The final part digs into Christ's commitment to draw all unto himself on high. Kierkegaard does not believe we are to meet Christ directly on high, rather mimic Christ's ascension to high through lowliness and inwardness on Earth. Christ draws us to be more inward and reflective which leads us to experience acceptance from God (thus, in the end, being drawn to Christ on high). Again, Kierkegaard is hypercritical of what he calls established "Christendom." "Christ never desired to conquer in this world; He came to the world to suffer, that is what He called conquering." He then goes deeper and contrasts what it means to admire Christ vs. follow Christ which he believes Christ has called us to. In admiring Christ, Christians get caught up in spiritual loftiness but overlook, perhaps, Earthly lowliness. To truly admire Christ is to mimic him -- to follow his example of life. This is the profound difference between authentic Christianity and cultural, luke-warm Christendom to Kierkegaard. This was my first foray into Kierkegaard and I must say, despite the difficult passages, I found many fresh insights that challenged me theologically and practically. The book is a strong reaction against the "established church" and how it is devoid of the suffering/incarnational components of Christian life. Soren critiques out tendency to promote becoming an admirer of Christ as opposed to an imitator. Yet neither the miracle nor the single direct statement is absolutely direct communication; for in that case the contradiction is eo ipso cancelled. As far as the miracle, which is the object of faith, is concerned, this is certainly easy to see; as for the second, that the single direct statement is nevertheless not direct communication, this will be shown later (p. 126). Although I gave this book only three stars, there was a lot that was great about this work. Most of Practice in Christianity is centered around the verse from John 12:32: And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all to myself." Kierkegaard writes under the name Anti-Climacus although he names himself as the editor. In other words, Kierkgaard agrees 100% with Anti-Climacus, but does not want the reader to get the impression that he is an ideal Christian. Kierkegaard is also trying to learn from Anti-Climacus. The problem in Kierkegaard's Danish State Church (and certainly in our own churches) is that being Christian is like being Danish. It is a label and nothing more. Christianity is preached on Sunday and people attend church every Sunday, but people are more interested in admiring Christ rather than imitating him. Anti-Climacus argues that the problem is that people are no longer contemporaneous with Christ. Following Jesus means accepting the suffering and possibly martyrdom that comes along the way. Kierkegaard’s influence on Karl Barth's early theology is evident in The Epistle to the Romans. The early Barth read at least three volumes of Kierkegaard’s works: Practice in Christianity, The Moment, and an Anthology from his journals and diaries. Almost all key terms from Kierkegaard which had an important role in The Epistle to the Romans can be found in Practice in Christianity. The concept of the indirect communication, the paradox, and the moment of Practice in Christianity, in particular, confirmed and sharpened Barth’s ideas on contemporary Christianity and the Christian life.

Section B is entitled "The possibility of essential offense in relation to loftiness, that an individual human being speaks or acts as if he were God, declares himself to be God, therefore in relation to the qualification 'God' in the composition God-man". There are passages in the Gospels where Christ strongly implies either his deity or his absolute relation to the deity of God. There are other passages where Christ acts as if he is deity, for example when he allows a man to worship him, or when he claims to forgive the offense of one man against another. He claims to be the true shepherd, the true bread, living water, etc. The offense taken by the Jewish religious leaders is a standard motif in the Gospels. Barth endorses the main theme from Kierkegaard but also reorganizes the scheme and transforms the details. Barth expands the theory of indirect communication to the field of Christian ethics; he applies the concept of unrecognizability to the Christian life. He coins the concept of the “paradox of faith” since the form of faith entails a contradictory encounter of God and human beings. He also portrayed the contemporaneity of the moment when in crisis a human being desperately perceives the contemporaneity of Christ. In regard to the concept of indirect communication, the paradox, and the moment, the Kierkegaard of the early Barth is a productive catalyst. [2]

Fifth Period: Direct Communication (1848-51)

A sign is not what it is in its immediacy, because in its immediacy no sign is, inasmuch as "sign" is a term based on reflection. A sign of contradiction is that which draws attention to itself and, once attention is directed to it, shows itself to contain a contradiction (p. 125). The problem, however, is Kierkegaard tends to overstate a few things (like how no one has contributed anything to Christianity for 1800 years) and he is very repetitive. My favorite work by Kierkegaard (that I've read so far). A challenging book in the best sense, though also one of his most readable. It carries you along in a deep dive into what Christ is all about. Along the way Kierkegaard dismantles popular notions (at least popular in the 19th century Denmark, but generally still very relevant today) of Christ. As with other Kierkegaard works like "Fear and Trembling", the emphasis is on the individual taking seriously his/her life and their relationship to God (as you would expect from the father of existentialism). Kierkegaard's main task is to, in a sense, remove many of the religious paradigms that enshroud Christ in our minds and distances us from just how singular He is.

Jakob Mynster (1775-1854), who was Bishop Primate of the Church of Denmark, as well as a friend of Kierkegaard's father, Michael, called Practice in Christianity "a profane game with the holy". He and Kierkegaard never reconciled. It was an uneasy relationship that Kierkegaard had with the Bishop, since he was both very fond of him, possessing a familial affection for him, even while he knew that Mynster typified complacent and established "Official Christianity". But everything called purely human compassion is related to direct recognizability. Yet if he does not become the object of faith, he is not true God; and if he is not true God, then he does not save people either. Therefore, by the step he takes out of love he at the same time plunges that person, mankind, into the most horrible decision. Indeed, it is as if one heard a cry from human compassion: Oh, why are you doing this! And yet he does it out of love; he does it to save people (p. 137f.). At the conclusion to part two, Kierkegaard adds a section entitled, "The Categories of Offense, That Is, of Essential Offense". There he provides seven factors which seek to analyze the necessity and nature of offense. These factors all center around indirect communication. The God-man cannot communicate directly; he remains incognito. For those who can understand what he does and who he is, he and his works are a sign. They are self-interpretative. Section 1 is entitled "The God-Man Is A Sign". This sign is primarily one of contradiction. Kierkegaard has the uncanny ability to haunt you well after you finish reading his books, and when he is dissecting scripture he is in even more familiar territory to set up his traps, forcing you to remember him when you're approaching the passages that so strongly shaped his peculiar philosophy. Or perhaps you could argue that he shaped the passages to his theology, either way its hard to forget his exegesis when you come across those same passages. On the other hand, Training in Christianity also highlights the importance of pessimism and resignation in the Christian life. For Kierkegaard, resignation implies an unconditional acceptance of God's will, even when we do not understand it or when it seems unfair or cruel. This resignation can be difficult for many to accept, but it can be crucial for the mental and emotional health of people who seek to develop an attitude of acceptance and resilience in the face of life's difficulties.

The first Kierkegaard I've read and a good one to start on. After seeing several authors I love regularly cite his works and reading up on Christian existentialism, I figured I would enjoy his works. Kierkegaard described this book (also known as "Practice in Christianity") as his "most perfect and truest book." It is split into three parts -- each of which could serve as its own work. In part 1, Kierkegaard provides philosophical insight to Jesus's words to "come hither unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest." He focuses on putting this statement into context by explaining what this statement means coming from the God man who himself leaves his place on high to suffer on Earth. Kierkegaard believes to hither with Christ is to embrace a form of righteous suffering that the bulk of the church in his era (and the modern church) refuses to embrace. This candid acceptance of humility and consciousness of sin, he argues, is to be contemporaneous with Christ and enter Christianity through the narrow way.

Typical of Kierkegaard, there were some good points mixed up with some bad ones, along with some interesting reflections on some Scriptural passages. He’s quite good at calling out fake Christians who turn Christ into merely a man who everyone can easily follow (like any great leader) and hence call themselves a Christian, but rather as the “object of faith” and the “cause of offense”. If you remove the difficult parts of Christianity and make it so exceedingly easy and accommodating that literally everyone identifies as Christian, then you pacify the religion and turn it into a lukewarm, banal social club and cultural institution: "...the possibility of offence at Christ qua God-Man will last to the end of time. If you take away possibility of this offence, it means that you also take Christ away, that you have made Him something different from what He was, the sign of offence and the object of faith.” Kierkegaard and the early Barth think that in Christianity, direct communication is impossible because Christ appears incognito. For them Christ is a paradox, and therefore one can know him only in indirect communication. They are fully aware of the importance of the moment when the human being stands before God, and is moved by him alone from time to eternity, from the earth to which (s)he belongs to the heaven where God exists. That a human being falls into the power of his enemies and does nothing, that is human. But that the one whose almighty hand had done signs and wonders, that he now stands there powerless and paralyzed—precisely this is what brings Peter to deny him (p. 104).

What abominable, sentimental frivolity! No, one does not manage to become Christian at such a cheap price! He is the sign of contradiction, and by the direct statement he attaches himself to you only so that you must face the offense of the contradiction, and the thoughts of your heart are disclosed as you choose whether you will believe or not.” There stands Christianity with its requirements for self-denial: Deny yourself—and then suffer because you deny yourself. That was Christianity. But how entirely different it is now (p. 213). Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2021-03-17 02:06:37 Associated-names Hong, Howard V. (Howard Vincent), 1912-2010; Hong, Edna H. (Edna Hatlestad), 1913-2007 Boxid IA40076512 Camera USB PTP Class Camera Col_number COL-658 Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier Section 3 is entitled "The Impossibility of Direct Communication". Kierkegaard emphasizes that the very nature of the incarnation is indirectness. God did not, after all, appear in a cloud, but rather in the attire of a man. Kierkegaard maintains that even the apparent direct sayings of Christ, such as "I and the Father are one", are indirect to an extent since the speaker is the God-man, the mediator, a human who has come from God, in the veil of flesh. D. Anthony Storm's Commentary on Kierkegaard Fifth Period: Direct Communication (1848-51) Practice In Christianity