Concluding Unscientific Postscript

Section I: “For Orientation in the Plan of the Fragments”

1. “That the Point of Departure Was Taken in the Pagan Consciousness, and Why”

This chapter comments and expands upon Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments and returns to a direct discussion of Christianity. Kierkegaard complains that misunderstandings and distortions plague Christianity on every side. On the one hand, speculative philosophy has reinterpreted Christianity so that it appears little different from “paganism.” On the other hand, Christians themselves often do not know what Christianity is because for them it is merely a formal label.

Kierkegaard explains that he avoided speaking explicitly of Christianity in the Fragments because Christian terms have been distorted, and therefore public discourse about Christianity has become largely meaningless. He thus chose an indirect approach. Given that every side has reinterpreted Christianity as equivalent to paganism, he found it logical to approach it from the standpoint of the best of classical philosophy, taking Socrates as his model.

Kierkegaard claims that the “confusion” into which Christianity has fallen arises from the pervasive notion that one becomes a Christian automatically as an infant at baptism. While not discounting the sacrament of baptism, Kierkegaard advocates emphasizing the existential striving to become a Christian throughout one’s life. Christianity has become a “conventional costume,” something fashionably correct, instead of an inner existential drama. As such, Christianity in modern society has suffered the tragic fate of becoming “its own absolute opposite” (325).

In a way, this development is a result of the wide expansion of the Christian church. When Christianity was new, those who converted were typically adults who made the conscious decision to be baptized. Christianity meant something definite to them, and it entailed a risk of persecution. Now it is assumed that everyone is a Christian by virtue of baptism and thus the true inner significance of the religion is weakened. The task for such “nominal” Christians is to strive existentially and through “personal appropriation” of Christian teachings to become authentic Christians. Kierkegaard enunciates a key paradox: “It is easier to become a Christian when I am not a Christian than to become a Christian when I am one” (327).

2. “The Importance of a Preliminary Agreement Concerning What Christianity Is…”

The larger question addressed in Chapter IV is the paradox that, according to Christianity, one’s eternal happiness depends on having a relationship to something historical—namely, the life and death of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels and preserved through time by the Christian church.

Kierkegaard seeks to solve this puzzle, but first he seeks to define what Christianity is. He sees this as particularly necessary because speculative philosophy fails to define itself or Christianity before making its statements. Indeed, speculative philosophy tends to make Christianity merely a phase of speculative thought. Kierkegaard will avoid this pitfall by defining what Christianity actually is.

In the first place, Christianity is not a philosophical doctrine. If it were, it might make sense to mediate or explain it through speculative philosophy, but Christianity is instead an “existential communication” that expresses a paradox. As such, philosophy cannot explain it. Christianity is primarily a state of being or existing, not primarily a body of knowledge.

Kierkegaard draws a distinction between knowing what Christianity is and being a Christian. The former is possible without the latter and vice versa. This goes back to Kierkegaard’s principle that knowledge and existence are different things. The true Christian believer, however, will both know what Christianity is and strive existentially to become a Christian.

3. “The Problem of the ‘Fragments’ Viewed as an Introduction-Problem, Not to Christianity, but to Becoming a Christian”

Here Kierkegaard revisits the question of baptism as it relates to the inner acceptance of Christianity. While before he criticized assumptions about being Christian that flowed from infant baptism, here he affirms that infant baptism has many virtues. Infant baptism expresses the piety of the parents and their desire for their children to share their faith. It also makes the later inward acceptance of Christianity both more difficult and more authentic; the external ritual has been taken care of, so the adult reception of the faith becomes all the more inward. The Christian life embodies a paradox: “[T]he individual was a Christian and yet he became one” (341). Thus, the outward act functions as a call or summons to inward conversion.

Kierkegaard will proceed to offer an “introduction” to the problem of becoming a Christian. This will have a twofold purpose: to define what Christianity is, and to make it harder to be a Christian (since Christianity in modern times has become a superficial label, and we have forgotten what a crucial existential decision it is). This difficulty exists for everybody. If anything, it is more difficult for those with knowledge and culture to become Christians because they have more opportunities to evade and rationalize. The growth of culture and knowledge has made it all the more possible to avoid the decision of becoming Christian. Therefore, the task is as timely as ever.

Section II: “The Problem Itself”

Here Kierkegaard turns to the central problem of the chapter as a whole: how it is possible for one’s eternal happiness to be decided on the basis of one’s relationship to something historical (i.e., Christ and Christianity)—particularly when the idea of God entering time is itself a paradox and contradiction.

Kierkegaard introduces the problem in this preface. He explains that the problem is both pathetic (emotional) and dialectic (related to reason and logic). The difficulty of the problem lies in putting these two elements together, especially when speculative thought tries to keep them separate.

The human relationship to eternal happiness has to do solely with the individual in his inwardness; unlike other phases of passion, there is nothing external to grasp hold of or use as a distraction. From the worldly point of view, sacrificing oneself for the sake of eternal happiness is “madness.” Particularly in the 19th century, there is no longer any “market value” for eternal happiness. Therefore, Kierkegaard’s job will be to inspire “concern” and even “unrest” about the necessity of making the choice.

“The Initial Expression”

A: “Existential Pathos”

1. “The Initial’ Expression for Existential Pathos…”

The lengthy numbered sections in this chapter deal with a cluster of related issues stated in the section headings.

Kierkegaard uses the term “pathos,” and particularly “existential pathos,” to mean one’s emotional, affective relationship to reality; the terms “ethical enthusiasm” and “ethical passion” are closely related to it. Kierkegaard’s purpose here is to define how the ethical and religious individual relates in an emotional, personally involved way to their eternal happiness. In this chapter Kierkegaard uses the phrase “absolute telos” (see Terms) as another term for this eternal happiness.

Kierkegaard’s analysis in these sections depends on a concept developed in his earlier book Either/Or. In that book Kierkegaard identified three stages or spheres of consciousness in human life. The initial sphere is the aesthetic. This stage is concerned with individual experience—particularly sensory experience. It tends to be self-centered and indifferent to ethics. It also relates to material possessions and comparative differences—differences in talent, skill, or fortune among people. Kierkegaard describes the aesthetic stage as one of immediacy. The next sphere is the ethical. In this stage, the individual becomes aware of and responsible for the values of good and evil and for their moral choices. Finally, in the religious sphere, the individual advances their pursuit of the good into the pursuit of God, the highest good, and eternal happiness.

Each successive stage completes or builds on the previous one, and every individual must pass through all three. There are also intermediate stages or spheres (“boundary zones”) between the main ones. Between the aesthetic and the ethical spheres lies the sphere of irony. Between the ethical and religious spheres lies the sphere of humor. Section 2 will explore the significance of these “boundary zones.”

Kierkegaard insists we keep the different spheres “clearly distinct” because not doing so creates confusion in life—a problem Kierkegaard sees in his society. For example, we should not subject religious matters to aesthetic standards, as when a preacher describes heaven in strongly visual terms more appropriate to a poem. We must recognize the religious as the highest aspiration; otherwise, our wish for eternal happiness might become merely an add-on to a list of material desires.

The fact that we don’t know exactly what our eternal happiness (i.e., heaven) will be like is fitting since it makes us pursue it with all the more passionate expectation. Otherwise, our desire for eternal happiness would risk becoming a finished project instead of a continuous striving. Throughout this striving, we must frequently examine ourselves to see where we stand in our relationship to our eternal happiness.

A major question this section addresses is how to reconcile our eternal destiny with our finite existence in time. Kierkegaard identifies mediation as the solution favored in his day. The term “mediation” relates to Hegel’s philosophy: a process in which two opposing positions are combined into a synthesis. Kierkegaard sees mediation as a mediocre compromise and a way of evading the difficulties of life and faith.

As an illustration of the problem of reconciliation, Kierkegaard cites the monastic movement of the Middle Ages. This movement sought to carve out a special corner of life in which one could abandon worldly activities and devote oneself wholly to God. The flaw, in Kierkegaard’s view, was that monastic life then became an external expression of a difference of lifestyle, whereas faith should be expressed inwardly. Nevertheless, the medieval monastics had the right passion about life and faith. The modern solution is far worse because people seek a compromise between spiritual and worldly demands. Mediation seeks to bridge the gap between the infinite and the finite, but it ends by negating the specialness of the infinite. Mediation effectively abolishes the absolute telos, which becomes no longer absolute but relative—on the same plane with other goals and desires.

The true solution, for Kierkegaard, is this: to treat the absolute telos as the most important thing in our life, yet do so in the most inward and unostentatious way possible. We must treat our eternal happiness as absolute and lesser ends as relative. We must live in the finite, yet not have our life in the finite. We must clothe ourselves in the things of this world as “in the borrowed garments of a stranger” (367). In this way, we will properly order our life toward our final end. The individual who has a relationship to eternal happiness will have a relationship to God since our eternal happiness consists in God.

We must be bold enough to make this “venture” for eternal happiness without compromises or excuses, and we must maintain this relationship constantly in our lives. Although maintaining a relationship to the absolute telos is a “strenuous” activity, it also brings a certain “tranquility” because humanity is naturally fitted to eternal happiness. By contrast, putting one’s stock in things like power or money or pleasure produces “tortured self-contradiction” because one is clinging to relative ends as if they were absolute ones (377).

2. “The ‘Essential’ Expression for Existential Pathos…”

Kierkegaard begins this section by restating the life task he is describing: to maintain simultaneously an absolute relationship to the absolute telos (eternal happiness) and a relative relationship to relative ends. This is what the “existential pathos” of the religious life consists of.

This is one of the most difficult sections of the Postscript because Kierkegaard meanders around his topics at great length. He himself exhibits the irony he describes as so necessary for the ethical and religious individual: By using such devices as humor, sarcasm, and colorful dialogue (as in the sequence starting on Page 425), he avoids the dry, encyclopedic style of the Hegelians.

The main point of this section is to describe how existential pathos is expressed—namely, in suffering. Suffering is the expression of the relationship of the Christian to eternal happiness. This constitutes another paradox. To explain this, Kierkegaard enunciates the principle that in the sphere of the religious, contrary to the worldly point of view, the negative is the sign of the positive (387). Thus, the fact that the individual suffers is a sign that they have a proper relationship to eternal happiness as their final end.

Much of this section relates to the concept of the three spheres of life outlined in Section 1. Specifically, Kierkegaard discusses the relation of the spheres to suffering. The aesthetic individual sees reality in an immediate, direct, outward way. Therefore, for this individual, suffering is an accident—an obstacle in life that will pass. They are powerless to grasp or comprehend suffering in any way; they cannot “manage to get rid of it” and also “lack the poise to bear it” (338). The aesthetic individual judges by outward appearances; accordingly, they think that suffering appears and disappears and do not realize that it is always there in some form or another. For this person suffering is simply part of the vagaries of fortune: They do not see that there is an underlying, spiritual suffering that is inherent to the human condition. Kierkegaard argues that many Christian preachers erroneously also express such an aesthetic, pre-Christian view of suffering.

By contrast, the ethical and religious individual understands that “it is precisely in suffering that life is to be found” (390). This person does not shun suffering but embraces it as something relevant to existence. This religious type of suffering is an inner suffering. It arises from the contradiction inherent in being human: oriented to eternity yet existing in time and the finite world. It includes a “dying away from immediacy” as the individual realizes that they must cease clinging to earthly things and orient themself to eternal happiness as their absolute telos (446).

Being inward, this suffering does not necessarily come with external misfortune. In fact, religious suffering can exist even where no external misfortune is present, and even an externally fortunate individual can and must have inner suffering. From the religious perspective we are all sufferers regardless of our external circumstances. This underlines the fact that God does not play favorites; we are all equal in his sight and there is no comparative merit attached to suffering.

Religious suffering is, among other things, an expression of the fact that the individual can do nothing of himself and is as nothing before God. Kierkegaard expands on this in a long sequence about an excursion to the Deer Park, a pleasure park in Copenhagen. The challenge of being an existing human being is how to bring together the “absoluteness of the religious” and the particularities of finite life in time (431). Kierkegaard illustrates this by inquiring how one could find religious significance in an excursion to the Deer Park on Sunday. If we can do nothing of ourselves, does this mean that we are powerless to enjoy ourselves in the Deer Park? The significance of religious life is that our conception of God or eternal happiness should “transform our entire existence in relation thereto, and this transformation is a process of dying away from the immediate” (432). However, we live in the immediate. Therefore, one can go to the Deer Park for an innocent diversion; the humble expression of an individual’s God-relationship is to admit humanity, and it is human to enjoy oneself in the immediate moment. Further, since religiosity is inward and “invisible,” the humble expression of one’s God-relationship consists of not seeking to distinguish oneself from everybody else. Thus, the religious individual may go and enjoy themself in the park like everyone else, and it is this very fact that is an expression of their God-relationship.

The rest of the section deals with the psychology of existential pathos; here Kierkegaard returns to the theory of the three spheres and their “boundary zones.” Irony is the boundary zone between the aesthetic and the ethical. It is an attitude or “culture of the spirit” that expresses the existential contradiction inherent in being human (450)—oriented toward eternity yet finite and existing in time, and existing inwardly without outwardly expressing this inwardness. Humor, or the comic, is the boundary zone between the ethical and the religious. The comic is inherent in human existence, and the more thoroughly and truly one exists, the more one will discover and be aware of the comic. The comic and the tragic are two sides of the same coin; both express the paradox inherent in human existence.

The boundary zones function as transitional phases between the main spheres of existence. The individual may also use them as masks or screens for the main spheres so as to hide them and thus keep them completely inward and invisible. Such use of an “incognito” may also help the individual avoid being distracted by the particularities of finite existence. Thus, the individual may cloak their ethical nature with irony or their religiosity with humor.

Kierkegaard’s discussion of the boundary zones is significant in that it establishes a role for irony and humor in the life of faith. For the person of faith, the paradoxes of Christianity provide a sharpened sense of perception that allows them to see the comic aspects of life not perceptible to the person focused on rational analysis. Humor may also serve as a “cover” for faith, allowing it to maintain its humility and hiddenness.

3. “The ‘Decisive’ Expression for Existential Pathos…”

In the previous section Kierkegaard considered suffering as the “essential expression” of existential pathos; in this section he considers consciousness of guilt as its “decisive expression.”

Kierkegaard sees a feeling of remorse on account of sin—sin in an absolute sense, not a particular sin—as “the most concrete expression of existence” (470). Thus, in a paradoxical way, the person who has a relationship to eternal happiness will show the relationship by feeling guilt. This again bears out Kierkegaard’s principle that in the religious life the negative is a sign of the positive; guilt expresses the paradox of human life and proves that we desire eternal happiness.

Ironically, the person who feels themself to be innocent and casts guilt away thereby proves that they are guilty—a truly innocent person would feel no guilt. To feel guilty of sin, from the Christian point of view, is a step in the right direction. The stronger a person’s relationship to eternal happiness is, the more they will apply absolute moral standards to themself and thus realize their guilt.

Self-inflicted penance, like that which medieval Christianity practiced, cannot expiate guilt because it treats guilt—an absolute—as a finite, comparative thing that we can measure and externally get rid of. Secondly, it treats the punishment as worse than the recollection, whereas the opposite is true: One’s recollection of guilt is punishment enough. Thirdly, it comprehends not the totality of guilt but merely a particular instance of guilt; as such, it is relative, not absolute.

Nevertheless, such penances at least take God seriously as a partner in moral life and demonstrate the fear of God that is the foundation of ethics. As such, they are better than the modern rationalist who tries to manipulate God or leaves him completely out of the equation when dealing with moral failings. Modern humanity has adopted a superior attitude, as if they have transcended guilt; this is a delusion.

In his discussion of guilt, Kierkegaard shows the stern Protestant attitude that underlies his understanding of Christianity. Such an attitude is suspicious of external religious rituals, yet Kierkegaard concedes that such rituals have value, even if they are limited in what they can accomplish. Far worse for Kierkegaard is modern rationalism, which claims to have progressed beyond the external religiosity of the past but has only succeeded in throwing the ideas of God and sin out the window.

Intermediate Clause Between A and B

This brief section functions as a transition between two stages in Kierkegaard’s argument: the pathetic relationship to eternal happiness (which Kierkegaard designates as “A”), and what he terms the “decisive part” of the problem (which he designates as “B”). He explains that this final stage is “dialectical” and “paradoxical” in nature.

With religiousness B we arrive at specifically Christian religiousness. Kierkegaard specifies that religiousness A is not a specifically Christian religiousness. It is a form of religiousness that existed before Christianity and exists among Christians who have not yet inwardly appropriated their faith. It is necessary as a preparation for religiousness B. Throughout the Postscript there is a progression of different stages, from lower to higher, starting from the aesthetic view of life and ascending to the ethical, then to religiousness, and finally to Christian religiousness.

Thus, the scheme of the spheres in its complete form is as follows: the aesthetic—irony—the ethical—humor—religiousness A (pagan or pre-Christian religiousness)—religiousness B (Christian religiousness).

B: “The Dialectical”

In a prefatory section Kierkegaard reiterates a key theme of his existential view of Christianity: Christianity is essentially paradoxical. Christianity does not depend on having greater wisdom or knowledge to “solve the mystery” because the mystery (God becoming man) is the very point. To fail to understand this is to “push Christianity back into the aesthetic sphere” (499).

1. “The Dialectical Contradiction Which Is the Breach: To Expect an Eternal Happiness in Time Through a Relationship to Something Else in Time”

Kierkegaard compares speculative philosophy, religiousness A, and religiousness B in their attitudes toward existence and time.

The “contradiction” or paradox Kierkegaard examines here consists of the fact that the Christian exists in time and looks to something else in time—namely, the historical existence of Jesus and the church—as the medium for eternal happiness. In this regard, the significant thing about Christian belief is that it consists of an individual in time coming into relation with the eternal in time (i.e., incarnated historically in the person of Jesus). The paradox that “the eternal is at a definite place” constitutes the “breach with immanence” (506).

The fact that in Christianity one can have a relationship with eternity in time constitutes its advantage over speculative philosophy, which “can never be contemporary with existence as existing but can only see it in retrospect” (506).

2. “The Dialectical Contradiction that an Eternal Happiness is Based upon Something Historical”

The problem inherent in relating oneself to the eternal on the basis of historical time is that historical knowledge is at best an approximation; one can only stake one’s life on something certain. Moreover, historical knowledge is an objective thing, yet one’s eternal happiness is a matter of subjective passion.

3. “The Dialectical Contradiction that the Historical Fact Here in Question Is Not a Simple Historical Fact…”

Here Kierkegaard adds on to the previous claim. Christianity is paradoxical not only because it asks us to base our eternal happiness on something historical, but also because the something that has entered time (i.e., God) is something that according to its very nature is beyond time and history. The idea that God has entered history is on its face absurd; thus, Christianity asks us to stake our lives on the absurd. It will not do to try to resolve this paradox, as speculative philosophy tries to, by calling it an “eternal historical fact” because this transforms the Incarnation into a myth (513).

Appendix to B: “The Retroactive Effect”

Kierkegaard compares religiousness A with religiousness B in their attitude toward eternal happiness. Religiousness A regards eternal happiness as a foregone conclusion simply by virtue of our being human beings. Religiousness B regards eternal happiness as something to be diligently worked toward and only to be gained under certain conditions.

This “sharpened pathos” of religiousness B consists of a consciousness of sin. Sin-consciousness has a more universal scope than guilt-consciousness. The person with sin-consciousness is aware not only that they are personally guilty but that sin is part of the human condition. This means that the believer will feel a separation or division from non-Christians, who have not made the same choice for faith. Thus, the individual in religiousness B cannot have the same easy sympathy for all humanity that the individual in religiousness A can have.