abrahambuilt an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son,and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forthhis hand, and took the knife to slay his son.4

Yet Abraham had faith, and had faith for this life … Abraham had faithspecifically for this life – faith that he would grow old in this country, behonored among the people, blessed by posterity, and unforgettable in Isaac,themost precious thing in his life, whomhe embraced with… love. (FT, 20)

The difficulty in understanding Abraham is twofold – we are baffled by hisfaith, and amazed by his resignation. Indeed, Abraham’s resignation puzz-les us in a different way from that in which his faith does, but it puzzlesus nevertheless. To begin with, we cannot understand, we cannot evenbegin to imagine, how Abraham was capable of drawing the knife: ‘Whostrengthened Abraham’s arm, who braced up his right arm so it did notsink down powerless! … Who strengthened Abraham’s soul lest every-thing go black for him and he see neither Isaac nor the ram!’ (FT, 22).Because after all, we are convinced that Abraham did not want to kill hisson. We know that he loved Isaac dearly, we remember that Isaac was hisonly, long-awaited son, and we understand that Isaacmeant everything forhim.5 That it was Abraham’s most passionate wish that his son would live,is therefore an essential part of Abraham’s resignation.

4 Genesis 22:9–10, King James version.5 His love was the greatest fatherly love possible, as Johannes emphasizes: ‘Next I woulddescribe how Abraham loved Isaac. For that purpose I would call upon all the good spiritsto stand by me so that what I said would have the glow of fatherly love. I hope to describe it insuch a way that there would not be many a father in the realms and lands of the king whowould dare to maintain that he loved in this way’ (FT, 31).

the knight of love 77

Abraham’s act, then, cannot but be admired as the most extrememanifestation of resignation possible. Not only did Abraham renouncethe greatest of his desires (to keep hold of his son who is also the fulfil-ment of the divine promise given to him), his undertaking of the Bindingmakes it clear that Abraham indeed resigns:

Many a father has lost his child, but then it was God, the unchangeable,inscrutable will of the Almighty, it was his hand that took it. Not so withAbraham! A harder test was reserved for him, and Isaac’s fate was placed,along with the knife, in Abraham’s hand. (FT, 21–2)

In his willingness to bring about – by his own bare hands – the loss of whathe undoubtedly loves the most, Abraham cannot but be expressing awholehearted, genuine resignation. It is against this background thatAbraham’s faith appears to be so perplexing. Abraham, Johannes insists,believed that Isaac would continue to be his living son, and he stronglyheld this belief while renouncing him, while drawing the knife:

He [Abraham] climbed the mountain, and even in the moment when theknife gleamed he had faith … Let us go further. We let Isaac actually besacrificed. Abraham had faith. He did not have faith that he would beblessed in a future life but that he would be blessed here in the world. Godcould give him a new Isaac, could restore to life the one sacrificed. He hadfaith by virtue of the absurd, for all human calculation ceased long ago.(FT, 35–6)

It seems that while resignation involves a paradox of wills (willinglyrenouncing the son while still wanting to keep hold of him), faith involvesa paradox of beliefs.6 The movement of resignation, let us not forget, isassociated with Abraham’s being on the verge of acting in a way whichwould inevitably result – as he fully realizes – in Isaac’s death. The move-ment of faith, on the other hand, is associated with the belief hemaintainsthat Isaac, in accordance with God’s promise, will live. To put the issuehere as uncompromisingly as possible we can ask, as does a recent

6 Note again our discussion in chapter 2: it is already resignation (and not only faith) thatmanifests a self-contradictory attitude. Resignation cannot be considered as resignationunless it is directed at something of importance, something that is highly desired. Inresignation we willingly let go of something that in a profound sense we do not want to letgo of; something that we are deeply attached to, care about, and strongly desire. Here we seeit as sharply as possible: it is clear that Abraham does not want to sacrifice his son – but inresigning he submits his will to the will of God, and with a total acceptance of God’s demandhe is prepared to sacrifice his son willingly. And yet, while doing this willingly, he still verypassionately wants to keep hold of his son.


interpreter, what does Abraham’s belief amount to? Does he believe thatIsaac will die, or that Isaac will live?7

This is a good question but at the same time a little misleading since itmay prompt us to mistakenly imagine Abraham’s resignation as an actthat begins and ends with the trial. But Abraham’s resignation was inplace before – and after – holding the knife that threatened to kill his son.As far as there is a connection between Abraham’s resignation and the lossof his son, this is an ongoing connection – Abraham is continuously in astate of resignation, and thus continuously renounces Isaac and sees himas lost. Adams expresses this point succinctly:

For if one first gives up something and then later takes it back, there is noparadox in this sequence of ‘movements’ … if Abraham stopped makingthe movement of resignation in order to make the movement of faith, hewould nullify his sacrifice … The contradiction in belief … can hardly bemore than an expression of what is fundamentally ‘the absurd.’ It cannotbe the essence of it. For after they have sacrificed the ram and descendedthe mountain, Abraham can hardly have continued to believe that hewould be deprived of Isaac; but Kierkegaard surely does not conceive ofhim as ceasing at that point tomake themovement of infinite resignation.That would spoil everything.8

Abraham’s trial does not constitute his faith – Abraham’s faith is whatallows him to go through the trial. As such, the dramatic moment ofdrawing the knife is only a manifestation – indeed, the most extremeand horrifying manifestation possible – of the movement that Abrahammakes before the trial and continues to make after it. For us, of course,there is a crucial difference between resignation when there is no threatinvolved, and resignation when one’s beloved is about to perish. But thisonly demonstrates that we are not Abraham. For Abraham the trial wasonly an expression of something he performed all of the time.9 Abrahamis a knight of faith precisely because he was capable of going through atrial which indicates the genuineness and profundity of his resignationand faith.

7 John Lippitt, in his commentary on Fear and Trembling, tries to capture the difficulty ofunderstanding Abraham’s faith in terms of this question: ‘What does Abraham believe atthe point of drawing the knife?’ (See Lippitt 2003: 66.)

8 Adams 1990: 386.9 This does not mean, of course, that Abraham feels the same at each and every moment of hislife: no doubt the moment of the trial, although sharing the same structure of resignationand faith with every other moment, was characterized (so we can imagine) by a differentfeeling than, for example, the moment following the trial.


Having said that, let us return to the above question, which is animportant one since it emphasizes the paradoxical nature of faith byfreezing the most dramatic moment in Abraham’s life, and thus allowsus to examine its profound complexity. What does Abraham believe inwhen he is drawing the knife?What is the content of his faith? He seems tobe holding a paradoxical combination of beliefs according to which Isaacwill both die and live – how can we make sense of this?

First it is important to note that the paradox here does not amount to alogical impossibility. Abraham does not believe that Isaac will be bothdead and alive at the same time. Rather, he believes that Isaac will live inaccordance with God’s promise to him, despite being unable to under-stand (or predict) the way in which this will happen. In other words,Abraham believes in the fulfilment of God’s promise even while actingin a way that contradicts this promise. As far as his human understanding isconcerned, Abraham is well aware that he is about to kill Isaac; never-theless he continues to believe in the fulfilment of God’s word to him. Hisfaith is therefore paradoxical in the sense that there is an irresolvabletension between the different aspects of his faith. There is an acutetension between his belief in the fulfilment of God’s promise, and hisbelief, his understanding, regarding the irrevocable result of the deed he isabout to perform.10 This tension between the different beliefs that con-stitute his faith also explains why Abraham can hold his faith only ‘byvirtue of the absurd’ (as Johannes keeps saying). Abraham cannot holdhis faith by virtue of his human understanding – he cannot hold it byvirtue of reason or experience. His hold on it is therefore by virtue of theabsurd. When ‘all human calculation cease[s]’ (FT, 36), and when humanpowers (reasoning, experience, understanding) fail to supply a justifica-tion, then faith can be sustained only by virtue of the absurd.11

We therefore see that the paradox of faith, the paradox of the doublemovement, is manifested in several aspects. This is a paradox concerningthe will (the knight renounces willingly that which he wants the most), andit is also a paradox concerning belief (there is a conflict between theknight’s understanding of reality and his expectation regarding reality).And it is also a paradox of emotions. Faith involves the paradoxical combi-nation of being in a state of infinite pain (the pain of resignation) and anindescribable joy: ‘I can bear to live in my own fashion’, Johannes tells us,

10 And this therefore makes his faith humanly, rather than logically, impossible. See Hannay2003a: 17–18.

11 Kierkegaard returns to these notions (the paradox and the absurd) in later pseudonymoustexts, but I limit my interpretation to his use of them in Fear and Trembling alone.


‘I am happy and satisfied, but my joy is not the joy of faith, and bycomparison with that, it is unhappy’ (FT, 34).

The knight of faith, then, leads an intriguing existence. He may look‘just like a tax collector’ (FT, 39), but his life is a profound drama ofholding harmoniously contradicting powers (of will, belief, and emo-tion). To return to the quote that opens this chapter, we can now under-stand what Johannes has in mind when he declares that to be a knight offaith means ‘[t]o exist in such a way that my contrast to existence con-stantly expresses itself as the most beautiful and secure harmony with it’(FT, 50). However, wemay understandwhy he is saying this – butwhat is heactually saying? In other words, having formulated the paradox of faith (interms of the paradoxical combination between what resignation involveson the one hand, and faith on the other) – how can we fathom it?

2 Mooney and Hall on the paradox of faith

Faith as ‘selfless care’

Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac shows in the most dramatic wayimaginable his severing of the possessive tie. To Johannes, and perhapseven to Abraham, it will seem dangerously close to losing Isaac outright.Yet Abraham has faith that Isaac will not be lost. In severing the tie, aselfless care is renewed and released … The story depicts, at least inembryo, a father’s ordeal of liberation and fulfillment … how to grantfathers and sons the separateness-in-love each will need and deserve.12

Edward F. Mooney’s influential interpretation of the relationshipbetween resignation and faith puts the emphasis on the issue of freedomand care. Faith ultimately amounts to the understanding acquired by theindividual that it is freedom – freedom in the sense of not claiming anyownership rights – that shapes (or rather, ought to shape) his attachmentsto the world and to the other. Mooney interestingly reads the four crypticproverbs regarding the weaning of a child, at the very beginning of Fearand Trembling (see Exordium, FT, 9–14), as reflecting the central theme ofthe book: ‘resignation of something of utmost value (in this case the childto be weaned), coupled with the assurance that it will be returned, isJohannes de Silentio’s basic characterization of faith’.13 Accordingly,‘[i]f the child weaned is Isaac, then the issue is how to make Isaac free’.14

12 Mooney 1991: 58–9.13 Ibid., 31.14 Ibid., 30.


For Mooney, then, Abraham’s ordeal is about the need ‘to undergo acomplex shift in his relationship to Isaac and to his world generally’.15

Abraham is depicted as a knight of faith in his ability to care about Isaacwithout claiming any proprietary rights over him. What does having aproprietary claim over something amount to? Mooney gives an exampleof a fine old watch that is suddenly stolen. In such a case ‘we may feel notonly sorrow but anger… It gets entwined with possessiveness and capacityfor hurt, should possession-related rights be violated.’16 To cease feelingthis way about x or y is to renounce our proprietary claim over x or y,and this, in Mooney’s view, constitutes the movement of resignation.However, this comes at a price: according to this interpretation, being aknight of resignation means also ceasing to care about the object of one’slove (over which one renounces a proprietary claim). Mooney refers tothe young lad’s love for the princess and claims that, in his resignation,the young lad ‘saves himself from hurt should she marry another andfrom hurt coming from the finite generally’. However – ‘the price he haspaid for diminished hurt is diminished care’.17

The process that the knight of resignation is going through, accordingtoMooney, is therefore a renunciation of proprietary claims that results inimmunizing oneself to the pain of the loss – which, in turn, results inindifference to the thing lost. The deal, as it were, is diminishing one’s hurtby diminishing one’s care. However, ‘not all cases of love or care are tiedup with proprietary claim’, says Mooney, while referring, of course, tofaith.18 As an example, he mentions the approach that one is inclined toadopt towards a sparrow in one’s feeder. It is delightful when the sparrowchooses to visit, and one ‘enjoy[s] and warmly anticipate[s]’ those visits,but one can claim no rights over the sparrow:

The matter of its life and death is something over which I have no claim.Of course, I would feel indignant were someone maliciously to injure it.But in the course of things, the sparrow will go its way. Meanwhile, I willadjust myself to its goings and comings.19

Mooney calls this approach a ‘selfless care’ and this, in his view, is whatfaith is about – namely, renouncing one’s claims (over the beloved) with-out renouncing one’s care. While the knight of resignation cannot

15 Ibid.16 Ibid., 53.17 Ibid.18 Ibid.19 Ibid.


maintain his (or her) care for the beloved after renouncing the claim overhim (or her), the knight of faith is a knight of faith precisely due to theability to care for the beloved (without claiming any proprietary rights overhim/her). Accordingly, in case of a wondrous return, the knight of faith iscapable of warmly welcoming the beloved back, warmly receiving thismarvellous gift:

The knight of faith works to get the princess back, then, only in the sensethat he guarantees that the ultimate obstacle to her return – lack ofreceptivity – will be absent. He does not by his own strength effect herreturn, but provides the required condition: He is ready in welcome.20

In other words, it seems that Mooney suggests that we understand faith interms of a renewed relationship with finitude. Faith is a new, desirable form ofrelationship that one sustains with one’s son, one’s princess, or one’sworld in general. In my view, as I shall soon elaborate, this is an extremelysignificant point that provides the key to a profound understanding offaith. However, asmuch as I accept this direction and agree withMooney’sfundamental insight regarding the meaning of faith as a renewed rela-tionship with finitude, I find several problems with the way in which hedevelops this pivotal idea.

To begin with, it is not clear why Mooney considers the severing of‘proprietary claim’ to be such a painful ordeal, one that might serve toexplain the ordeal Abraham went through. Indeed, it is true that inrelationships with people – and in particular in relationships of love –we dangerously tend to develop feelings of possessiveness regarding theother. At the same time, however, this is a rather weak way of describingthe process that the knight of resignation goes through. Should theungraspable sacrifice that Abraham is about to perform, in his willingnessto renounce Isaac, be addressed as connected (only) to the severing of theproprietary claim he has over him? Mooney is careful enough to offer thisinterpretation in the context of the young man’s love story, and it is truethat he admits that this story is an imperfect and limited analogy to thestory of Abraham (see p. 44). But he does use it to construe a structure offaith, that as such should be at least adequate, or applicable, to the story ofAbraham (even if it does not capture it completely). In my view, under-standing resignation in terms of renouncing proprietary claims alone is notstrong enough to describe the pain and difficulty that resignation isconnected with in the story of Abraham, and indeed even in the love

20 Ibid., 54–5.


story. The first movement of faith, then, cannot be understood only inthese terms. While Mooney correctly identifies this movement as thesevering of an immediate tie (with Isaac, the princess, ‘the world’), it isnot enough to regard this tie as based on proprietary claims alone.

Now, in accordance with the incomplete account of the tie which issevered in resignation, there follows an incomplete account of the tie whichis renewed in faith. Can the characterization of the desired relationship interms of ‘selfless care’ sufficiently capture Abraham’s love for his son orthe romantic relations between a lover and his princess? A criticism in thisspirit is expressed by Ronald L. Hall (to whose interpretation we shallshortly turn), who refers to this picture of faith as ineffectual when itcomes to the relationship which exists inmarriage.21Hall sees inmarriagea case of what he calls an existential faith and he claims that the picture of‘selfless care’ is quite inapplicable here:

What kind of marriage would it be for one spouse to say to the other thathe or she does not make any claims on the other, but will simply adjust tothe other’s comings and goings? And what would we think if both mutu-ally acknowledged that in the course of things the other will go his or herown way? What does such a disavowing of all proprietary claims on theother have to do with the covenant of marriage?22

I agree with Hall that the attitude of ‘selfless care’ that Mooney attributesto the knight of faith does not give a full account of the way we are relatedto those we love. I think that something crucial is indeed missing inMooney’s picture of the desirable tie (i.e. relationship) that faith consti-tutes, and I will explore below the nature of this tie as I understand it.However, I think that the core of the problem in Mooney’s interpretationdoes not lie in the way he characterizes the nature of the tie that faithconstitutes, but rather in the way he understands the nature of resignation.

Mooney regards resignation as a psychological shelter (so to speak)from the world, a detachment in the sense of indifference and careless-ness, a way of becoming immune to our fragility (to use a term frequentlyemployed by Hall who, with regard to understanding resignation, as wewill see, seems to be in agreement with Mooney). Resignation is depictedas a hardening of the heart, as a detachment from the world – whichresults in less pain and less care. Now it is true that the knight of

21 Hall’s criticism of Mooney is presented also by Lippitt in the context of his reservationsconcerning Mooney’s position, and this is where we share the same view both with regard toMooney and to Hall (see Lippitt 2003: 60–2).

22 Hall 2000: 31.


resignation transfigures his focused love for the concrete princess into afocused love for transcendence and God, but this is the only sense inwhich he takes leave from the world.23 The knight of resignation does notuse his resignation as an ‘escape’ – if there is any detachment involved inhis position at all, it is only in the sense that the focus of his attention isnow somewhere else (and not in the sense of losing interest in finitude andbecoming indifferent to the pain and misery that existence entails).

Moreover, the knight of resignation does not ‘kill’ his love (as Mooney’sreading implies, putting an emphasis on ‘less pain, less care’); what he kills –metaphorically, though in Abraham’s case (almost) literally, speaking – isthe object of his love. From the point of view of pain, the latter is of courseinfinitely more difficult (than killing the love), but this is precisely whatconstitutes the knight of resignation as a knight. He performs the mostdifficult thing for him (and this indeed makes the story of the Binding theultimate manifestation of resignation), and lives in pain:

And yet, I repeatedly say, it must be wonderful to get the princess. Theknight of resignation who does not say this is a deceiver; he has not hadone single desire, and he has not kept his desire young in his pain. Theremay be someone who found it quite convenient that the desire was nolonger alive and that the arrow of pain had grown dull, but such a personis no knight. (FT, 50)

The knight of resignation lives in pain because he continues to love theobject of his renunciation – while fully accepting its loss, he continues todesire it and to care for it.24 Mooney’s (psychological) formula of ‘dimin-ished hurt [at the price of] diminished care’, therefore, does not fit theportrait of the knight who both suffers and cares. While Mooney distin-guishes resignation from faith by attributing an attitude of care to faithonly, I claim that caring is already a crucial part of resignation. Because, again,if one is no longer attached, and no longer cares, there is no longeranything for one to be resigning from. ‘Solving’ the absurdity of faith bydefining it ‘as a complex test of care’ does not fully capture the complexityand difficulty of faith as a double movement that maintains resignationalong with what seems to be its contradiction.25 Can we think of a differ-ent way to understand the double movement of faith?

23 This, please note, does notmean that he stops loving the princess, but rather that his love forher becomes incomplete and unfulfilled. (See again chapter 2.)

24 See again chapter 2.25 Mooney 1991: 56.


Faith as a ‘no’ to resignation

My claim is that the existential import of Abraham’s embrace of Isaac, ormore generally the full import of the faithful embrace of the world, comesin the concrete, existential recognition of the fact that we have the powerto do otherwise; it is this power to do otherwise that is a permanentpossibility within faith, a possibility faith must continually annul.26

For Ronald L.Hall Kierkegaardian faith is emphatically about being human(‘the existential embrace of the human’).27WhenHall speaks about ‘beinghuman’ he refers to the acceptance and affirmation of our fragile existencein an uncertain world, against the background of our freedom not to acceptthis.28 Resignation, in Hall’s view, embodies precisely the negative possibilityof rejecting, not accepting, our humanness. It expresses an escape fromour human position in the world either by descending to brutality or byascending – aspiring – to transcendence, ignoring the temporal and con-tingent conditions of our existence. However, the possibility of rejectingour humanness paradoxically affirms its ‘embrace’: ‘as a human being Imust choose either to embrace or to reject my humanness. The constanttemptation to search for a way of transcending the world has the paradoxicaleffect of occasioning my decision to live it and to embrace it, every inch.’29

Under the category of ‘resignation’ Hall includes all the modes ofexistence which differ from faith (i.e. the different variations of theaesthetic and ethical modes of life along with the various philosophicaland religious forms of resignation). For him, ‘the truth of resignation andrefusal’ (and so of faith) is that

we can own or truly possess only what it is possible for us to disown, todispossess, to refuse … refusal is not faith, but faith must include thisnegation within itself as an ever-present possibility. Indeed, it is just thisrefusal of the human that the knight of faithmust be prepared continuallyto encounter in fear and trembling and continually to annul in faith.30

Hall’s understanding of the ‘dialectical logic of paradox’ that constitutesthe Kierkegaardian conception of faith is therefore based on the idea ofoppositions that depend on and validate each other.31 There is no

26 Hall 2000: 37.27 Ibid., 10.28 See ibid., 1.29 Ibid., 38.30 Ibid., 37.31 Ibid., 2.


meaning to the ‘yes’ (the acceptance and embrace of our humanness), hesays, without the ‘no’ (the freedom to reject and refuse our humanness);and therefore the ‘yes’ (affirmation) actually includes within itself the‘no’ (negation) as an annulled possibility –

The knight of faith says ‘no’ to this possibility of saying ‘no’; and thereforehis ‘no’ dialectically annuls the concretely realized possibility of refusal. Inthe paradoxical logic of Kierkegaardian worldly faith, the ‘yes-to-the-world’is a refusal of refusal; it is an affirmation via dialectical double negation.32

Hall bases this reading on Kierkegaard’s treatment of the relation betweendespair and faith in The Sickness Unto Death. Hall’s suggestion is to under-stand despair as a possibility – without which there would be nomeaning tofaith – where the latter is the state of rejecting and annulling the possibilityof despair: ‘to the extent that despair is not possible, neither is faith’.33

Therefore, faith includes within it despair as an annulled possibility, and italso does so with regard to resignation: ‘despair, like resignation and refusal,is present within faith, but dialectically present as absent’.34

Closely resembling Mooney’s reading of resignation (but with moreemphasis), Hall considers resignation to be a negative tendency that oneneeds to overcome. Resignation stands for a non-human detachment, away of escaping the pain and misery of this world – an almost detestable‘technique to cope with the fragility of human existence’.35 ‘[T]he knightof resignation’, Hall concludes, ‘fails not because he does not go farenough but because he goes in the wrong direction completely.’36 It isnot surprising, then, that onHall’s reading God’s call to sacrifice Isaac wasnot a test of faith but rather a temptation against finitude – a temptation towithdraw from finitude. To live in faith is to acknowledge the possibility ofresignation, which in the story is embodied in God’s call, and this means‘to become conscious of the fact that such a transcendence, such refusalof our own personal presence in the world is possible’.37

I disagree with such an understanding of resignation, and of its relationto faith. First, from a textual point of view, Hall’s reading of resignation assuch a negative, undesirable, and even contemptible option is unfaithfulto the pronounced appreciation expressed in the text for the knight of

32 Ibid., 39.33 Ibid., 36.34 Ibid.35 See ibid., 29.36 Ibid., 35.37 Ibid., 34.


resignation. True, this knight is not as admirable as the knight of faith(maybe even not nearly as admirable), but he is a knight nonetheless.Johannes certainly respects him and presents him as someone whodeserves our sympathetic attention.

But evenmore crucially, I think that Hall’s way of annulling resignation(that is, of maintaining it in the structure of faith only as a negative optionthat one rejects) expresses a misunderstanding of the profundity andcomplexity of resignation. While Hall bestows on resignation the statusof an ‘annulled possibility’, I think that resignation should be kept as anaffirmed possibility in order to maintain the intensity and the penetratingmeaning that Fear and Trembling imparts to faith. If resignation is to bekept in faith only as a ‘no’, it is not clear at all why Johannes – even as an‘outsider’ to faith – should consider faith to be a paradox and an offenceto human understanding, for rejecting the renunciation of Isaac andbelieving that Isaac will live do not conflict with one another.

It seems that resignation has a more dominant role in the structure offaith. It expresses somethingmore valuable to our existence. Resignation,in other words, seems to be present in our lives (and in particular in themode of faith) in a way that is more substantial than being just an optionto which we say (or should say) ‘no’. To use one of Hall’s images, I thinkour humanness depends also on our ability to embrace resignation. Andthis is because our humanness must not only be embraced (as he keepsemphasizing) – it must also be given a particular shape. And in my viewresignation (as we shall see more clearly in the chapters on Works of Lovebelow) has a crucial role in this ‘shaping’. Not as an ‘annulled possibility’but rather as an active ‘ingredient’ in our relation to and understandingof ourselves, the world, and the other.38 My claim is that there is some-thing in the structure of our encounter with the world that becomes(desirably) manifested only through resignation. To put it succinctly: a‘yes’ to resignation is essential to faith, to the good life, to our humanness.

When we read Fear and Trembling in a way that tries to throw light onand interpret this sometimes enigmatic text, a tension inevitably arisesbetween the attempt to render the text intelligible (and so to address theintuition that this text speaks to us even if most of us are far from being anAbraham), and the respect that one should pay to the fact that it is, after

38 After all, it is the movement of resignation that initiates the relationship of the believer withGod (see again chapter 2). Note that Hall’s negative understanding of resignation is alsoconsistent with the minor role that God plays in his account of faith.


all, an unusual story. In other words, without abandoning the importanttask of disclosing the relevance of the text, one should be very careful notto dismiss the difficulty and the rarity of faith. I think that readings of thekind presented above give more weight to the need to decode the text andmake it clearer than to the other need, to be faithful to the text’s carefulchoice of the distinctive story of Abraham, in depicting its model of faith.I think that an accurate reading of the text should aim to address thesetwo tendencies and find the balance between the need to present therelevance of faith to our mundane existence and the difficulty that thetext raises when it insists on using Abraham’s story of non-mundaneexistence as its model. To return to our question, then, how are we tofathom the meaning of faith?

3 Joy and trust: a proposed alternative interpretation

Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.39

A renewed relationship

We saw that Mooney’s interpretation paves the way to considering faith asa renewed relationship with finitude. Hall criticizes Mooney for offeringan unsatisfactory account of the nature of this relationship, but basicallyhe seems to accept the idea of faith as constituting a desirable relationshipwith the world. What, however, is the reason for considering faith as arelationship to begin with?

Johannes (and his interpreters) talks repeatedly about ‘renouncingIsaac’ (or ‘renouncing the princess’) – but when I renounce Isaac (orthe princess, or anything else), what is it precisely that I renounce? Torenounce something, it seems to me, means first and foremost torenounce the relationship (the actual, worldly relationship)40 that onesustains with that something. To renounce Isaac is in effect to renouncethe relationship with Isaac; to renounce the princess is to renounce therelationship with the princess.41 Accordingly faith, as the ability to ‘receive

39 Psalm 2:11, the King James version.40 As opposed to an inner, spiritual bond which one sustains in resignation. See again chapter 2.41 Here, of course, Abraham’s story again shines as an awe-inspiring exception, since Abraham’s

renunciation of the relationship with his son has the further horrifying implication ofrenouncing Isaac’s life. However, I suggest that we see in this further implication anotherway to emphasize the point regarding Abraham’s highest exemplification of resignation. Notonly did Abraham renounce the present relationship with Isaac, he expressed in his resig-nation an acceptance of the impossibility of any future relationship with him.


Isaac (or the princess) back’, is a renewal of the relationship with Isaac orthe princess. Having clarified this, the interesting question to ask is, ofcourse, what is the nature of this relationship and why does it ‘deserve’ thetitle ‘faith’ – what turns this relationship any different from a simply right,ethical relationship?

What does having a relationship mean, what constitutes a relationship?Mooney seems to understand the nature of a relationship (a relationshipwith some x) in terms of two factors: (1) considering x as ‘mine’, and(2) caring for x. Also, it seems that for Mooney considering x to be‘mine’ amounts to seeing myself as ‘owning’ x (that is, as having the rightto demand proprietary claims over x) – a reprehensible tendency that oneundoubtedly needs to be rid of. Accordingly, in his account of the desirablerelationship, Mooney purges the first factor and leaves only the second.The correct form of a relationship is one of selfless caring: I care for xwithout in any way considering x as ‘mine’.However, is the consideration ofx as mine something merely negative? As Hall’s criticism of Mooney sug-gests, for a relationship to be a relationship, some self – with some demandsand expectations – needs to be involved. And indeed, when we think of thecontext of a proper relationship with x, it seems reasonable to assume thatone will be justified in having certain requirements from x, requirementsthat are connected to one’s own well-being. In other words, considering xto be ‘mine’ – namely, affirming a specific connection of x to oneself – hasnot only the negativemeaning of claiming proprietary rights over x. Rather,it has also the positivemeaning of wishing and expecting x –my x (who ismyhusband, my wife, my beloved) – to be present and involved in my life, aswell as committed to me in this way or another, while bestowing on me thejoy I seek in the context of this specific encounter.42

Wecan therefore say that being in a relationshipwith x actually amounts,in its immediate sense, to three factors: (1) considering x as ‘mine’ in anegative way (claiming proprietary rights over x), (2) considering x as‘mine’ in a positive way (expecting x to be involved in a committed way inmy life, wishing for its presence and finding joy and satisfaction in thispresence), and (3) my caring for x. LikeMooney I claim that in resignationFactor (1) is indeed eliminated. However, unlike him I claim that Factor(2) (which Mooney does not take into consideration) is also eliminated inresignation, and in contrast with him I claim that Factor (3), the care for x,

42 This, of course, resonates with wider questions as regards the status of the self in the contextof the desirable form of love (as well as the theological concern regarding the differencebetween eros and agape). I shall refer to these questions in chapters 4 and 5 below.


is not eliminated in resignation. Care for x is sustained – and even becomesclearer – in resignation, and accordingly there is something else that,having resigned, is gained in faith. That something, I claim, is what I havejust defined as Factor (2) in a relationship – the joy in the presence of x anda positive ‘hold’ on him. So what is it that allows us to conduct a renewedrelationship with x that includes also Factor (2)?

Before answering this question, another clarification – of faith being arenewed relationship – is needed. Renewal is connected to repetition:something is returned, received back, gained anew. This associatedgroup of concepts (renewal, repetition, receiving or gaining back) iscommonly used to explain the Kierkegaardian faith, but often withoutproperly clarifying the metaphorical picture that the use of these termsdepicts. What do we ‘receive back’? How does it happen? What does itpresuppose? These questions are particularly pressing when we remem-ber that it is not only Abraham that Johannes portrays with admirationand wonder; there is another knight of faith whose profile is presented inFear and Trembling. Nothing about his appearance indicates that this manknows how to live in relation to infinity – he is completely immersed in thefinite and does not seem to be losing (and therefore renouncing andreceiving back) a thing. What then does this knight, to whom I shall referas ‘the mundane knight’, receive back in faith?

The mundane knight

Thinking of faith as ‘receiving something back’ may lead us to imaginemistakenly the knight as someone who suffers a loss of some x, which atpresent (in resignation) is absent, but which at some point in the future(in faith) will be present again, regained. This understanding of faithis mistaken because it blurs the simultaneity of resignation and faith – itleads us to think that if x is received back then the state of resignationis over (because we assume that resignation implies the absence of x).However, resignation does not end when faith begins: it continues withinfaith. Therefore, in an interesting sense (that we will soon explore) inthe context of faith x is both renounced and gained, both ‘absent’ andpresent.

Moreover, the terminology of ‘receiving back’ presupposes that a con-crete, actual loss must have taken place (a loss of a child or of a beloved,for example), but is this necessarily so? The portrait of the mundaneknight indicates that the movement of resignation is performed evenwhen there is no actual loss apparent:


Here he is … The instant I first lay eyes on him, I set him apart at once;I jump back, clap my hands, and say half aloud, ‘Good Lord, is this theman, is this really the one – he looks just like a tax collector!’ But this isindeed the one. I move a little closer to him, watch his slightest movementto see if it reveals a bit of heterogeneous optical telegraphy from theinfinite, a glance, a facial expression, a gesture, a sadness, a smile thatwould betray the infinite in its heterogeneity with the finite. No! I exam-ine his figure from top to toe to see if there may not be a crack throughwhich the infinite would peek. No! He is solid all the way through. Hisstance? It is vigorous, belongs entirely to finitude. (FT, 38–9)

The mundane knight, then, seems to be living quite a peaceful life. He isnot required to sacrifice anything whatsoever, and no dramatic loss – of ason or of a princess – threatens him. And yet this mundane person isnevertheless a knight. Johannes emphasizes that this simple man, seem-ingly indelicate or even coarse, is a knight no less than Abraham – at everymoment he performs the movement of faith, and thus also that ofresignation:

With the freedom from care of a reckless good-for-nothing, he lets thingstake care of themselves, and yet every moment of his life he buys theopportune time at the highest price, for he does not do even the slightestthing except by virtue of the absurd … and yet this man has made and atevery moment is making the movement of infinity. He drains the deepsadness of life in infinite resignation, he knows the blessedness of infinity,he has felt the pain of renouncing everything, the most precious thing inthe world, and yet the finite tastes just as good to him as to one who neverknew anything higher. (FT, 40)

Themundane knight of faith, we are told here, has renounced everything.To renounce ‘everything’ means to renounce everything in time, every-thing in this world. The mundane knight of faith renounces his worldlyhappiness, he renounces all the possible finite goods that the world intime has to offer him. But what does it mean, in effect, to renounce‘everything’ (or, to be more precise, the relationship with ‘everything’)?After all, we have said that the movement of resignation is performed inresponse to loss, it is an acceptance of loss – what kind of loss then does themundane knight have to face?

Here it would be helpful to return to an earlier distinction that we havedrawn between actual, potential, and essential loss (see again theIntroduction). If Isaac had died in the Binding, his death would havebeen an actual loss. The loss of the princess who cannot return the young


man’s love (or may even marry a different man, a prince) is anotherinstance of actual loss. In the story of the mundane knight there is alsoan actual loss but this is a non-dramatic, quiet loss: it is the continual lossof time. Time goes by and everything within it is fleeting and passes away;and we, finite creatures as we are, cannot have an absolute hold on it.Everything in time is either already actually lost (already taken away fromus), or potentially lost (under the threat of being eventually taken awayfrom us). We called loss in this sense (that is, either actual or potential)essential loss. Now, the loss that the mundane knight is facing is the actualloss of time and the potential loss of everything in time. We may therefore saythat the loss the mundane knight is facing is the essential loss of everythingthat he has.

However, it is important to note that despite suffering an actual,relentless, loss of time, the mundane knight is not asked to suffer anactual loss of a concrete thing persisting in time (a son, a beloved) – thelatter is only potentially lost for him. And of course, the potential death of abeloved, or the potential termination of a love relationship differs fromthe actual loss of Isaac (had the sacrifice gone ahead to its conclusion) orfrom the actual loss of the princess. Themundane knight, therefore, facesthe essential loss of ‘everything’, while Abraham is under a more concretethreat of facing the actual loss of his son, and the young man is facing theactual loss of his princess. In accordance with this distinction, it is impor-tant to note also the distinction between the different kinds of resignation(resignation being, after all, a response to loss).

The kind of resignation that the mundane knight performs is anessential resignation. He essentially renounces everything; in his resignationhe responds to the potential loss of everything that he has, and he makesthis movement before any actual loss (of a concrete something in time)takes place. On the other hand, an actual resignation is, for example, thekind of resignation that the young man performs – it is a movement hemakes after the actual loss of the princess has taken place (and in responseto it). And what about Abraham’s resignation? Even though the loss of hisson is closer to becoming actualized than any of the potential losses thatthe mundane knight faces, it is important to remember that the loss ofIsaac was eventually prevented – Abraham renounced Isaac before his sonwas actually taken away from him. His resignation, therefore, was also anessential one.

Now, an essential resignation is obviously the condition for an actualresignation. Abraham stood the test and by drawing the knife he expressedhis willingness (and his ability) to ‘transform’ his essential resignation into


an actual one. The mundane knight essentially renounces everything,but were he to lose his love relationship or his son, his resignation wouldhave become an actual one as well (assuming that as a genuine knight hewould also have withstood the test). In this connection it is worth notingJohannes’ words (referring to himself maybe) regarding a failure of resig-nation as it shows itself when the mirror of an actual loss is put in front ofone’s face (so to speak):

There was one who also believed that he had made the movement [ofresignation]; but look, time passed, the princess did something else – shemarried, for example, a prince – and his soul lost the resilience ofresignation. He thereby demonstrated that he had not made the move-ment properly. (FT, 44)

The acceptance of the essential loss of ‘everything’, that the mundaneknight exemplifies by performing the movement of resignation, meansthat he does not try to evade the loss or deny it (as the aesthetic and ethical‘knights’ of recollection respectively do, see again chapter 1). Acceptingthis loss in resignation amounts to the ability of the mundane knight toacknowledge that everything he cares for is under the threat of beingtaken away from him. The knight fully acknowledges this loss – he realizesthat everything he cares for is not really his – and lives in accordance withthis acknowledgement. To demonstrate this point let us imagine themundane knight as a knight of resignation alone (i.e. as someone whohad not undertaken the further movement of faith).

Such a knight looks at everything which he has as something which hedoes not really have, something which he cannot really have. For the thing isfleeting – everything in time is essentially tainted by the quality of slippingaway, passingby, being changed and lost. For him, all things temporal are asgood as lost: they are absent from that domain of things that are fully rootedin being, the domain that is not touched by change and loss. Thus,renouncing everything finite, the knight of resignation directs his hopesat the infinite, at his relationship with God – this is where he finds themeaning and the joy in his life. However, the knight of resignation, as wehave emphasized, is not indifferent to finitude. On the contrary: resignationis a movement which discloses the value of finite things and our strongattachment to them.43 Thus, the knight of resignation lives in pain, not inindifference. What he fails to sustain with regard to finite things is not his

43 For the analysis of resignation as constituting both our happy relationship with God and oursorrowful relationship with the finite, see again chapter 2.


ability to care for them, but rather his ability to feel joy in them.44 Havingmade themovement of resignation the knight cannot consider anything asbelonging to him. Rather he is constantly aware of the impending absenceof everything that he has, of the imminent threat of becoming deprived ofeach and every thing he loves. He thus cannot let himself be fully attachedto anything he cares for in the realm of finitude.

However, this is only half of the journey. After all, the story of faith, aswell as the story of Fear and Trembling, does not end with resignation. BothAbraham and the mundane knight (along with, at least potentially, theMerman whom we will meet later) are knights of faith. And faith, we havesaid, is a renewal of relationship with a ‘lost’ thing (i.e. something that islost, either actually or potentially – Isaac, the princess, ‘everything’); andis also understood in terms of ‘receiving back’. And now that we under-stand what kind of loss stands at the basis of the different stories of faith,and are in the position to understand that what we ‘receive back’ in faith isthe relationship with the lost thing, we can finally turn to the questionformulated above. What is the nature of this renewed relationship andwhat are the conditions for sustaining it, which earn it the name of ‘faith’?

Faith as trust

The crucial distinction between the knight of faith and a mere knight ofresignation consists in the ability of the former, while performing the movementof resignation, to find hope and joy in the finite again. Themundane knight,to quote again, ‘drains the deep sadness of life in infinite resignation …knows the blessedness of infinity … has felt the pain of renouncing every-thing … and yet the finite tastes just as good to him as to one who neverknew anything higher’ (FT, 40). The faith of this knight amounts to hisability to sustain an adequate (full, satisfying) relationship with everythingin his life. He has a very unique hold on finitude, a very special way of beingattached to it. He sustains a relationship with everything finite by way ofboth renouncing and affirming it, by both releasing and holding it. On theone hand, he acknowledges that nothing belongs to him, he has no rightover anything, and he cannot demand any proprietary claim on anything inhis life. But at the same time the knight is joyful as one who entirely belongsto the world – as one to whom the world ‘belongs’. This latter ‘belong-ingness’ is of a new kind, of course. He is fully attached – by way of hope,

44 See Kellenberger 1997 for a discussion of joy as the hallmark of the knight of faith.


expectations, and joyfulness – to everything as if it were ‘his’, while fullyacknowledging – by way of resignation – that nothing is really ‘his’.

A helpful way of thinking about this new hold on finitude is to picture itin terms of receiving a gift. To think of our hold on everything in time,which is everything that we have, as a hold on a gift, demonstrates thesubtlety of the relationship (between us and everything finite) which faithconstitutes. A gift has a special status. When something is given to us, itboth does and does not belong to us. Having received it, we now have it,but at the same time we are not the origin, so to speak, of the gift – thegiver is. We ‘own’ the gift, after not having owned it before, only thanks tothe giver who is the real owner of the gift. We should remember that,being a gift, it was absent from our life prior to being given to us by thegiver, and that, as the ‘origin’ of the gift, he still has the right over it. Ourhold on a gift is always, in a way, only tentative.45

To think of faith in this way captures the profound meaning of consid-ering something as ‘not mine’ but nevertheless ‘mine’; it helps to under-stand the uniqueness of the relationship that faith constitutes with finitegoods. It addresses our intuition that there is a positive connection betweenhaving joy in something and considering it as ‘ours’ in some sense. Wemay now understand what this ‘ours’ means – it is ‘ours’not in the negativesense of claiming possession rights over it (Factor (1)), but rather it is ‘ours’in a new, ‘purged’ sense of being involved in a mutual relationship withit, and of being deeply attached to it (Factor (2)). From the point of viewof faith, if something is ‘mine’, it is ‘mine’ only in the way that a desirablegift is mine. When receiving it, I do not (and cannot) see myself as its‘natural’ possessor (after all I have been given it), but at the same time I amjoyful – joyful to receive it and to have it. And thinking of the relationshipof faith thus, we make genuine place for the presence of the giver of thegift: the presence of God. It emphasizes that the right form of a relation-ship includes not only two participants (myself and the other partyinvolved), but rather three; there is another party involved in the relation-ship of faith, the party that gives shape and validity to the relationship.46

45 The analogy of a gift is not devoid of problems: for example, one may claim that once onereceives a gift one owns it as if it were one’s own from the beginning. However, I think thisanalogy manages to capture the complexity of the desirable type of hold that faith provides,one that both renounces the thing as ‘mine’ and affirms it as ‘mine’. Because even if, say,legally speaking I ‘own’ the gift once given to me, still, at least emotionally, I feel that I havefewer rights over it than, suppose, over something I bought with my hard-earned money.

46 In this connection, it is interesting to note Kierkegaard’s idea of a genuine relationship aseffectively a relationship between three, with God as ‘the middle term’: ‘Christianity teaches


However, considering everything in time as a gift, as well as acknowl-edging the decisive presence of God in any finite relationship, is not as yetenough for constituting a relationship of faith. After all, the knight ofresignation also understands the status of everything in time as a gift, andobviously he also sustains a loving relationship with God – but still he isonly a knight of resignation. What he lacks, then, is the power to trust thebestowal of the gift in the context of his finite life. The right relationbetween ourselves and everything that we have (which is, as we have said, arelationship between two that includes the presence of a third, the giver)involves the ability to trust. What does it mean to trust?

Being a believer, Alastair Hannay explains, expresses a deep trust inGod, when ‘trusting’ means precisely that there is a gap between theindividual’s understanding of some situation (his understanding, orrather lack of understanding, of the demand to ‘suspend the ethical’,for example), and his belief in its being ultimately a good thing. If weunderstand something as good and blissful, there is no need for us to ‘trust’that it is this way. Trusting something implies that we have good reason tobe suspicious or doubtful; it means that from the point of view of what wesee and understand, something – a reason, an answer, an explanation – ismissing or hidden from us. To be a believer, then, is to be capable ofenduring this confusion. It is to be capable of enduring such an insult toreason and understanding, and of believing genuinely, and trustfully, thateven when reality seems strange, painful, and confusing – it will, even-tually, be ‘all right’. As Hannay puts it:

but to be a knight of faith Abraham had to be willing to accept that theoutcome would be ‘all right’ even if God had not relented by producing aresult which satisfied his moral intuition and personal preferences; that is,even if the way in which the outcome was ‘all right’ remained utterlyobscure … faith requires that he believe that it would be ‘all right’ nomatter what.47

In his book, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche: Faith and Eternal Acceptance,J. Kellenberger also explains the religious consciousness of the knight offaith in terms of an absolute trust in God, manifested in the belief that ‘allwill be well’. Kellenberger rightly emphasizes the difference between ‘thecontemporary knight of faith’ (whom we called a mundane knight) and

that love is a relationship between: a person – God – a person, that is, that God is the middle term’ (WL,107, emphasis in the original).

47 Hannay 1982: 78.


Abraham. The latter had God’s promise that through Isaac he would bethe father of nations, and therefore had good reason to believe that Isaacwould live (even if he was about to die). The contemporary knight of faith,on the other hand, is neither put to a trial nor does he have God’sconcrete promise. So what does his faith amount to? It amounts to thebelief and trust in God that everything will be well:

Like Abraham, the contemporary knight of faith must have absolute trustin God, but his absolute trust is unlike Abraham’s in that it does not restupon God’s special promise … This means that the direct object of thefaith of the contemporary knight of faith, what he knows and does notdoubt, must be different from the direct object of Abraham’s faith. Goingbeyond Fear and Trembling, we can identify it as the belief that all will bewell. The direct object of Abraham’s faith … was, we may say, that all willbe well with Isaac. The direct object of the faith of the contemporaryknight of faith is the more general belief that all will be well – all will bewell with ‘everything’.48

Robert M. Adams is another commentator who posits the concept of trustas central to the idea of faith. Analysing Fear and Trembling’s knight offaith, he wonders why the additional element in faith, which distinguishesit from resignation – namely, the acceptance of the finite back – is soimportant.49 And this is his answer:

In faith, we may suppose, one trusts in God, and that implies that oneconsciously, believingly, willingly, depends on God for something. Ininfinite resignation, however, one does not in this way depend on God.For one has resolved to live solely for one’s relationship of love to God.And I take it the knight of infinite resignation sees this relationship asconstituted sufficiently by his own voluntary resignation. In relation towhat he lives for, therefore, he does not depend on anything outside thecontrol of his own will. Hence the knight of infinite resignation has nooccasion for trusting God; and faith, in the sense of trust, plays noessential part in his religion. The knight of faith, on the other hand,does willingly depend on God for something outside the control of hisown will. But if he depends thus on God for it, he must surely accept itwhen given, and must be prepared to accept it.50

In other words, faith is trusting God that what is impossible for me (‘outsidethe control of [the] will’) will be possible nevertheless. This trust amounts

48 Kellenberger 1997: 48–9.49 See Adams 1990: 392.50 Ibid., 392–3.


to an acknowledgement of my deep dependency on God for achieving ahold on anything beyond my control. While in resignation the knightdoes not need to rely on anything but himself and his own powers of willand determination, in faith the knight relies entirely on God. ‘[H]e wholoves God without faith reflects upon himself’, says Johannes, while ‘hewho loves God in faith reflects upon God’ (FT, 37).

Being a knight of faith, then, means to have the trust that what I acceptin resignation as completely lost for me – everything in time, and therelationship with everything in time – will nevertheless be returned tome.I cannot tell how this is to happen, and what form it is to take, but trustingGod means that I believe in the ultimate realization of the good.

In a recent essay ‘Faith as Eschatological Trust in Fear and Trembling’,John J. Davenport emphasizes precisely this latter point. According to hisinterpretation, Kierkegaardian faith is trusting that the desirable good – hespeaks of this good in terms of the perfect realization of the ideals of ethics –although beyond my limited reach, is nevertheless – ‘eschatologically’,ultimately, in the last account – to be fulfilled. I shall elaborate onDavenport’s suggestion below, but first let us try to imagine a concreteexample of trust, when it is understood in terms of a belief in an ultimaterealization of the good. As Kellenberger indicates, in the story of theBinding it is relatively easy to understand what Abraham’s trust in Godamounts to. Abraham trusts the realization of God’s promise to him, and hetherefore believes that come what may, Isaac will continue to be his livingson. However, when it comes to the mundane knight, it is more difficult toimagine what his trust (as a knight of faith) looks like. Earlier we distin-guished between an ‘essential loss’ and a concrete, ‘actual’ one, and saidthat the loss in the story of themundane knight is of the essential kind. Butwhat happens in a story of a mundane knight who suffers an actual loss?What does his trust (which consists in the belief that ‘all will be well nomatter what’, see again Hannay and Kellenberger above) amount to? Afterall, he does not have God’s special promise regarding, say, the life of his son.In the case of a tragic loss, then, what form does his trust take? This is a verydifficult question, emotionally no less than conceptually, but I wish to offerat least an initial direction to a possible answer. I will do so by examining theform that faith (as trust in an ultimate realization of the good) can take inthe context of a life of someone who suffers an actual, tragic loss. The story Iuse is the one presented in Almodovar’s film, All About My Mother.

In this film Manuela, the heroine, loses her only and beloved son,Esteban, in a car accident. In memory of her son – who on the day of histragic death expressed his wish to know who his father was (a transvestite


who had changed his name from Esteban to Lola, and never knew he hadbecome the father of Manuela’s son) – she takes upon herself the task oftravelling to Barcelona to find Esteban’s father. Out of respect for her son’slast wish she wants to find the father, and tell him that he had a son whowanted so much to meet him. The journey to Barcelona is a journey to herpast: there lives her son’s father whom she used to love so much; there sheconceived her dearly beloved son; there live all her past friends; there, onvirtually every street corner, exist meaningful memories. Manuela, duringthe first part of the film, is a knight of recollection. She is willing to live onlyin the past – both in the more distant and in the more immediate past. Shedoes not even tell her best friend from the past, Agrado, whom she meetsagain in Barcelona, about the reason for her search after Lola. She does notwant to create a new present in which her son’s death takes part. She shareswith Agrado the distant past, and within herself she keeps the pain of themore immediate one. She is indifferent to the present and from this per-spective it is indeed pointless to tell Agrado about her (and Lola’s) dead son.

Manuela’s knighthood of recollection is most clearly expressed in herrefusal to open herself – her love, her life – to the new people she meets.The most significant encounter takes place with Sister Rosa, a young nunwho also fell under the spell of Lola, became pregnant and also con-tracted AIDS (in both cases from Lola). Rosa, rejected by her own family,sees in Manuela her truest friend and a substitute mother. But Manuelarefuses to take on herself this new possibility. In an emotional scene shefirmly demands of Rosa to leave her alone: ‘You have no right to ask me tobecome your mother!’ she painfully cries at her. But her refusal does notlast long. And the turning point at which she opens herself to the needywoman standing before her is themoment of her transformation from thestate of recollection to that of resignation. She accepts the death of herson, she accepts the loss, and she lets the past become the past. She lets goof her hold on the past (in its being the focus and centre of her life) and isnow open to that which transcends her own past: the life, and death, ofRosa.51 She adopts Rosa’s newborn child, naming him (after both thefather and the dead son) Esteban.

At the end of the film we see Manuela travelling with the new Esteban,who has miraculously recovered from AIDS, to Barcelona again. But this

51 Indeed, her resignation is not before God but rather for the sake of a human other. In thatsense it does not take the form of infinite resignation but rather the form of self-denial. Shemoves herself – her pain, her recollections – aside (so to speak) and finds the place for herneighbour, Rosa. The meaning of self-denial and its essential connection to infinite resig-nation will be discussed in the next two chapters.


time, she says, she is not on the run – she travels joyfully, full of love,emotion, and hope, with the new beloved son to a conference on AIDS. Itis clear that the dead son (as well as the now dead father) is there with her.The infinite pain over her son’s death has not become any lighter. But thereis also a genuine joy in this scene: she, who has renounced being a mother(i.e. renounced the relationship with a son), is a mother again to a new son.She refers to the child as ‘my Esteban’, and this scene is the first one, sinceher son’s death, in which it is clear that she is really happy (she also indicatesthis about herself).Manuela is able to receive back the joyfulness ofmother-hood due tomaking thedoublemovement of resignation and faith.Only bybeing willing to renounce her hold on her dead son (a hold which wasexpressed in her refusal to see anything else as important), and by trustingthe possibility of realizing the good of motherhood nevertheless, was sheable to sustain a new relationship, a relationship of faith, with a new son.

We can easily see the centrality of trust to Manuela’s (renewed relation-ship under the aegis of) faith, when we imagine a parallel version of herstory in which she halts in resignation. Being a knight of resignation (andnot of faith) would have been manifested in Manuela’s dedication tonursing the dying Rosa and then, maybe, in dedicating her life to caringfor other people afflicted with AIDS. But she would have refused to becomea mother again; she would have refused to care for the baby as if he hadbeen her own. If she had remained a knight of resignation alone, she wouldnot have been capable of loving, in a motherly, concrete way, ever again.

Trust, then, is the crucial element in faith that allows the renewal ofany relationship; it is the condition for ‘receiving back’ – namely, fullyrenewing – a relationship with a returned lost thing (be it Isaac, a beloved,a son, or any other finite good). Trust, we may say, is the ground on whichthe distinctiveness of faith is construed, while this distinctiveness amountsto the ability to fully renew a relationship with a lost thing that hasreturned; to find joy in it again. ‘[F]or if I had gotten Isaac again’, saysJohannes in the voice of a knight of resignation, ‘I would have been in anawkward position. What was the easiest for Abraham would have beendifficult for me – once again to be happy in Isaac! – for he who with all theinfinity of his soul … has made the infinite movement and cannot domore, he keeps Isaac only with pain’ (FT, 35).

4 Faith and the ethical

According to the analysis of faith that we are developing here, I suggest thatwe understand faith as a unique existential stance which is best described in


terms of a renewed relationship with the finite in general, and with thefinite other (a son, a beloved) in particular. However, this characterization –making use as it does of an ethical vocabulary (‘relationship’, ‘otherness’) –may bring to mind two questions. The first regards the difference between arelationship structured by faith and a mere ethical relationship. Simply put,the question (as we have already phrased it above) is why does this relation-ship deserve to be called ‘faith’? What makes this kind of relationship anydifferent from a mere desirable ethical relationship?

The second question regards the ethical status of Fear and Trembling,and has a long interpretative history. As a matter of fact, Johannes’ insist-ence on reading the Binding as an act which is in principle unintelligiblefrom an ethical point of view (as each of the three Problemata concludes),and in particular his provocative suggestion regarding the possibility ofsuspending the ethical, have usually been the focus of scholarly interest inthe text. In the context of the present study, with its slightly differentinterpretative interests, it is of course impossible to exhaust the debateregarding the relations between the ethical and the religious in Fear andTrembling. However, since the model of faith and love which I am advan-cing here is essentially ethical (namely, it concerns ethical issues), a fewclarifications regarding this matter are needed. I shall therefore begin byreferring to the second question, and against this background will con-clude by answering the first.

The suspension of Hegelian ethics

When we refer to ‘the ethical’, it is important to distinguish between tworelated but distinct issues. The first concerns the specific understandingof ‘the ethical’ in the context of Fear and Trembling, and is related to thequestion ‘What kind of ethical understanding does Johannes present?’ Thesecond concerns a more general understanding of Abraham as an ethicalagent, and is related to the question ‘Can Abraham’s willingness to kill hisson be regarded as anything but unethical; can there be any ethical pointof view that would affirm his act?’

These two issues are of course tightly connected, andmany interpretersaddress the second concern by focusing on the first. According to suchreadings, Johannes’ analysis of Abraham as basically standing outside theethical realm is rooted in the first’s incomplete perspective expressed inhis understanding of the ethical in Hegelian terms. When Johannesspeaks of ‘the ethical’, it is suggested, he does not speak on morality ingeneral but rather has a specific understanding of it in mind:


The ‘ethical’ with which faith is contrasted seems to be a stance that isquite Hegelian, seeing ethical obligations largely as embodied in thehistorically relative institutions and practices of societies.52

Everything that Johannes says about the relations between faith and theethical, then, should be understood in the context of his Hegelian con-ception of ethics. His conclusions regarding the alienation of faith toethics, therefore, indicate not only his explicit rejection of the Hegelianunderstanding of faith, but also his implicit acceptance of the Hegelianunderstanding of the ethical. Thus, as Stephen Mulhall suggests, maybe theproblem begins precisely with Johannes’ uncritical presupposition accord-ing to which Hegel’s theory of the ethical is indeed the ultimate one?

[A]s his claim to have immersed himself in Hegel’s philosophymight leadus to expect (FT, 33), de Silentio’s supposedly anti-Hegelian account ofthe religious realm remains implicitly indebted to Hegel’s understandingof the ethical realm ... He never stops to consider that Hegel’s illicitequation of the ethical and the religious realms might be as much aconsequence of his misinterpretation of the ethical realm as it is of thereligious realm – that the equation depends upon a misunderstanding ofboth relata.53

According to such an interpretative direction, we should decode a hiddenmessage in the text. Rather than considering it as a call for a suspension ofthe ethical (as its overt import implies), we should discern in it the call fora higher, post-Hegelian ethics. We should therefore read the suspensionof the ethical not as intended to abolish the ethical ideals altogether, but asa means to paving a different approach to them (in the framework ofhigher ethics).54 Some interpreters emphasize the Christian nature ofsuch higher ethics. Ronald Green, for example, claims that the problemFear and Trembling deals with lies in the realm of Christian soteriology – it isfocused not on human behaviour but rather on God’s grace and redeem-ing power. Fear and Trembling, he says, is about the religious idea ofsalvation and justification through faith alone.55

One possible answer to the question regarding the meaning of ‘theethical’ in Fear and Trembling, then, is that it amounts to theHegelian ethicalideals, and that accordingly the notorious call to suspend the ethical is, ineffect, a profound moral call for a higher, more correct, ethics. The ethics

52 Evans 2004: 74.53 Mulhall 2001: 382.54 See Hannay’s Introduction to his translation of Fear and Trembling (Hannay 2003a).55 See Green 1993. See also Mulhall 2001: 382–8, and Evans 2004: 82–4.


that needs to be ‘suspended’ is therefore the Hegelian Sittlichkeit which(wrongly) equates between social norms (duties and institutions) and agenuine morality. However, is the ethics that Fear and Trembling refers toonly theHegelian Sittlichkeit? After all, the ‘suspended’ duties not to kill andto love one’s son seem to be valid from any ethical point of view (i.e. notonly the Hegelian). This brings us to the second concern regarding ‘theethical’: can Abraham’s distressing behaviour be affirmed in the frameworkof any ethical understanding? An interesting answer to this question isimplied in the context of a recent discussion regarding the relationsbetween the ethical and the religious in Fear and Trembling. This studyrejects those readings that understand the ethical in Fear and Trembling asmerely representing a Hegelian ethics, and offers a new interpretation ofthe ethical (in this text) and its relation to faith.

‘Is only Hegelian ethics “suspended”?’ 56

[A]gapic norms are integral to the ethics that is ‘suspended’ in Abraham’sfaith, and not only to the faith that does the suspending. In raising theknife, or starting to sacrifice Isaac, Abraham appears to violate not onlyHegelian Sittlichkeit but also the duties he would have under the religiousethic of neighbor-love.57

John J. Davenport, in his essay ‘Faith as Eschatological Trust in Fear andTrembling’, claims that Kierkegaardian faith does not wish to replace oneset of ethical ideals by another. The highest ideals of ethics (such as lovingone’s neighbour, let alone one’s son) are the same before and after the‘suspension’. The crucial change consists in the relation of the ethicalagent to those ideals – it consists in the way one succeeds in holding fastto them, against the background of various obstacles in realizing them.Faith is the position that allows one to trust that those highest ideals ofethics, which are ultimately beyond the reach of one’s limited powers, willnevertheless be fulfilled. Davenport calls this trust ‘eschatological’, andexplains its structure as follows:

(a) The future state, ultimate outcome, or final end is a victory of the good,an actualization in finite/temporal existence of the infinite/eternal ideal;the created order of existence converges with what ethically ought to be…(b) (1) Given various kinds of obstacles in their way, the relevant humanagents can see no way of bringing about this victory by their own powers.

56 See Davenport 2008: 208.57 Ibid., 211.


(2) Nevertheless, it is possible in an incalculable way by divine power, by‘miracle’ transcending any rational prediction.58

God’s command to Abraham was therefore not the telos for the sake ofwhich the ethical was suspended, but rather the obstacle in the way offulfilling the ethical. God, according to Davenport’s suggestion, playsthree distinct roles here: he is ‘the ground of universal ethical norms; infaith, he is also the singular source of eschatological possibilities; and inthis special case, he is even the origin of the mysterious obstacle’.59 Thecrucial point, then, is that faith, when understood as an eschatologicaltrust, allows us and motivates us to act morally in accordance with theimportant hope that even when the attainment of ethical ideals seemsimpossible (due to the countless obstacles that reality puts up in our way),their fulfilment is nevertheless a valid possibility. This hope, strongenough to entirely transform the way we value our existence, is rootedin the trust we have in God’s promise: ‘… “teleological suspension of theethical” means: it is a trusting response to a divine promise concerningactual realization of ethical possibilities in this world (or in its end andremaking).’60

The suspension, then, is by no means a suspension of particular ethicalideals. Rather, it is a suspension of the human confidence regarding ourpowers to fulfil those ideals independently of divine transcendent help.61

This is indeed an important clarification, but at the same time Davenport’sdiscussion leaves questions regarding the form (and content) that both thedivine promise and its eschatological fulfilment take a little obscure. Asmentionedabove, there is an essential difference between Abraham and someone such

58 Ibid., 201–2 (emphasis in the text).59 Ibid., 212.60 Ibid., 231–2 (emphasis in the text). For a discussion on the transformative power of hope,

see Meirav 2009.61 In a way, the readings presented in the previous section also lead to this important

conclusion. The Hegelian aspect that the ‘new (post-Hegelian) ethics’ aims to transcendis ultimately human confidence regarding its autonomy and its ethical independent abil-ities. The ‘new ethics’ that those readings advance can be also understood as focusing on‘recovering a capacity to aim for ethical ideals by means of grace’ (Mulhall 2001: 386, andsee also Green 1993). However, the strength of Davenport’s reading is, in my view, twofold.First, it clarifies the crucial – and usually blurred – idea that at no point in Fear and Tremblingis there a rejection of fundamental ethical ideals (regardless of their Hegelian or non-Hegelian context). Second, by clarifying themeaning of the ‘new’ ethics in terms of trustingthe fulfilment of the ‘suspended’ ethics, Davenport shows, significantly, that Abraham’sfaith shares the same meaning, in terms both of structure and content, with the laterChristian model of faith. He thereby avoids the problematic conclusion of the other read-ings that call not only for post-Hegelian ethics but also for a ‘post-Abrahamic’ faith.


as the mundane knight. While the former received a specific and directpromise from God, the latter did not; accordingly, while Abraham hadstrong reason to believe that Isaac would continue to be his living son, thisis of course not applicable in the case of ‘mundane’ fathers. It is true that therelationship of trust between man and divinity must be based on some kindof promise, but surely this promise takes a different form from that of thespecific one given to Abraham. The eschatological faith of amundane fatherthat loses his son, accordingly, amounts to something different from theeschatological faith of Abraham; the fulfilment of ethical ideals is expresseddifferently in each of these cases. I therefore suppose that when Davenportspeaks of trusting the realization of ethical ideals in time, he means that theknight of faith trusts that ultimately goodness (the ideal of the good) will befulfilled, even if the knight cannot predict or even understand the form thatthis goodness is about to take (note again our discussion of the filmAll AboutMy Mother).62

Returning to our question regarding the ethical status of Fear andTrembling, we may conclude by saying that not only does Abraham’s faithnot violate any ethical ideal, it presents the highest way of fulfilling it.63

The ideals remain the same, but our appropriation of them in the contextof faith is changed completely: ‘A gestalt-shift occurs in the meaning ofuniversal ethical ideals … although their formal content is unchanged,their ultimate significance for human life has changed.’64 Thus, theessential element that distinguishes between a merely rational approach

62 At the same time, Davenport seems to emphasize (by contrast to my claim) that divinepromisemust be specifically given also to ‘mundane knights’. I suppose that this is rooted inhis wish to underline the decisive transcendental factor in the account of ‘eschatologicaltrust’: the foundation on which such trust is based cannot be the individual himself.Emphasizing that the basis for genuine eschatological trust cannot be immanent safe-guards this kind of trust from falling into self-delusion or bad faith. Here I am, of course,in agreement with him: trusting in a way relevant to genuine faith must involve an appeal toa greater power that transcends the powers of the individual. However, as explained above, Ithink that the very idea of trusting already presupposes such an appeal. ‘Trusting that x willbe fulfilled’ implies that the person who trusts acknowledges his limited control over thefulfilment of x. I therefore think that the issue in question here is a slightly different one. Todefine trust as being based on a divine promise refers to a question regarding the justificationfor having such a trust to begin with: what is it that justifies one’s trust of a power greaterthan oneself? Is it justified by some kind of revelation; or maybe by dogmatically acceptingthe contents of scripture as true? This is, of course, an extremely important question; but itrequires a separate discussion which goes far beyond the scope of the present study.

63 Accordingly, we can now also clarify that the test that Abrahamwithstands does not consist inhis willingness to kill his son, but rather in his trust in God’s promise. (See again ourdiscussion of ‘faith as trust’ above, and in particular of Adam’s interpretation on p. 98.)

64 Davenport 2008: 218–19.


to ethics and a religious approach (the approach of faith) is trust. Anethics that remains within the limits of human understanding and capaci-ties alone finds itself bankrupt when facing an unfathomable obstacle onthe way to fulfilling its ideals. We need the trust that is involved in faith tobe capable of holding fast to the possibility of this fulfilment.65

We may now be in the position to understand why the desirablerenewed relationship with the finite deserves the title ‘faith’. To useDavenport’s terminology, the ethical ideal that concerns us here is thatof maintaining a relationship of love (the love of the young man for hisfinite princess, for example). The obstacle in the way of fulfilling this idealis loss (in its various forms and manifestations). And finally, the way tofulfil the ideal notwithstanding the obstacle of loss is faith. Namely, theway of resignation and affirmation, the way of holding fast to the finitewhile completely releasing any claim on it, the way of trusting the fulfil-ment of even the most unattainable of our ethical wishes.

Taking Fear and Trembling’s understanding of faith as our model opens anew horizon of meanings in the context of which an interesting under-standing of love, and in particular romantic love, can emerge. We live in acomplex reality of bestowal and deprival, and it requires much effort andsensitivity to communicate in a proper way with such a confusing reality; areality that offers us splendid goods but sometimes also takes them away,leaving us in pain and sorrow. We therefore need the unique language offaith – profoundly attentive to our twofold bond with God and finitude –with which we can talk and listen to the world. This dialogue contains theinfinite pain involved in releasing everything, but also the intense joyof getting a firm hold on everything back again. Thus, it is only faiththat manages to give a real place for the existential, and ultimatelyreligious, intuition regarding the world’s receptivity to us. This intuitionis the basis for the desirable relationship – the faith-full (faith-pervaded)relationship – we should aim to sustain with everything given to us, andwith the beloved other in particular.

It seems then that in Fear and TremblingKierkegaard emphatically (eventhough indirectly) paves the way to a new understanding of romantic

65 ‘The esthetic sphere is the sphere of immediacy, the ethical the sphere of requirement (andthis requirement is so infinite that the individual always goes bankrupt), the religious thesphere of fulfillment, but, please note, not a fulfillment such as when one fills an alms box ora sack with gold, for repentance has specifically created a boundless space, and as aconsequence the religious contradiction: simultaneously to be out on 70,000 fathoms ofwater and yet be joyful’ (SLW, 476–7).


love – the double structure of faith, we saw, proves to supply a productiveframework for a profound depiction and exploration of this phenomenon.Hence, we may say that in Fear and Trembling Kierkegaard offers quite asurprising angle: a religious and affirmative approach to a phenomenonwhich usually finds itself on the outskirts of the religious discourse (if notcompletely banished from it). However, four years after writing Fear andTrembling, Kierkegaard published his only book that specifically and directlyexplores the subject of love, and his tone there seems to be completelyaltered. Works of Love, signed under Kierkegaard’s name (i.e. not pseudon-ymously), expresses a reserved, sometimes even hostile, approach to roman-tic love. We are therefore facing a non-simple task – can these twoKierkegaardian voices, that of Fear and Trembling and that of Works of Love,be heard together? And does their mutual composition ultimately producea songof praise to, or of condemnation of, romantic love?We cannot elaborateon the implications of Fear and Trembling’s model of faith-like love beforeanswering these questions, and to this the next two chapters will be devoted.


4

NEIGHBOURLY LOVE VERSUSROMANTIC LOVE

1 Love and the works of love

In the second paragraph of the Preface toWorks of Love Kierkegaard statesthe following: these ‘are Christian deliberations’, he says, ‘therefore notabout love, but about works of love’ (WL, 3, emphasis in the text). Thisbrief but emphatic declaration delineates the scope of the long discussionin the book before us: first, it is Christian in character and second (inaccordance with the first point), it is about works of love and not aboutlove. However, this should make us wonder: what is the differencebetween love and its works and why does Kierkegaard wish to emphasizethat the latter is the business of Christianity?

One of the prominent tasks thatWorks of Love takes upon itself is to clarifythe confusion regarding the nature of true love, as against the way the poetsunderstand it. Kierkegaard believes that the common understanding oflove – rooted in and advanced by the poets’ praises of it – is a confused andmisleading understanding, and that only a Christian point of view canovercome this confusion. At the same time, Kierkegaard is not interestedin conducting a conceptual (or metaphysical) analysis that will fathom themysterious essence of love, examine it from every possible angle, andconclude with a clear-cut definition of it. Rather, he is interested in theway love expresses itself in our life, in the way it shapes our existence anddrives us to action: he is interested in the acts of love, in itsworks. Therefore,the objective of Kierkegaard’s inquiry is an exploration of the works of love

109

(rather than a conceptual examination or ametaphysical understanding oflove), and he believes that this goal is the task of Christianity (and not ofpoetry or of conventional, i.e. Hegelian, philosophy).

Moreover, given Kierkegaard’s point of departure – he begins hisdiscussion by presenting love as a deeply impenetrable phenomenon –we may infer that the works of love (i.e. the various ways in which loveexpresses itself in the life of one who loves) are our only access to love.How else can we inquire into something which is ‘essentially indescribable’(ibid., emphasis in the text), and about which Kierkegaard says thefollowing:

Where does love come from, where does it have its origin and its source,where is the place it has its abode from which it flows? Yes, this place ishidden or is secret. There is a place in a person’s innermost being; fromthis place flows the life of love … But you cannot see this place; howeverdeeply you penetrate, the origin eludes you in remoteness and hidden-ness. (WL, 8–9)

We can say that Kierkegaard implicitly portrays love as a mysterious powerwith two facets: one is hidden, the other manifested in our works. Loveitself is invisible; hence the only way to discern love is in the works infusedby it. We can ‘see’ love only by means of the way in which it makes uswork.1 The one thing that Kierkegaard is willing to say about this myste-rious power is that it originates in God:

Just as the quiet lake originates deep down in hidden springs no eye hasseen, so also does a person’s love originate even more deeply in God’slove … Just as the quiet lake originates darkly in the deep spring, so ahuman being’s love originates mysteriously in God’s love. Just as the quietlake invites you to contemplate it but by the reflected image of darknessprevents you from seeing through it, so also the mysterious origin of lovein God’s love prevents you from seeing its ground. (WL, 9–10)

We can cautiously depict the following picture. Love is a driving powerimplanted in us by God, but it is hidden.2 It is the basis for all the possiblemanifestations of love; but in itself, this fundamental power is unfathom-able. Being thus hidden and unfathomable, we can inquire only into itsvarious manifestations: that is, only into the way that this fundamental

1 However, this does notmean that the work of love always bears recognizable fruit. Sometimesit does, sometimes it does not, and sometimes there are beautiful fruits – but no love. There isnot a simple and necessary connection between the work of love and its results. See the FirstDeliberation: Love’s Hidden Life and Its Recognizability by Its Fruits.

2 ‘God … has placed love in the human being’ (WL, 126; see Ferreira 2008: 107).


love expresses itself in our works (our works of love).3 These works maysometimes bear recognizable fruit, but not necessarily. Hence, the focusof our investigation should be the works of love (rather than the hiddenpower of love or its recognizable fruits). In the picture that I suggest here,then, there are four elements to be distinguished (we can also think ofthem in terms of four levels). First, there is the source of love: that is, God.Second, there is the love that God places within us, the mysterious powerthat operates in us, the hidden ground of our works: that is, love itself.Third, there are the manifestations of love, the expressions of that myste-rious power: that is, the works of love. And finally (but not necessarily),there are the results of the works: that is, the fruits of love.

However, despite drawing this essential (and quite illuminating) distinc-tion between love and its works, Kierkegaard does not seem to elaborate onthis idea or make much use of it in his exploration of the subject matter oflove. He uses the Danish word for love – ‘Kjerlighed’ – whenever he speaksof true love (love as it should be), but he does not clarify whether it denotesthe source of love (that is, God as love), or the hidden power of love (that is,love itself), or themanifestation of love (that is, theworks of love). As amatterof fact, it seems that he uses the word ‘Kjerlighed’ for indicating all the three:

It is noteworthy that Kjerlighed is the immediate love by which we are lovedby God and which enables us to love others – that is, Kierkegaard uses thesame Danish word (Kjerlighed) to refer to (1) God as love, (2) the love

placed in us by God, as well as (3) the neighbor-love we are commanded toexpress. The love that Kierkegaard says is commanded by God isdescribed by the same word as the love that is God (Kjerlighed) prior toany specification into erotic love and non erotic love.4

Now, for reasons that will become explicit later, I claim that the distinctionbetween love and its works should be kept as clear as possible. I thereforesuggest that we use the word ‘Kjerlighed’ in a narrower, more focused, way.In what follows I will use the word ‘Kjerlighed’ to indicate only one of its(three)meanings; I will use it to indicate the hidden power of love, ‘the loveplaced in us by God’, the fundamental love: that is, love itself (rather thanits manifestations/works). Kjerlighed, then, is the hidden ground of everypossible manifestation of love, and as such cannot be the subject of our

3 Roughly put, we may suggest that Kierkegaard is actually saying that love, being a mysterious oreven divine power, cannot be the subject of our discussion. We cannot talk about love, we canonly talk about theworks of love: namely, about the various ways in which this power is present inour life, shaping our essential relationships with ourselves and with the others surrounding us.

4 Ferreira 2008: 107 (emphasis in the original).

neighbourly love versus romantic love 111

inquiry: only its manifestations can. What are the manifestations ofKjerlighed like, then? What are the works of love?

When we think of the possible humanmanifestations of love, twomajortypes are noticeable: the neighbourly (non-preferential) kind of love onthe one hand, and the preferential kind (for example, romantic love), onthe other.5 As we will soon see,Works of Love presents quite a confused andinconsistent account of the latter: Kierkegaard sharply contrasts betweenneighbourly and preferential love, but at the same time tries to incorpo-rate the latter (preferential love) into the former (neighbourly love).While ultimately wishing to affirm the legitimacy of the preferential kindof love, Kierkegaard insists that there is only one true manifestation, onlyone genuine love: the Christian, neighbourly, non-preferential kind of love.‘Christianly’, he says, ‘the entire distinction between the different kinds oflove is essentially abolished…Christianity… knows only one kind of love,the spirit’s love, but this can lie at the base of and be present in every otherexpression of love’ (WL, 143, 146).

We can see that Kierkegaard actually identifies the neighbourly mani-festation of love (i.e. one of the works of Kjerlighed) with the fundamentalpower of love that ‘lie[s] at the base of … every other expression of love’(i.e. Kjerlighed itself).6 In Works of Love, I claim, Kierkegaard conflatesbetween Kjerlighed and neighbourly love, thereby sowing the seeds thatsoon develop into the inconsistency typifying this important work. But letus not jump ahead of ourselves and point at the direction of the solutionbefore presenting the problem. Let us then put aside for the time beingthe distinction between love and its various manifestations (i.e. betweenKjerlighed and its different works), and focus on Kierkegaard’s account ofneighbourly, non-preferential love as the one true love. Our question,accordingly, will be how does Kierkegaard, in the context of this account,understand the status of romantic, preferential love?7

5 The list of deeds that Kierkegaard sometimes seems to consider as works of love (forexample, ‘giving to charity, visiting the widow, and clothing the naked’,WL, 13), or examinesas a work of love (for example, hope, mercifulness, or praising love – see respectivelydeliberations III, VII, X of the second series) should be considered as falling under thesetwo categories. When love is manifested in a neighbourly way, the works of love may beexpressed in giving to charity or in beingmerciful; when love is manifested in, say, a romantic(i.e. preferential) way, the works of love may be expressed in hope or in praising love.

6 To put it differently, he does not seem to clarify whether from his point of view neighbourlylove is the origin of love (love itself: Kjerlighed), or a work of love.

7 The following two sections form a part of my essay ‘Two Forms of Love: The Problem ofPreferential Love in Kierkegaard’s Works of Love’ (Krishek 2008). Minor changes have beenmade in the present version.


2 Kierkegaard’s ambivalent position

Non-preferential love versus preferential love

Erotic love is based on a drive that, transfigured into an inclination, hasits … expression in this – there is but one and only one beloved in thewhole world … Christian love teaches us to love all people, uncondition-ally all. (WL, 49)

Erotic love and friendship are preferential love and the passion of preferential love;Christian love is self-denial’s love. (WL, 52, emphasis in the text)

Kierkegaard draws a clear division here between preferential love andChristian love. The division is defined as follows: erotic love and friend-ship belong to the category of preferential love, which is characterized byexclusivity (‘there is but one and only one beloved’) and is based onpreference, while the other category – that of Christian love – is charac-terized by equality (‘teaches us to love all people’) and is based on self-denial. Christian love is the love expressed in the commandment ‘Youshall love your neighbour as yourself’ (Matthew 22:39) and this ‘shall’,this duty, is ‘the very mark of Christian love’ (WL, 24). Christian love istherefore the duty to love the neighbour, any neighbour, as one lovesoneself, while preferential love is the love directed at one special neigh-bour who, by virtue of preference, has a different status from that of all theother neighbours. For the sake of simplicity, and to keep the division asclear as possible, in what follows I shall refer to Christian love as neighbourlylove and to preferential love, occasionally, as special love. Also, I will referfrequently to ‘romantic love’ as a typical representative of this category(since of all the various kinds of preferential love, romantic love is thespecific subject of our inquiry). Why does Kierkegaard consider these twokinds of love – the neighbourly and the preferential – to be so distinctivelydifferent?

Kierkegaard continually restricts his reservation towards preferentialloves to the way ‘the poet understands them’ (WL, 50). That is to say (atleast on the face of it) that preferential love is excluded from the categoryof neighbourly love only as far as it is understood in the way the poetunderstands it. We can therefore read between the lines that erotic loveand friendship are not dismissed altogether but only as long as they areunderstood in the non-Christian (or ‘pagan’ as Kierkegaard calls it)manner of the poet. This, of course, paves the way for the affirmation ofa different – that is, Christian, neighbourly – understanding of preferen-tial love, but it raises two questions. First, what is wrong with the poet’s


pagan understanding of preferential love? Second, what is the alternative,that is, what does the new, neighbourly manifestation of preferentiallove look like? My claim is that although Kierkegaard answers the firstquestion, he does not – and, if he wants to be consistent, cannot – give asatisfactory answer to the second. However, let us begin with the firstquestion: what is wrong with the poet’s pagan understanding of prefer-ential love?

‘[W]hat paganism called love, as distinguished from self-love, waspreference. But … passionate preference is essentially another form ofself-love’ (WL, 53). Paganism, Kierkegaard explains, distinguishedbetween self-love and true love by recognizing the latter in the passionatepreference of erotic love and friendship: to love one’s beloved or friendpassionately is to love another person (rather than oneself) and thereforeit is (true) love (and not self-love). However, in sharp contrast with pagan-ism, Christianity considers preferential love – the passionate love for one’sbeloved or friend – to be ‘another form of self-love’. Christianity ‘hasmisgivings about erotic love and friendship’, then, because Christianityrejects self-love (ibid., 53). It is the element of selfishness in preferentiallove that neighbourly love – which is, after all, self-denial’s love – wishes ‘toroot out’: ‘only when one loves the neighbor, only then is the selfishness inpreferential love rooted out’, Kierkegaard says at the very beginning of thedeliberation (ibid., 44, emphasis in the text). But what constitutes theelement of selfishness in preferential love? In an earlier stage of the bookKierkegaard declares:

What a difference there is between the play of feelings, drives, inclinations,and passions, in short, that play of the powers of immediacy, that celebratedglory of poetry in smiles or in tears, in desire or in want – what a differencebetween this and the earnestness of eternity, the earnestness of the com-mandment in spirit and truth, in honesty and self-denial! (WL, 25)

It seems reasonable to assume that Kierkegaard considers those elements(‘feelings, drives, inclinations, and passions… the powers of immediacy’)to constitute the selfishness that distinguishes between preferential loveand neighbourly love, because they are indeed concerned exclusively withthe self and its gratification. Moreover, this fits in well with the logic thatdifferentiates between preferential love and neighbourly love: we sawabove that Kierkegaard defines neighbourly love as self-denial’s love(‘Christian love is self-denial’s love’, ibid., 52) and this, quite reasonably,must oppose the kind of love that is focused on the self. Are we toconclude, then, that inclinations and desires and everything connected


to the well-being of the self are to be eliminated when one is to loveproperly (that is, in the neighbourly way)? Is the self simply to be denied?The picture ismore complicated than that. After all, the self plays a crucialpart in the commandment that reads ‘You shall love your neighbour asyourself ’. There is a need, then, to distinguish between at least two differ-ent ways of relating to the self, between two kinds of self-love: the kind ofself-love referred to in the commandment, and the kind of self-loveKierkegaard considers as selfish.

Different kinds of self-love

What does it mean to love somebody as one loves oneself? What does itmean to love oneself in a way (the proper way) that can and should beapplied in our relationship to the neighbour? I follow M. Jamie Ferreira’ssuggestion to understand this kind of self-love in terms of respect and ofwishing the good for ourselves, and I accept her emphasis on the impor-tance of noting the distinction that Kierkegaard makes between ‘selfishself-love’ and ‘proper self-love’.8 Ferreira explains the difference betweenthese two self-loves as follows: ‘Kierkegaard distinguishes between twoforms of self-love: a “selfish,” exclusive love of self, which is at odds withthe good of the other, and a “proper,” inclusive love of self, which bothencompasses the good of the other and is the measure of the good of theother’ (Ferreira 2001: 35).

However, is this a satisfactory characterization? Is the criterionexpressed here – that is, not to be ‘at odds with the good of the other’ –accurate enough to distinguish unselfish (that is, proper) self-love fromselfish self-love? Taking this as our guiding rule does not explain, forexample, why passionate romantic love (being ‘the play of feelings, drives,inclinations, and passions’) should be considered by Kierkegaard to beselfish (and it seems that it is, given the contrast he outlines betweenpassions and the ‘earnestness’ of neighbourly love – see again the quota-tion above). After all, from the point of view of one’s neighbour there isnothing offensive (in terms of respect and wishing his well-being) inloving one’s beloved passionately. It seems that Kierkegaard’s objectionto preferential love goes beyond a strictly blatant violation of the good ofthe neighbour. In order to understand what might be the problematicelement in preferential love we therefore need to qualify the differences

8 See Ferreira 2001: 31–4. I refer in detail to Ferreira’s interpretation below.


between selfish self-love and proper self-love more carefully, and distin-guish between three kinds of self-love:

(a) Selfish self-love. Self-love which is indeed ‘at odds with the good of theother’: using the other as a means for one’s selfish satisfactions oracting towards achieving one’s own good regardless of the effect it hason the other.

(b) Proper qualified self-love. A restricted form of self-love, which is the self-love referred to in the commandment. This kind of self-love is under-stood in terms of respect and wishing one’s well-being, in a narrowsense of ‘well-being’ (that is, a well-being stripped of most of its‘embodied’ aspects, such as responsiveness and sensitivity to inclina-tions, desires, and preferences).

(c) Proper unqualified self-love. Acting to fulfil one’s well-being, in a broadersense of ‘well-being’ (which includes sensitivity to the self’s inclina-tions, desires, and preferences), with a constant consideration of thegood of the other. That is, fulfilling one’s own ‘self-focused’ concernsas long as they are not ‘at odds with the good of the other’.

On the face of it, self-love (b) and self-love (c) seem to be very close toeach other: after all, there is no contradiction between the elementsconstituting the broader kind of self-love (elements concerned with satis-fying one’s inclinations and desires: the basis for preferential love), andthose constituting the narrower one (elements concerned with respect forthe self and for the other). Indeed, this seemingly reasonable combina-tion between the two kinds of self-love provides the grounds for thejustification of preferential love, to be found later in the text.

However, as I aim to show, from Kierkegaard’s point of view the twocannot really be in harmony. Neighbourly love, which in his understandingis self-denial’s love, can work well with self-love only when self-love is under-stood in themanner of (b).Of course, this does notmean that self-love in themanner of (c) should be ruled out; but as long as self-denial is the dominantstructure of the love which Kierkegaard advocates here, self-love in themanner of (c) – that is, self-love which is concerned alsowith the gratificationof one’s self-focusedwishes (even if it does not come explicitly at the expenseof the other) – should at least be set aside as marginal or secondary.

In other words, even if self-love in the manner of (c) is not explicitlycondemned byKierkegaard, he implicitly expresses ambivalence towards it.We get the impression that, from Kierkegaard’s point of view, desires andfeelings and inclinations are something that he needs to tolerate: he has nochoice but to accept them (because he definitely does not wish to ignore or


deny our corporeal, worldly existence; see for example WL, 52) – but it ishard to say that he does this enthusiastically. In Works of Love, I claim,Kierkegaard is reluctant to endorse what I shall later call a ‘full concrete-ness’ of the self: a concreteness which is manifested in the embodiment ofthe self, whose spirituality is expressed also in a worldly, natural (bodily andself-related) manner. This ambivalence towards the self is at the root ofKierkegaard’s ambivalence towards preferential love. The crux of the mat-ter, then, is the contrast (or at least the tension) between a denial of the self(arguably the basis for neighbourly love), and an affirmation – a fullaffirmation – of it (arguably the basis for preferential love). DoesKierkegaard allow for an affirmation that unapologetically takes into consid-eration self-concerned, natural, and spontaneous desires, or does he, ulti-mately, consider this aspect of the self to be ‘selfish’?9

To love the neighbor, however, is self-denial’s love, and self-denial simplydrives out all preferential love just as it drives out all self-love … Even ifpassionate preference had no other selfishness in it, it would still have this,that consciously or unconsciously there is self-willfulness in it. (WL, 55)

[I]n preferential love there is a natural determinant (drive, inclination)and self-love … The spirit’s love, in contrast, takes away from myself allnatural determinants and all self-love. (WL, 56)

It seems that for Kierkegaard any form of preference, by virtue of the‘natural determinants’ that characterize it, amounts to selfishness (even ifonly in the form of ‘self-willfulness’, he says, without justifying this prob-lematic statement).10 Accordingly, Kierkegaard seems to posit ‘spirit’slove’ against ‘all self-love’ and by doing this to rule out the possibility ofunqualified self-love (self-love (c)): self-love that includes attention to‘natural determinants’ such as desires, feelings, and inclinations.

Works of Love is rich in critical denunciations of preferential love. Atthe same time, it is clear that Kierkegaard wishes to affirm the specialrelationships we all have in our lives (with members of our families, withlovers and with friends). He says:

9 To avoid confusion, whenever referring to the self-love related to the fully affirmed self(i.e. the kind of self-love about which Kierkegaard is ambivalent), I will use the qualification‘self-love (c)’.

10 It is true that preference is related to identification and manifestation of one’s will – butdoes this necessarily amount to ‘self-willfulness’? Sensitivity to one’s wishes and desires,sensitivity to ‘what one wants’, is not essentially connected to a blatant, non-humble, andselfish assertion of the will, as Kierkegaard’s use of ‘self-willfulness’ here implies. I return tothe problematic identification between self-willfulness and selfishness in the next chapter.


[L]ove the beloved faithfully and tenderly, but let love for the neighbor bethe sanctifying element in your union’s covenant with God. Love yourfriend honestly and devotedly, but let love for the neighbor be what youlearn from each other in your friendship’s confidential relationship withGod! (WL, 62)

Kierkegaard’s welcoming of preferential love is quite evident here: heexplicitly posits it on the side of neighbourly love and declares the possi-bility of their coexistence. However, his earlier (and insistent) oppositionbetween preferential and neighbourly loves indicates his ambivalencetowards ‘unqualified’ self-love (self-love (c)) – and towards preferentiallove (to which self-love (c) is the basis) thereby. Although Kierkegaardaccepts the kind of self-love that allows for attending to one’s – bodily andemotional – good, his heart, so to speak, is in the self-love of the command-ment (that is, the kind of self-love that allows only for a partial self; a selfwhose principal relation to himself is that of denial, and whose love forhimself basically amounts to a ‘feeling’ of respect). This ambivalence resultsin a series of assertions regarding preferential love that are undoubtedly intension with each other. How are we to address this ambivalence?

Is the ambivalence in Kierkegaard’s position resolvable?

Kierkegaard’s harsh attitude towards preferential love in the context ofWorks of Love has earned him more than once the severe charge of present-ing a non-human and undesirable model of love.11 In recent years, on theother hand, several impressive attempts have been made to amendWorks ofLove’s notorious reputation and to bring to light its edifying nature and itsimportant insights regarding human love. However, despite this growinginterest in Works of Love, the problem of Kierkegaard’s understanding ofpreferential love has not received the attention it deserves. Researcherseither focus their attention on the moral and religious nature of neighbourlylove alone or, on the relatively rare occasions where romantic (that is,preferential) love is the focus of the research, the tension in Kierkegaard’sposition with regard to this kind of love is quite disregarded.12

An example of a study which, though acknowledging the tension inKierkegaard’s understanding of preferential love, refrains from giving it

11 See, for example, Adorno 1940; Løgstrup 1997; Singer 1987.12 See Green and Ellis 1999 and Hall 2002 as an example of the latter. These studies take

neighbourly love to be the essential model for romantic love, and do not pay enoughattention to the inconsistency in Kierkegaard’s position with regard to the relations betweenthese two manifestations of love. I elaborate on Hall’s reading below.


the thorough consideration it requires, is Sylvia Walsh’s ‘Forming theHeart: The Role of Love in Kierkegaard’s Thought’. In this essay Walshemphasizes that Kierkegaard does not object to preferential loves as suchbut only to the element of selfishness in them. This selfishness, accordingto Walsh’s understanding, does not consist in our ‘natural inclinations,needs, and desires’, and therefore a purified preferential love is the formthat neighbourly love takes in the context of our special, ‘natural’ loves.13

At the same time, however, Walsh admits that this model is not entirelyaffirmed by Kierkegaard, and she acknowledges that

there appears to be a certain ambivalence toward natural love inKierkegaard’s thought. He says that Christianity is not opposed to naturalinclination as such, only to the selfishness in it, yet he does not seem torecognize any ability on the part of natural love to love unselfishly.14

Moreover, Walsh asks the important question of whether preferentialloves, by virtue of their preference, do not ‘remain fundamentally selfishin nature’ (ibid., 240) (I suppose that she means selfishness in the senseof what I have termed self-love (c)), and her answer reflects her ownambivalence with regard to the significance and value of preferentialloves. After all, it is the element of preference in our special loves thatestablishes the uniqueness, the different nature, of those loves directed attheir ‘preferred’ objects (such as the beloved and the friend). But Walsh,despite conceding to the essentiality of preference in these loves, presentsthe difference created by preference as inessential. ‘[W]hile we certainlylove persons in our special relations differently from the way we loveothers’, she says, ‘this difference is not essential, since we love themfundamentally as we love others, that is, as a neighbor.’15

In other words, Walsh considers preferential loves to be only an ines-sential expression of neighbourly love, which means not only a margina-lizing of preferential loves but also a disregarding of the fundamentalclash between equality (the demand of neighbourly love) and preference(the demand of special love). Accordingly, she can state the following:‘This [i.e. neighbourly love] seems to be for Kierkegaard the decisivefactor in the transformation of erotic love that rids it of selfish exclusivityand establishes equality in love while preserving special relations.’16

13 Walsh 1988: 239.14 Ibid., 248.15 Ibid., 241.16 Ibid.


However, this leaves us with two related problems. First, can we reallyrid ourselves of what Kierkegaard tends to understand as ‘selfishness’,without this resulting in the elimination of the special, preferential lovesthat we want to keep (since, as we saw above, it seems that Kierkegaard isreluctant to unequivocally affirm as unselfish one’s desires and inclina-tions and preferences – that is, everything that constitutes special loves assuch)? And second, how can the same love (neighbourly love) be at thesame time equal and special? If neighbourly love should be directedequally at everybody, what does this love look like when it is directed atthose special people in our lives? Is this love still the same? What thenmakes this special love special? To put it as succinctly as possible: can wereally keep our special (that is, preferential and supposedly ‘selfish’)loves – say, our romantic loves – in the framework of being allowed to loveonly in a neighbourly (that is, equal and self-denying) manner?

In my view, this twofold problem – that is, Kierkegaard’s implicitreluctance to affirm as unselfish the essential self-relating aspects of ourembodied, finite existence; and his explicit insistence on seeing self-denying neighbourly love as the overarching model for all human loves,including special, preferential loves – forms the basis of his conflictingunderstanding of preferential love and explains the ambivalence in hisposition. Is this ambivalence resolvable? An in-depth treatment of thisproblem was made by M. Jamie Ferreira in her commentary on Works ofLove. Love’s Grateful Striving is an extensive, detailed, and the most com-prehensive study of Works of Love to date, including an all-embracingresponse to the variety of former readings of this book. Accordingly, inthe argument I put forward here against Kierkegaard, Ferreira will be mymost important opponent.

3 M. Jamie Ferreira’s resolution

Equality and preferentiality

What is at stake for Kierkegaard is not that preferential love should beexcluded but that it should not be the determinant of responsibility forthe other. The discussion of preference is meant to show that love that isrestricted to preference will not apprehend people as equals.17

According to Ferreira, Kierkegaard’s assertions against preferential loveshould be interpreted as attesting to his concern with equality and not as a

17 Ferreira 2001: 46.


manifestation of his rejection of preferential love. Indeed, Ferreira has asolid textual ground for declaring that ‘Kierkegaard is offering neither anattack on all self-love nor a denial of the legitimate role of preference andinclination in erotic love and friendship’ – but can she reconcile the latter(textual indications as to the legitimacy of preferential love) with theformer (assertions against preferential love)?18

Ferreira’s claim is that ‘[l]ove of neighbor is distinguished from pref-erential love precisely because neighbor is the category of equality beforeGod and preferential love does not do justice to equality’.19 Therefore,the emphasis in the text should be understood as an emphasis againstloving only by way of preferential love. The danger that Kierkegaard ispointing out here, Ferreira says, is the danger of restricting ourselves toloving only those we are inclined to love, only those we love naturally andeasily – that is, only those we love preferentially.20 The warnings againstpreferential love, then, are warnings against exclusion. Since ‘[t]he rad-ical commitment to human equality’ is the crucial thing for Kierkegaard(‘at the heart of Kierkegaard’s ethic’), his negative position against pref-erential love should not be understood as an unequivocal rejection ofpreferential love but rather as an indication of ‘the obligation to care forall without exclusion’.21

Ferreira, then, takes the antagonism in Kierkegaard’s discussion ofpreferential love and reads it as an affirmation of the importance ofequality in his ethics. In a sense she turns the ‘no’ (to preferential love)into a ‘yes’ (to equality) and thus finds a way to reconcile Kierkegaard’sinitial rejection of preferential love with his later affirmation of the samething. Preferential love is not rejected for being preferential but only forthe danger it posits to our duty to love everybody with no exception.Therefore, as long as we are guided by this duty there is nothing wrongwith preferential love. We are allowed to love ‘preferentially’, as long as we(first and foremost) love dutifully. On the face of it, this seems to be areasonable demand. It sounds perfectly plausible to affirm preferentiallove as long as we have neighbourly love as the basis on which we con-struct, as it were, our preferential loves. But what does this really mean?Can it really work – can preferential love be subsumed under neighbourlylove without compromising either the meaning of preferential love (aspreferential) or the rigorousness of the ‘commitment to human equality’?

18 Ibid., 44.19 Ibid.20 Ibid., 46, 52.21 Ibid., 47, 44.


If we expect neighbourly love – which is presented by Kierkegaard asessentially non-preferential – to present the general structure of love (thatis, to constitute the essential model for love) – what does this imply withregard to the essential element of preferentiality in special loves? To say thatlove is essentially non-preferential, and yet that one of its manifestations ispreferential, is to contradict oneself.

Neither Kierkegaard nor Ferreira refers to this contradiction thatseems to be implied by their suggestion. Therefore, although I agreewith Ferreira that Kierkegaard indeed affirms preferential love, I do notagree with her that this affirmation is consistent with his basic position.If taken seriously, I claim, the ‘radical commitment to equality’, thatWorksof Love posits as the ground for any form of love, implies the exclusion ofpreferential love.

Does Works of Love allow for equality and preference to coincide? 22

Kierkegaard is very specific about the meaning of neighbourly love withregard to equality and preference:

Love for the neighbor is therefore the eternal equality in loving, but the eternalequality is the opposite of preference … Equality is simply not to makedistinctions, and eternal equality is unconditionally not to make theslightest distinction, unqualifiedly not to make the slightest distinction.Preference, on the other hand, is to make distinctions; passionate prefer-ence is unqualifiedly to make distinctions. (WL, 58, emphasis in the text)

With Ferreira’s defence of Kierkegaard in mind, as well as Kierkegaard’sown words in favour of preferential love, how are we to understand theabove uncompromising demand for equality that presents preferentiallove as being at odds with neighbourly love? Moreover, Kierkegaardmakes it clear, and reasonably so, that loving preferentially means toposit one person above all the rest. Erotic love and friendship, he says, are

based on preference: to love this one person above all others, to love himin contrast to all others … The Christian doctrine, on the contrary, is tolove the neighbor, to love the whole human race, all people, even theenemy, and not to make exceptions, neither of preference nor of aver-sion. (WL, 19)

Thus, if loving equally means ‘not to make exceptions’ and this meansprecisely that one must not accept any hierarchy in the way in which one

22 See ibid., 45.


loves, how can preferential love be affirmed in the framework of neigh-bourly love? To address this samematter from a slightly different angle, letus remind ourselves of Ferreira’s explanation. As we saw in the previoussection she says that preferential love is acceptable as long as it does notabuse my general duty towards the neighbour. In other words, to lovepreferentially is adequate on the condition that it does not ‘blind’ me tothe neighbour’s needs.23 However, according to this criterion, it is notclear why Kierkegaard should be worried about the possibility of lovingone person above everyone else. On the face of it, loving one’s belovedmore than (that is, above) one’s neighbour does not mean – at least notnecessarily – that one is blind towards one’s neighbour. One can love one’sbeloved ‘above all others’ and yet be sensitive and responsible and caringfor one’s neighbour and help him in his need. There is no contradictionhere. Kierkegaard, however, insists that there is. Note that he couples‘above all others’ with ‘in contrast to all others’: in his view, to love some-one ‘more’ necessarily entails blindness towards the rest. What does hemean by that? I think that we can see the problem he is referring to byimagining a simple situation, familiar from our daily experience.

The duty to love my annoying neighbour who lives upstairs means thatdespite his being rude and noisy and unpleasant, despite the fact that I donot really like him, I have a duty to care about him, to see him as an equalhuman being, to feel compassion towards him and to help him if he is inneed. But now suppose that I have not only been afflicted with a disagree-able neighbour, but also blessed with a good friend that I love dearly.Lovingmy friend preferentially does not mean that I am blind tomy upstairsneighbour and that if he needed help I would not give him this help.However, loving my friend preferentially does mean that the well-being ofmy friend is of a more focused concern to me, and sadly – since we arelimited creatures (in time and abilities) who cannot dedicate ourmaximalefforts to everyone – it also means that I choose my friend (by virtue of mypreference which gives my friend his special status)above my neighbour.

Now, if Kierkegaard is unwilling to accept the appropriateness oftreating the friend and the neighbour in such a different manner (andit seems that he is indeed unwilling), but still insists on maintaining thatpreferential love is legitimate, he has to explain what makes this legitimate(that is, unselfish, neighbourly) form of preferential love ‘preferential’.Since he does not explain this (that is, he does not provide an alternativeaccount of a legitimate preferential love), and yet attacks preferential love

23 See Ferreira’s discussion of ‘The Blindness of Preference’ (ibid., 50).


in the way he does and then affirms it in the way he does – we are justifiedin accusing him of inconsistency.

Ferreira’s interpretation fails to address this inconsistency because theanswer she gives (preferential love is acceptable as long as it does notresult in blindness towards the neighbour) does not tackle the problemthat the situation described above posits with regard to the demand forequality. That is, the problem that in spite of not being blind to myneighbour, loving preferentially means necessarily that I look differentlyat my friend and love him in a different way (an ‘unequal’ way) from thatin which I lovemy neighbour. The result of the demand to love in the sameway (in the neighbourly, non-preferential, equal way) all the differentobjects of love in our lives, then, is that we leave no real room for the(existing) differences between preferential and non-preferential loves.Therefore, as long as neighbourly love is expected to be the ruling,decisive model for love – any love – it is impossible to present those specialloves that we call ‘preferential’ as legitimate forms of love: that is, asanything other than a failure to love correctly, or a distortion of correctlove. Accordingly, Kierkegaard’s – and Ferreira’s – attempt to presentthose loves as legitimate, while insisting on taking neighbourly love asthe model for any love, is precisely the cause of the inconsistency in theirposition. Ultimately, given their insistence on one and the same equal love forall, it is not very clear what their suggestion – to love by way of both duty andpreference – amounts to. After all, how can I love my romantic beloved(assuming that this is a love that is by definition preferential) by virtue of alove which is essentially and decisively non-preferential?

In answer to the question that I posited in the title of this section I wouldtherefore say that no, Works of Love does not allow equality and preferenceto coincide. However, this does not mean that they cannot coincide inprinciple.Works of Love does not allow them to coincide because it insists onstructuring the model of love (that is, the one true love of which all theother loves are various manifestations) in terms of self-denial and non-preferentiality. But perhaps this is misleading: perhaps we should think oflove as being structured differently, in the shape of the double movement offaith? I shall return to this suggestion in the next chapter, but first let us seehow Ferreira might have responded to my criticism.

A possible response to my criticism and an answer

Although Ferreira herself uses the term ‘preference’ when approvingspecial loves (under the condition of not violating equality), it now


seems that she objects to preference after all: ‘the descriptions of thefulfillment of love that begin here support the idea of an impartiality (orequal regard) that includes loving the differences (even while it excludespreference)’.24

Ferreira wants to include in Works of Love’s model of love a specialattention to concreteness and differences – but at the same time shewants, in compliance withWorks of Love, to exclude preference. She there-fore limits the meaning of preference to the phenomenological fact thatthere are people who are closer to us than others, people ‘who constituteour arena for moral action’.25 She insists that the fact that proximityindeed influences the way we act (in terms of who we give our help andattention to – and remember the example of the neighbour and thefriend that I mentioned above) does not imply preference. She asks:‘Does Kierkegaard’s acknowledgment of the fact that we are situated ina particular historical and spatial context amount to a disguised expres-sion of preference that is inconsistent with equality?’26 And she answers:

In the second deliberation, as we saw, Kierkegaard claims that preferenceis self-loving because even if it is not selfish, it remains an expression of‘self-willfulness’ and ‘arbitrariness’ … In the fourth deliberation, on thecontrary, the phrase ‘those once given or chosen,’ which he repeats(pp. 159, 166), explicitly excludes the dimensions of willfulness or arbi-trariness that constitute the preference to be avoided.27

‘Once given or chosen’, then, is the logic behind the ‘new’, justifiedpreference (it explains what constitutes our ‘arena for moral action’),and this new condition for close, ‘preferred’ relationships substitutes the‘preference to be avoided’. However, is ‘once given or chosen’ strongenough to explain the different, unique commitment and love that wefeel towards the people who constitute our close circle (that is, ‘our arenafor moral action’)? What explains the ‘choice’ (in the ‘once chosen’), forexample? Can the ‘forbidden’ preference (which we are instructed ‘toavoid’) be taken out of the picture when we try to explain the phenom-enological fact of being closer to some people than to others (and ofchoosing some and not others)?

Moreover, Ferreira emphasizes that the love discussed here (i.e. inWorks of Love) is sensitive to differences. From this perspective the

24 Ibid., 106, emphasis mine.25 Ibid.26 Ibid.27 Ibid., 106–7.


different loves are explained in terms of different responses to distinctobjects of love:

We can assume that seeing a person as she is, if she is our daughter or wife,will mean seeing her as our daughter or wife. The particularities of therelation must make some difference in the character of our response,both in terms of what is seen to be needed by those to whom we stand inspecial relations and what I can more easily do for them because ofproximity or greater knowledge of their situation.28

It seems, then, that Ferreira’s answer to my criticism – a criticism thatemphasizes the importance of preference for explaining the phenom-enological reality in which, for example, one’s love for one’s wife isdifferent from one’s love for one’s neighbour – could be that dismissingpreferences does not entail dismissing the uniqueness and distinctivenessof different forms of love. Even though one loves without making prefer-ences, one loves different persons distinctively and distinguishably. Sherefers in this context to Kierkegaard’s effective example with respect toour love of nature: ‘Just recollect what you yourself have so oftendelighted in looking at, recollect the beauty of the meadows! There isno difference in the love, no, none – yet what a difference in the flowers!’(WL, 269–70).29

However, in my view, these beautiful words capture precisely the prob-lem I am trying to indicate: I do not claim that neighbourly love is notsensitive to the differences between the distinctive objects at which it isdirected; I do not claim that this love unifies all the concrete persons intoone abstract object. The problem with this model of love is not that itimplies sameness in the object of love (or, in Ferreira’s terms, blindness todifferences and concreteness) – but rather that it implies the sameness of thelove itself. Eventually, the only explanation Ferreira offers as regards thenature of the difference in the love itself (that is, the difference, forexample, between love for one’s spouse or friend and love for one’sneighbour) is in terms of a ‘responsiveness to different needs’. But isthis strong enough to explain the difference between the love I feel formyromantic beloved and the love I feel for my neighbour? I think not.

Ferreira’s resolution, to conclude, is therefore unsatisfactory for sev-eral reasons. To begin with, her account does not explain why the differ-ence in roles (which, from her point of view, serves to explain the

28 Ibid., 112.29 Ferreira’s reference to this quote is on p. 112.


difference between love for neighbour and love for friend or for spouse,for example) is formed in the first place; she does not explain why somepeople becomemy friends or my spouse. After all, the needs of the friend orthe spouse are presumably generated, to a large extent, by the friendshipitself; the friend needs my advice or empathy because I am his friend, andnot the other way round (it is not because he needs my advice that Ibecome his friend). Ferreira’s account presupposes that a choice hasbeen made, by me and by the other people involved (determining thatthis will bemy friend, this my spouse), but her account cannot explain whythis choice is made.

Now, the lack of explanation here is of course consistent with herreluctance to affirm preference. For choice is essentially connected with prefer-ence: with the inclinations, emotions, and personal needs of the one whochooses, the one who loves. However, Ferreira’s account is entirely interms of the other’s (i.e. the object of my love) needs, and my ability toanswer those needs. It leaves no room for the role of my needs in formingpreferential relationships of love.

Finally, Ferreira’s account assimilates the difference between my rela-tions to a mere neighbour and to a friend or spouse, to the differencebetween my relations to different neighbours (such as the king, the poorman, the sick man). In the latter case it is perhaps plausible to describethe differences as different expressions of the same, equal attitude of love(that changes according to the neighbour’s needs). However, it seems tomiss something crucial to say that my love for the beloved is the sameattitude (directed towards persons with different needs) as the attitudetowards the neighbour. For in the case of my beloved, I not only givesomething different, I also, crucially, want something different (inde-pendently of my beloved’s needs) from what I want in the case of theneighbour. This different wanting, this different quality and intensity ofwanting, is precisely what constitutes my love for my beloved as preferential.

Let us think of romantic love. It is true that neighbourly love may bedescribed as a way of attending to the intrinsic value of another person(the infinite value that all human beings share equally), and of respondingto the needs of the other person in accordance with this recognition of hisvalue. However, to see the love for my romantic beloved as simply aversion of this equal response to the value of persons seems to ignorethe unique nature of such love. My love for the romantic beloved is notmerely a response to the intrinsic value of the other (though, of course, itshould not conflict with recognizing this intrinsic value): it involves some-thing further. And this can be addressed only when we acknowledge the


role of preference – the attention given to my need of companionship ortomy seeking after a total encounter of mind and body with this particularperson (and nobody else) – in the reality of the special loves that we havein our lives.

If one wants to give an adequate account of the nature of the specialloves that are so central to our lives (romantic love, friendship, parentallove), one needs to acknowledge the role of preferentiality in our exis-tence.30 Part of this acknowledgement is an unqualified affirmation of self-concerned sensitivities and desires. Self-concern or self-love, to recall ourdiscussion above, does not necessarily mean something bad (I am refer-ring to self-love (c)). Accordingly, it is not rejected (at least not explicitly)either by Kierkegaard or Ferreira. However, as we have just seen, there is astrong reluctance here to accept it fully. In the previous section we sawthat Kierkegaard is very unenthusiastic, to say the least, about preference,and in this section we have seen that Ferreira goes out of her way toremove the element of preference from the model of true love. There isa deep ambivalence – in the text itself and in Ferreira’s interpretation ofit – with regard to the status of what I call ‘full concreteness’ (or ‘a fullreturn to the world’).

Full concreteness is the concreteness of ourselves as one entity, essen-tially containing both our spiritual elements and our finite, bodily ele-ments. To accept this concreteness fully is to rejoice not only in ourspiritual connection with God (and with the neighbour), but also in ourfinite embodiment (intended by God, after all) in the world. In Works ofLove there is an acceptance of our finitude, of our bodily existence (whichnecessarily entails self-focused elements such as feelings, inclinations, anddesires) – but this is an unhappy acceptance (it is more like a grudgingacceptance; something we have no choice but to accept). Although itnever explicitly states so, Works of Love grants our finite existence – inits full expression as including our bodily, self-interested needs anddesires – a secondary place. Needs are solemnly respected – but neverjoyfully celebrated. Accordingly, the account of the meaning of our

30 See, for example, C. Stephen Evans’ study ofWorks of Love, Kierkegaard’s Ethic of Love. Evans,in contrast to Ferreira, acknowledges the decisive role of preferentiality in our lives andstrongly contends that ‘Kierkegaard does not hold the absurd belief that I ought to have thesame feelings and do precisely the same things for every human being … it is clear thatinstitutions such as the family could not exist without treating some people differently thanothers’ (Evans 2004: 199). However, despite his sensitivity to preferentiality, Evans, ulti-mately (and by his own admission), offers a solution close to that of Ferreira’s (see ibid.,205). I therefore do not elaborate further on his reading here.


existence given here is necessarily incomplete.31 The difficulty to affirmpreferential love – which constitutes an important aspect of our lives – issymptomatic.

At the same time, however, this problem must not mislead us intooverlooking the deep significance of Works of Love. We should thereforedistinguish between Kierkegaard’s important insights regarding neigh-bourly love and his confused judgement regarding preferential love. Todo so, we should begin by trying to discern the fault in Kierkegaard’sperspective: maybe if we can find a way to clarify this fault and, accord-ingly, suggest an amendment to his perspective, we will also be able tooffer a more consistent and satisfying vision of love (neighbourly andromantic alike)?

4 Resignation is not enough: the problematic perspective

of Works of Love

In her book on Works of Love, Ferreira does justice to Kierkegaard and tothe richness of his text. Many critical readings of Works of Love tend to beselective and by focusing only on the problematic assertions made in thetext present a one-sided, often fanatic, Kierkegaard who does not give astraw for human needs or human existence in this world. This is an unjustreading and I think that Ferreira – who takes it as her task to present amore balanced picture of Works of Love – proves to be very convincing inestablishing the great extent to which this book has so often been treatedinadequately. However, to be fully faithful to the text, one need notdisregard the harshness of the assertions that provoked so deeply bittera criticism. Ferreira does not ignore this, of course. She admits that thereare different emphases in the text and tries to find an encompassingreading that takes them all into consideration. However, I think that inher efforts to defend Kierkegaard she goes a step too far and tends tooverlook the problematic side of Kierkegaard’s complex, ambivalent,position.

Inmy view, a balanced reading of the text should indeed not focus onlyon the harsh side of Kierkegaard’s position (as his critics tend to do), butalso it should not colour this same positionmostly in the soft colours of his‘humanness’ (as Ferreira tends to do). Rather, a truly balanced readingshould acknowledge that there are two sides to Kierkegaard’s positionand that there is a tension between them. There is a tension between

31 I return to this point in chapter 5.


Kierkegaard’s insistence on positing the ‘movement’ of self-denial as the(only) ground for any human relationship (of one to oneself, to one’sneighbour, to one’s beloved), and his commitment to an unqualified –that is, unreservedly rich and passionate – human existence (the kind ofexistence which I have characterized above as ‘fully concrete’; the kind ofexistence that unapologetically allows one to love preferentially).

I suggest that we think about this tension in terms of a disharmonybetween Fear and Trembling’s two movements of faith: that is, between themovement of resignation and the movement of faith, or affirmation.32

While in Fear and Trembling a paradoxical balance between these twomovements has been achieved, in Works of Love Kierkegaard seems to bequite oblivious to the second movement – the movement of affirmation –and to focus on the movement of resignation (here discussed in terms ofself-denial) alone.

In the next chapter I shall elaborate on the connection betweenresignation and self-denial and on how using the insights of Fear andTrembling can help resolve the tension in Works of Love’s vision of love.However, it is important to remember that despite its problematic per-spective (which results in its inconsistent view of preferential love),Worksof Love does play an important role in shedding light on the model of lovethat we are forming here. After all, resignation is an essential componentof the model of faith, and if we wish to use this model for a new under-standing of love (as we indeed suggest doing in this study), then thefocus of Works of Love on this movement cannot but be highly significantfor us.

The importance of resignation

Our natural (initial, spontaneous) existential position is that of recollec-tion (i.e. not of resignation: recollection is the life-stage inhabited, as itwere, by those who have not yet become resigned or are refusing to do so).We are naturally inclined to place ourselves in the centre of our world andto believe that everything – and in particular the beloved other – revolvesaround us. We nourish an inner world in which the beloved is an exten-sion of ourselves: a reflection of our desires, wishes, and self-esteem (orself-contempt). In the vast gallery of the Kierkegaardian characters, onemay be a sensitive poet, a mischievous seducer, or a respected married

32 See again the discussion in chapter 3.


judge – but in their ‘recollection-hood’ they are all characterized by aproblematic attitude to those they love.33 It requires the painful move-ment of resignation to free us from the self-delusion that we are theabsolute masters of our world, and this transforming realization alsodiscloses the other (including the beloved other) as truly distinct, inde-pendent, and indeed other than us.

We have already emphasized, in our analysis of the movement ofresignation, the way in which this movement discloses the value of thebeloved other on the one hand, and initiates our relationship withGod onthe other.34 InWorks of LoveKierkegaard strengthens and widens this view:by discussing the movement of resignation in terms of self-denial, and bypresenting the connection between self-denial, the relationship with God,and equality, he demonstrates the essentially moral implications of themovement of resignation. To sustain a relationship with God is toacknowledge that all humans are created equal (equal in value, equal inbeing the subject of his love). This acknowledgement, best expressed inself-denial, consists in the understanding that no matter how different weare from one another, in a profound sense we are all the same:

If, then, in the life of actuality you should see the ruler, cheerfully andrespectfully bring him your homage, but you would still see in the rulerthe inner glory, the equality of the glory that his magnificence merelyconceals. If, then, you should see the beggar – perhaps in your sorrow overhim suffering more than he – you would still see in him the inner glory,the equality of the glory, that his wretched outer garment conceals. Yes,then you would see, wherever you turned your eye, the neighbour … Inbeing king, beggar, richman, poorman,male, female, etc., we are not likeeach other – therein we are indeed different. But in being the neighborwe are all unconditionally like each other … Take many sheets of paper,write something different on each one; then no one will be like another.But then again take each single sheet; do not let yourself be confused bythe diverse inscriptions, hold it up to the light, and you will see a commonwatermark on all of them. In the same way the neighbor is the commonwatermark, but you see it only by means of eternity’s light when it shinesthrough the dissimilarity. (WL, 88–9)

The movement of self-denial gives shape to our duty to discern the equal-ity beneath the differences and to act in accordance with this realization.

33 See again chapter 1.34 See again chapter 2.


Realizing that the neighbour is our equal has the power to generateempathy: understanding that the neighbour is like ourselves, we aremore inclined to act for and towards him with care and love. Throughthe act of self-denial we see that the neighbour deserves our respect, ouracknowledgement of his independent value, and our compassion.(Acting with compassion ensures that our duty will be fulfilled withwarmth and kindness which, in principle, can be directed at every neigh-bour.)35 And indeed, to see the neighbour as equalmeans genuinely to seehim. It means that when he is there before you – the stranger asking forchange in the street, or your colleague whomight have done you wrong inthe past but now seeks your help, or your friend with whom you are havinga heated quarrel – you see him, out of self-denial, as your neighbour, asyour equal, as a human being like yourself. Not as a stranger who hasnothing to do with you, not as a bad-tempered colleague who has doneyou wrong, not as a friend who is hurting your feelings at the moment –but rather as a neighbour. To see the neighbour (in all of these instancesand inmany others) is an act of self-denial because it forces you to set yourself (not to mention your ego) aside, to renounce your own personalopinions and inclinations, your personal preoccupations, your thoughtsand plans that are focused on your self – and in this vacuum to put, as itwere, the neighbour.

But at the same time, and without this coming in any way at the expenseof one’s duty to see the neighbour as equal, one should also be ‘allowed’to love preferentially, to sustain unique relationships with ‘special’ neigh-bours. However, it is very difficult to affirm this kind of love when one’sperspective is based solely on resignation (or self-denial): this difficulty, aswe have seen, is clearly manifested in Works of Love’s ambivalent positionwith regard to preferential love. Another example of the inadequacy ofthis perspective is demonstrated in a recent reading ofWorks of Love: AmyLaura Hall’s Kierkegaard and the Treachery of Love emphatically offers toconsider the perspective of Works of Love as the ideal one for a genuineunderstanding of romantic love. What shape, then, does romantic lovetake on her view?

35 See Ferreira’s discussion of the use of the word ‘love’ (Ferreira 2001: 49). Compassionsafeguards the moral obligation against becoming an act fulfilled ‘grudgingly, hatefully’ –which is a danger that Ferreira connects with the limitation of our duty to responsibilityalone.


The unbearable dreariness of romantic love: a critiqueof Amy Laura Hall’s interpretation

Kierkegaard brings his charge against human love continually back toeach of us, rhetorically prompting us to recognize our inability to reach orgrasp the faithful state that we think ourselves already to have achieved.36

Hall’s commentary on Works of Love presents a position quite opposite tothe one that I am concerned to develop here.While I claim that it is in Fearand Trembling that we should look for an adequate account of (or at leastsome guidance towards) the desirable model of romantic love, her claimis that Kierkegaard’s central pseudonymous texts (and Fear and Tremblingin particular) present us with various ways of loving in a distorted orpartial way – and that it is in Works of Love that the true way to love isexplored. However, Hall fails to acknowledge the tension that arises in thecontext of Works of Love between neighbourly love and preferential love.She identifies loving one’s (romantic) beloved properly with an absoluteand uncompromising fulfilment of the commandment to love one’sneighbour. Her claim is that the latter is almost (if not always) impossible;accordingly, she maintains, loving (romantically) is usually a treacherousenterprise. In the light of the commandment – in the light of the wayChrist lived and loved – our romantic loves are deplorable failures of ourduty to love:

Kierkegaard interjects into the domestic sphere Christ’s startling life andhis parables, in order to remind us that Christ’s love and our own suppos-edly apt love consistently and drastically collide.37

By delineating the stories presented in Works of Love, Hall says,‘Kierkegaard makes graphic the distance between our own love forthose with whom we are engaged and Christ’s love for even those whohated him.’38 The conclusion is clear: when it comes to our daily loves,there is an ‘“unbridgeable abyss gaping” between what we think to be loveand what love truly is’.39 Or, as she picturesquely puts it, ‘even those whomost earnestly seek to receive God’s grace merely glimpse true love as itglimmers between the fragmented slivers of our broken attempts’.40

36 Hall 2002: 14.37 Ibid., 41.38 Ibid., 42.39 Ibid., 1.40 Ibid., 105–6.


For Hall, this sombre verdict on (human, romantic) love – a verdict shebases on the various love stories presented in the pseudonymous texts,and in which she sees a sound reflection of the way we usually fail to love –is the clearest demonstration of our need to repent. The pivotal messagearound which her book (and her reading of Kierkegaard’s texts) revolvesis the need to deepen our humility and the importance of repentance:

What Kierkegaard intimates in these pseudonymous texts, indirectly andvariously, is that the reader must repent. Each story involves a differentfalse start along a wrong route, and the reader must seek instead arelationship with that one who occasions our repentance and ourredemption. The common factor uniting all of the irreligious texts isthe void that brings them into being. Running underneath and betweenthe disorder of the characters’ lives is an absence, the correction for whichKierkegaard commends in Works of Love.41

Although in principle I agree with Hall about the importance of humilityand our need to repent (on my reading this is basically what the move-ment of resignation expresses), and despite accepting some of her analysesof the love stories (see, for example, her reading of the Judge’s love whichI presented in chapter 1), I think that by demonstrating this point in theway she does, she epitomizes the same problem which was explainedabove: that is, ignoring the unique (and preferential) nature of romanticlove by subsuming it under, and thereby identifying it with, neighbourlylove. Hall even takes this confusion a step further: while Kierkegaard’sWorks of Love distinguishes between neighbourly and preferential loves,and Ferreira’s commentary tries to settle the tension between them,Hall’sthesis disregards this tension (and the distinction constituting it) alto-gether. She considers the love of the commandment to be the ultimatemodel (which we fail to fulfil) for our intimate loves, and in that demon-strates that she sees no problem, or tension, in modelling the latter in theshape of the former.

Indeed, Hall’s thesis is that there is a ‘radical discontinuity between ourlove and the love commanded’, though not because of some difficultyregarding preferentiality, but rather because our love is a defective, pale,and depressingly remote version of the love that is commanded.42 Ourtask is, then, to acknowledge this ‘unbridgeable’ gap (that indicatesour sinful state) and, accordingly, repent: ‘[w]e may interpret Works ofLove as Kierkegaard’s attempt again to precipitate the awareness of sin

41 Ibid., 3.42 Ibid., 13.


indispensable for our repentance and to evoke the confession necessaryfor our reception of grace’.43 In the light of this, Hall presents humility asthe key to loving faithfully:

It is through such humility that we are able to approximate Christ’scommand to love the neighbor with whom we live daily. Knowing thetreachery of our intimacy and our infinite need for grace, we are betterable to distinguish self from other, to forgive the beloved whose faultsmost tempt us to despair, and to perceive generously the one whosetransgressions we have most frequent occasion to note.44

Now, it is true that our intimate beloved is first and foremost a neighbour,and that as such he should be the subject of our duty to love. It is also truethat because of his closeness to us, our intimate beloved is the one mostsusceptible to our various transgressions (such as anger, betrayal, pride,impatience towards faults, refusal to forgive). However, as we have shownin detail above, the love directed at our intimate beloved cannot bemodelled on the kind of love which is based on resignation/self-denialalone. Thus, although I completely agree with Hall that Works of Lovepresents us with a doctrine that exemplifies some crucial elements inself–other (as well as self–God) relationships, without which romanticlove is indeed impossible, I disagree that this is enough for a model ofromantic love. But Hall does take Works of Love as her model, and heraccount, accordingly, is indeed one of resignation. She disregards thebodily and preferential aspects of romantic love and ends up with agloomy, pessimistic account that forgets that love can be not only a sourceof pain, treachery, and frustration, but also a source of joy, faithfulness,and revelation. Developing this kind of view, Hall insists thatWorks of Loveis the only text (belonging to the group of the Kierkegaardian texts shereads) which presents a genuine model of love, and dismisses the possi-bility that the relevant pseudonymous texts provide us with any ‘accessinto the precarious realm of faithful love’.45 This, for example, is how sheregards Fear and Trembling:

To read Fear and Trembling withWorks of Love heightens Kierkegaard’s callin Works of Love for us to acknowledge the resilience, complexity, andambiguity of illicit aims and, ultimately, the treachery of our love.46

43 Ibid.44 Ibid., 4.45 Ibid., 174.46 Ibid., 52.


Except for Abraham, Hall does not recognize any other knights of faith inFear and Trembling. On her reading, the other characters presented thereare either various versions of the knight of resignation (the lad who lovesthe princess, Johannes himself, the Merman), or caricatures of the faith-ful knight (the ‘tax collector’ figure).47 Moreover, she understands ‘res-ignation’ in a deprecatory sense similar to that which we found in theinterpretations of Edward F. Mooney and Ronald L. Hall (see chapter 3above): she takes it to be no more than an undignified escape from love(and existence).48

However, such a reading is bound to ignore the complexity of the text inquestion. First, in her reading of resignation as an aesthetic option, Halldisregards the affinity between resignation (which she rejects) and self-denial (which she affirms). Indeed, Fear and Trembling does not discussneighbourly love and, accordingly, is not specifically concerned with thecommandment’s prescribed movement of self-denial; but in its depictionof resignation as a painful renouncement for the sake of submitting oneselfto God, it is at the very least faithful to the spirit of the commandment.49

Secondly, Hall asserts that ‘[f]or de Silentio, the movements towardfaithful love ascend from the prosaic girl and her impossibility, “upward”to the idea of loving her, on to the love itself, to love for “the eternalbeing,” and then back to the idea of loving, without a correspondingreturn “below” to the girl in her actuality’.50 In emphasizing this, Hallquite blatantly turns a blind eye to those passages in Fear and Trembling inwhich a return to the ‘girl in her actuality’ occurs or is reflected upon asthe desirable alternative (beyond de Silentio’s reach but nevertheless anobject of his amazement and envy): ‘it must be wonderful to get the

47 ‘… themost significant object of love for which this knight is hopeful is a “roast lamb’s headwith vegetables”’ she says (ibid., 65), revealing thereby her (somewhat condescending)conception of who deserves to be considered as a knight of faith. Focusing on his antici-pation of the enjoyment of a good meal in such a sarcastic tone indicates quite clearly thatHall misses the point altogether. She misses the point that the knight of faith may well bethis unrecognizable, almost invisible, person whose outstanding ability is precisely to holdfaith (and love) in the midst of the most banal, sometimes unimpressive, mundane reality.

48 To mention only one example, she puts in the same basket of fleeing from reality (so tospeak) both the dreamy young man of Repetition and Fear and Trembling’s knight of resig-nation, denouncing them both as committing the same mistake: ‘Rather than turningvulnerably toward God in repentance, we may, like Constantin’s young man or deSilentio’s knight of resignation, seek to elevate ourselves above existence and grasp theinfinite’ (ibid., 173).

49 For a detailed discussion of the similarities and dissimilarities between resignation in Fearand Trembling and resignation (in the form of self-denial) in Works of Love, see the nextchapter.

50 Hall 2002: 67.


princess … to live happily with her day after day … to live happily everymoment this way by virtue of the absurd … this is wonderful’ (FT, 50,emphasis mine).

Also, when discussing the story of theMerman, she concludes that ‘[a]tde Silentio’s prompting, we leave the merman in the sea, alone, revelingdemonically in his own guilt. Incapable of repentance and disclosure, themerman’s errors are formed in the context of unfaith.’51 However, this isa misleading presentation of the Merman’s story because it disregards thefact that Johannes leaves open the question which of several options theMerman will end up choosing. And it disregards in particular the third,the most important and hopeful option which Johannes mentions withunmistakable amazement and envy – that the Merman will disclose him-self to Agnes and live with her (see FT, 99).52

The task of the present study is to inquire into the possibility of construinga Kierkegaardian model of love which, on the one hand, adheres to thatwhich is central toWorks of Love (resignation/self-denial, a loving relation-ship with God and the neighbour, equality and humility), and yet, on theother, genuinely makes room for the factor that crucially constitutes loveas romantic: that is, preference. Such a desirablemodel, I claim, is not to befound between the lines of Works of Love but rather between those of Fearand Trembling.

51 Ibid., 77–8.52 I discuss theMerman’s story, and the real possibility of religious love which is open to him, in

the last chapter of this study.


5

THE DOUBLE MOVEMENT OF LOVE

1 Kierkegaard versus Kierkegaard

Can Johannes’ perspective amend Kierkegaard’s?

At the end of the previous chapter I suggested that the attempt to resolvethe tension inWorks of Love should lead us back to Fear and Trembling. Butbefore explaining how Fear and Trembling can help in addressing theproblem of Works of Love, a methodological explanation is needed. Afterall, while Fear and Trembling was published pseudonymously,Works of Lovewas published under Kierkegaard’s name, and thus may seem to moreadequately represent his understanding of love (and faith). What is thejustification, then, for using an earlier, pseudonymous work (which alleg-edly can be seen as further andmore differentiated from his own views) toamend Kierkegaard’s signed words?

My answer in the following section will be twofold. First, I claim thatKierkegaard’s use of pseudonyms should not necessarily be interpreted asindicative of a less valid (or reliable) point of view. Second, even if it is thusinterpreted, the interesting question is not so much the relationshipbetween the biographical man Kierkegaard and his ideas, but rather therelationship between his expressed ideas themselves. To put it differently,from the perspective of this study, the relevant question is less ‘What didKierkegaard himself really say?’ – given his complex strategy of writing thisquestion may never be adequately answered – and more ‘What should

138

Kierkegaard have said had he been consistent and faithful to the innerharmony of his own ideas?’

Kierkegaard and his different voices

Kierkegaard the writer exists for the reader solely in the diaspora of hisworks and is not to be approached as a historical personality whom wehave to excavate from beneath the rubble of words he has left behindhim.1

Kierkegaard’s authorship is vast and manifold. On the one hand, we findthe signed works – among which are published religious texts as well as hisunpublished journals and papers – and on the other, we find the pseudon-ymous works, signed by imaginary authors invented by Kierkegaard.Kierkegaard himself famously expressed his wish to attribute these textsto their pseudonymous authors, and in his posthumous The Point of View formy Work as an Author, explained his use of pseudonyms in terms of ‘indirectcommunication’.2

Given the versatility of the authorship and its diversity of ideas andvoices, a division of it into several categories is often set forth. Apart fromthe major categories of the pseudonymous writings (the ‘indirect com-munication’) and the religious writings (the ‘direct communication’),there is the category of the unpublished journals and papers, and that ofthe very late polemical essays attacking the Danish church.3 Each of thegroups is distinguished by its style and objectives, and often a similarrichness is found in writings that belong in the same group (for example,the group of the pseudonymous writings contains many strikingly distinctvoices, and the group of the religious writings may be divided into theearly upbuilding discourses and the later Christian discourses).

This seemingly extreme lack of unity turns the task of interpretingKierkegaard into a particularly complicated one. When we want to under-take an interpretation of Kierkegaard, which of the many voices ofKierkegaard should we interpret? Here we need to distinguish betweentwo different questions. One concerns the relation between Kierkegaard’sideas (as expressed in his published writings) and his life (as expressed inhis journals and papers). The other concerns the relation between the

1 Pattison 1990: 81.2 ‘… if it should occur to anyone to want to quote a particular passage from the books, it is mywish, my prayer, that he will do me the kindness of citing the respective pseudonymousauthor’s name, not mine’ (CUP, 627).

3 See Taylor 1975: 11–14. For a different division of the authorship see Hannay 1982: 16–17.

the double movement of love 139

ideas Kierkegaard presents in the context of his direct communication(that is, the religious writings) and those he presents in the context of hisindirect communication (that is, the pseudonymous writings).

Now, regarding the first question, although there is a long and inter-esting tradition of scholarship that focuses on the interrelation betweenKierkegaard’s thought and his life, in the present study I leave this ques-tion outside the range of my discussion. My interest here concerns thephilosophical and religious implications of Kierkegaard’s words, and therelevance they may have for us. From this point of view it is of no interestthat Søren loved but left Regine, that he had a complicated relationshipwith his father and that he led a bitter quarrel with a popular newspaper,and a far more bitter struggle with the Danish church. These fascinatingfacts may shed light on Kierkegaard’s thought from a psychological per-spective, but are of little relevance to a philosophical understanding of histhought.

The second question raises a large and controversial issue, on which Iwould like to comment briefly.4 The principal difficulty here is to decideto what extent Kierkegaard’s own retrospective view of his authorship inThe Point of View can be used as a guide to interpreting his works. If we takewhat he says there at face value, then we should regard him as a religiousauthor who used the method of indirectness in order to attract sympa-thetically the attention of those who do not share his religious views and‘tempt’ them to reflect on their lives from their own perspective (the non-Christian, aesthetic, or merely ethical perspective which the pseudony-mous books attempt to adopt or imitate). His aim, as he explains, was tolead his readers in this way to realize the shortcomings of their non-religious way of existence; to make them see that despite their under-standing of themselves as Christians they do not live religiously.5

This sounds like a reasonablemotive for using the indirectmethod, butthe problem with this account is that it may lead (and often has led) to the

4 Various approaches to the relations between direct and indirect communication inKierkegaardmay be found in Evans 1992; Fenger 1980; Lippitt 2000; Mooney 1996; Pattison 1992; Poole1993; Walsh 1994.

5 ‘…one does not begin directly with what one wishes to communicate but begins by taking theother’s delusion at face value. Thus one does not begin… in this way: I am Christian, you arenot a Christian – but this way: You are a Christian, I am not Christian. Or one does not beginin this way: It is Christianity that I am proclaiming, and you are living in purely estheticcategories. No, one begins this way: Let us talk about the esthetic. The deception consists inone’s speaking this way precisely in order to arrive at the religious. But according to theassumption the other person is in fact under the delusion that the esthetic is the essentiallyChristian, since he thinks he is Christian and yet is living in esthetic categories’ (PV, 54).


conclusion that Kierkegaard’s ‘real’, or ‘valid’, opinions were expressedonly, or principally, in the context of his works of direct communication.This is a problematic conclusion, especially in its implication that theseworks are more reliable indicators of Kierkegaard’s thought than hisindirect works. It is problematic not only because the religious writingsthemselves present a variety of views (that are not always entirely consis-tent with each other), and not only because the extent to which we shouldtake Kierkegaard’s retrospective pronouncement at face value is in itselfdebatable.6 Rather, it is problematic mainly because the core of some ofKierkegaard’s most important ideas can be traced back to his pseudon-ymous writings, and in some cases their expression in these writings isparticularly lucid and illuminating.

As far as interpreting Kierkegaard is concerned, then, I consider hisauthorship as a whole, and judge the relations between its different partsfirst and foremost according to inter-textual criteria such as consistency indeveloping ideas and philosophical coherence. Although I do not disre-gard external, authorial intentions (such as those expressed in his Point ofView), I give them, for the reasons mentioned above, less weight in theoverall assessment of Kierkegaard’s view of faith and romantic love.7 I takethe different voices of Kierkegaard to be interesting and valid in their ownright, regardless of how close they may or may not be to his ‘real’ opin-ions.8 As Kierkegaard worked so hard to make them heard, our task as hisreaders is to listen carefully, and with equal attention, to all of them. In thefollowing chapter I therefore aim at showing how two of Kierkegaard’smost noticeable voices, when joined together, create a clear and interest-ing ensemble.

6 See, for example, Fenger 1980; Garff 2005.7 In other words, I acknowledge that Kierkegaard may have regarded Works of Love as a moreadequate source for his views of faith and romantic love, but I claim that there are goodreasons for looking in Fear and Trembling for insightful views regarding these issues. That is,from an internal textual point of view Fear and Trembling, as will be demonstrated shortly,proves to offer a consistent account of faith that manages to resolve the fundamental tensionat the crux of Works of Love.

8 Opinions that towards the end of Kierkegaard’s life seemed to change their tone even moredramatically. Judging by his late writings, it seems that at this point Kierkegaard chose to turnto the ‘doctrine of the cross’, preferring it over his initial doctrine of ‘incarnation andcreation’ (see Pattison 1997: 130). However, in this study I have chosen to inquire into twoof his works that focus (more and less explicitly) on the subject matter of love, namely,Worksof Love and Fear and Trembling. I shall not attempt to evaluate the change in Kierkegaard’sthought in his late writings.


2 In the light of Fear and Trembling

The threefold problem in Works of Love

In the previous chapter we saw that a close reading ofWorks of Love disclosesa deep ambivalence with regard to romantic (that is, preferential) love. Onthe one hand, Kierkegaard acknowledges its importance for a full andsatisfying life, and wishes to affirm the possibility of loving in this specialway. On the other hand, his strong reservations concerning this kind of loveare undeniable. Romantic love, we said, essentially involves elements of self-love, which Kierkegaard is reluctant to affirm as unselfish (even when there isnothing selfish about those elements). Thus, considering his evident insist-ence on understanding love in terms of self-denial (and non-preferentiality)alone, perhaps it is not surprising that Kierkegaard fails to affirm fully thesignificance of romantic love. Let me explain.

As I understand it, there are three principal difficulties in connectionwith the view that Kierkegaard presents in Works of Love. The first difficultyconcerns his understanding of the relationship between preference andresignation. In Works of Love Kierkegaard seems to consider preferentialityand resignation as categorically incompatible: in his view, any stance thatinvolves resignation, necessarily excludes preference. Accordingly, he persists inequating, problematically, preferentiality and selfishness (selfishness beingthe opposite of resignation). The second difficulty concerns Kierkegaard’sidentification between the one and only true love – that is, Kjerlighed (seeagain chapter 4 above), and one of its manifestations – that is, neighbourlylove. ‘Christianity’, he emphasizes more than once, ‘recognizes really onlyone kind of love, the spirit’s love, and does not concern itself much withworking out in detail the different ways in which this fundamental universallove can manifest itself’ (WL, 143; ‘the spirit’s love’ and ‘neighbourly love’are clearly interchangeable in Kierkegaard’s usage).However, by identifyingneighbourly love andKjerlighed, Kierkegaard in effect changes the status ofnon-preferentiality. Non-preferentiality is indeed an essential feature ofneighbourly love, but if neighbourly love is now taken to be the basis andimage of any possible love, then non-preferentiality becomes an essentialfeature not only of neighbourly love but of any kind of love (includingromantic love). And the third difficulty concerns Kierkegaard’s identifica-tion of neighbourly love and self-denial (‘Christian love is self-denial’s love’,WL, 52), that is, of neighbourly love and the movement of resignation.9

9 On the essential connection between resignation and self-denial see pp. 148–9 below.


Now, the characterization of neighbourly love in terms of resignationalone (the third problem), when coupled with Kierkegaard’s identifica-tion of Kjerlighed and neighbourly love (the second problem), leads toan understanding of Kjerlighed, the one fundamental love, in terms ofresignation and non-preferentiality alone. And when this is coupled withKierkegaard’s understanding of resignation and preferentiality as incom-patible (the first problem), we are led to the conclusion that not only isKjerlighed essentially non-preferential (as is neighbourly love), it excludespreferentiality (that is, it cannot coexist with preferential love). And ifKjerlighed, the one fundamental love, is incompatible with prefer-entiality, how can romantic love, which is essentially preferential, not berejected?

Hence, we find ourselves with the strange and inconsistent positionthat wishes to affirm romantic love as a manifestation of neighbourly love,but rejects one of romantic love’s essential features, namely preferentiality.Moreover, this threefold problem (according to which Kjerlighed equalsneighbourly love, equals non-preferentiality, equals self-denial) doesinjustice not only to romantic love, but also to neighbourly love. A crucialcomponent is missing in the structure of love thus presented; and it ismissing in its romantic and neighbourly manifestations alike. This essen-tial component consists in Fear and Trembling’s second movement of faith:namely, the ability to affirm finitude joyfully again. Looking at Works ofLove’s problematic picture, then, let us ask: do we need a modifiedpicture that construes differently the relationship between resignationand preference, between Kjerlighed and neighbourly love, betweenneighbourly love and resignation and, ultimately, between neighbourlylove and romantic love?

I agree with Kierkegaard that resignation is a necessary condition forgenuine love, any love (romantic love no less than a neighbourly one). Inthis respect, as I have already emphasized,Works of Love plays an importantrole in enlightening one of the essential features of love. However, incontrast with Kierkegaard, I claim that resignation and preference arecompatible with one another (and hence preference is not opposed to self-denial, and accordingly should not be equated with selfishness). Inresponse to Kierkegaard’s rejection of preferentiality, I claim that thestructure that allows one to hold both resignation and preference is thestructure of the double movement of faith: that is, the movement ofresignation coupled with the movement of faith. The latter movement(hereafter: the movement of repetition) consists of our full acceptanceand affirmation of finitude, and so of everything that plays an essential


part of it.10 Namely, our physical and emotional embodiment, our needsand desires, our boundaries, and also our existentially necessitated prefer-ences.11 Understanding the movement of repetition as an equally impor-tant element in the structure of faith (that is, as having the same worth andsignificance as resignation) allows an affirmation of preference – whilesimultaneously holding to the movement of resignation.12

Now, if we understand the basic structure of love in terms of the doublemovement of faith, we can think of neighbourly love and romantic love astwo distinct kinds of love: that is, two distinct manifestations of the onefundamental love, of Kjerlighed. We said that Kjerlighed may be under-stood in terms of a mysterious power, implanted in us by God, whichmanifests itself in the various acts of love that we perform (and experi-ence).13 But while Kierkegaard characterizes this fundamental love in

10 On the reasons for understanding the second movement of faith in terms of ‘repetition’ –that is, on the connection between faith, affirmation, and receiving back/repetition – seeagain chapter 3.

11 Making preferences not only reflects the complexity and uniqueness of the combinationbetween our bodily, mental, and spiritual inclinations (which makes each of us choose,connect with, and prefer different neighbours). It also reflects our boundaries as creaturesconfined in space and time. There are many intersections in our lives – even in the context ofneighbourly love alone – at which we are constrained to choose to whomwe give our attentionand help. We need to make choices all the time. It is a trivial truth that we have limitedresources that do not allow us to respond in the same way to everybody, and to give the samehelp to whoever is in need of it. An interesting angle fromwhich to look at the human need tomake preferences as an inevitable part of our existence is presented – though not under thistitle – by Derrida’s reading of Fear and Trembling, entitledWhom toGive to (Knowing Not to Know).The sacrifice of Isaac, Derrida says, is actually a reflection of the daily sacrifice we undertakewhen we respond to the call of a close other: ‘I cannot respond to the call, the request, theobligation, or even the love of another without sacrificing the other other, the other others’,he says (Derrida 1995: 68). Even though I would not like to go as far as Derrida does and‘bind’ together preference and sacrifice, I agree with him that we cannot offer our spiritual,mental, and material resources – in the same manner and at the same time – to everybody.

12 Onemay claim that the danger in such affirmative return to the finite – and accordingly alsoto our worldly needs and desires – is that it implies an affirmation of unethical aspects of ourfinitude as well (after all, our finite existence may include problematic needs and unwel-come desires). However, here it is important to remember the crucial role of resignation inthe double movement of faith: resignation is maintained in faith, thus safeguarding ourreturn to finitude. That is to say, the needs and desires affirmed in the context of faith areonly those that work well with resignation: those which are not, in any way, offensive orharmful to the other.

13 We suggested that Kjerlighed should be thought of as a hidden ‘inner’ power that can bediscerned and accessed only through the different forms – or works – of love: self-love,neighbourly love, preferential love (see chapter 4). In a way, we may say that faith – theexistential attitude of performing resignation and affirmation together – enacts love. Faithenables the primordial power of love to take shape and express itself in the world. I return tothis idea at the end of the present chapter.


terms of the singlemovement of resignation (self-denial), I suggest that wethink of it in terms of the doublemovement of resignation and faith, whichbasically means that the structure of the double movement is essential to,and shared by, all the various manifestations of Kjerlighed.

According to this suggestion, then, neighbourly love and romantic loveare two distinct manifestations of Kjerlighed that share the same struc-ture of faith: each includes both the movement of resignation and themovement of repetition. However, while the former manifestation essen-tially excludes preference, the latter essentially includes it. Romantic loverequires the movements of faith no less than does neighbourly love, but italso includes preference. Preference posits no threat to faith (because, byvirtue of the double structure of resignation and repetition, preferencecan be paradoxically affirmed in the context of repetition, in spite of andthrough resignation), and therefore romantic love can obey, as it were,the central demand of Works of Love (that is, resignation/self-denial) andstill be preferential.

Different returns to the world

Kierkegaard’s uneasiness with regard to preferentiality is rooted in hisconfused judgement with regard to self-love. The kind of affirmation ofthe self in the context of preferential love seems to him to contradict self-denial. His failure to see that self-denial (resignation) and preference donot necessarily exclude each other leads him therefore to assess prefer-entiality as a form of selfishness (that is, as the opposite of self-denial).This mistaken judgement of preferentiality and self-love results inWorks ofLove’s unwillingness to allow what in the previous chapter I termed ‘aconcrete (or full) return to the world’.

This kind of concreteness consists of a more coherent understandingof the self as being a finite creature no less than he is a spiritual one (we canthink about such finite creatureliness in terms of an ‘embodied spiritu-ality’, or a ‘spiritualized body’).14 Accordingly, such concreteness can beattained only in the context of the secondmovement that renews our holdon the finite (see again chapter 3). To demonstrate the significance ofthis movement – and of the ‘full return to the world’ – for love (romanticand neighbourly alike), in what follows I shall examine the worldly exis-tence of two imaginary knights: the knight of self-denial (the protagonistofWorks of Love, let us call him Knight S) and the knight of repetition (the

14 See chapter 6.


protagonist of an amended construction of Works of Love, let us call himKnight R). The former is a version of Fear and Trembling’s knight ofresignation, with an additional important aspect that will be specifiedsoon; the latter is a version of Fear and Trembling’s knight of faith. Whatis the nature of these two knights, and what are their respective forms ofreturn to the world?

As we demonstrated at length in chapter 3, the existential state of faithinvolves a unique combination between the movement of resignation andthat of repetition (or faith). The latter, however, should be distinguishedfrom the event of repetition: while the movement of repetition is performedby the believer, repetition itself, when it occurs, is the gift of God. Let usrecall, then, the story of Fear and Trembling’s father of faith. It was not inAbraham’s power to bring Isaac back: this is something that only God coulddo. But Abraham was a knight of faith precisely because he believed andtrusted – against all reason, against the laws of nature and experience, andwhile holding fast to resignation – that he would receive Isaac back. This(i.e. the movement of repetition) is the main source of wonder inAbraham’s story: although his willingness to sacrifice his son (i.e. themove-ment of resignation) is also astonishing, the way in which he performed hisresignation is what really amazes Johannes (and us). He did so whilesimultaneously performing the movement of repetition: that is, with acomplete confidence that he would receive his son back.15 Hence, thepicture of faith presented in Fear and Trembling actually contains threedifferent components (rather than two): the movement of resignation(Abraham’s consent to sacrifice Isaac), the movement of repetition(Abraham’s trust in receiving Isaac back), and repetition itself (Isaac’s lifebeing spared or, had the sacrifice actually taken place, Isaac being restoredto life). Let us call the last element ‘grace’. Grace belongs entirely to a realmbeyond our understanding, control, and reasoning. It belongs to the realmof the divine. This is God’s gift, while we are only its recipients: it is not forus to explain why, under which circumstances, and in which form God

15 Here I am clearly at odds with Agacinski’s claim that ‘Fear and Trembling is all about thequestion of trembling in the face of sacrifice’ (Agacinski 1998: 131). On her reading,Abraham is beyond our understanding (us, who ‘are not the sublime’) due to his resignation:she does not distinguish the movement of repetition (Abraham’s belief that he will receiveIsaac back) from the movement of resignation (his consent to sacrifice his son). Herincomplete understanding of Abraham’s faith allows her to raise questions and speculationsregarding Abraham’s willingness to carry out the sacrifice (see ibid., 132–4), while on myreading there is no room for doubting Abraham’s lack of doubt. For faith amounts preciselyto the way in which resignation is carried out: out of the paradoxical belief in receiving backthat which one is renouncing.


sends us his grace. However, we do have a responsibility as regards the waywe respond to and act upon God’s grace. We can abuse it or ignore italtogether, but we can also work in a co-operative response to it.

According to the view that I am suggesting here, then, ‘grace’ (or theevent of ‘repetition’) stands for a divine action beyond human inquiry. Themovements, however – be it the movement of resignation/self-denial orthe movement of repetition – stand for our way of responding to grace.The religious assumption (accepted by the believer upon abandoning thecircle of recollection and becoming initiated into the religious sphere) isthat there is grace and that it is our task to decide how we shall act inresponse to it; how we shall approach it. Should it be by way of self-denialor by way of faith, by making the movement of resignation/self-denialalone or by making also the movement of repetition? What, then, are thedifferences between these two ways of responding to grace?

Fear and Trembling’s knight of resignation – the earlier and less com-plete (or developed) version of Works of Love’s knight of self-denial –renounces the world. The meaning of this is that although he still caresdearly about finitude (which he renounces), and although he might evenbe acting in the world (rather than isolating himself in a cloister, forexample), the relationship he can sustain with finitude is necessarilyincomplete. He lacks hope and cannot find joy in the finite. Indeed, theknight of resignation is a sorrowful person, but his sorrow, his pain, is apeaceful one. He renounces the thing he wants the most – this, of course,is extremely painful – but he finds peace in dedicating his life, and hislove, to God. The way in which this knight lives his life in the face of grace,therefore, is by submitting and dedicating himself to it, recognizing it tobe a part of his eternal (i.e. future) happiness. For him, the realm of theinfinite is completely separate from the realm of the finite, and he doesnot have the strength to trust divine intervention in the realm of finitude.His position is an immanent one: he cannot act in a way that relies onsomething transcendent, something which is beyond his access andcontrol – something like grace. Thus, even if this knight does not retirefrom the world (as it were), even if he leads a ‘normal’ life (having a familyand keeping a job), he is a stranger in the world.16

The ‘advanced’ version of this knight – namely, the believer ofWorks ofLove who performs the movement of self-denial (Knight S) – resemblesthe knight of resignation in making the samemovement (he also renoun-ces everything finite, everything that gives meaning to his worldly life).

16 FT, 50.


However, the movement that Knight S undertakes consists not only ininfinite resignation before, and for the sake of, God; but also in self-renunciation before, and for the sake of, the neighbour. Now, the closeconnection between the movement of resignation and that of self-denialis an important point worth emphasizing, because the essential affinitybetween infinite resignation and self-denial is often disregarded or mis-construed. Most interpreters ignore this crucial link between Fear andTrembling and Works of Love, and those who do not, tend to understandthe movement of resignation as a less mature version of self-denial. It isclaimed, for example, that ‘a transition’ is needed ‘from an understand-ing of God as demanding the sacrifice of what is ours to the understand-ing of God as demanding the sacrifice of the self’.17 However, doessacrificing one’s son (assuming, of course, that one is a loving anddevoted father like Abraham) not amount to a sacrifice of the self? Issacrificing one’s son not the most extreme instance of self-denial possi-ble? The knight of infinite resignation – and of course also Abraham in asmuch as infinite resignation is a vital component of his faith – renouncesthe centre of his existence, renounces that which means to him the most,renounces entirely his worldly happiness. He denies his will, he denieshimself. Infinite resignation and self-denial are the two sides of the samedeeply religious coin of self-submission before God.18 The differencebetween them is not grounded in the supposedly higher or lower degreeof religious maturity which they exemplify: from the point of view ofrenunciation, I claim, both express the same degree of religious maturity.Rather, while infinite resignation is inclusive of self-denial and is under-taken only for the sake of God, self-denial is the specific manifestation ofinfinite resignation and is undertaken also for the sake of the neighbour.God is the only authority for, and before which, one is allowed (andobliged) to renounce infinitely, that is, to renounce everything. But for,and before, the neighbour one can (and must) renounce only oneself.19

At the same time, I agree that the knight of resignation (who halts inresignation and fails in performing the further movement of faith) is lessreligiously mature than the believer of Works of Love. However, his imma-turity in comparison with the latter is not to be found in the extent ordegree of his sacrifice, but rather in his inability to trust divine intervention

17 Mulhall 2001: 380.18 That is, self-denial is one essential facet of resignation. The other essential facet of resignation –

namely, repentance – will be considered in the next chapter.19 Remember the Sermon that concludes Either/Or: it is upbuilding to be in the wrong in

relation to someone one loves, but only in relation to God is one always in the wrong.


(as regards the world of finitude). Accordingly, by contrast with the knightof resignation,Works of Love’s Knight S exemplifies a positionwhich isnot animmanent one. The believer ofWorks of Love trusts a divine intervention: heholds on to (and acts upon) the belief (and trust) in gracemanifesting itselfalready in the context of his finite existence.20 Knight S, therefore, returnsto the world (by way of his trust in divine intervention), and he does somore emphatically and consciously than does the knight of resignation(who might also be ‘in’ the world but as a stranger whose focused gaze isdirected at infinitude). However, this is still a strange, partial, return.Knight S does not make themovement of repetition: he faces grace by actingin the world, but he does so by way of self-renunciation alone.

Everything that Knight S does, then, he does out of self-denial, whichmeans that while he gains the (interest in the) other back, he cannot gainhimself back. His action in the world is considered by him to be themanifestation of God’s power, which can dwell in him (so to speak) onlyif he empties himself by denying his self entirely. His self is denied and hebecomes a mere instrument that enacts the powers of God:

The person who thinks only one thought must learn this, must experiencethat there comes a halt in which everything seems to be taken away fromhim … In a spiritual sense it holds true that just when a person strains hisspiritual powers as such he then, and only then, becomes an instrument.From thatmoment on, if hehonestly and faithfully perseveres, hewill gain thebest powers, but they are not his own; he has them in self-denial. (WL, 362)21

20 In this sense, Knight S is not part of what Johannes Climacus calls in the Postscript‘Religiousness A’ (which expresses an immanent position that takes into considerationhuman capabilities alone). Rather, of the three positions that I’m presenting here, the onewhich is closest to the Postscript’s ‘Religiousness A’ is the position of the first knight, namely,that of Fear and Trembling’s knight of resignation. However, the resemblance between them isnot unquestionable and an in-depth justification of this claim would require an investigationinto the Postscript, which I cannot conduct here. I will therefore onlymention four reasons forassuming a resemblance between the two positions: 1. Despite not talking specifically on‘Eternal happiness’ (as Johannes Climacus does when discussing ‘Religiousness A’), I think itis reasonable to interpret the content of the peace that Fear and Trembling’s knight ofresignation finds in his relationship with God in similar terms. 2. It is true that there issomething more prominently sorrowful about the demeanour of the knight of resignation,but ultimately he is someone who may lead the most regular kind of life, just like his fellowbeliever in the Postscript. 3. The two positions represent immanent understanding of exis-tence. 4. The two positions are important milestones on the way to true religiousness, but arenot sufficient in themselves for bestowing upon their believers a satisfying way of life.

21 See, for example, also: ‘God is not seen, and therefore, as God uses this instrument into which ahuman being has made himself in self-denial, it seems as if it were the instrument that is able to doeverything, and this tempts the instrument itself to understand it in that way – until he againis able to do nothing’ (WL, 363, emphasis mine).


Knight S is by definition selfless (this is, after all, the meaning of ‘self-denial’), but since there must be some kind of self involved (recall thecommandment to love others as one loves oneself), it seems that the self ofthe selfless believer must be an incomplete self, a self who is indifferent toan important aspect of concrete living in the world. This denied aspect isthat of the finite, and corporeal, embodiment of the self, including thephysical and emotional needs and desires connected with being thusembodied. Accordingly, the existential position of Knight S is inconsis-tent. As we have seen in the previous chapter, the ambivalence inherent insuch a manner of living in the world is clearly expressed in the attitude ofWorks of Love’s believer to preferential love.

The return to the world of Knight S must therefore be lacking andincomplete (and is not even considered by him as a return, i.e. as an activemovement, distinctive from the movement of self-denial).22 His action isfocused on the well-being of the other but he is not allowed to ‘gain’anything out of it – not even joy or satisfaction – lest his motive beregarded as ‘selfish’.23 Even though Knight S is interested in the world –interested in the finite, interested in the otherness of his neighbour – hisinvolvement cannot but be partial. A focus on self-denial alone does notallow a full and unreserved relationship with the finite: something crucialin the tie that bonds one to the world is denied from the self (even whenhe wishes to return to the world, as does Knight S). To live fully – that is, tofully return to finitude and concreteness, while unreservedly acknowl-edging and affirming all the aspects of living an embodied life – meansthat another movement needs to be taken: the movement of repetition.

And so we now turn to Knight R. This knight, who performs boththe movement of resignation (and self-denial) and the movement ofrepetition, gains the world back, and this world includes unreservedly(and unqualifiedly) not only the other but also himself. And this is an

22 To quote Amy Laura Hall (who presumably would have considered themanner of existenceof Knight S to be the highestmanifestation of religiosity): ‘It is only as we exist at the perilousintersection of our nothingness and Christ’s grace that we may love’ (Hall 2002: 190). It isalso worth noting that when speaking of Fear and Trembling’s knight of faith Hall stronglyobjects to the idea of regarding themovement of faith as amovement, i.e. as something of theknight’s ‘own making’ (see ibid., 64).

23 An encompassing understanding of correct self-love is a weighty and controversial theolog-ical issue that obviously exceeds the narrow and focused treatment I am able to give it here.For a recent extensive discussion of self-love (and a defence of it) see Darlene Weaver’s SelfLove and Christian Ethics.


embodied self: a spiritual self with a body, who constantly (and paradoxi-cally) denies himself, and gains himself back. Knight R performs themovement of resignation, he renounces the world and he renounceshimself, but he also performs the movement of repetition. He is capableof renewing his relationship with everything in a way that affirms not onlythe well-being of the other, but also the fully concrete well-being ofhimself. The movement of repetition incorporates resignation (throughwhich one, in self-denial, gains a new understanding of his relationshipboth with God and with the finite), coupled with the paradoxical return tothe world, to finitude, and to the self.

By not reducing our human action in the world to the sole movementof self-denial, we allow our existence to be full, embodied, and passionate.And only thus can we sustain an adequate relationship with the other, withthe neighbour (be it our annoying neighbour from upstairs, the strangeron the street, or our romantically beloved). In terms of self–other rela-tionships, then, we can say that the difference between the knights is thatwhile the knight of resignation ‘denies’ both himself and the other (byvirtue of his infinite renunciation), and Knight S affirms the other butdenies himself, only Knight R maintains an attitude that allows himgenuinely to affirm the other, himself, and the relationship betweenthem. This is the reason why only Knight R can initiate a satisfactoryrelationship of love. While the knight of resignation cannot give a con-crete expression to his love for the princess, and Knight S is commandedto love everyone equally (namely, without preferring the princess), onlyKnight R can find the way to make room for the special love for his oneand only princess.

However, as I keep emphasizing, the importance of the second move-ment (that is, of the full return to the world) regards not only ourpreferred, romantic, relationships: it also regards our love for our neigh-bours. Thus, it is important also to stress that my criticism of Knight S doesnot in any way concern the fact that he is focused only on loving in aneighbourly way. Rather, it concerns his manner of loving, which is by wayof self-denial alone. In other words, there is nothing wrong in loving only ina neighbourly way – the highest existence of faith and love can be man-ifested in the life of a monk or of someone who holds no particularisticrelationships – as long as one loves one’s neighbours correctly: namely, byway of the double movement of faith (rather than by way of self-denialalone).

How, then, does the double structure of faith shape each of the twomanifestations of love, the neighbourly and the romantic?


3 The faith-like structure of love

The double structure of each of the two loves

A desirable relationship with the neighbour, any neighbour, must involvejoy and compassionate tenderness. These are the elements that connectthe one who loves to the other, the elements that constitute a relationship(even when this amounts to no more than a brief encounter on thestreet). The loving attitude of the self to the other cannot, I claim, benourished by duty alone: it cannot flourish when its ground is a self that islacking. When I love the neighbour I act – that is, I am moved andmotivated – in a twofold way. On the one hand, I indeed deny myself byfocusing my entire attention on the neighbour. I thus see him as an equaland discern the infinite value pervading him by virtue of his being ahuman being with a whole world of his own: a world full of emotionsand dreams and sorrows and hopes. To be capable of seeing this is noteasy. Too often we are so preoccupied with ourselves, with our world (ouremotions, our dreams, our sorrows, our hopes) that we do not, cannot,genuinely see the neighbour, let alone care about him. The first move-ment is therefore necessarily the one of self-renunciation, self-denial. Weare obliged to deny ourselves, to empty ourselves, to clear our sight andwiden our horizon so that we can truly see the neighbour: see him as anequal, as a human being just like ourselves, as infinitely valuable.

However, a relationship of love cannot amount to only this (self)emptiness: something further is needed. This is the second movement,the fully concrete return to finitude that makes room for a self who cangenuinely love, a self who is allowed to feel and to be emotionally involved;allowed to find joy and satisfaction in his interaction (albeit of the mini-mal kind) with the neighbour. Because even if my involvement werelimited (as it usually is with a stranger), I would still feel pain andresponsibility when witnessing a neighbour’s suffering, and I would feelgenuine joy and satisfaction if I managed to contribute to his well-being.24

The self here is involved in a way that exceeds the bounds of self-denial: itis involved in a self-regarding kind of way. Hence, strictly speaking, this kindof attachment may seem, from a point of view such as that ofWorks of Love,even to contradict the duty to deny the self. However, the double structure

24 It is important to note that this kind of attitude towards the neighbour holds true, in principle,also with regard to those neighbours whom I do not, and will never, actually meet (but onlyhear of, think of, or read about in the news). The double-structured attitude to theneighbour is not conditioned by a physical encounter with him or her.


of faith, here applied to love, allows this combination: the self who lovesboth renounces himself and affirms himself. Accordingly, his renewedrelationship – not only with his ‘preferred’ neighbours but with every singleneighbour – has a more coherent quality of completeness.

Now, the affirmation of the self (gained under the aegis of the secondmovement) is of course more evident – and more evidently needed –when it comes to preferential, romantic love. The involvement of the selfin the context of this kind of love is emphasized by virtue of the self’spreferences. Making preferences expresses the attention given to thewishes of the self, to his needs and desires, to his self-concerned inclina-tions and aspirations. Nevertheless, it is crucial to remember that this focuson the self does not come at the expense of the denial of the self (pro-vided, of course, that it is in the context of the double movement). This iswhat we ‘gain’ when we think of the structure of love in terms of thedouble movement of faith. When we understand that a paradoxicalcombination between denial and affirmation is not only possible butdesirable – namely, that it is an existential attitude that we should aspireto attain – then we can also see the legitimacy of preferential love, andunequivocally allow room for its significant role in our lives.

The coexistence of the two loves

Having demonstrated the way in which the double structure forms each ofthe two loves – the neighbourly and the romantic – we still have toconsider the possibility of their coexistence. My claim is that the twoloves share the same structure, and that it is this structure that allowstheir coexistence. This coexistence basically means two things. First, itmeans that non-preferential neighbourly love for x and preferentialromantic love for y can be maintained and performed together (withoutthe latter love excluding the former, as Kierkegaard seems to be worriedabout in Works of Love). Second, it means that both neighbourly andromantic love can be directed at the same time at the same person: myneighbourly love for x can be accompanied by a romantic love for him.Therefore, when we love our romantic beloveds correctly, we always lovethem in a neighbourly way as well (but not vice versa, of course).25

25 However, it is important to emphasize that this does not mean that neighbourly love is moreimportant ormoremeaningfully fundamental than romantic love (or any other particularistickindof love). It is true that neighbourly love can exist without romantic love and not the otherway round (the correct form of romantic love cannot exist without being accompanied by


Now this claim, needless to say, is not uncontroversial. As against thisclaim, one may assert that neighbourly love and romantic love are toodistinct, and too essentially different, to work well together (or to worktogether at all). Kierkegaard’s ambivalent position in Works of Love indi-cates that he himself is intuitively inclined to assert this kind of judgement(while, at the same time, he is no less intuitively inclined to insist on thesignificance of romantic love and on the possibility of it coexisting withneighbourly love: hence the ambivalence). To put it differently, given thelong tradition of distinguishing between eros and agape – a tradition thattakes these two loves to be structurally different and mutually exclusive –how can we defend our claim that romantic love (presumably a form oferos) and neighbourly love (a form of agape) can coexist?

A strong opponent to the possibility of their coexistence is the theologianAnders Nygren who, in his book Agape and Eros, aims to present the ‘funda-mental opposition between two whole attitudes to life’.26 While agape is‘spontaneous and unmotivated’ (75), ‘indifferent to value’ (77), and ‘crea-tive’ (it creates value: the lover bestows value on thebelovedby virtue of lovinghim), eros conflicts with agape in each of these respects. Eros, according toNygren, is basically ‘the consciousness of a present need and the effort to findsatisfaction for it in a higher and happier state’ (176). This means that eros isdriven by lack of something valuable (that is, it is not spontaneous, and isdefinitely motivated), and responds to the value that it finds in its object (thatis, it isnot indifferent to valueand isacquisitive rather than creative).Eros, then, isthe kind of love that – unlike agape – seeks for value: only that which isconsidered valuable (with regard to the lover’s happiness) can become theobject of erosic love. Accordingly, says Nygren, eros is egocentric love: it isconcernedwith thegoodandhappiness of the self who loves, and ismotivatedby thedesire to fulfil this happiness. ‘The very fact that Eros is acquisitive love’,he says, ‘is sufficient to show its egocentric character: for all desire, or appetite,and longing ismoreor less egocentric. But the clearest proofof theegocentricnature of Eros is its intimate connection with eudaemonia.’27

neighbourly love), but this is simply because while every romantic beloved is also a neighbour,not every neighbour is also a romantic beloved. The picture of love is therefore as follows:there are two distinct kinds of love, neighbourly and romantic, while one love is directed ateverybody and the other love is directed only at a few. Accordingly, when it comes to myromantic beloved, the two loves are directed at him, merging together into a compound –complex and yet coherent – feeling of love.

26 Nygren 1982: 208. Ironically enough, Nygren is drawing on Kierkegaard (as he interpretedhim) in developing this theory.

27 Ibid., 180, emphasis in the text.


According to a view such as Nygren’s, then, the fundamental contrastbetween agape and eros can be formulated as follows. While agape is aspontaneous love, which for Nygren equals its being unmotivated by any-thing valuable in its object, eros is a non-spontaneous love but rather onethat responds to the value it finds in its object, which for Nygren equals itsbeing motivated by the desire to fulfil its own good. Therefore, while agapeis a bestowing love, which purely gives itself to the other, eros is a ‘needy’love which seeks something from the other, thus focusing on the self andbeing, ultimately, ‘selfish’. Nygren actually expresses the Kierkegaardianconcern that ‘[e]ven if passionate preference had no other selfishness init, it would still have this, that consciously or unconsciously there is self-willfulness in it’ (WL, 55). Every love which is attentive to the needs (andwishes, and interests) of the self who loves (an attentiveness which is ofcourse very noticeable in the context of romantic, preferential love) istainted with selfishness. Nygren takes this problematic Kierkegaardianintuition a step further, and unequivocally rejects any love which, in itsattentiveness to a need in the subject, is elicited as a response to the valueof its object. Consciously or unconsciously, explicitly or implicitly, in abodily manner or in a spiritual one – if love involves sensitivity to a need(and is somehow driven by it) it is, according to Nygren, selfish. And it isselfish, he believes, because it is wrongly grounded in the value of itsobject: the lover loves because he recognizes attractive traits in hisbeloved, from which he ‘selfishly’ hopes to benefit.

However, is the picture that Nygren presents adequate? It seemsthat Nygren, in his condemnation of erosic love as ‘selfish’ (and thusnon-genuine), conflates between two distinct matters. He supposes thatresponsiveness to value (the non-spontaneity of love) goes hand-in-handtogether with the ‘neediness’ of love (that is, with its being motivated bysome lack and the need to fulfil it). But is it necessarily so? Is responsive-ness to value necessarily motivated by a need (the need of the lover wholacks something, seeks it, and finds it in his beloved)? Cannot onerespond to values without benefiting from this and regardless of one’sneeds? In his critique of Nygren’s view, John Davenport expresses pre-cisely this point. Nygren errs, he says, by concluding that: ‘if any objectivevalue in object X explains or grounds love of X, then … this value in Xmust cause that love by attracting the lover’; however ‘… values caninform the will in ways other than appetite attraction or prepurposivemotivation of any kind’.28

28 Davenport 2007: 504.


Thus, when asking about the nature of genuine, unselfish love, weshould distinguish between two different questions. First, should a genu-ine love be spontaneous (that is, grounded only in itself) or does it arise asa response to the value of the beloved (that is, grounded in its object)?Second, is attentiveness to one’s own needs necessarily pernicious? Thatis, should a genuine love be purified of any motivation to fulfil the needsof the one who loves, or maybe such a satisfaction does not pose any threatto the purity, genuineness, and unselfishness of love?

In response to the first question, it is helpful to look at Alan Soble’s TheStructure of Love, where he defends what he calls the ‘property-based’ view,namely, the view according to which love arises as a response to the valueof the beloved. ‘When x loves y’, he says, ‘this can be explained as theresult of y’s having, or x’s perceiving that y has, some set S of attractive,admirable, or valuable properties.’29 This structure, claims Soble in con-trast to Nygren, holds true also with regard to neighbourly love:

neighbor-love is interpretable not as agape but as an erosic love. Forexample, if humans are not worthless precisely because God has bestowedobjective value on them, then neighbor-love could be construed as aproperty-based response to this value. Or perhaps neighbor-love is aresponse to the piece or spark of God that exists in all humans.30

I agree with Soble that recognition of value is crucial to neighbourly loveno less than it is for preferential love. Responsiveness to the nature of thebeloved (in this case the neighbour’s infinite value as created by God) istherefore essential to neighbourly love as well. Kierkegaard’s emphasis onthe significance of equality for love, which he expresses in terms of seeingthe ‘inner glory’ (WL, 88) in each and every person, indicates that hisunderstanding of neighbourly love is also sensitive to the role of valuingwhen loving one’s neighbour, any neighbour. Thus, regarding the firstquestion about the nature of love, my claim is that Nygren is mistakenin his demand that love should be grounded only in itself, regardless of itsobject. To think of love as independent of its object (as Nygren does)works not only against our experience of love but also against our under-standing of love as crucially sensitive to the individuality and uniquenessof the other. This sensitivity necessarily involves the valuation of the other:that is, discerning his or her value, and appreciating it.

29 Soble 1990: 4.30 Ibid., 13.


The second question, which concerns the connection between loveand need, is more difficult to answer. On the face of it, to think of love asdriven by some needmay seem to contradict our view of love as focused onthe other rather than on the gratification of the self. However, maybe theneed in question is deeper andmore essential to our nature than the kindof need that Nygren has in mind? An interesting conception of such aneed, which is essentially and desirably involved in loving, is presented inStephen G. Post’s analysis of agape. Post focuses on God’s love for us as thehighest ideal of agape, and he claims that it is mistaken to understand thislove as being free of any need:

Divine love, so often understood as the perfect example to which humanlove must conform, is mistakenly interpreted as containing no element ofself-concern; this view is based on the false assumption that the divineneither needs nor seeks the mutual good of fellowship with humanity.31

The desire for mutuality, for acknowledgement and connection, is thebasic need that motivates any love, even that of God. To be driven by aneed when loving, then, is not necessarily an indication for a non-genuine, self-seeking love. According to an understanding such as thatpresented by Post, needing is part of the structure of love. The need to beacknowledged and loved in return by those we love, the need for fellow-ship and mutuality, the need for the basic connection of being looked atby the one at which one looks (as it were) – this kind of need is not amotivation that taints love: it explains love.32

Moreover, Kierkegaard himself seems to connect love and need. ‘Howdeeply the need of love is rooted in human nature!’, he says, and continues:‘[s]o deeply is this need rooted in human nature, and so essentially does it

31 Post 1995: 151–2.32 It is important to emphasize here the difference between (love) beingmotivated by a need and

(love) being conditioned by the demand to have one’s need satisfied. When I define needing asbeing part of the structure of love, I mean that love is motivated and driven by a need, notconditioned by its fulfilment. This is of course particularly crucial in the case of neighbourlylove: to understand the need for mutuality as motivating love does not mean that love forone’s neighbour is conditioned by the satisfaction of this need. Rather, it means that the hopethat one’s need will be satisfied functions as a regulative ideal that explains, emotionallyspeaking, the drive to fulfil the duty to love. Namely, one is obliged to love one’s neighbourregardless of the satisfaction of one’s need to be loved in return, but this need continues toplay a part in loving nevertheless. And remembering the double structure of faith, wemay saythat the hope and trust that this need will be ultimately fulfilled is part of the second move-ment in the structure of neighbourly love. That is, the movement of repetition, of receivingback, amounts (among other things) to the trust that ultimately, even when it seems impos-sible (as in the case of loving the enemy), one’s love for one’s neighbour will be returned, andthe need for acknowledgement and mutuality will be satisfied.


belong to being human, that even he who was one with the Father and incommunion of love with the Father and the Spirit, he who loved the wholehuman race, our Lord Jesus Christ, even he humanly felt this need to loveand be loved by an individual human being’ (WL, 154, 155, emphasis inthe text). Humans need love: they need to love others and to be loved inreturn. This is what Kierkegaard is saying here very specifically, whichmeans that he accepts the view according to which love is essentiallyconnected to a need. But what kind of a need is it? In my understanding,to speak of ‘the need to love and be loved’ is to say, first and foremost,something about our nature as creatures that are not sufficient to them-selves. We may therefore think of a need not in the demeaning way thatNygren seems to think of it (namely, as referring to being selfishly inter-ested in gratifying oneself), but rather as reflecting our human naturethat in its incompleteness drives us to transcend ourselves and seek mean-ingful values beyond ourselves. And this kind of ‘search’ is satisfiedthrough our relationship with the other (human or divine). In a way, wemay say that needing is our window to the other: it drives us to lookbeyond ourselves, to seek something that transcends ourselves.33

Thus, if we agree that there is nothing problematic in consideringgenuine love as involving this kind of need, we may conclude that thereis nothing wrong in principle with taking sensitivity to the lover’s needs tobe a part of the structure of genuine love. The real question is not whethergenuine love should exclude sensitivity to the lover’s needs, but ratherwhat kind of need poses a threat to love? The answer to this question hasalready been given in our analysis of the relationship between resignationand faith (namely, the relationship between resignation and affirmation):resignation is maintained (and not annulled) in the context of faith andaccordingly it safeguards our affirmative return to the world, so that theneeds being affirmed are not selfish or harmful to the other.34

To return to the question regarding the coexistence of the two loves, wecan now reply that from the point of view of the traditional contradictionbetween agape and eros, the claim that romantic love and neighbourly love

33 I wish to clarify that despite the analogy to divine love in the context of needing (presentedby both Post and Kierkegaard), I do notmean to imply that themotivation in each case – thehuman and the divine – is the same. Namely, to claim, as I do here, that humans need lovebecause they are not sufficient to themselves, does not reflect in any way on the nature ofdivine love or on the reasons for it. All that I wish to establish here is that the connectionbetween needing and loving can be found also in those loves where there is no doubtregarding their genuineness and unselfishness.

34 See again note 12 above.


are mutually exclusive (due to their allegedly essential distinction) provesto be refutable (or at least questionable). It seems that these two loves arenot opposed to each other but rather share the same elements: bothrespond to the beloved’s value, and both address the lover’s needs.Indeed, the appreciation is different in the context of each love (respond-ing to the value of the neighbour is different in character from respondingto the value of one’s romantic beloved), and so are the needs that are beingaddressed. But in essence the two loves share the same fundamentalstructure of faith and under this aegis – namely, that of the double move-ment of resignation and affirmation – they also share the same fundamen-tal elements (valuation of the other, attentiveness to needs of the self) thatconstitute each of the two loves.

We can therefore see once again the importance of the model of faithfor a coherent understanding of love. The double structure of faithresolves the tension that might seem to be inherent in the relationsbetween the two kinds of love. Indeed, the two loves have differentemphases: neighbourly love emphasizes self-denial, while romantic loveemphasizes self-affirmation. But at the same time, the two loves share thesame fundamental structure, the double structure of faith, whereby in bothcases there is a paradoxical twofold relation to the self – denial andaffirmation – which opens the way to a genuine relationship with theother. Each of the loves performs self-denial (a renunciation of one’sdesires and needs) and self-affirmation (a renewed attention to one’sdesires and needs); each manifests resignation (a renunciation of finite,worldly goods) and repetition (a full return to the world).

To be more specific, we can picture how the paradoxical structureallows the coexistence of the two different loves: it does so in the followingmanner. Resignation, as we said in chapter 2, discloses the value of every-thing finite in two important ways. On the one hand, resignation disclosesthe independent value of x (in his belonging to God, regardless of what Ithink of him and regardless of the effect x has on me or on my life). Onthe other hand, it discloses the value of x for me (let us call this the personalvalue of x): resignation also discloses (in relevant cases) how strongly I amattached to x, how important x is for me, how greatly x is involved in mylife and how profoundly x affects me. Now, neighbourly love focuses on theindependent value of the neighbour (every neighbour) and regards asirrelevant the personal value of those of my neighbours to whom I amattached in closer relationships. But romantic love, while being bound andcommitted to acknowledging the independent value of the beloved noless than is neighbourly love (due to the first aspect of resignation which is


valid in romantic love as well), is also focused on the personal value of theromantically beloved neighbour.

From this perspective there is nothing contradictory in loving in aneighbourly way every human being, and loving romantically, prefer-entially, and in a special way, only one person. While neighbourlylove and romantic love are indeed two distinct kinds of love (differentin their emotional content, intentions, and needs), there is nothingcontradictory in performing them together. When it is the doublemovement of faith that provides the basic structure of love, and whenwe remember that non-preferentiality is not essential to this basicstructure (but only to one of its manifestations, namely, to neighbourlylove), then we can see how neighbourly love and preferential love cancoexist.

We can therefore think about the neighbourly kind of love in terms of acaring compassion which is based on (a) discerning the neighbour’s valuein resignation and self-denial, and (b) with sympathy and kindnessresponding to him in affirmation (as well as self-affirmation). This kindof feeling, this kind of doubly-structured love, can and should be directedequally at everybody. However, at the same time, and while equally loving allmy neighbours, I can also love in a preferential way only a few of them. Mypreferential love for my special beloved (say, my romantic beloved) doesnot blind me with regard to my neighbour’s independent value, and itdoes not contradict or exclude my love for him (or her). Preferential lovefor my beloved need not conflict with having neighbourly love either forhim (or her) or for a complete stranger. It is compatible both withfulfilling my duty towards either of them in self-denial, and with findingjoy (of a sort associated with non-romantic relations) in either of them inself-affirmation.

It is therefore the paradoxical structure of faith which makes itpossible both to describe and to fulfil a profound (and complex) visionof the coexistence of the two loves, which compromises neither on theequality demanded by neighbourly love, nor on the inequalitydemanded by romantic love. According to this vision one can whole-heartedly fulfil one’s fundamental duty to love the neighbour: to loveany human being by virtue of discerning and responding to his human-ness (taking on board the profound difficulty and responsibilityinvolved in doing this correctly). And at the same time, one can alsomake real, unqualified, and non-apologetic room for loving in a specialway: one can respond to a special neighbour in a way which is undoubt-edly central to our human existence.


4 Summary: towards a model of romantic love

Therefore if you want to be perfect in love, strive to fulfill this duty, inloving to love the person one sees, to love him just as you see him, with allhis imperfections and weaknesses, to love him as you see him when he haschanged completely, when he no longer loves you but perhaps turns awayindifferent or turns away to love another, to love him as you see him whenhe betrays and denies you. (WL, 174)

Having inquired into the problematic perspective ofWorks of Love, we arenow in the position to understand that when Kierkegaard utters wordssuch as those quoted above, he is actually confusing the two kinds of love.His words sound as though they were directed towards a romantic lover(who loves one specific beloved), but the love that he speaks about isexclusively neighbourly.35 These two loves share the common feature ofresignation (since they both have the structure of faith), and from thispoint of view Works of Love is indeed most insightful for a model ofromantic love (because it illuminates one of romantic love’s essentialfeatures, that of resignation). At the same time, while romantic love isnecessarily preferential, neighbourly love is necessarily not. Therefore, toshape romantic love in the form of neighbourly love is to take away acrucial feature from the former, and thereby to change it into somethingelse. Alas, this is precisely what Kierkegaard seems to be doing. Thequotation above, in its blatant disregard of the essential demands ofpreferentiality, is an accurate example of this.

Kierkegaard’s confusion in Works of Love, we claimed, is rooted in his‘forgetfulness’ of the movement of repetition: a movement that affirmsthe self, and the self’s preferential tendencies, while incorporating themovement of resignation and self-denial. Thus, his failure to see thepossible compatibility of resignation and preference (in the context ofthe double structure of faith, which comprises resignation and repetition),results in his depiction of an incomplete self (a self-denied self), whosepreferential loves are condemned as a form of selfishness. InWorks of LoveKierkegaard seems to recognize two possibilities alone: one either deniesoneself (and only denies oneself), or one is selfish; one either loves in a

35 Kierkegaard says these words against the background of his discussion on the biblical storythat describes Peter’s denial of Christ, but it is reasonable to assume that he intends hisreader to understand his conclusion in a more general way, one which is applicable to allkinds of preferential relationships (including the romantic), and relevant for any sort ofbetrayal.


neighbourly way (and only in a neighbourly way), or one loves selfishly.Kierkegaard fails to see that one can affirm oneself and at the same timedeny oneself; that one can deny oneself and at the same time lovepreferentially.

Now, the forgetfulness of the movement of repetition poses a problemfor neighbourly love no less than it does for romantic love (neighbourlylove, being shaped in the light of faith, should include the movement ofrepetition as much as romantic love should) – but this problem is lessconspicuous in the context of neighbourly love. After all, neighbourlylove is essentially non-preferential, and non-preferentiality is achieved inthe context of resignation (therefore the ‘need’ in a further movement isless noticeable). But resignation (or self-denial) is not enough – not forneighbourly love and not for romantic love. A return to the world isneeded in both: a return to finitude, to concreteness, to our body; areturn to our unique embodiment in time and space.

However, Works of Love focuses only on self-denial and, as a result, themodel of love that it presents is incomplete. It is a model of resignation’slove (rather than of the double movement, of a faith-like love) that allowsfor only a partial and incomplete return to finitude. Resignation’s lovelooks suspiciously at finitude and cannot fully affirm it. Finitude is ephem-eral and transient and, from the point of view of resignation, cannot butbe marginal to eternity. The resigned believer’s relationship with finitudeis therefore qualified and ambivalent: he cares about finitude but canneither immerse himself in it nor joyfully accept it; he acknowledges theimportance of finitude, but is very cautious not to let it play amore centralrole in his life. The body, being the finite aspect of our existence, istherefore pushed to the margins as well.

A self-regarding kind of love (which is frequently also more noticeablybodily than neighbourly love), though not harmful in any way, is never-theless dismissed, or at least overlooked, because it is connected to thefinite, demanding body. Such a connection gives amore emphatic expres-sion to self-concerned needs and desires, and is thus considered byKierkegaard to be ‘selfish’. However, while this kind of dismissal of thebody presents no problem for neighbourly love, it definitely presents aproblem for preferential love, and in particular for romantic love. In thecontext of neighbourly love it is easier to forget that we have a body and itis quite in place to look at it as merely functional, a secondary fact aboutour existence. But in the context of romantic love the body becomescentral and it shows itself and demands our attention. It reminds us thatit has special needs and idiosyncratic ways of expressing itself as an


essential part of who we are. And the resigning believer is baffled by this.He does not know how to make room for something he considers asmarginal in a context in which it demands to be central.

Resignation’s love cannot be viewed as adequate. The broken harmonybetween finitude and infinitude – the regression (after the achievementof Fear and Trembling) to themore traditional hierarchy where infinitude isplaced above finitude – cannot allow for the possibility of joyful love. For asatisfactory model of love, a harmony between the movements (of resig-nation and repetition) is needed. A renewed relationship with finitude (seeagain chapter 3) is required for achieving a desirable relationship of love.In the context of such a relationship we can attain a balance between thespiritual connection of the lovers and its bodily expression, between self-denialand an embodied self-love; a harmony between me (as an embodied spiri-tual being) and you (as no less spiritual and no less embodied).

Having said that, and especially in the context of romantic love, it isimportant to emphasize again the significance of resignation. When myneighbour is also my romantic beloved, the need to deny myself is ofparticular importance. We have said that self-denial is the other, morespecific, side of resignation: we renounce our beloved before God (in thesame manner as the young lover renounces his princess), and we specif-ically renounce ourselves before our beloved. Resignation is necessary forcrystallizing our view of the beloved: it reveals the beloved as belonging toGod and it brings to light our deep attachment to him. Hence, if we wantto be honest with ourselves and act in a manner consistent with therealization gained through resignation, we need strenuously to denyourselves. Because it is only through this prism that we can truly see thebeloved: see him as separate from us in his autonomy and freedom, seehim as someone for whose sake we sometimes need to sacrifice our self-centred gratifications and habits, see how valuable he is and, accordingly,realize how deep our duty and obligation is to him.

Denying ourselves, however, is not an easy task: there are, indeed,selfish elements in us that are powerfully awakened particularly in thecontext of an intimate relationship. In such a context it is harder to bepatient and forgiving, harder to see the other clearly, harder to be onguard about one’s own faults and weaknesses. In such a context it is easierto become tired and oblivious, easier to take the beloved for granted,easier to sin against him.36 The movement of resignation edifies us to be

36 See the discussion of the demonic in the next chapter.


alert and attentive to these selfish tendencies, and it upbuilds us to over-come them, to deny ourselves in spite of ourselves.

But then again, this is not enough. Having denied ourselves, we alsoneed to be able to return to ourselves. Such a return needs to be a fullreturn, including a return to our body, to our needs, and to our idiosyn-cratic preferences – the preferences pertaining both to our bodies and toour souls. Resignation alone does not allow this. Ourmodel of love shouldtherefore be shaped in the structure of the double movement of faith: amodel of faith-like love.

In this chapter I have used Kierkegaard’s view of faith (as presented in Fearand Trembling) to amend his view of love (as presented in Works of Love).The amendment that I have offered here has three aspects (in accordancewith the three main problems that I identified in Works of Love). First, Isuggested that we should regard as separate neighbourly love and the lovethat Kierkegaard calls ‘Kjerlighed’. Neighbourly love should not be con-sidered as identical to Kjerlighed, but rather as a particular manifestation ofit. While Kierkegaard conflates neighbourly love with Kjerlighed, I sug-gested that we regard the former as a particular type of work of love thatgives the fundamental, mysterious Kjerlighed within us a particularexpression in action, feeling, and thought.37 Second, I suggested thatwe understand the basic structure of each work of love – namely, thestructure shared by all the various manifestations of Kjerlighed, neigh-bourly and preferential alike – in terms of the double movement of faith.That is, instead of understanding our acts of love as involving the move-ment of resignation (self-denial) alone, I suggested that we understandthem as involving both resignation and repetition. This paradoxicalstructure entails the compatibility of resignation and preferentiality (or ofself-denial and an unqualified self-love), which Kierkegaard fails to takeinto consideration in Works of Love. Finally, the first and the secondsuggestions pave the way for the third: preferential, romantic love is nota manifestation of neighbourly love (as Kierkegaard and many of hisinterpreters inconsistently suggest) but is rather a distinct manifestationof Kjerlighed. Thus, neighbourly love and romantic love are two kinds oflove – two manifestations of Kjerlighed – that share the same faith-likestructure, a structure that allows for their coexistence.

At the beginning of our discussion of Works of Love I suggested thatKierkegaard’s focus on the works of love indicates, among other things,

37 See chapter 4.


that he is not interested in conducting an inquiry that aims at fathomingthe metaphysical nature of love.38 Rather, Kierkegaard is interested in theexistential aspect of love – in the way that love manifests itself in our life, inthe way in which it affects and guides our existence. At the same time, wesaw, Kierkegaard does provide a few hints regarding his metaphysicalunderstanding of love: he speaks of it as originating in God (‘a humanbeing’s love originates mysteriously in God’s love’, WL, 10), he picturesthe need to love as deeply and essentially rooted in our nature (‘[s]odeeply is this need rooted in human nature, and so essentially does itbelong to being human’, WL, 155), and he declares that God implantedlove in us (‘[G]od … has placed love in the human being’, WL, 126). Inthe inquiry of love presented here I have followed Kierkegaard in focusingon the ‘how’ (how does love shape our existence into ameaningful one?),rather than on the ‘what’ (what love is). However, I have tried cautiouslyto delineate a connection between the initial Kierkegaardian metaphys-ical characterization of love and the Kierkegaardian focus on the works oflove. My suggestion is that while love itself is a divine, mysterious power(implanted in humans by God, defining human nature, but evading anydefinite human grasp), the works of love are a particular human way toencounter love, to access it, to enact it. This particular way is the way offaith. Faith enacts love, and the structure of faith (the double movementof resignation coupled with repetition) is the ‘outline’, the distinctivefigure, of the work of love. Namely, love is enacted by faith – it is shapedand structured by it – into the various works of love around which ourexistence is centred.

Now, these works are many and various, and one of them is the work ofromantic love. In the next and last chapter of this study I shall focus on thiskind of work of love by presentingmore specifically the faith-like model ofromantic love. In the light of this model I will closely examine the story ofone of Kierkegaard’s more intriguing protagonists, who is perhaps thenearest to representing a striving human lover: the Merman of Fear andTrembling.

38 See the first section of chapter 4.


6

FAITH-FULL ROMANTIC LOVE

1 The significance of faith-full love

The infinite love of the finite

A human being is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporaland the eternal, of freedom and necessity, in short, a synthesis. A synthesisis a relation between two. Considered in this way, a human being is still nota self. (SUD, 13)

What does a human being need to become a self? He needs, saysKierkegaard (under the pseudonym of Anti-Climacus), something beyondthe synthesis (which is the relation between the finite and the infinite, thetemporal and the eternal), something other which stands in relation to thissynthesis. Hence he says (at the beginning of the paragraph just quoted):‘The self is a relation that relates itself to itself … the self is not the relationbut is the relation’s relating itself to itself’ (ibid.). To be a self, then, it is notenough to be a synthesis, namely, a mere relation between finitude andinfinitude. Being a self is relating to this relation, knowing how to relate toourselves in our being both finite and infinite. Being a self means knowinghow to posit ourselves in the right relation to both infinitude and finitude;it is ‘the conscious synthesis of infinitude and finitude that relates itself toitself’ (SUD, 29). This self is spirit, Anti-Climacus says, and this interestinglyresonates with an important definition formed by Kierkegaard (underyet another pseudonym, this time Vigilius Haufniensis) in The Concept of

166

Anxiety. ‘Man is a synthesis of the psychical and the physical’, he says,‘however, a synthesis is unthinkable if the two are not united in a third.This third is spirit’ (CA, 43).

In notable disagreement with an influential philosophical tradition thatcontrasted spirit with the finite aspect of our existence (i.e. the body), andconsidered the true nature of human beings as ultimately consisting in anunembodied spirit, here the body is understood as a necessary, and equallyimportant part of a true self. A true self is one consisting of both a soul and abody; a true self is complexly composed of both a part aspiring to infin-itude, to God, and a part immersed in finitude. Being a spirit, being a trueself, is to know how to live in accordance with this complex nature, how toharmonize the synthesis between the two different ‘parts’, how to ‘marry’the different needs, demands, wishes, and duties they involve.

It is the claim of this study that among the possible Kierkegaardianattitudes to existence it is only the mode of faith that allows this desirableharmony, and hence the unique existence of the self as a spirit. And beinga spirit, in Kierkegaard’s specific use, means the ability to exist as a finitecreature infused with infinitude. The self is understood as flesh invadedby a soul; as an embodied soul. In chapter 3, against the background ofthe religious meaning of renouncing the finite (see chapter 2), we analysedthe special significance of faith as a renewed (and ‘spiritualized’) relation-ship with the finite. In chapter 5, against the background of Kierkegaard’sambivalence with regard to self-love and preferential love inWorks of Love(see chapter 4), we demonstrated how crucial the double movement of faith isfor a coherent understanding of love as a true relationship between selfand other (andGod, as the ‘middle term’).1Having come this long way, wecan now tie together all the threads and present a faith-like model ofromantic love.

When romantic love is fulfilled in faith it is performed along the linesof faith, in the shape and structure of faith. And when it is thus performed,it reaches its highest stage of fulfilment. This love is pervaded with faith, itis full of faith. Let us call this form of love ‘faith-full’ love. Now, romanticlove is a state of existence in the context of which both finitude andinfinitude are strongly present. Being emphatically bodily, the finite

1 We said that faith, being the double movement of resignation and repetition, is a renewedrelationship with finitude, which is constituted on the basis of a relationship with God (seechapters 2 and 3). Thinking of faith in terms of such a spiritual bond that connects peoplethrough their relationship with God accords with the idea that Kierkegaard expresses inWorks of Love regarding God as a ‘middle term’. SeeWL, 107, and note 46 in chapter 3 above.

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aspect of our existence demands our attention more than it does in thecontext of other kinds of love. At the same time, however, when romanticlove is fulfilled in faith, it is no less a matter of the soul than it is bodily.Hence, in the context of romantic love we are fully exposed as both finiteand infinite. It is there, in such a close relationship with the other, that weintensely feel our body and the limitation of our finitude on the one hand,and our aspiration, and opening up, to the infinite (expressed in resig-nation as well as in our joyful feelings of gratitude for being given the giftof love) on the other. And since it is both finitude and infinitude that are sostrongly present in romantic love, it is crucial in connection with this formof love to achieve a balance between finitude and infinitude; but at thesame time (and for the same reason) it is here that achieving such abalance is the hardest.

It is in romantic love, then, that the challenge to value the finitethrough one’s relationship with the infinite is at its greatest. Indeed (asemphasized above), the model of faith – by edifying us towards a fullvaluation of the finite – is obviously not restricted to romantic love alone.Any love – be it for friends, family, neighbours – should therefore beformed in the light of faith. However, we may now be in a position tounderstand why it is important to discuss the faith-fullness of romantic lovein particular.

First, as we have just stated, in its being emphatically both finite andinfinite, romantic love may be the kind of love that poses the highestchallenge to faith: the challenge of finding the right balance between itsfinite and infinite aspects. Second, looking at romantic love through theprism of faith safeguards our understanding of its significance. As we saw inchapters 4 and 5, it is easy to dismiss romantic love as only bodily, selfish,or less important than ‘spiritual’ matters; it is easy even to dismiss roman-tic love as immoral. Kierkegaard’s severe judgement of it in Works of Loveonly emphasizes how important it is to discuss the faith-full nature ofromantic love.

Disclosing the faith-full nature, or the faith-like structure, of romanticlove is, in a way, more crucial than disclosing faith-fullness in the contextof, say, neighbourly love. Evidently, in the case of neighbourly love notapplying the structure of faith does not threaten one’s judgementsregarding neighbourly love so severely. Even without seeing the doublestructure of faith one can consider neighbourly love to be important,coherent, and desirable. This approval is connected, first and foremost, toour understanding of resignation in the context of such love. In neigh-bourly love there is not so much need to emphasize the importance of


resignation. Resignation does not even seem to conflict with such love; onthe contrary. In the case of romantic love, on the other hand, if we do notapply the structure of faith we end with a picture that seems problematicethically and spiritually. Since a position that involves resignation (theethical and spiritual demand), and a position that involves preference(the romantic demand) seem to exclude each other, romantic love mayeasily seem to conflict with our ethical, spiritual, and religious aspirations.Clarification with regard to the faith-fullness of romantic love – withregard to the way in which the structure of faith is applicable to it – istherefore particularly important here.2

What, then, is faith-full romantic love like?The first stage of romantic love is its fulfilment in an aesthetic manner.

This kind of fulfilment puts the emphasis on the temporal and finiteaspects of the love. The seducer, for example, is focused on the sensuousand the immediate, on achieving satisfaction that cannot progress beyondits momentary fulfilment. Once the desired object of love is seduced (thatis, surrenders to the will of the seducer, accepts his love and returns it, andbecomes, from the seducer’s point of view, his ‘own’ possession), he losesinterest and the love is over: it becomes a recollection (see again chapter 1).Accordingly, aesthetic love, as momentarily oriented (that is, as a lovedirected at its momentary fulfilment), tends to be short-lived. For aestheticlove to progress towards becoming faith-full love a deliberate (anddifficult)step needs to be taken.

This step is the performance of themovement of resignation, which is astep forward not only beyond aesthetic love but also beyond marital love,which is represented by the Judge (as we have seen in chapter 1). Becauseresignation means not only renouncing desires (present or future)towards other people (a step that one already fulfils in marriage bychoosing a beloved to whom one promises to commit one’s love), it rathermeans acknowledging that nothing – not the lovers’ present desire forone another, not their good will, and not the vows they take in the contextof marriage – can secure their love from a loss.

Becoming involved in a relationship of genuine, life-committing lovemeans to put oneself in the vulnerable position of becoming strongly

2 I should emphasize again, though, that even in the case of neighbourly love the structure offaith presents an improved picture. It allows us to see how neighbourly love can be realized ina way which does not fall into various forms of self-deception, coldness and indifference, orthanklessness. Moreover, in chapter 5 we demonstrated the need in applying this model onneighbourly love for a coherent understanding of the coexistence of the two different kindsof love, neighbourly and romantic.


attached to someone whomay eventually be lost to you (by going away or bybeing taken away; as a result of one’s free choice, or through the impositionof death). It means to become attached to something (someone) over whichone has only limited control. Therefore, becoming involved in such arelationship confronts one, very vividly, with one’s own limitations. It doesso by giving rise to fears and anxieties (of losing oneself in the love, of losingthe beloved, of spoiling the love, of being ruined by it), and by making thelover understand how demanding, and painful, it is to love. The loverunderstands the depth of the required sacrifice – a sacrifice of the naturalinclination to have everything one wants as one wants it, a surrender of thenatural tendency to put oneself in the centre, a renunciation of the naturaltendency, and desire, to be in control – and the depth of the required self-denial. Indeed, there are many ways to spoil love (by fear, by selfishness, byweariness, by lack of trust), but I am not interested in analysing all of thesehere.3 It is more interesting, frommy point of view, to acknowledge that, atmany junctures, maintaining a relationship of love depends on resignation:on renouncing the beloved and on renouncing ourselves. We need themovement of resignation for a genuine appreciation of our beloved, and weneed to deny ourselves as an appropriate response to his revealed value.

However, romantic love in its highest form does not halt in resignation(just as faith does not stop here). To halt in resignation means that therelationship wemaintain with our beloved (if wemanage tomaintain sucha relationship at all) is necessarily shaped by the consciousness of loss andis, accordingly, dominated by pain and sorrow. Such a relationship cannotbut be incomplete – it is barred from taking joy either in the love or in thebeloved. To make the second movement of faith in the context of lovemeans to be capable of relating to the finite unreservedly, to love the finitenot in a relative, restricted way but rather absolutely. In other words, wemay say that faith-full love means to love the finite in an infinite way: it isthe infinite love of the finite, for the finite.4

3 In a way, Amy Laura Hall’s book takes on itself the task of doing precisely this: showing howwe humans – because of our sinfulness and failure of faith – cannot but ruin love. My ownconclusion, however, ismore positive and optimistic than hers (seemy discussion of her bookin chapter 4 above).

4 A possible objection to this claim would assert that, according to Kierkegaard’s ConcludingUnscientific Postscript, such a love should be ruled out as paganism and idolatry (after all, thewisdom of the religious life is defined as knowing how to relate oneself relatively to therelative and absolutely to the absolute. See CUP, 407). However,my answer to a charge of thissort (i.e. that the love that I offer here is a regression to paganism) would be that what securesthis love from becoming idolatry is the movement of resignation. The love I present here is


Love’s aura of faith

If … we become capable of hearing the cry of the lover from whose armsthe beloved has been torn away, we shall discern in the emptiness of hisarms the space that awaits a second voice; a space left open for the joyfulpossibility of a consummating embrace in which both voices are reunitedand separation conquered … never, of course, to be won without passionand never to be possessed without the risk of pain.5

The origin of love, we said, is a mystery (it is a power ‘implanted’ by Godand hidden in us), but at the same time this mysterious power can bemanifested in our work of romantic love.6 Accordingly, we can think ofromantic love as a complex combination of human acts (performed bothinwardly and outwardly, consciously and subconsciously) and a divinemystery. Because even if a relationship of love can be explained in termsof sociological, psychological, and even biological reasons – it can neverbe reduced to these explanations. Sometimes love may seem banal, some-times it appears to be banally explainable, but these appearances andexplanations are never (and can never tell) the whole story. No matterhow hard we work to sustain our love, no matter how many stories we tellabout it, something crucial escapes our control.

To begin with, romantic love is something that happens to us, notsomething that we can plan or bring upon ourselves (we cannot forceourselves to fall in love with a person, no matter how hard we try). Ofcourse, we are responsible for noticing the opportunity for such love, forwanting it, for working towards it – but we cannot ignore the wonder of itsoccurrence: a meeting with this particular person, under these particularcircumstances, at this particular time, that turns out to be love. However,and especially in the long term, it is easy for us to surrender to the routineof love, to get used to it, and to forget about the wonder of it. And so thevalue of our love and of our beloved comes to be concealed behind thethick screen of the banality and tiredness of our blurred and unapprecia-tive everydayness. And this is where our work becomes crucially significant.

not a naıve love that simply sees the finite as absolute. Rather it is a paradoxical love that fullydedicates itself to the finite while acknowledging how deeply it fails to have a hold on it, howdeeply it is removed from the finite.Moreover, the full dedication to the finite is sustained by,and becomes possible through, the full dedication to the infinite, that is, God. I do not seethe dedication and love for God and the dedication and love for the finite as being in conflictwith each other. I rather see the former as allowing the latter, as a necessary condition for it.

5 Pattison 2002b: 189.6 See again chapters 4 and 5.


The importance of resignation (the firstmovement of faith) for a clearand focused view of finitude has been emphasized several times in thisstudy. Here the finite in question is our human beloved; and resignationserves as the edification for seeing the beloved in all his glory. Thisaddresses the need, so essential for romantic love, not to take the belovedfor granted – not to forget his infinite value as being God’s gift to us. Thesecond movement of faith (the movement of affirmation, or repetition),being the acceptance of this gift and the full appreciation of it, expressesthe ability to see the wonder of love. To see the grace, to see the gift andjoyfully accept it, despite the human (and sinful) temptation to disregardit. Faith, we said, is a renewed relationship with the finite. Faith-full love isthe renewal of love, the occurrence of moments in which the light ofinfinitude reveals our love to us in its full value.

Loving faith-fully, by applying faith’s double structure to our relation-ship of love, is therefore important for positing ourselves in the rightrelation to the object of love, and for disclosing the value of both thebeloved and the relationship. And to love faith-fully is no less desirable –and no less difficult and rare – than to live faith-fully (that is, to live like theknight of faith). Being a knight of faith-full love is at each and everymoment to be fully attuned to, and appreciative of, the presence ofone’s beloved (even in his absence). When loving faith-fully, the belovedis passionately seen within the full aura of his value. And when thishappens, there are no distractions that can threaten the complete atten-tion given to the beloved: no weakened wills or treacherous thoughts thatmight cast a shadow over the love. However, this fullness emerges from,and is accompanied by, an infinite nothingness: the nothingness invadingour existence which is acknowledged in resignation. The beloved’s pres-ence is infinitely intense, but this intensity is genuinely seen and experi-enced only against the background of his profound absence (that consistsin his being essentially lost, by virtue of his finitude).

Faith-full love, then, begins in resignation and culminates in the move-ment of repetition. In the context of such love we are edified to accept ourposition of being-in-relation with regard to both God and the humanother.7 After all, resignation, in its acknowledgement of our boundaries

7 In Kierkegaard’s Upbuilding Discourses Pattison argues for the importance and centrality of theupbuilding discourses in the philosophy of Kierkegaard, and in their dialogical nature hesees an indication of the presence of the ‘Thou’ – the human ‘Thou’ – in Kierkegaard’sauthorship. Like Pattison I claim that there is a real place, an essential place, for the ‘other’ inthe life that Kierkegaard depicts as a life worth living. Moreover, this place is created onlythrough the relationship with the ultimate other, the ultimate ‘Thou’: God.


and dependence on God, posits us not as autonomous creatures butrather as creatures the structure of whose existence is that of being inrelation. This acknowledgement with regard to God upbuilds us withregard to the human other as well. We are edified to see ourselves asfacing someone, someone independent of us, and entirely different fromus. Through resignation then, we learn how to respect this independence,and it is resignation that makes us see not only the profound otherness ofthe other (in his belonging to God) but also the importance of thisotherness for us. But it is only the movement of repetition that gives fullexpression to our appreciation of the importance and the value that wesee in the other who is given to us. The ability to carry out thismovement isthe height of faith-full love. Only then do we truly see love, value love, andlive love; only then do we show our appreciation to God, our gratefulnessto him; only then can we genuinely fulfil our relationship with him and,through this, our relationship of human, faith-full, love.

To conclude, faith is important for an understanding and fulfilment ofromantic love because it enlightens this kind of love and gives it shape.Faith discloses the value and the desirability of romantic love, as well as itssignificance, for our existence. The prism of faith is essential because ifone does not understand the resignation–repetition structure of roman-tic love, onemay either reduce this love to its finite aspects (focusing on itsbodily pleasures and functions alone), or come to the conclusion thatbodily love should be left behind. My suggestion to see romantic love asilluminated by the aura of faith allows us to think differently about ideallove; about what it implies and what it demands, what it offers and what ittakes away, about its pain and its joy.

And now that we understand the significance of faith-full romantic love, letus examinemore concretely how this form of love may be relevant to one’slife and to the way one loves. We will do so by looking closely at the story ofthe somewhat neglected Merman of Fear and Trembling, and see how fromamong the various options open to him, it is only faith-full love that fullydoes justice to the difficulties, demands, and joys of romantic love.

2 A faith-full lover: the Story of the Merman

The seduction of Agnes

Without a doubt, it is the most difficult mystery, just as it is also supposed tobe the most profound wisdom, to arrange one’s life as if today were the last dayone lives and also the first in a sequence of years. (SLW, 384, emphasis mine)


In the first chapter we characterized the pre-religious lovers of recollec-tion as failing to acknowledge and accept the loss inherent to any relation-ship of love. It is precisely these lovers who are far from arranging theirlives – let alone their loves – in the wise manner described above; namely,that in which one sees and values every single day (of one’s life and ofone’s love) as both lost and regained. And of the three types of lovers, Iwish to return now to the demonic, who is the most complex (andinteresting) one. The demonic is a borderline figure, someone whowavers between different options. He is too sensitive with regard to histemporality to accept the aesthetic and ethical solutions, but too power-fully inclosed within himself to leap beyond their sphere. He thereforestands at the threshold of the religious: reaching out for it, but too deeplyrooted in recollection to arrive at it. Such a demonic lover is embodied inthe figure of a merman, whose love story – which has several possibleendings – is told by Johannes de Silentio in Fear and Trembling.

Several commentators have paid attention to the tale of the Merman,finding it highly significant.8 However, usually the Merman’s love forAgnes is overshadowed by Fear and Trembling’s account of the biblicalstory of Abraham and, therefore, it is easy to miss the richness andsignificance of this tale. The story of Abraham presents us with theparadigm of faith: this is the ideal, the highest peak one can aspire to,the highest state of existence to which we look with admiration as ourregulative ideal. And like Johannes, most of us find it hard not only tohave a faith like Abraham’s, but even to imagine ourselves in his situationat the Binding. The Merman, however, is much closer to us. In as much aswe are imperfect beings – sinful and possessed by our demons, that at eachand every moment of our lives face the same possibilities that are open tothe Merman – we are like him. And, like him, we are also free to decidebetween these possibilities: this is the striving for love, if only we choose tocarry it out.

We can therefore say that while the story of Abraham stands for thedesired goal, the Merman’s story stands for the striving, for the way leading

8 Green andMulhall see in this story a crucial turning-point in Fear and Trembling that imparts theless conspicuous and yet more significant of the text’s messages: the centrality of sin andrepentance in the structure of faith. (See Mulhall 2001: 385–6; Green 1993: 201–2.) Hannaysees in this story a reflection of ‘the “logic” of Kierkegaard’s own special situation with regard tothe universal, as he saw it, in respect of his relationship with Regine’, and a demonstration ofthe close relations between faith and fulfilment of the ethical/universal: ‘Being “revealed”means here disclosing social nature,making and fulfilling social andpersonal commitments, inshort participating actively in the private and public affairs of life’ (see Hannay 1982: 79–81).


to the goal. While Abraham’s life embodies a continual fulfilment andaffirmation of the life of faith, ours is at best an attempt to approach thislife. Unlike Abraham, and indeed more like the Merman, we are suscep-tible to weaknesses, distractions, and sins. If Abraham’s story is the embodi-ment of the ideal of faith, then, theMerman’s story is the embodiment of alife lived towards the ideal of faith – the embodiment of the striving andthe attempt to accomplish this ideal.

Hence the Merman, who may potentially be the reflection of anyperson, definitely deserves our attention – not only as a possible embodi-ment of every human being but, in particular, as a possible embodimentof every human lover.9 Despite the mythological setting of the story, theMerman’s way of love is, in essence, the way open to every human loverwho struggles to fulfil love. Who is the Merman, then? What is he like andwhat is his story?

The Merman is a seducer ‘who rises up from his hidden chasm and inwild lust seizes and breaks the innocent flower standing on the seashore’(FT, 94). And indeed, his love story, which has two important phases,begins with a seduction:

He has called to Agnes and by his wheedling words has elicited what washidden in her. In the merman she found what she was seeking, what shewas searching for as she stared down to the bottom of the sea. (FT, 94)

The story begins with the depiction of theMerman as an aesthetic seducerwho enjoys the thrill of seduction, which ends once he has dragged hislove-object to the depths of the sea (rising up again alone to seduceanother girl). But then one day he meets Agnes; and Agnes is different.She is someone who is not terrified of the tempest before her – theturmoil of the sea does not frighten her. She seems to be even drawn toit. Not blinded by the beauty of the storming waves, she is looking beneaththem, searching for something deeper at the bottom of the sea. Againstthe background of Kierkegaard’s image of love as a power that almosthypnotizes us (drawing us to itself just as the mysterious darkness of thewater invites us to look more and more deeply into the lake), we may

9 One may claim that most lovers prefer to lead their lives in ‘happy ignorance’, and refuse toconfront the reasons for being unsatisfied in their relationships (reasons such as the strugglebetween the aesthetic and ethical powers in their soul, their demons, their weaknesses, theirconflicting desires, their sins – all of which are rooted in their frustrated responses to loss).From this point of view, most lovers are indeed not like the Merman, who is conscious of hismisery and honestly tries to address it. It is therefore important to emphasize that thecommon lover is in essence like the Merman, but in actuality there are maybe only a fewwho dare to strive for their loves in the way that he does (or, at least, hints at).


suggest that what Agnes manages to detect in the bottom of the roaringsea is the love in the innermost being of the Merman.10 Seeing the love inthe midst of his dark, tempting wildness, she can trustfully submit herselfto him:

He is already standing on the beach, crouching to dive out into the seaand plunge downwith his booty – and then Agnes looks at him oncemore,not fearfully, not despairingly, not proud of her good luck, not intoxi-cated with desire, but in absolute faith and in absolute humility … andwith this look she entrusts her whole destiny to him in absolute confi-dence. (Ibid.)

And the Merman is overwhelmed by this look. Something stronger thanhis natural powers of seduction overcomes him, and he ‘breaks down’:

He cannot withstand the power of innocence… he cannot seduce Agnes.He takes her home again, he explains that he only wanted to show her howbeautiful the sea is when it is calm, and Agnes believes him. Then hereturns alone, and the sea is wild, but not as wild as the merman’s despair.He can seduce Agnes, he can seduce a hundred Agneses, he canmake anygirl infatuated – but Agnes has won, and the merman has lost her. Only asbooty can she be his; he cannot give himself faithfully to any girl, becausehe is indeed only a merman. (Ibid., 94–5)

What happened to the Merman? What is the essence of his surprisingtransformation? In his Journals Kierkegaard comments as follows:

The merman is a seducer, but when he has won Agnes’s love he is somoved by it that he wants to belong to her entirely. – But this, you see, hecannot do, since he must initiate her into his whole tragic existence, thathe is a monster at certain times, etc., that the church cannot give itsblessing to them. He despairs and in his despair plunges to the bottomof the sea and remains there. (JP 5, 5668)

TheMerman has fallen in love with Agnes (it might be suggested that it washer ability to see the loving power in him – to see through his ‘monstrous’nature and accept him as he is, trusting the ‘humanity’ in him and thusreflecting to him the possibility of enacting this humanity – that touchedhim so deeply), and now he wishes to make the ethical choice and ‘belongto her entirely’. However, taking such a step requires of him to acknowl-edge his problematic past, and to foresee the possible difficulties thatthreaten their joint future. Therefore, even though ‘the seducer is crushed’

10 See WL, 8–10. See also chapter 4 above.


and ‘he can never seduce again’ (FT, 96), the Merman is now facing a newphase: the second phase of his convoluted story. To have repented of hisseductiveness is only the beginning, and theMerman ‘stands at a dialecticalapex’ (FT, 98), facing three different options which are open to him:demonic hiddenness, religious resignation, or faith. And if he decides tosurrender to his present condition – that is, to surrender to the demonic inhim – then what he chooses is, in actuality, the state of sin.

The dark night of the demonic

I am now taking this kinswoman of mine, not because of lust, but withsincerity. Grant that she and I may find mercy and that we may grow oldtogether. (Book of Tobit, 8:7, New Revised Standard Version)

We said that the different responses to the essential loss threatening loveconstitute the different stages of love. And of the three possible pre-religiousresponses to loss – of the three possible loves of recollection – demonic loveis the darkest, and also the most intriguing. It brings together the lover’saesthetic and ethical tendencies, and pushes the struggle between them toa final defeat. The aesthetic desires and the ethical demands clash andcollapse into the demonic failure to address the loss involved in the passageof time.11And this failure, I claim, takes the shape of sin (or a temptation tosin). Namely, the demonic response to loss amounts to sinning or, at thevery least, to being in a sinful state of mind (that is, being inclined andsusceptible to sin, being attracted to the kingdom of sin).12

11 In chapter 1 we examined the different responses to loss as shown by the aesthetic and theethical lovers and saw that each has its distinctive way of loving, which is in conflict with thatof the other. The passionate debate between the ‘either’ (namely, the aesthetic) and the ‘or’(the ethical) can be understood as an inner struggle between two dominant inclinations ofthe human soul. The aesthetic element demands receptivity to the sensual and the imme-diate; the ethical element demands choosing and adherence to continuity and higherideals. These two elements are essentially in conflict but the resolution of their strugglelies beyond the limits of the struggle itself: it has to come from ‘the outside’, from a differentpoint of view. And because this struggle cannot thus be resolved, the inevitable failure givesbirth to the demonic.

12 Of course, this does not mean that the aesthetic and ethical lovers are righteous men whonever sin. Rather, it means that the demonic lover is the only one in the pre-religious spherewhose sinful state plays a role in the way he loves (and lives). The aesthetic and ethical loversare indifferent to the existence of sin in their lives, they do not take their sinfulness intoaccount, it does not play any role in their lives. Moreover, if we think of the ethical and theaesthetic as representing two dominant aspects of the soul (rather than actual types ofhuman beings), it is easier to see why the reality of sin is not as yet a part of their story. (Seenote 11.)


Now, in The Concept of Anxiety the demonic is defined as ‘anxiety aboutthe good’ (CA, 118), and inThe Sickness unto Death it is said that ‘sin is not amatter of a person’s not having understood what is right but of his beingunwilling to understand it, of his not willing what is right’ (SUD, 95,emphasis mine). By using the term ‘sin’, then, I basically refer to thebroadest meaning of it being a distancing of oneself from the good, offeeling anxious and hopeless about the good, of despairing of it (that is,despairing of achieving the good, of getting hold of it). The demonicpowers in us, according to this understanding, are therefore those powersthat take us away from goodness, that weaken our hold on it. They are thepowers that weaken our will to achieve the good and to do what is right.13

And we all have our demons – those dark, shapeless powers within usthat tempt us to do what we know we should not do, or distract us fromdoing what (we know) we should do. Such demonic factors in our will andmotivation are all somehow connected to our limitedness. They areevoked by our coming up against our limitations, by our being confrontedwith them: our will is hindered by reality, and we rebel against it. Realitymakes a variety of things incompatible with one another or unachievable(seducing a hundred Agneses and at the same time devoting oneselfcompletely to one Agnes alone; maintaining the novelty of love overtime; never to suffer changes, never to confront death), and the demonicrefuses to reconcile himself to it. The demonic, in other words, refuses toreconcile himself to essential loss – namely, to the actual and potentiallosses that threaten love – which he cannot prevent or control.

13 The concept of sin constitutes an important part of the philosophical-religious language ofKierkegaard and is in particular central to the Christian emphases of this language. In thepresent study, however, I want to look at a general existential meaning that this conceptmight have in the context of Kierkegaard’s philosophy (and not necessarily at its moredecisively theological meaning). It is therefore not my purpose here to give a completeaccount of Kierkegaard’s understanding of the concept of sin or to attempt to explain itsrole within a larger Christian theological picture. In a way, what George Pattison says of hisproject of reading Kierkegaard’s Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses philosophically can beapplied to my own approach to the authorship of Kierkegaard in this context: ‘Now it hascertainly not been my intention in developing a “philosophical” interpretation of thediscourses to mask the fact that in one sense they do presuppose a set of distinctivelyChristian theological assumptions. It would almost be absurd to claim otherwise. Thequestion is what does this mean for our reading of them? Does it mean that they areincomprehensible except to those who share these assumptions, who share Kierkegaard’sfaith (in this case his faith in the Christian doctrine of the atonement)? Or, despite theirChristian vocabulary and concepts, can we say of them that … they essentially seek to makethe meaning of that faith accessible, attractive and understandable to the good-willedreader?’ (Pattison 2002b: 209).


The demonic is terrified by loss. After all, loss is connected to thosedesirable things that one cannot have, to those beloved things that aretaken away from one, to everything that one wants – but cannot have. Loss,therefore, can be understood as an obstacle before one’s will, an obstaclethat hinders one from fulfilling the good that one desires. And while theaesthetic and ethical forms of recollection are characterized by theirinability to cope with loss and by their attempt to ignore it in variousways, the demonic reminds one that those attempts have failed. Thedemonic is a manner of making the inevitability of loss powerfullypresent: it is to become obsessed with the loss, obsessed with the obstacle,obsessed with forfeiting the good.14

Hence, while the ethical man maintains a naıve belief regarding hisdirect approach and access to the good and the right (as remembered, theethical lover is characterized by trusting the human ability to fulfil theethical ideals by way of one’s rationality and will alone) – the demonicrebels against this complacent delusion and, as a result, distances himselffrom the good. Not because he does not desire it, but rather because hedespairs of achieving it. One who becomes thus estranged from the idealsof goodness (by focusing on the obstacles preventing one from fulfillingthem) will quite naturally end by choosing the bad over the good or, inother words, end by sinning.

To put it differently, while the ethical man tries to repress the fact of hislimitedness (his finitude, his illicit desires, his failure to adhere to theideals he holds), the demonic person is demonic precisely because herebels against the ethical refusal to acknowledge his limitedness, andultimately against the ethical ideals themselves. Hence, the ethical blind-ness and self-deception lead to a ‘demonic rage’.15 The demonic powers(which are rooted in our intimate, inescapable knowledge of our ownlimitations) cannot be subdued: they eventually burst their way out in theform of sin or a temptation to sin.

A recent example of the demonic rebellion against ethical complacency –and the dark, tempting road it paves directly to the kingdom of sin – canbe found in Stanley Kubrick’s interpretation of Arthur Schnitzler’snovella Dream Story. In order to illustrate more concretely the complex

14 Note that the demonic, being a response to loss, can take the form of a sin that emerges inconfrontation with the different obstacles connected to the passage of time (infidelity, forexample, is a sin that may be committed in response to the loss which consists in theweariness of desires) but, as such, it becomes in itself an obstacle (being unfaithful is obviouslyan obstacle in the way of love, distancing love from its happy fulfilment).

15 See SUD, 72.


connection between loss (in the form of our limitedness), the demonic,and sin, then, I suggest the following interpretation of the film Eyes WideShut.16

The protagonist of this film, Dr Bill Harford, is inmany ways the perfectrealization of the ethical attitude represented by Kierkegaard’s JudgeWilliam. He is happily married to Alice, his beautiful and loving wife, hehas a sweet child, and he works in a satisfying and respectable job to whichhe feels committed. In short, he is an honourable member of society. Inthe eyes of everyone around him, and in particular in his own eyes, he issomeone who has everything: nothing is lacking in his life, nothing ismissing or lost. Bill is certain of the purity of his love for Alice and of thepurity and flawlessness of her love for him; when it comes to their relation-ship, his eyes are wide shut. He refuses to see himself as anything but agood and faithful husband, and cannot imagine that his wife might havea hidden aspect, distinct from her domestic identity as a loving wife and adevoted mother. It is therefore easy to understand how great his shock iswhen he learns that his faithful wife had an erotic fantasy which almost ledher to betray him (or at least to seriously consider the possibility of doingso). This is how Albertine, the wife in Schnitzler’s novella, describes herinfatuation with the stranger she met during a holiday she spent with herhusband:

He had glanced at me as we passed, but a few steps further up he stopped,turned round towards me and our eyes could not help meeting … I feltmoved as never before. The whole day I lay on the beach lost in dreams.Were he to summon me – or so I believed – I would not be able to resist. Ibelieved myself capable of doing anything; I felt I had as good as resolvedto relinquish you, the child, my future.17

The husband is outraged, but a phone call from a patient forces him toleave the matter unaddressed. He goes out into the cold street, and sobegins his longest and darkest night, during whichmore andmore demonsare released, threatening to take over him. He is facing one moralchallenge after another, and each pushes him closer to sin. His fidelity tohis wife – as well as to himself, and to the life he has believed himself to

16 I will refer simultaneously to both the film and the novella, but rely more on the way the filmportrays its male protagonist. In my view, Kubrick’s interpretation presents the protagonistas more naıve, andmore complacently blind to his forbidden desires, than does the novella.Accordingly, the gap between the protagonist’s image of himself as ethical and the darknessof his repressed demons is more sharply emphasised in the film.

17 Schnitzler 1999: 178.


be leading – is put to different tests. And if at the beginning of this journeyhe tries to resist the temptations, at the end of it he is defeated by adecadent, sexual fantasy, and finds himself obsessed with the desire fora masked – nameless and faceless – woman.

The rapidity and the ease with which the husband’s supposedly solidethical identity (as a devoted and faithful spouse) cracks and falls apart isquite overwhelming – and yet disturbingly consistent (thus indicating howweak and helpless the ethical is when confronted by one’s limitedness). Itbegins with a confession of love imposed upon the husband by thedaughter of his dead patient; this temptation, at this point, he stronglyrejects. It continues with an offer from a prostitute whomhe at first tries toreject but then accepts – he is about to sleep with her and the only thingthat stops him is his wife, who calls him on his mobile telephone andbrings him back to himself (as it were). It then continues with a bewilder-ing encounter with a Lolita-figure, to whom he is almost involuntarilyattracted. She is the daughter of a man from whom he rents a costume fora mysterious orgiastic ball to which, at this late stage of the night, he isdetermined to go (despite not being invited). And it culminates at thissensual party: there, behind a mask, surrounded by the strikingly beau-tiful bodies of naked and masked women, he completely forgets himself.

Driven by a deep resentment for his wife on the one hand, and by anintense desire to fulfil the sexual fantasy that has so easily become availableto him on the other, the husband is now devoured by his demons. He doesnot care about his wife (from whom, following the discovery of her fantasy,he so quickly became estranged), he cares nothing about the home he leftbehind, he cares nothing about his former identity. He therefore refuses toleave that dream-like house, with all those seductive women around him,even when he clearly realizes that he has entered a forbidden zone. Andthere is one particular woman there, with whom he feels he has fallen inlove. She urges him to leave the house, but he, intoxicated with desire, isnot willing to leave without her. Until he is forced to: a nightmarish ‘trial’ isenforced on him (he is, after all, an intruder), and he is ‘released’ onlythanks to that mystery-woman who volunteers to ‘redeem’ him. And this ishow Fridolin, the husband in the novella, is warned:

‘You are free,’ said the courtier to Fridolin, ‘leave the house at once, andbeware of delving more deeply into secrets you have merely sneakedacross the threshold of. Should you attempt to put anyone on our tracks,whether successfully or not – you will be lost.’18

18 Ibid., 229.


Delving deeply into one’s demons, especially when one does not have thestrength to address them, can indeed bring loss upon oneself. Thereforethe husband, in a profound sense, is already lost. He returns home, wherehe is confronted with a horrible dream that his wife has just been havingabout him. While her fantasy exposed him to her secret desires, herdream reveals her repressed anger and resentment towards him. In thenovella we are specifically told that, following this long night with its darkdiscoveries both of his wife’s demons and his own, the husband feels thathe hates his wife. At the same time he feels that he is in love with the other,mysterious woman. He actually contemplates divorcing his wife, feelingthat his bright and neat former life was nothing but a lie. ‘We will have topart’, he thinks to himself, ‘[t]hings can never be the same again betweenus’; he strongly feels that ‘all this order, balance and security in his lifewere really an illusion and a lie’.19 It takes a chilling encounter withdeath – with the dead body of a woman that may well be the mystery-woman from the party – to nullify his demonic desire and dissolve it intosomething completely different:

‘Was it her body? – that wonderful, blooming body that yesterday hadtortured him with longing?’ … Even if the woman he was looking for, haddesired and for an hour perhaps loved were still alive, and regardless ofhow she continued to conduct her life, what lay behind him in thatvaulted room – in the gloom of the flickering gas-lamps, a shadowamong shades, as dark, meaningless and devoid of mystery as they –could now mean nothing to him but the pale corpse of the previousnight, destined irrevocably for decay.20

Demonic powers have an interesting nature: they are elusive and unstable,and there is nothing but a thin line separating their dark, attractingspell from their cold, repulsive ugliness. They can take over you, leadyou into doing that which seems the most important and meaningful anddesirable – so strong is their influence that you can easily lose yourself,forget who you are. And then the spell is abruptly gone, leaving you withemptiness and contempt for yourself, with the cold, meaningless deadbody of the wrong deed, the sin, that the demons have led you into doing.

It seems, however, that of the two protagonists, it is only the wife – theless self-righteous of the two – who truly understands the danger not onlyof giving oneself up to the demonic powers, but also of pronouncing avictory over them. She understands that these powers are an essential part

19 Ibid., 254, 259.20 Ibid., 276, 278–9.


of her, lurking beneath her honest and deep love for her husband. Sheunderstands that the real danger is to refuse to acknowledge the demonsand to believe, complacently, that the eyes of the lovers will be foreverwide open against the demons’ tempting allure. In the closing mono-logue of the novella the wife is therefore reluctant to declare that theirlove is from now on forever secure:

She smiled, and after hesitating briefly answered: ‘I think we should begrateful to fate that we have safely emerged from these adventures – bothfrom the real ones and from those we dreamed about.’ ‘Are you quite sureof that?’ he asked. ‘As sure as I am of my sense that neither the reality of asingle night, nor even of a person’s entire life can be equated with the fulltruth about his innermost being.’ ‘And no dream,’ he sighed quietly, ‘isaltogether a dream.’ She took his head in both her hands and pillowed ittenderly against her breast. ‘Now we are truly awake,’ she said, ‘at least fora good while.’ He wanted to add: forever, but before he had a chance tospeak, she laid a finger on his lips and whispered as though to herself:‘Never enquire into the future.’21

The demonic indicates the need to approach (and strive for) the ethicalideals that one values in a way more demanding than the ethical way ofhuman will and rationality. Those demons against which the ethical ishelpless need to be acknowledged and addressed differently: namely, byresignation, self-denial, and, ultimately, by faith. And since the ethicalideal with which our inquiry is concerned is the ideal of love – of fulfillinglove despite the many obstacles in its way – it is now time to return to theMerman. The sensual, tormented Merman who, having despaired of theethical solution (we can imagine the Judge ordering him: ‘Just marry herand everything will be all right!’), now faces the choice between threedifferent paths: the demonic path, the path of resignation, and the pathof faith.

A joyful insecurity: the Merman’s love

Before he met Agnes, the Merman had been an aesthetic lover – his lifewas driven by desire and he chased the immediate. But then he meetsAgnes, falls in love with her, and wants to make the ethical choice. Hewants to commit himself to her, to marry her. However, in a profoundsense Agnes is already lost for him: the Merman, we are told, ‘has lost

21 Ibid., 281.


her… because he is indeed only a merman’ (FT, 95). The Merman, then,understands that Agnes is essentially lost for him; he feels ashamed andguilty, he feels that he cannot tell her about his past and about hismerman-like nature that pulls him into the dark depths of the sea. Hefears that initiating her into ‘his whole tragic existence’, having to tell her‘that he is a monster at certain times’ (JP 5, 5668), will result not only inher walking away from him but also in the loss of the respect and love shehas for him. And even if Agnes had decided to stay with him despite hispast, the Merman is too anxious about the future and about the potentiallosses that this future entails. Therefore, although he cannot seduce her(after all, ‘the seducer is crushed’, FT, 96), being guilty as he is (in havingwanted to seduce her, in seducing other girls before her, in being suscep-tible to the future possibility of regressing to his former, seductivenature) – he feels that he cannot marry her either. And this is preciselythe point at which the second and more significant phase of theMerman’s love story begins. Having repented of his desire to seduceAgnes, he can now act in one of three different ways in response to her(essential) loss. He can stay in his present position (recollection), he canrepent without Agnes (resignation), and he can repent with Agnes (faith/repetition):

If he remains hidden and is initiated into all the anguish of repentance,he becomes a demoniac and as such is destroyed. If he remains hiddenbut does not sagaciously think that by his being tormented in the bondageof repentance he can work Agnes free, then he no doubt finds peace but islost to this world. If he becomes disclosed, if he lets himself be saved byAgnes, then he is the greatest human being I can imagine. (FT, 99)

If the Merman surrenders to his anguish (the fears, anxieties, and despairhe feels at the prospect of the essential loss of Agnes), then he becomesdemonic, a borderline creature who can never find peace and happinessin his state of being. The demonic is constantly in an ‘in-between’ posi-tion: between the sea and the shore, between the desire to sink down intothe depths of the sea and the wish to ascend and disclose himself, betweenthe desire to remain hidden and protected in the familiar watery territoryof the sea, and the wish to take the risk and move into the unknownterritory beyond the sea: that is, make the leap that ‘perhaps could trans-form him into a human being’ (JP 5, 5668).

As a demoniac, the Merman has chosen the state of sin. He bears theguilt of his past and the guilt of offending Agnes in the present, hechooses to distance himself from her and from doing what is right


(which is at the very least confessing to her), and he chooses to lead anexistence dominated by his demons. He is therefore left alone, immersedin the depths of the sea, demonstrating thereby the self-focused state ofrecollection.22 The Merman is a sinner who refuses to repent. Despitespecifically repenting of his acts of seduction, his overall frame of mind isstill that of a sinner: he remains at the bottom of the sea, in a state ofanguish and guilt. He does not disclose himself, does not make themovement of resignation. However,

[i]f he is rescued from the demonic in repentance, there are two possi-bilities. He can hold himself back, remain in hiding…Or he can be savedby Agnes. (FT, 98)

The Merman may decide to make a leap beyond the sphere of recollec-tion and undertake the movement of resignation. He then acknowledgesand accepts his guilt, accepts his limited, sinful nature (namely, that he isa merman who selfishly offended many girls, who cravenly offended thegirl he loves, and who in the future may regress in his weakness to his pasthabits), and submits himself to God. In his infinite resignation he emptieshimself, as it were, becoming transparent before God. He renounces hisworldly desires, his worldly plans, and ‘finds peace of mind in the counter-paradox that the divine will save Agnes’ (FT, 98). He renounces Agnes:being in a state of resignation means to accept fully that Agnes is lost forhim. He loves her, he cares about her, he suffers from her absence in hislife – but, having submitted himself to God, he releases his hold oneverything and does not know how to grasp it all again; he does notknow how to hold what he has wholeheartedly and willingly released. Sohe is disclosed before God, but still hidden before Agnes.

His resignation releases him from his worldly ‘sagacity’ according towhich ‘by his being tormented in the bondage of repentance he can workAgnes free’ (FT, 99). He knows that only God can free Agnes, onlyGod can save her and, in that sense, he submits not only himself butalso her to God. From this standpoint he does not know how – he cannotfind the powers – to sustain a full, concrete, contact with her. Thus, he ‘nodoubt finds peace but is lost to this world’ (FT, 99). The Merman, then, isnow focused on his relationship with God and finds meaning in his lifethrough this relationship. He continues to love Agnes but cannot sustain arelationship with her – he cannot ‘return’ to finitude, cannot find any joyand hope in it.

22 For the connection between the demonic and recollection see again chapter 1.


And yet, this is not the end of the Merman’s story. Life and love are notexhausted by these two possibilities (recollection and resignation) alone.There is a further option open before him although, needless to say, this isthe most difficult and demanding of all. ‘If he becomes disclosed, if he letshimself be savedbyAgnes, thenhe is the greatest humanbeing I can imagine’(ibid.). But what does ‘letting himself be saved by Agnes’ actually mean?

This must not be interpreted to mean that by Agnes’s love he would besaved from becoming a seducer in the future (this is an esthetic rescueattempt that always evades themain point, the continuity in themerman’slife), for in that respect he is saved – he is saved insofar as he becomesdisclosed. Then he marries Agnes. He must, however, take refuge in theparadox. In other words, when the single individual by his guilt has comeoutside the universal, he can return only by virtue of having come as thesingle individual into an absolute relation to the absolute. (FT, 98)

The Merman has a past, a problematic, sinful past. This past is an integralelement of his existence – it constitutes an important part of his present aswell as of his yet-unknown future. After all, there is ‘continuity in themerman’s life’ and no human love can either erase the past or secure thefuture against taking the wrong path into a state of sinfulness again. Atthe same time, however, ‘love hides a multitude of sins’ and this gives atrue relationship of love the strength to be forgiven with regard to the pastand trustful with regard to the future.23 It is therefore by this that Agnes’slove saves the Merman – by her ability and willingness to accept him(including his demons); by her power to become reconciled with herhurt pride and her fears about the future (in infinite resignation and self-denial); by being faith-full enough to have trust and hope, and to find joyin him and in their relationship of love. In other words, Agnes saves theMerman by being a loving knight of faith.

However, this of course can save the Merman only to a certain extent.For theMerman to be really saved, and for their faith-full love to abide, he,too, needs to be a knight of faith. And being a knight of faith means to‘take refuge in the paradox’. It is to resign and through resignation – byvirtue of his ‘absolute relation to the absolute’ (namely, his relationshipwith the infinite, with God) – to return to finitude, to return to Agnes:

The merman … cannot belong to Agnes without, after having made theinfinite movement of repentance, making one movement more: themovement by virtue of the absurd. (FT, 99)

23 See WL, Second Series, Deliberation V.


The Merman can choose the way of faith – the path of faith-full love. Hecan choose to repent and from the perspective of resignation (and self-denial) to make the secondmovement, that of repetition. This movementmeans a reinitiating of his relationship with finitude; a full return toconcreteness, which would be expressed in his ability to find joy (includ-ing bodily, erotic joy) in Agnes. As a knight of faith, and a faith-full lover,the Merman will find the strength to be hopeful and trustful that despitebeing essentially lost to each other, they will nevertheless, by the power ofgraceful infinitude, be capable of enjoying the gift of finitude bestowedon them from above.24

Against the background of the various pre-religious and religiousoptions to fulfil love, then, the Merman’s story demonstrates the possi-bility of faith-full, romantic love. This kind of love, modelled in the formof faith, is a real possibility (even if perhaps not yet an actuality) for theMerman. Only by virtue of faith-full love can the Merman hope to achievethe ‘blissful security’ of his moments with Agnes. Nothing secures his loveexcept for his faith, which is made of the spiritual materials of resignation,self-denial, hope, and trust, and allows the concrete, finite, bodily rela-tionship with Agnes to become a real possibility. And therefore, althoughthe moment is indeed essentially insecure – it passes and may leave in itswake pain, destruction, and the darkness of unleashed demons – theMerman’s love can still become in its own, faith-full way, secure; it canbecome truly joyful. It would be appropriate to describe his love, then, as astate of joyful insecurity.

We have said that the Merman, who struggles with his demons and withthe different ways to address them, is in essence the protagonist nearest tous.25 He is more realistically complex than the aesthetic and ethical pro-tagonists on the one hand and, on the other, more humanly flawed thanthe mundane knight and, needless to say, Abraham. We can thereforeconclude, by way of our reading of the Merman’s love story, that althoughthe striving for faith-full love is a difficult lifelong enterprise which requirestremendous and constant efforts, we may hope to look up to this model ofromantic love as a possibility that is in principle open to us.26

24 See ‘Every Good Gift and Every Perfect Gift is from Above’ (EUD, 125).25 See again note 9 above.26 Here, of course, I present a position opposed to that of Amy Laura Hall who seems to

advance in Kierkegaard and the Treachery of Love the view that we, humans, can only mess uplove, and therefore need to concentrate our entire efforts in resignation (that is, repentanceand self-denial). ‘As we become involved in the misguided lives of Kierkegaard’s characters


3 The marvel of faith-full romantic love

And yet it must be wonderful to get the princess, and the knight of faith isthe only happy man, the heir to the finite, while the knight of resignationis a stranger and an alien. To get the princess this way, to live happily withher day after day (for it is also conceivable that the knight of resignationcould get the princess, but his soul had full insight into the impossibility oftheir future happiness), to live happily every moment this way by virtue ofthe absurd, every moment to see the sword hanging over the beloved’shead, and yet not to find rest in the pain of resignation but to find joy byvirtue of the absurd – this is wonderful. (FT, 50)

The basic features of the Kierkegaardian view of love that the presentstudy has attempted to depict are all gathered together in this conciseparagraph: the attitude of the lover to the passage of time and hence tothe loss hovering above any relationship of love (‘the heir to the finite’,‘day after day’, ‘future happiness’, ‘every moment to see the sword hang-ing over the beloved’s head’); a differentiation between right and wrongforms of love (‘the pain of resignation’, the ‘joy by virtue of the absurd’);and above all the marvel of faith-full romantic love (‘the knight of faith isthe only happy man’, ‘this is wonderful’).

The only happy man is the happy lover who ‘get[s] the princess’ andfinds joy in their relationship ‘by virtue of the absurd’. Unlike the knightof resignation who is ‘a stranger and an alien’, the knight of faith-full lovefeels at home in the world. This ‘feeling at home’, however, is not gainedby virtue of an aesthetic frivolousness or ethical complacency. Like theknight of resignation, the faith-full lover knows intimately how deep is thepain of love: ‘every moment’ he sees ‘the sword hanging over the belo-ved’s head’, every moment he sees and understands that she is essentiallylost for him. The loss of the beloved is always there, even if only poten-tially. In a profound sense the beloved is already absent, even when she ispresent: the passage of time threatens to transform every potential lossinto an actual one and obstructs any secure hold on the beloved and therelationship.

and are pulled into his allegations against human love, we are to surmise that the possibilityof true love depends on a factor beyond our own present capacities’, she says (Hall 2002: 9).Her gloomy conclusion, which is based on her choice ofWorks of Love as the Kierkegaardianlocus from which to learn about romantic love, is therefore consistent with my interpreta-tion ofWorks of Love as presenting only a partial view, and of the need to complete its visionby listening attentively to what Kierkegaard says in Fear and Trembling.


And here indeed we clearly see the difference between the sorrowfulresigned lover and the faith-full knight of love. ‘[I]t is also conceivablethat the knight of resignation could get the princess’, Johannes says;however, the knight of resignation is not ‘heir to the finite’ and, havingresigned, he cannot return to finitude. He may ‘get the princess’, but hecannot find joy and hope in the relationship with her. Having resignedhe has ‘full insight into the impossibility of their future happiness’ and helacks the ability to trust the givenness and renewal of that which isconstantly (and essentially) being taken away from him. The knight offaith-full love, on the other hand, who has resigned, who lives with thehanging sword, who accepts the loss just as the knight of resignationdoes – he, unlike his fellow knight, does not ‘find rest in the pain ofresignation’. Rather, he finds joy in the princess and in the relationshipwith her – he finds joy ‘by virtue of the absurd’.

He finds joy not by virtue of immediacy, nor by virtue of his will, nor byvirtue of his merits, nor by virtue of his reasoning – after all, it is not in hispower to bring the princess back and to hold to her securely. However, it ishis choice, the choice of faith, to be willing to receive her back. Despitethe pain, despite the difficulties, despite his demons and despite theessential insecurity of their relationship – if he chooses the way of faith,he chooses the way of love. If he can receive her back every moment anew,and affirm their relationship while at the same time renouncing her anddenying himself – then he is the knight of faith-full love.

Thus, these moments of being, where infinitude sheds its light onfinitude, exposing its perfection and its fullness of beauty and value inthe midst of loss and pain, are the moments of faith-full love. And thelover who lives these moments may not even be discernible – he can livehis life quietly, looking just like a tax collector, or being no more than asimple merman. The passionate storm of his love cannot be observedthrough the quietness of his demeanour, as the drama of faith-full love isnot a matter of some colourful display of suffering: it is a matter of theintimate dialogue maintained between the two lovers, and through God.

In this study I have looked at Kierkegaard’s thought from a somewhatunfamiliar perspective. Although treatments of his philosophy usuallyemphasize the centrality of faith to the individual’s life, I hope that Ihave succeeded in showing that there is a strong case for claiming thatlove – and in particular romantic love – is of similar centrality, not leastbecause of the intimate connections between faith and love in all itsforms. For it takes faith to love.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

(See list of abbreviations on pp. xii–xiii for works by Kierkegaard)

Adams, Robert M. (1990) ‘The Knight of Faith’, Faith and Philosophy 7, 383–95.Adorno, Theodor W. (1940) ‘On Kierkegaard’s Doctrine of Love’, Studies in

Philosophy and Social Science 8, 413–29.Agacinski, Sylviane (1998) ‘We Are Not Sublime: Love and Sacrifice, Abraham and

Ourselves’, in Jonathan Ree and Jane Chamberlain, eds., Kierkegaard: A CriticalReader. Oxford: Blackwell, 129–50.

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INDEX

Abrahamas ethical agent 102, 104, 106faith 105, 106in face of Binding of Isaac 46, 77--81and resignation 57, 77--81, 83, 85

Johannes de Silentio’s understanding of47--51

as a knight of faith 79, 82, 146as model of faith 89as paradigm of faith 174resignation 89, 93and faith 57, 77--81, 83, 85

self-denial 148trust in God as belief 95--9

the absurd, involvement in faith 80actuality 22, 28Adams, Robert M. 58, 79, 98Adorno, Theodor 3, 118aesthetes

lives’ limitations 33and recollection’s love 19, 20,

23, 29the aesthetic, and the religious, Kierkegaard’s

view 140aesthetic desire

and desire 52and resignation 55

aesthetic life, and ethical life 21

aesthetic lovedistinguished from ethical love 30, 31, 37--8Judge William’s defence against 30and romantic love 169

aesthetic lovers 13responses to loss 20--4, 177, 179

aesthetic poetsand recollection’s love 24--8see also seducers

affirmation, movement of, in romanticlove 172

Agacinski, Sylviane 146agape

coexistence with eros 154--5, 157, 158Agnes (Fear and Trembling), seduction by the

Merman 175--7, 183Albertine (Schnitzler, Dream Story) 180Alice (Kubrick, Eyes Wide Shut) 180--3Almadovar, All About My Mother, as study of

faith 99--101Augustine of Hippo, St 10

‘being in the wrong’ 60--3, 148and love 63--4, 68--70and love for God 64--70, 71

belief, as trust in God 95--9beliefs, paradox 78, 80the body, importance for love 162

195

bodyas part of the true self 167role in faith and love 23, 162--4

Brooke,Dorothea(Middlemarch),onmarriage38Buber, Martin 3

caring, as part of resignation 85Carlisle, Clare 19, 35, 63children, weaning, as indicative of faith 81choice

connection with preference 127importance for formation of character 34

Christian love see neighbourly loveChristianity

concern with neighbourly love 142on relationships 96views preferential love as self-love 114and works of love 109--12

compassion 132creation and incarnation, doctrine 141cross, doctrine 141

Davenport, John 19, 34, 35, 99, 104, 155the demonic, approaches to the ethical 183demonic lovers 13, 42--5, 173--7

and sin 177--83Derrida, Jacques 144desire, and aesthetic desire 52desire, and resignation 52--5despair, and faith 87Dina (Peleg, On the Way Home), ‘being in the

wrong’ with God 64--70, 74‘direct communication’ 139, 140

Eliot, George, Middlemarch 38Ellis, Theresa M. 40, 118emotions, paradox 80enjoyment, death 22equality

denied by preferential love 120--2, 123, 124humanity’s situation before God 131--2in neighbourly love 122, 126significance for love 156

eros, coexistence with agape 154--5, 158essential loss 11, 12

Merman’s responses to 184‘eternal consciousness’ 59eternity, gaining of 35the ethical

and faith 101--7teleological suspension 46

ethical life, and aesthetic life 21, 33--8ethical lovedistinguished from aesthetic love 30, 31,

37--8Judge William’s views 38

ethical lover, the 13, 17, 19, 38--42responses to loss 177, 179and recollection’s love 38

ethical men 33Evans, C. Stephen 4, 10, 48, 49, 103, 128, 140

faithAbraham’sfaithandresignation77--81,83,85and communication with the world 107double structure 5, 108, 145, 151, 152,

152n.24, 153, 157n.32, 159, 161,168, 172

shaping of love 150--3, 166--73existential state of 146Johannes de Silentio’s understanding of

47--52knight of 14, 71, 76, 79, 81, 82, 83, 87, 91,

92, 95, 99, 146and love 12, 14--15

enactment of love 144, 145, 165importance for love 159, 160, 164--5

in marriage 84Merman’s response to essential loss 184, 187in neighbourly love 168, 169as relationship 89, 91, 95resignation 46, 75--7, 81--9, 95--9

within faith 91and romantic love 5, 12, 14, 15--16, 167--73

Kierkegaard’s views 141second movement 143sin and repentance in 174trust within 97--101way of 12see also the finite; finitude

Fendt, Gene 2Ferreira, M. Jamie 4, 110, 111, 115, 120--9, 132the finitereluctantly accepted, in Works of Love 128value revealed by resignation 94

finitudeaffirmation as faith’s second movement 143and faith 76

as renewed relationship with 83, 89Merman’s relationship with 187need for return to 162relationships with 147

196 index

renunciation 75in romantic love 168, 170value recognized by resignation 59, 172

‘the first’ 19longing for 31--3

freedom 81Fridolin (Schnitzler, Dream Story) 181friendship 113, 122full concreteness 128, 130, 145, 152, 187

need for return to 162

Garff, Joakim 2gifts, reception, as analogy for attitudes to the

finite 96, 97God

believer’s relationship with affected byresignation 88

grace, responses to 146--51loveneed in 157

love for, through resignation 70, 75love’s origins in 165Merman’s relationship with 185as origin of love 110, 111ownership of the finite 56--8relationship with 167, 171, 172‘being in the wrong’ 61--3, 64--70, 71through resignation 59--60

in relationships 96, 97submission to 55, 78trust in, as belief 97, 98

grace, responses to 146--51Green, Ronald M. 40, 103, 105, 118, 174

Hall, Amy Laura 4, 41, 118, 132--7, 150, 170,187--8

Hall, Ronald L. 39, 46, 84, 86--8, 89, 90on relationships 90

Hannay, Alastair 9, 41, 49, 51, 56--7, 80, 97,103, 139, 174

Harford,Bill,Dr (Kubrick,EyesWide Shut)180--3Haufniensis, Vigilius, The Concept of Anxiety,

on selfhood in human beings 166Hegel, G.W. F. 34, 35, 51, 102--5human beings, selfhood 166--7human relationships, self-denial as the

ground for 130

immanence 49incarnation and creation, doctrine 141‘inclosing reserve’, and the demonic 44--5

‘indirect communication’ 139, 140infinitude, in romantic love 168, 170Isaac

Binding of 46, 77--81, 85Abraham’s resignation in relation to 93Abraham’s trust in God 99Agacinski’s views 146Derrida’s interpretation 144ethics 102, 104, 105as model for faith 89

Jackson, Timothy P. 48Jesus Christ

foretelling of the destruction of Jerusalem61love 133need for love 158Peter’s denial of 161

Jobresignation of 61, 63, 71, 72story of 24, 27

Johannes de Silentio 9, 47--52Fear and Tremblingfaith 146

faith’s second movement 143love in 137the Merman as demonic lover 45, 173,

174--7, 183--7on loss and resignation 54, 57on resignation as relationship with God

59--60understanding of faith 47--52

Judge William (Either/Or; Stages on Life’s Way)60, 180

defence of marriage 30--3, 35, 39--42on ethical love 38as ethical lover 30, 38--42wife 41

marital love 169

Kellenberger, J. 58, 95, 97--8, 99Kierkegaard, Søren

aesthetic writings 2treatment of love 9--10

Anti-Climacus, The Sickness unto Death, onselfhood in human beings 166

authorship 9authorship and interpretation 138--41The Concept of Anxiety 166--7the demonic 178on the demonic and ‘inclosing reserve’ 44understanding of sin 48

index 197

Kierkegaard, Søren (cont.)Concluding Unscientific Postscript 49--50, 170

on faith 49, 50love of the finite and the infinite 170

Constantin Constantius (narrator,Repetition) 6, 24--5

Discourse of Job 71Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses 50Either/Or 8, 9, 20--4, 28--30, 38--42, 60--3

Judge William as ethical lover 30recollection’s love in 25, 26treatment of love 8Ultimatum, ‘being in the wrong’ 60--3, 74

engagement to Regine Olsen 1Fear and Trembling

ethical status 102, 103, 106Merman as demonic lover 45movements of faith 130pseudonymity 9, 47readings of 88resignation in 46, 52--6, 74, 136and romantic love 5, 15, 107treatment of love 8understanding of sin 50

Johannes Climacus 48, 49Philosophical Fragments 49The Point of View for my Work as an Author

139, 140religiousness 50Repetition

recollection’s love in 24treatment of love 8

The Sickness unto Deathon despair and faith 87sin (concept) 178

Stages on Life’s Wayon demonic love 42

tension between pseudonymous andacknowledged works 138

Works of Love 3--5, 108ambiguity about romantic love 142--5ambiguity towards preferential love 132Christian nature of works of love

109--12critical views of 129existential aspects of love 165love in 137model of romantic love 161, 162on preferential love 117--20, 124reluctance to accept finiteness and

preferential love 128

and romantic love 15tension with Fear and Trembling 138

Kjerlighed 111, 144equated with neighbourly love 142manifestation 164separation from neighbourly love 164see also neighbourly love

knight of faith 71, 146Abraham as 79, 82compared to the knight of resignation 88faith of 83relationship with the finite 95resignation 76, 81trust in God 97--9

Knight R (knight of repetition) 146response to grace 150

knight of resignation 53, 146alienation 188--9commentators’ neglect of 46compared to the knight of faith 87as expression of Religiousness A 149pain 94relationship with the finite 95, 97relationship with God 62, 70, 71, 73,

74, 98and renunciation 84renunciation of proprietary claims 82, 83resignation and loss 55response to grace 147, 151

Knight S (knight of self-denial) 145response to grace 147, 149--50, 151self-denial 149--50

Kubrick, Stanley, Eyes Wide Shut 40, 179--83

lifegaining meaning within 34and love 6--10

Lippitt, John 46, 50, 79, 84, 140Løgstrup, Knud Ejler 3loss 10, 92--5actual loss 11, 93, 188demonic lovers’ responses to 177--83essential loss 18--19, 20, 93

through demonic love 43experiences of 73and love 10--12, 13, 17--19, 23as obstacle to the ethical ideal 107potential loss 11, 19, 93, 188in recollection’s love 26relationship with in love 188and resignation 53--6, 58

198 index

loveaesthetic love 20--30and ‘being in the wrong’ 63--4, 68--70common love, and the demonic 45demonic love 42--5erotic love 113, 119, 122eternal love and resignation 59, 74ethical love 30--42and faith 12, 14--15, 144, 145, 159, 160,

161--5, 171--3‘first love’ 26, 29Kierkegaard’s confusion about 161and life 6--10and loss 10--12, 13, 17--19, 23maintenance of the ethical ideal 107model of 137need in 157--8‘property-based’ view of 156‘repetition’s love’ 15as shaped by faith’s double structure 151stages 9, 10, 12true love 109--12works of love, Christian nature 109--12see also aesthetic love; ethical love;neighbourly love; preferential love;recollection’s love; romantic love;self-love

lovers 13comparison with the Merman 175demonic lovers, the Merman (Fear and

Trembling) 173, 174--7, 183--7Merman as embodiment of 175of recollection 17--45, 174unhappy lovers 1, 2, 8, 9, 9n.17, 14, 23,

24, 25, 55

Manuela (All About My Mother), faith and trust99--101

marriageand demonic love 42--5faith in 84Judge William’s defence of 30--3, 35,

39--42love and resignation in 169in Middlemarch 38

Meirav, Ariel 52, 105Merman (Fear and Trembling) 15, 165

as demonic lover 45, 50, 173, 174--7, 183--7faith 50

Mooney, Edward F. 46, 50, 81--5, 87, 89,90, 140

movement of repetition, in neighbourlylove 157

Mulhall, Stephen 48, 49, 51, 72, 103, 105,148, 174

mundane knight 91--5faith 105relationship with the finite 95trust 99

need, connection with love 157--8neighbourly love 151

coexistence with preferential love 118coexistence with romantic love

153--60, 164cooperation with self-love 116distinguished from preferential love

113--15, 123equality in 122, 126equated with Kjerlighed 142equated with resignation 142, 143as expression of Christian love 113faith and resignation’s role 168, 169manifests Kjerlighed 144and need 157not preferential 161, 162and preferential love 4, 112and the body 162in relation to romantic love 127and romantic love 5, 16as self-denial 117separation from Kjerlighed 164as shaped by faith’s double structure

151--3see also Kjerlighed; self-denial

non-preferentiality 142Nygren, Anders 154--5, 156, 158

Olsen, Regine, Kierkegaard’s engagement 1the other

relationship with 172value 156

Pattison, George 4, 19, 27, 49--50, 139, 140,141, 171, 172, 178

Peleg, Dorit, On the Way Home 64--70Peter, St (apostle), denial of Jesus 161philosophy, Judge William’s criticisms 36the Poet (Repetition) and recollection’s love

25--8poets, pagan understanding of preferential

love 113, 114

index 199

Post, Stephen G. 157, 158potential loss 11, 19, 93, 188preferences

making of 144relationship with resignation 142, 143role in romantic love 169

preferential love 8allowance for 132denial of equality 120--2, 123, 124distinguished from neighbourly love

113--15Kierkegaard’s ambivalence towards

118--20, 123, 129and neighbourly love 4, 112and the body 162selfish nature 115, 116--17, 119, 120

preferentialitycompatibility with resignation 164seen as selfishness 145

proprietary claims 82, 83pseudonymity, Kierkegaard’s use 6, 9,

138, 139

Quidam (Stages on Life’s Way)demonic 17, 19, 20as demonic lover 42--5

recollection 130, 169lovers of 174and the Merman 184, 185way of 12, 13

recollection’s love 17--20and the aesthete 19, 20, 23, 29and the aesthetic poet to 24--8and the demonic 44and the ethical lover 42and loss 53and the seducer 28--30

relationships 90--1, 96the religious

and the aesthetic, Kierkegaard’s views 140Religiousness A 49, 149Religiousness B 49renunciation, and faith 89, 92repentance 134--5

in faith 174in the Merman’s story 184--6

repetition 24, 27--8, 91distinguished from the movement of

repetition 146and duration 20

involvement in love 159, 164in the Merman’s story 184--6

movement of 143response to grace 147, 150in romantic love 172, 173

regarded as undesirable 31, 32resignation 42, 52--6, 158, 162Abraham’s resignation and faith 77--81,

83, 85believer’s relationship with God 88common to both neighbourly and

romantic love 161equated with neighbourly love 142, 143and eternal love 59, 74and faith 46, 75--7, 81--5

Johannes de Silentio’s understandingof 47

and finitude 59, 172involvement in love 164knight of 46, 53, 55, 62, 70, 71, 73, 74, 82,

83, 84, 87, 94, 95, 97, 98, 146, 147,149, 150, 151, 188--9

in love 159and love for God 70maintained in faith 144Merman’s choice 185in the Merman’s story 184--6

movement ofAbraham’s Binding of Isaac 146as repentance 134response to grace 147role in romantic love 169, 172

readings of 58as recognition of God’s ownership of the

finite 56--8as recognition of our valuation of the

finite 57relationship with faith 130as relationship with God 59--60relationship with preference 142, 143as response to loss 58, 93role in neighbourly and romantic

love 168significance 163submission to 45twofold relationship resulting from 75and the value of the finite 58way of 12, 14within faith 91resignation’s love, inadequacy 163revelation 174

200 index

romantic love 8, 107--8coexistence with neighbourly love

153--60, 164and faith 12, 14, 15--16Kierkegaard’s views 141

faith-full romantic love 188as reflected in the Merman’s story 187

faith-like model 165, 167--73Kierkegaard’s ambiguity about 142--5Kierkegaard’s treatment of 1--3, 4--6, 8manifests Kjerlighed 144models of 161--4as preferential love 113regarded as selfish 115in relation to neighbourly love 127,

153--60as shapedby faith’s double structure151,153and the body 162

Rudd, Anthony 19, 33--5

Schnitzler, Arthur, Dream Story 40, 179--83seducers

aesthetic loves 169aesthetic Poet 17, 19loss 55Merman as 175--7and recollection’s love 28--30

self-affirmation, in love 159self-denial

affinity with resignation 136, 148basis of Christian love 113as the ground for human relationships 130Kierkegaard’s insistence on 142in love 159and neighbourly love 117and resignation 148, 163see also neighbourly love

self-love 114--15, 128Kierkegaard’s confused judgement

about 145kinds 115--18and preferential love 114

self-willfulness 117, 125selfishness

and preferential love 115, 116--17, 119, 120relationship with preference 142

selfless care, as faith 82, 84sin 178

and the demonic 44response to loss 177--83

Merman’s demonic choice of 184Singer, Irving 3, 118‘single individual’ 2Soble, Alan 156Song of Solomon 8:7 12special love see preferential love‘the spirit’s love’ see neighbourly lovestages, theory of 9, 10

timeeffects on love 17, 22, 23loss within 93, 94see also ‘the first’

transcendence 49trust

eschatological trust 104within faith 97--101

Walsh, Sylvia 4, 119, 140Weston, Michael 36Westphal, Merold 10, 35, 49wills, paradox 78, 80world, communication with through

faith 107

index 201

Documents

[Sharon Krishek] Kierkegaard on Faith and Love(Book4me.org)