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Two Nineteenth Century Theologies of Sin — Julius Müller and Soren Kierkegaard
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
Extract
A common assumption about the 19th century is that it was a complacent age, and that by and large theologians, though not quite sure of the exact terms of adjustment, had an overall confidence in the compatibility of faith and culture. Yet that same century is also notable for producing two of the most significant theological treatments of human sinfulness; the treatise of Julius Müller which is marked by its systematic comprehensiveness, and the more occasional writings of Soren Kierkegaard with all their fecund suggestiveness for the future. It is perhaps remarkable that our own century which has witnessed far more overt human evil has produced hardly anything comparable, apart possibly from Vol. 1 of Reinhold Niebuhr's Nature & Destiny of Man.
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- Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1987
References
1 Die christliche Lehre von der Sunde, 1st edn., 1838.
2 The Christian Doctrine of Sin, trans. Pulsford, W., 1852, Vol. I, p. 310Google Scholar. Müller was well supplied with English translators; as besides this one, chosen because it represents the 3rd (1849) edition of the work (the one which was known to Kierkegaard), there is also a translation by W. Urwick of the 5th edn. (1866), which appeared in 1868.
3 See, e.g., his sketchy response to Feuerbach's projectionism — op. cit. II, p. 169.
4 ‘A philosophy which by its theory of knowledge, and the laws of its own method dependent upon the same, is never able to do justice to personality and freedom, and the method of their operation as principles of reality, must be regarded as utterly inimical to the Christian religion and theology.’ Op. cit. I, p. 20.
5 Op. cit. II, p. 142.
6 Op. cit. I, p. 129f.
7 Op. cit. I, p. 427.
8 Op. cit. I, p. 10.
9 Op. cit. I, p. 12.
10 Op. cit. I, p. 80f.
11 Op. cit. I, p. 119; cf.II, p. 130.
12 Principles of the Philosophy of the Future, 59.
13 Op. cit. II, pp. 200ff.
14 Op. cit. I, p. 222.
15 Op. cit. I, p. 372ff.
16 ‘To make the moral imperfection of the very beginning which unavoidably results from the metaphysical nature of man — to make this sin would at once not sharpen and deepen the consciousness of sin, but dissipate it.’ Op. cit. I, p. 66.
17 Op. cit. I, p. 82.
18 Op. cit. I, p. 134.
19 ‘It is the presumptuous assumption of evil to be in its way causa sui as God, absolutely to make its beginning from itself and only to presuppose itself.’ Op. cit. II, p. 190.
20 Op. cit. II, p. 16.
21 ‘The first and directly immediate creation of the will is that of the moral being of the determining subject himself, the determinate form of the moral life, the fixed abiding direction of his disposition of mind, his character in good and in evil.’ Op. cit. II, p. 35.
22 Op. cit. II, p. 50.
23 op. cit. II, p. 90.
24 Op. cit. II, p. 96.
25 Op. cit. II, p. 165.
26 Op. cit. II, p. 409ff.
27 Op. cit. II, p. 402.
28 Op. cit. II, p. 168.
29 Note for example such a passage as this: ‘For the speculative even there where it preserves the continuity with the empirical consciousness, immediately calls forth the greatest misunderstanding by an indelicate conception, dissevering thoughts from their true connection, if it resolves to make itself popular in the strict sense; its correct understanding essentially presupposes a certain degree of philosophic culture; it belongs to the school and not to the Church.’ Op. cit., p. 444.
30 Op. cit., p. 340.
31 Op. cit. II, p. 387.
32 Op. cit. II, p. 389ff.
33 Op. cit. II, p. 438; cf. II, p. 427.
34 Op. cit. II, p. 423f.
35 Op. cit. II, p. 435.
36 ‘It is specifically the concept of sin, the teaching about sin, that most decisively differentiates Christianity qualitatively from paganism, and this is also why Christianity very consistently assumes that neither paganism nor the natural man knows what sin is; in fact, it assumes that there has to be a revelation from God to show what sin is. The qualitative distinction between paganism and Christianity is not, as a superficial consideration assumes, the doctrine of the Atonement. No, the beginning must start far deeper, with sin, with the doctrine of sin — as Christianity in fact does. What a dangerous objection it would be against Christianity if paganism had a definition of sin that Christianity would then have to acknowledge as correct.’ Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death, ed. H. V. and E. H. Hong, pp. 89f.
37 Sickness unto Death was written March/May 1848.
38 X2 A438 and X2 A518 in Kierkegaard's, SorenJournals & Papers, ed. H. V., and Hong, E., Vol. 2, pp. 69, 70Google Scholar.
39 X2 A500, op. cit., pp. 194ff.
40 X2 A426, op. cit., p. 224.
41 X2 A501.
42 X2 A500, op. cit., p. 195.
43 The Concept of Dread, trans, and ed. W. Lowrie, pp. 69f.
44 ‘How many learned theologians have not known how to explain the Bible and the Fathers of the Church, and to expound symbolical and philosophical doctrines about original sin, and yet not for a single moment looked into themselves to examine the effects of original sin in their own consciousness and that of another person. And yet this is the first task given to any human being and every person has, if he will get a more complete image of humanity than the sum of all the knowledge he gets in that way.’ (Pap. II B53, 6, quoted by N. Thulstrup, Theological Concepts in Kierkegaard, p. 152. See also C.D., p. 18.)
45 Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. D. F. Swenson and W. Lowrie, p. 240.
46 The Concept of Dread, trans. W. Lowrie, p. 14.
47 C.D., pp. 29f.
48 C.D., p. 55.
49 ‘The bondage of sin is an unfree relation to evil, but the demoniacal is an unfree relation to the good.’ (C.D., p. 106.)
50 Sickness unto Death, ed. H. V. and E. H. Hong, pp. 95f.
51 Journals VIII2 B 168:6 (1848) (Kierkegaard, Journals & Papers, Vol. I, p. 348)Google Scholar.
52 S.D., p. 144ff. (Final Draft.)
53 S.D., p. 13, cf. p. 29.
54 ‘This formula is also the formula for faith: in relating itself to itself and in willing to be itself, the self rests transparently in the power that established it.’ (S.D., p. 49.)
55 S.D., pp. 90ff.
56 S.D., P. 82.
57 S.D., p. 106.
58 S.D., p. 111.
59 S.D., pp. 20f.
60 S.D., p. 131.
61 E.g., Reinhold Niebuhr: The Nature & Destiny of Man; E. Brunner: Man in Revolt.
62 S.D., p. 97.
63 S.D., pp. 98f.