"Selections From the Writings of Kierkegaard" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kierkegaard Soren)

One may say that "Guilty-Not-Guilty" corresponds to Kierkegaard's
own development at this stage. Christianity is still above him. How
may it be attained? This is the grand theme of the huge book
whimsically named "Final Unscientific Postscript to the
Philosophical Trifles," Afstuttende Uvidenskabelig Efterskrift
(1846): "How shall I become a Christian, I, Johannes Climacus,
born in this city, thirty years of age, and not in any way different
from the ordinary run of men"?

Following up the results gained in the "Trifles," the subjectivity of
faith is established once for all: it is not to be attained by swearing
to any set of dogmas, not even Scripture; for who will vouch for its
being an absolutely reliable and inspired account of Christ?
Besides, as Lessing had demonstrated conclusively: historic facts
never can become the proof of eternal verities. Nor can the
existence of the Church through the ages furnish any guarantee for
faith straight counter to the opinion held by Kierkegaard's famous
contemporary Grundtvig any more than can mere
contemporaneousness establish a guarantee for those living at the
beginning. To sum up: "One who has an objective Christianity and
nothing else, he is eo ipso a heathen." For the same reason,
"philosophic speculation" is not the proper approach, since it seeks
to understand Christianity objectively, as an historic phenomenon
which rules it out from the start.

It is only by a decisive "leap," from objective thinking into
subjective faith, with the consciousness of sin as the driving
power, that the individual may realize (we would say, attain)
Christianity. Nor is it gained once for all, but must ever be
maintained by passionately assailing the paradox of faith, which is,
that one's eternal salvation is based on an historic fact. The main
thing always is the "how," not the "what." Kierkegaard goes so far
as to say that he who with fervency and inwardness prays to some
false god is to be preferred to him who worships the true god, but
without the passion of devotion.

In order to prevent any misunderstanding about the manner of
presentation in this remarkable book, it will be well to add
Kierkegaard's own remark after reading a conscientious German
review of his "Trifles": "Although the account given is correct,
every one who reads it will obtain an altogether incorrect
impression of the book; because the account the critic gives is in
the ex cathedra style (docerende), which will produce on the
reader the impression that the book is written in a like manner. But
this is in my eyes the worst misconception possible." And as to its
peculiar conversational, entertaining manner which in the most
leisurely, legКre fashion and in an all but dogmatic style treats of
the profoundest problems, it is well to recall the similarly popular
manner of Pascal in his Lettres Provinciales. Like him and his
grand prototype Socrates Kierkegaard has the singular faculty of