delecroix. final words. training to christianity as a terminal writing

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Final Words:Training in Christianityas a Terminal Writing

By Vincent Delecroix

Abstract

This essay aims to show how (and in what sense and to what extent) Training in

Christianity can be seen as a terminal writing, how it can be understood, inevery sense, as a last speech. Though Kierkegaard went on writing after publish-ingTraining in Christianity,the last words of Anti-Climacus can be seen as a cul-minating point. They constitute what could be called the final words, or thewords of the end. But this end could be understood in different ways: 1) asthe end of a career and a definitive turn in the movement of self-becoming shap-ed and nourished by the act of writing; 2) as the highest point of Kierkegaardiandiscourse (superior pseudonymity) inhabited by the highest figure, the figureof ideality; 3) as thesituswhere the final categories or, rather, the categories ofthe end can be shown and uttered; 4) as the end of history, insofar as this dis-course wants to take place at the end of a catastrophic and precisely anti-Hege-lian history, but also as it provides the category (contemporaneity) to end historyor destroy the non-real reality of history.

1. End of Career and Time of Judgment

Training in Christianity is usually understood as pseudo-pseudony-

mous,1 to coin a phrase. Most of all because there are very few differen-

ces, it seems, between its vehement tone and Kierkegaards final open at-tack against the established order and Christendom. We think we hear the

same voice; we hear the same warnings and requests. It is easy to see

Kierkegaard through the transparent literary body of Anti-Climacus

and thus it seems the border separating pseudonimity from veronymity

can be continuously crossed, almost without change. And, as we will see,

Kierkegaard himself hesitated on this point. At the very least, it is evident

1 See for instance, Stephen N. Dunning Kierkegaards Dialectic of Inwardness: aStructural Analysis of the Theory of Stages, Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress 1985, p. 214.

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that the last work of Anti-Climacus provides almost the entire argumen-

tation and content for the final orientation of Kierkegaardian discourse:

it gives the discourse its finaltelos.But if we leave aside the retrospective

viewfromthe last writingsto Training in Christianity,what is the meaningof such apparent transparency? What if we were to insist on both the bor-

der and the crossing and take the choice of pseudonymity seriously, ac-

cording to its rigorous intention?

It is well known that Kierkegaard was once tempted to give up writ-

ing. In such a mood, he liquidated pseudonymity with an explicit ac-

knowledgment at the end of the Postscript. This gesture, by the way,

put an end to Climacus writing activity. In fact,Postscriptbecame a turn-

ing point2 or a rotary axis for the whole production. In particular, it

opened a field for the second authorship, and most of all for a new, sym-

metrical (not contradictory) major pseudonym, the author ofThe Sick-

ness unto DeathandTraining in Christianity.WithTraining in Christianity,

in which the point of view of the superior pseudonym culminates, it is

another standpoint, and there is again something like a liquidation of

pseudonymity. Of course, it is tempting to draw another parallel with

the previous liquidation, with the (temporary) completion of the works

by Climacus (inferior pseudonym), because, at this time, it is again a

question of giving up writing.3

To say that Training in Christianity is the last great pseudonymous

work does not merely mean that Kierkegaard thereafter writes under

his own name and signature. It also means, in a deeper sense, that Kier-

kegaards signature is extracted from the complex web within which it

was caught, extracted from the alternance and simultaneity of writings

from the left hand and writings from the right hand. This is a notewor-

thy point. Therefore, one could be tempted to considerTraining in Chris-

tianity as a way-out of pseudonymity, a freeing of Kierkegaards own

voice.4 That is, it is also a way out of literature. But does it also represent

a way-in, a way into a definitive type of relation to God, an opening to the

2 SV2 XIII, 557 580.3 NB11:204 in SKS 22, 127.4 We could say that such a freeing is already included in the very text ofTraining

in Christianity itself: No. 3 repeats and revives, in the writing and without anymodifications, a preaching uttered by Kierkegaard viva voce. Writing is no

more the mimesis or repetition of orality: it is no more than no longer an abso-

lute transparent medium. And this preaching, according to the authors ownwords, had an effect back upon the composition of the two other numbers(No. 1 and No. 2) which were written after it.

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second immediacy? In other words, does it represent the final term of an

upbringing given by authorship, as though the production of his own

works has educated him,5 the final term of a self-becoming? Certainly

not, otherwise the whole idea ofbecoming a Christian would not makesense and, moreover, we would miss the fact that Kierkegaard is not

and never will be Anti-Climacus and never claims to have reached such

a point himself. Nevertheless, it can still be considered a turning point,

not only in his work but in his life. But in what way? From this point, au-

thorship or we should say: what remains of writing not only becomes

veronymous but univocal, maybe uni-tonal. Henceforth, writing is almost

entirely devoted to polemics, to the extension which is another turning

point of the polemics initiated here against the established order or es-

tablished Christendom.6 This is due to the fact that, asArmed Neutrality

put it, the true Christian perspective is polemical.7 But does this turn

not lead to writing itself somehow becoming devalued? Not only philo-

sophical writing, not only poetical and pseudonymous writing, but author-

ship itself as it contributed to Kierkegaards upbringing?

Psychologically speaking, one could consider this way-out as the re-

sult of a successful exorcism of melancholy, an exorcism constituted by

writing especially by pseudonymous writing something like a hinge

that leads towards a real coincidence with oneself, a coincidence thatup to that point had failed to appear. Anti-Climacus writing would

have had a retropsective effect on Kierkegaard himself, back in return,

but most of all because he was its reader, more than its author: he was

the first, maybe the only one, to hear and listen to what Anti-Climacus

was saying, to hear the for awakening which constitutes the proper ton-

5 Cf. NB6:74 in SKS21, 56; SV2XIII, 602, 619; SKS 13, 18f.

6 It seems that the invention of the pseudomym Anti-Climacus was first linked toa strong polemical position and initially characterized by the polemical tone.Then it was characterized by the authority of the extraordinary Christian.Cf. NB5:8 inSKS20, 373: [H]an maa da ironisk og humoristisk vre reent Fan-den-i-voldsk. Here it is the tone or modality of discourse which is initiallystressed when Anti-Climacus has to be described, and not any existential or con-ceptual position. When the name and the idea first appear in the Papirer, it isimmediately preceded by polemical remarks against Christendom; and, a fewpages later, the writing of what will becomeTraining in Christianitybegins with-

in a polemical perspective. Cf. NB5:14 inSKS20, 376 f. The name Anti-Climax

is previoulsy used, still in a polemical context (about the absurdity of defendingand proving Christianity); superior [mesterlige] is his own qualifier.7 Pap. X 5 B 107, p. 289.

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ality ofTraining in Christianity. The for awakening awakened him.8 In

other words, it formed a crucial point for Kierkegaards own Christianity.

Training in Christianity trained him in a decisive way. Additionally, this

would explain in part why he was reluctant to publish it. In 1849, henoted: The work Training in Christianity has great personal meaning

for me i.e. I must immediately acknowledge that I am part of the

small number of people who need such violent means and should I pub-

lish it myself instead of benefitting from it and beginning to become a

Christian myself in the most serious sense? Chimeras.9 In a way, this

work could have remained merelyad se ipsum, precisely as aspiritual ex-

ercise,a practice a training in Christianity whose content aims to show

what training in Christianity means. Then it could be said thatTraining in

Christianity rounds off an education, the authors upbringing and an up-

bringing by authorship. It pushed Kierkegaard to the final step (and per-

haps, from this moment on, he really began to imitate) and, in this way,

fulfilled the mission devoted to an authorship conceived as an existential

itinerary towards Christianity and towards the Self.

From the point of view of writing,Training in Christianityleads writ-

ing towards the polemical aspect of this awakening. In this manner, it is a

religious discourse and it opens up religious discourse, since every reli-

gious author is polemical.10 The passage through the superior discursivecategories of edification (The Sickness unto Death)11 and awakening

(Training in Christianity) given that the latter is the highest and from

any point of view the last category12 is a decisive turn. If the awakening

(like the edification and not like the edifying) is linked to an authorial po-

sition which Kierkegaard cannot assume under his own name, Kierke-

gaards position under his own name can in turn be reoriented and it

is reoriented because writingTraining in Christianity(that is, in fact, read-

ing it) has changed his own relationship to Christianity and has radical-

8 NB11:204 inSKS 22, 127f.9 Ibid.

10 SV2 XIII, 592.11 Cf. NB11:204 inSKS 22, 127,30: [The Sickness unto Death] is entitled for ed-

ification, which is more than my own category, the poets category: edifying.We choose this a translation for Opbyggelse and det Opbyggelige.

12 Cf. NB11:212 in SKS 22, 132. About The Sickness unto Death, Kierkegaard

writes: Basically, I should have written: for awakening. That is in fact its char-

acter, and that is the progress generated in my own productivity.But it doesnot need to be said yet. It will come in a crucial way with the next writing: Train-ing in Christianity.

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ized his relation to Christendom. Anti-Climacus has given him a voice,

and a last stand, as far as the specific voice of Anti-Climacus is the Judges

voice [en Dommers Rst]. Anti-Climacus is a judge.13 Certainly Kierke-

gaard himself is not that kind of judge; as a reader rather than the author,he is rather judged and this is the precise reason why writing was his

own education: because he was a reader more than a writer of his own

works.14 He is judged by the voice he has himself fictitiously produced

because the one who paints such high ideality is always judged by it.15

But the last activity of writing will be oriented by the judgment by

which the whole of Christendom will be judged.16 The status of the pseu-

donymity in Training in Christianity is therefore linked to the meaning

and conditions of this judgment. What opens up this text is something

that could be called the writing of judgment, the last writing for the

Last Judgment, since the leitmotif of the last works, from 1850 to 1855,

is judgment and self-examination. The end of writing is Doomsday.

But this is also because the use of pseudonymity, linked to Kierke-

gaards own inferiority regarding the existential and religious position

of the author of such a text, linked to the possibility of the writing of

the religious stage, raises problems. It even raises contradictions and

theJournalsname them. Concerning commentary on Jn 12:32, which con-

stitutes the content of No. 3 inTraining in Christianity, he writes: Thiswriting cant be made pseudonymous, because it rages against the treach-

ery which preaching is subjected to, i.e. the impersonal and a pseudo-

nym is quite impersonal.17 Pseudonymity could appear as a dialectical

heresy [dialestisk Kjtterie], an inconsequence, and Kierkegaard can

only note it, without explaining it. Nevertheless, there is a key in the an-

swer to this objection and so it must be quoted in full:

On the other hand, Im nevertheless engaged as an editor, and I will assume re-

sponsibility for it, and everything will be understood as if I said it. This is there-fore essential progress: what needs to be said gets said, and it is attributed to me.The more [det Mere] here relies on the fact that, while the one who speaks[den Talende] is no one, a pseudonym, the editor is a real person, who acknowl-edges that he is judged by the pseudonymous discourse.18

13 NB11:228 inSKS22, 139.14 SKS13, 19.

15 NB11:228 inSKS22, 139.

16 This appears obviously with the work from 1851,For Self-Examination.17 NB15:63 inSKS23, 43.18 Ibid.



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The pseudonym-editor relationship conceived as a relation between au-

thor and reader, already used to a large extent in the aesthetic writings,

takes on a peculiar function here and a different meaning because

what is at stake is becoming the reader of a work for awakening. Theeditor is in charge of connecting speech and the real person (this is an es-

sential point), speech and a singular existing subject; but at the same time,

the status of the singular existing subject is that of a reader. From the

point of view of the effects of speech, Kierkegaard is at the same time

judge (because he assumes responsibility for the speech) and the judged.

The discourse is saved from impersonality, but at the same time Kierke-

gaard cannot himself be merged with the position of the judge, which is

essential in order to carry out his own education through this writing.

In other words, one could say that Kierkegaards position regarding

such a text is the position of self-judgement or self-examination.For a

self-examinationwill lead to this: the readertalking to himselfjudges him-

self.19 This is because pseudonymity still relies on a maieutical principle20

or strategy and by these means, the whole of Christendom, as reader or

listener, will judge itself. Here is the meaning of the moral which ends

Training in Christianity, No. 1. Self-examination, in fact, is the practical

purpose of the entire maieutical orientation of the Kierkegaardian dis-

course; and soTraining in Christianity,again, completely realizes this gen-eral purpose and opens up, for the later writing, the univocal discourse

devoted to it. The work itself refers to such a task by speaking about

the effect of indirect communication on the receiver.21 The speech,

then, will play the role of mirror, insofar as this kind of metaphor signals

the general Kierkegaardian conception of true reception (listening, read-

ing, understanding),22 both for philosophical discourse as well as the

Word: a general and permanent de te narratur fabula.23 And as far as

such a conception is inheritated from the Socratic conception of the result

of philosophical discourse, Anti-Climacus represents the highest figure of

the Christian Socrates.

19 SV2 XII, 341.20 We agree, of course, with M. Strawser who connects all pseudonymity with

maieutics. His remark concerns Training in Christianity. Cf. Michael StrawserBoth/And. Reading Kierkegaard from Irony to Edification, New York: FordhamUniversity Press 1997, p. 150.

21 SKS12, 129132.

22 This is the main principle of Kierkegaards conception of reading as far as it isinherited from the model for reading the Word. Cf. SKS 13, 53f.23 SKS3, 15; 4, 377; 6, 440f.

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Now as Kierkegaard himself puts it, this strategy failed so that pseu-

donymity could disappear. On May 16, 1855, on the occasion of the re-

publication (without any modification) of Training in Christianity, he

writes inFdrelandet: If it had to be published now that my considera-tions for the late bishop have been dropped, now that I have verified, like

when I first published it, that the established order is in a Christian sense

unbearable, here are few changes: it would no longer be pseudony-

mous.24 For if, as a commentator puts it, the pseudonym has the effect

of immediately freeing readers from the claim of the text25 and he then

tries to indirectly provoke the readers self-reflexion, the keeping of pseu-

donymity only depends on such a maieutical success. The actual situation

justifies the abandonment of pseudonymity, showing by this the fragility

of pseudonymity itself: its status seems to be determined solely by a stra-tegic and pragmatic purpose.26 The framework it belongs to now seems to

be purely communicational and pragmatic, putting the stress on the per-

locutory effects of the speech acts: the awakenings purpose decides the

literary status of the author.

Forsaking pseudonymity means embracing an open attack. But

even though he leaves pseudonymity behind, Kierkegaard does not

take the position of the extraordinary Christian: even in the last issues

ofjeblikket, he introduces himself as

non-Christian; yet he is ableto Socratically show that the others are even less Christian than he

is.27 Devoted primarly to Christian healing, Training in Christianity

in fact opened the days of judgment, as the cure failed, and not self-judg-

ment.

Nevertheless, even though it was tiny, pseudonymity was still there,

as an indirect strategy, an attack that must simultaneously bring about de-

fenseand self-examination and this was the way to introduce Christianity

into Christendom: the truth could have penetrated the established

order.28 But can Christendom still be saved? The answer to this questiondecides whether pseudonymity must remain or be given up. No self-ex-

amination happened; Christendom didnt want to understand. Christen-

dom shows that it doesnt want to be saved, because it doesntwant to

24 SKS14, 213.25 Michael StrawserBoth/And, p. 149.26 Including his scruples regarding Bishop Mynster. Yet one must be careful not

to reduce the entire meaning ofTraining in Christianitys pseudonymity to this

question.27 SKS 13, 405.28 Ibid.



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language is subjected to a last and crucial inflexion or conversion: this

language becomes both judgment and injunction, the main categories

and concepts become both heuristic or theoretical categoriesandcritical

(polemical) and practical categories. The whole theoretical dimension, ifit can be called such, or whats left of the theoretical in Anti-Climacus

speech, is completely enveloped by the prescriptive as if it were accom-

panied by the only truly Christian words: Go and do the same.32 A dis-

course which is charged with exposing Christianitys truth cannot be an

exposition; it involves a definitive inflexion in the propositional status

of philosophical discourse. This is the point where philosophical discourse

is converted into edification via an internal necessity. In order to appear,

the object of the discourse imposes not only a new external form but an

internal conversion of the signifying mode or status of the linguistic asser-tions (strictly speaking, they are no longerassertions).

The superior pseudonymity can be understood in connection with the

real personality of Kierkegaard and in connection with Kierkegaard as an

author. Climacus was not Christian, Anti-Climacus is a Christian at an ex-

traordinarily high level. Between them stands, or stood, the Kierkegaard

(under his own name) of theEdifying Discoursesand Christian Discours-

es but also the Kierkegaard of theDiscourses at the Communion of Fri-

days,which, as is said in a journal,

are in relation with the last pseudo-nym Anti-Climacus.33 As such, not only is a symmetrical relation estab-

lished between the two main pseudonyms, but there is also a change in

the understanding of the status of pseudonymity or in the conception of

the poetical that pseudonymity provides. If the poetical, notably with

Climacus, is conceived as a failure and an exteriority regarding the reli-

gious stage, the poetical linked to the Anti-Climacus pseudonymity estab-

lishes, on the contrary, the ideal medium for an adequate and internal dis-

course, adequatebecauseinternal.Training in Christianityis both poetical

andreligious. It doesnt express a poetical relation to Christianity, but re-veals every other authorial position (that of the other pseudonyms but

also of Kierkegaard himself) as a relation to the ideality.

The language of Anti-Climacus is the language of the religious itself,

the adequate medium for it to come to light. For the first time, the reli-

gious talks, and he talks directly. However, both from the point of view

of the real author and the point of view of the maieutical purpose, this

is a poetical communication. It is a poetical communication because Kier-

32 SKS13, 67f.33 NB13:57 inSKS22, 309.



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kegaard cannot be or cannot embody this point of view: I myself just

strive to naively be a Christian. Poeticity receives an opposite meaning

here to the one it has in inferior pseudonymity: neither withdrawal, nor

illegitimacy, nor failure, but, on the contrary, ideal legitimacy and adequa-cy.

The invention of the superior pseudonymity thus allows Kierkegaard

to solve the major difficulty of his entire authorship: the possibility of a

legitimate and adequate discourse about Christianity, that is, about be-

coming a Christian. Legitimacy and adequacy mean the same here: a dis-

course is correct according to the point from which it is asserted; it is true

thanks to its origin. And it is the qualification or quality of the author that

makes the discourse true with regard to what it says, because here it is a

matter of the ethical or ethico-religious level: a statement is not true ac-

cording to its adequate referentiality concerning a matter of facts, but ac-

cording to the speaking subject. This is the criteria by which the authorial

position is decided. At this point, Kierkegaard identifies authority and au-

thorship. As such, the classical understanding of the relation between a

real author and pseudonymous author must be reversed; it is the pseu-

donymous author who is the only true author of the religious discourse;

he is truly author (and truthful). According to this position, every other

authorship is pseudo-authorship, including Kierkegaard himself: Kierke-gaard remains without authority. As such, he cannot be the author of a

true/legitimate discourse about Christianity he can only be a reader.

Anti-Climacus therefore presents himself as the figure of the absolute

point of view upon the absolute. And this authority comes to light within

what he himself says, that is, the true relationship to Christ (contempora-

neity). If he can speak, if he can truly speak, it is because he is contem-

poraneous. He says this contemporaneity but he also shows it by his

own authorship, by meditating upon the Word, since writingis the med-itation upon the Word and since meditation upon this Word requires con-

temporaneity. And he meditates on the Word that expresses (talks about)

the true relationship to Christ. Indeed the Word chosen here is not any

word: it is the Word whose understanding states the relation to the

Word. Therefore, by relating himself to this Word,he does what he says

and what the Word expresses: being in the situation of contemporaneity.

Here, it is a true reduplicationinsidewriting, for if reduplication intrinsi-

cally links discourse to the real person, such a person is here the literary

figure of the author: the pseudonymous authorship, then, represents or

mimes reduplication.

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No one but he can meditate on this word; inversely meditating upon

this word lifts the author up into an absolute relationship to the absolute.

By truly meditating on this relation one isinsuch a relation. His author-

ship is in itself such a relation and this is the reason why the writing ofTraining in Christianity is in itself a training in Christianity. Or, in others

terms, the first training in Christianity is to writeTraining in Christianity.

Of course, one must be careful with this idea of an absolute point of

view upon the absolute. This point of view is neither a point of view

from above nor the identification of the subject with the absolute, for

such an identification can only happen within the false medium of knowl-

edge and it tears the singular subject out of real and singular existence,

transforming him into the non-existing universal subject of absolute

knowledge, the chimeric Subject-Object. The ideality of Anti-Climacusis not the ideality of the absolute subject, otherwise it would place him

in contradiction with Climacus (and not in a position of symmetrical su-

periority). On the contrary his ideality lies in the supreme step of the di-

alectical relation to truth, which is Christ, a relation of faith. In a sense,

the entirety ofTraining in Christianityis devoted to showing that the ab-

solute relation to the absolute happens within the medium of radical dif-

ference, that imitation (the relation to Christ) is the exact opposite of

speculative identification; in other words, it is only thinkable and possiblewithin paradox and offense. Ideality is thus not a point of view in which

difference is overcome whilst being maintained in existence: it is an abso-

lute relation within difference to the absolute and this is the schemae

which is precisely what should be understood as imitation.

But there remains one final reversal, since the authors function, to

speak like Foucault, is at the same time brought to its highest point and

radically devalued by the subordination of writing to reading. If the dis-

course of Anti-Climacus represents the completion of the Kierkegaardian

discourse, it represents the moment when writing is converted into read-ing (or into listening to the Word). The perfect and completed writing is

the writing which is formed within the relation of the author to the Word

and this relation is at the same time the very subject of what is written.

Consequently one can say that there is an absolute position for authorship

only in the reading, only when writingis reading. The conception of the

author as a producer, creator, genius, or even solely as the first origin

of speech is a romantic and aesthetic conception: the religious point of

view overturns such a conception and invalidates it. The author is no lon-

ger a creator; he deprives himself of his own creative spontaneity. The

hand, one could say, is converted into an ear; the mouth receives what



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it is able to say from another origin. The fact that Anti-Climacus is the

absolute author means that he is second, passive a receiver. The ideal

author is a reader. And it is Training in Christianity that says this

since its topic is the answer or response to the Word and that showsthis as it the reading comes from itself.

B. Ideal Figure

But Anti-Climacus is more than an ideal author. Or, more precisely, he is

a prototype for authorship because he is the extraordinary Christian:

he is the ideal author because he is an ideal existential figure. And

then herepresents the ideality of being a Christian bypresenting himself

in his very words. Is this a fault? His representation of the ideality can beabsolutely true, and I must bow before it.34 Not only as a writer but also

as an individual Kierkegaard must acknowledge that he is lower than

Anti-Climacus; but he must also acknowledge that this representation

of complete ideality is essential. The dynamic tension towards ideality

drives the becoming-Christian, since becoming a Christian is finally to

become contemporaneous with Christ35 and Anti-Climacus is character-

ized by such a situation of contemporaneity. Again, the difference be-

tween the two writings of Anti-Climacus must be understood. The former

takes the form of treatise or of a Christian psychological exposition

about a fundamental religious category. The latter is a meditation (and

a polemical meditation) on the Word. ThusTraining in Christianityrepre-

sents the culmination of the superior pseudonymity itself since Anti-Cli-

macus is himself somehow the matter of his own writing given that he em-

bodies the authentic relation to the Word. The textembodiesthe point of

view (and this is how the text is a training in Christianity). The practice is

then both the contentand the form of the text, but most of all it proposes

a figure, a figure who talks about what he is. InFear and Trembling, thereligious figure was mute and moreover characterized by his muteness;

with Anti-Climacus inTraining in Christianityhe not only talks but indi-

cates himself.

In this manner,Training in Christianityrepresents the essential desti-

nation for the Kierkegaardian production: it proposes the ideal figure,

and at the same time speaks about the religious relation to ideality36 (si-

34 NB11:209 inSKS 22, 130.35 SKS12, 75.36 For instance, cf. SKS12, 186f.



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multaneously, Kierkegaard himself as reader enters into relation with the

ideality represented by Anti-Climacus). A few lines fromArmed Neutral-

ityimmediately show the crucial turn accomplished byTraining in Chris-

tianityin the constitution of an ideal figure.37

The entire task of the Kier-kegaardian oeuvre was in the end to shape and release an image of the

Christian, given that Kierkegaardian discourse tends towards edification.

The whole production is devoted to the production of the image(model,

pattern) because it aims at edification. And this ambition unveils the very

difference between the operation of the Kierkegaardian discourse and the

operation of philosophical (speculative) discourse, since the former tends

to be a discourse of power.38 Training in Christianity thus achieves this

task, showing where the Christian must be (contemporaneity) in order to

be a real Christian, proposing the highest figure of a Christian, and more-

over making this proposition an injunction (with consequent polemical

effects). The role, nature, and function of the image are then completely

fulfilled. As such, Training in Christianity serves the purpose of convert-

ing philosophical discourse into a pragmatic form communication: the

image here is no longer a theoretical tool or means devoted to anexpo-

sitionor an explanation; it must not be evaluated in (problematic) terms

of representability but rather in pragmatic terms of efficiency. Actually

its function is both theoretical (showingthe main features of the religiousstage) and pragmatic (proposinga pattern for existence).

This ideality must therefore remain ideality. The author must then re-

main pseudonymous. Identifying himself with the author, presenting him-

self as the extraordinary Christian, would have been a strategic and fatal

mistake for Kierkegaard. Such a mistake would pervert the pragmatic

purpose of the communication: the religious discourse would sink into

enthusiasm and paradoxically stand in the way of the task of awakening.

The task of introducing this image into reality and of putting it forward

who does it belong to?39 Kierkegaard asks. In order to prevent a drift

into enthusiasm, Kierkegaard must stay in the background and this is

also the reason why he hesitates to publish Training in Christianity and

finally gives up publishingThe Point of View for My Work as an Author.40

However, writing itself cannot be seen as the total achievement of the

true and absolute relation to the absolute: Anti-Climacus still remains a

37 Pap. X 5 B 107, pp. 290293.

38 Cf. Pap. VIII 2 B 89, p. 189.39 Pap. X 5 B 107, p. 291.40 Cf. NB11:204 inSKS 22, 127f.



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writer. Anti-Climacus still offers the representation of the Christianas a

writer and his Christianity is that of a Christian writer. Or even the Chris-

tian as a simple reader and reading must be given up in order to

overcome inwardness and enter the public field of imitation.

41

Christi-anity is still inserted in a text. The act of writing therefore still offers only

a mimesis of a real and active existential relation to Christ. Thus, inTrain-

ing in Christianity,Anti-Climacus does indeed complete the Kierkegaard-

ian discourse and its true horizon, but this achievement is one of writing

and it happenswithin or inside writing it is not an existential achieve-

ment. There is something beyond writing, even though writing partici-

pates in self-becoming. The Christian writers existence could thus appear

solely as the beginning of Christian existence, or as a mimesis of Christian

existence since a relation to the Word here shapes a text rather than a life

(though this writing is also a component of Christian existence), or even

as a poetical existence, a semi-poetical relation to the absolute, despite

the fact that the author no longer belongs to aesthetics. So Anti-Climacus

may be thelastfigure of literature, talking at the moment when literature

at the same time becomes Christian and dissolves itself: he still belongs to

literature, he is still caught in the literary web but points beyond litera-

ture.

Of course literature and writing do not count as nothing: they providethe way for upbringing and self-becoming. Writing, according to Kierke-

gaard, was the way he clarified his own relationship to Christianity. Liter-

ature is not, or not only, a curse, the curse of the poetic life (an escape

from real existence, the dizzy and fruitless temptation of pure possibility),

the curse of melancholy (the inability to adjust to oneself), or even the

curse of reflection. Nevertheless the terminal and ideal figure embodied

by Anti-Climacus inTraining in Christianitydoes indicate literatures nec-

essary dismissal.The end ofTraining in Christianity itself significantly raises the prob-

lem of the meaning and purpose of Christian art.42 What does portraying

ideality really mean? This is the final step of the argumentation devoted

to the distinction between an imitator and an admirer. We know indeed

that literature understood in the form of a communication of power is

41 On this difficulty, see George Pattison If Kierkegaard is Right about Reading,

Why Read Kierkegaard? inSren Kierkegaard. Critical Assessments of Leading

Philosophers,vol. 1, ed. by Daniel W. Conway, London and New York: Rout-ledge 2002, pp. 198f.42 SKS12, 246249.



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problem ofPhilosophical Fragments, the problem of truth or, more pre-

cisely, the problem concerning the relation [Forholdet] to truth. Just

like Climacus, Anti-Climacus raises Pilates question.47 Moreover, on its

own (religious) level,Training in Christianity establishes an almost sym-metrical or analogical sequence that repeats the sequence of Philo-

sophical Fragments, a sequence that binds the master (or the god),

paradox, offense, contemporaneity, the relation of the disciple

to the truth. However, such a sequence is no longer constructed from

the standpoint of a thought-project but rather on the basis of Scripture.

In a way, Anti-Climacus saysno more than Climacus does: faith as a re-

lation to the truth is the relation to the Master (and not to the doctrine)

understood as absolute paradox. Yet in another manner, the change of

standpoint changes everything, by changing the level and the sphere(that is, also the linguistic sphere) in which this proposition or statement

is formulated. And it is in this manner that the philosophical question it-

self is made unrecognizable.

This repetition is therefore not only a translation or a transcription of

what was once uttered in the (aesthetico-) philosophical order into the

language of the religious stage or into the religious stage itself. This pas-

sage of translation brings about a reversal of the very framework within

which the problem of truth can be understood: the framework is qualita-tively modified. The traditional philosophical problem was pushed to its

terminal limits by Climacus,beyond(and against) its speculative achieve-

ment.From the inside, then, philosophy was pushed to overcome and re-

verse the paradigm within which truth and the relation to truth could be

understood: the paradigm speculatively completed by Hegel the gno-

seological paradigm of the question of truth constructed by the whole his-

tory of metaphysics. As long as philosophy belongs to such a gnoseolog-

ical paradigm, it is unable to answer this question what is truth? What it

means to be related to the truth? a fortioriit is impossible to answer thequestion: what is the relation to the truth if truth is Christ? Theres an

infinite difference48 between the two paradigms, between the two con-

ceptions of the relation to the truth. On the other hand, Anti-Climacus

final answer (imitation) was only possible inasmuch as it was prepared

for by the internal philosophical subversion of the paradigm otherwise

he simply would have been incomprehensible. This subversion is the con-

version to existential thought. From the standpoint of the philosophical

47 SKS12, 200f.48 SKS12, 202.



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The obstacle to the theoretical model or, rather, its internal distor-

tion is first due to the sign being a sign of contradiction. This means that

the sign not only point towards a meaning or signification beyond itself; it

doesnt even merely confirm the endlessly repeated difference betweenthe inner and outer it also points towards something that is its opposite.

Faith is thus not only the operation of reading something else through

an immediate sign, but of holding together the sign (the man of humble

condition or a singular man) with its opposite (God), the opposite it

points to. This tension is an interpretative binding: the logical contradic-

tion that cannot be grasped from a logical point of view is illogically main-

tained by interpretation. Under this interpretation faith must not say that

it is Goddespitethe appearance (incognito is not a simple disguise as the

ancient gods used to veil themselves), butbecause of it. Moreover faith

must understand (interpret) the appearance itself as not being an appear-

ance otherwise it slides into paganism or docetism, and the presence of

truth as incarnation would not be grasped.

The sign is also conceived as a call but not as a kind of unveiling or a

disclosure to vision (which would repeat the specular pattern). As such,

interpretation is conceived as response, since faith is a very precise

kind ofreception.53 Interpretation is understood according to a schemae

ofcommunication(and not of referential semantics) and a theory of com-munication that is mainly focused on reception. But this is not only the

case for the part specifically devoted to such a theory:54 Training in

Christianity is entirely structured by the sequence invitation-halt-re-

sponse. And this is the reason why Mt 11:28 is the decisive text: it is

the Christian text concerning the call as sign and the call/response struc-

ture as the fundamental religious structure.

In a manner of speaking, the sign gives him away in a word, itisthe

Word. And this word does not belong to a declarative type of proposition

or statement, but to an injunctive type. So interpretation includes two op-

erations: referring each statement to the duly identified speaking sub-

ject and responding to the call that is the real meaning of the statement.

According to the Kierkegaardian view of communication, the meaning of

the message must be referred to its origin the speaking subject. The fun-

damental question here is: Who?55 Who is speaking? Who is giving the

53 SKS12, 144. My emphasis.

54 SKS12, 129147.55 SKS12, 37: [We must] stop at what is infinitely more important and more de-cisive: the person of the inviter.



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invitation? If understanding the word means adequatelyansweringit, we

must be aware that we can only correctly answer if we have correctly in-

terpreted the origin-sign which is the speaking subject himself. If not, we

dont understand. There are thus several ways not to understand: not tounderstand the Word as an injunction; not to understand understanding

itself as practice (Christianity as doctrine); and not to correctly (faithful-

ly) interpret the origin-sign of the speech (admiration).56

The closing category of this hermeneutic sequence is imitation. Imita-

tion is the existential interpretative understanding. It fits entirely with the

new paradigm for the question of truth and completes it. It corresponds to

the definition according to which correct relation to the truth is not

knowingthe truth but being the truth. This is not just a substitution but

more precisely a reversal, since being the truthis knowing it.57 But if imi-

tation as existential interpretation seems to return us to a paradigm of vi-

sion, this paradigm is in fact clearly disordered and subverted: first be-

cause the image offered to such a vision is a sign of contradiction

and secondly because the relation to the image is not theoretical but prac-

tical. Since we neversawChrist in his glory (and we could not have done

so, otherwise this vision would be paganism), the relation to the prototype

this relation to the truth means to be the truth impliesat the same time

that vision transcends the immediate image (the humble manisGod) andremains at the level of this immediate image (the prototype is the humble

man who suffers). The essential distinction between an imitator and an

admirer matches with the distinction between such a correct interpreta-

tion (understanding thekenosis as the revelation of the truth and under-

standing this revelation as call to practice) and an interpretation that proj-

ects the interpretative operation into the former (philosophical) para-

digm.

This point also reveals something about the real nature of theimage. Strictly speaking, it is not an image of the usual kind; what

is offered to us is a life or the image of a life: the life of Christ is the

56 We are now also able to transfer such a conception to the level of reading so thatAnti-Climacus not only substitutes exegesis for theology, but also, with his ownpractice of reading and writing, introduces a strict version of sola scripturaagainst scholarship (SV2 XII, 369: O! To be alone with the Holy Word! If

you arent, then you arent reading the Holy Word). These principles were to

be developed in a commentary to Jas 1:22. Cf. For Self-Examination in SKS13, 53 76.57 SKS12, 202.



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paradigm for imitation.58 According to a hermeneutic point of view, a cru-

cial distinction should be made between the image (the object of admi-

ration) and the narrative structure which is the real referent for interpre-

tation as imitation. Their semiotic status is different and so is the modal-ity of interpretation. The image is to be seen, the narrative structure to be

conformed to the operation performed by the reader or the interpret-

er is not the same. But, most of all, all interpretation of any word and

meaning must finally be referred to such a narrative: a statement is under-

stood with regard to material of the narrative and its meaning is con-

structed by such an operation. Thus, one could say the image of life

is both a prototype for active interpretative (imitation) and the condition

of the Words meaning.

Imitation is thus the final category. Imitation is the highest kind of re-

sponse, the highest quality of understanding. There is nothing beyond,

imitation is for the new paradigm what Absolute Knowledge was for

the previous one. Yet, because there is a radical reversal of these para-

digms, we must also say that imitation is the exact anti-category to

be opposed to the final category of the entire history of metaphysics. A

category which belongs to a paradigm of radical difference whilst the

previous one was the metaphysical paradigm of identity insofar imita-

tion is constructed on a paradoxical structure: one must fit the prototype,but at the same time the prototype as God is incommensurable. Claiming

to identity oneself with or equate oneself with him is therefore both im-

possible and impious.59 Opposite the static and ideal identification as re-

sult of knowledges metaphysical process, imitation is thus effort, that is,

the dynamic tension of the relation to truth within the differences medi-

um. Formulating such a category, then, means putting an end to this his-

tory the long history of the metaphysical question of truth.

4. The End of History and the End of Time and Times: Contemporaneity

Training in Christianityis thus situated in a time of closure. More precise-

ly, it speaks from a terminal moment of a history which has followed a

movement opposite to the movement of thought in the Hegelian philos-

ophy of history. Modernity is not the moment of the effectivity or re-

alisation of the truth of Christianity (by understanding and overcoming

58 SKS12, 115.59 NB28:6 inSKS25, 217219.



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(the established order cannot be saved), but also emerges from a philo-

sophical destruction of history itself. Only for a speculative pattern can

truth be solely in the process toward the end; and this is due to the fact

that truth is conceived according a gnoseological paradigm (cumulative ordialectical). Change the paradigm and you change the meaning of history:

truth is at the beginning, at the source this is why we can say the model

stands backwards62 and the true relation to truth consists of standing

closest to the source, that is, in contemporaneity.

One could consider that the stress put on contemporaneity supports

some kind of primitivism,63 an idea shared by all the movements of

Radical Reform, not only a romantic nostalgia but something like a

yearning for return through history, a proposition for a regressive move-

ment leading to the old times of primitive Christianity, a backwards jump

or leap (precisely the leap of faith), some kind ofsalto mortaleabove his-

tory. The prototype is backwards The Point of View for my Work as an

Author declares: the movement is: backwards.64 Contemporaneity

then would be seen as a retro-version (and not only a reversal) devoted

to reversing the course of history.

But this turn is not a return it is suspension. Suspension of the 1800

years of history in the situation of contemporaneity. But not only sus-

pension: destruction. Destruction of the ontological weight of history,since historicity is a reality that does not itself possess the determination

of truth,65 but also a destruction of the philosophy of history such that it

seems necessary here to hold two contradictory propositions together:

history is catastrophic (history is the story of loss) and history is noth-

ing (historicity has no weight with regard to the truth). This is because

truth is entirely concentrated inone point. If the Kierkegaardian concep-

tion of history seems to be the sinister (and inverted) parody of a specu-

lative philosophy of history, it is because the event of incarnation com-pletely soaks up the whole meaning and weight of historicity. Regarding

this event, that weight isnothing, a merenihil. The fact that history still

has weight and meaning (a catastrophic one) is only due to the fact

that we performatively believe it has weight; it is due to the fact that

we believe in the philosophy of history. Philosophically or intellectually

62 SKS12, 232.

63 Cf. Pap. VIII 2 B 86, p. 171f; Pap.VIII 2 B 89, p. 186.

64 SV2 XIII, 603.65 SKS12, 75f. This thought, again, is a repetitionof Climacus reflections in Phil-osophical Fragments. Cf.SKS4, 272 286.



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giving weight to history gives it arealweight indeed: it is a historical de-

cision that orients history. For making such a nihilthe deciding element

for truth (the philosophy of history) is properly the annihilation of

truth this is why the Hegelian real-isation (as historical process) ac-tually means an an-nihil-ation. In reverse, Anti-Climacus contempora-

neity initiates the annihilation of historical temporality. What is broken

up here is both history and the philosophy of history.

What ruptures historical temporality is the moment or instant. The

moment does not belong to historical temporality but, coming under con-

temporaneity, it is the qualitative and fundamental element of existential

temporality. It is located, improperly speaking, at the meeting point of,

on the one hand, the extinction of historicity and of the emergence of au-

thentic existential time, and on the other hand, the time of existing sub-jectivity in its relation to the truth and as relation to the truth. Such a

present, the present of contemporaneity, is not the eternal present of

the true Idea given to vision (the relation to truth definitively extracted

from time) and neither does it belong any longer to some kind of meta-

physics of presence. Such a metaphysics intrinsically connects presence

and unveiling to a vision but vision is broken here, and the paradigm

of vision is transgressed. This present is not that ofeidos.

Thus, this end is not at the end or at the beginning but at every pointof historical time, since it belongs to subjective temporality. Every gener-

ation goes back to square one, because every subject goes back to square

one. And this end retains the same quality at each point in time. Contem-

poraneity is not a historical present, otherwise the historically contempo-

raneous individuals (the one who saw Christ) could be said nearer to

truth than others. This inequality would be nonreligious, but also absurd

with regard to the nature of time and the true relation to truth. As the

difference is absolute and infinite, as immediate vision gives nothing,

historical proximity means nothing.If, then, contemporaneity is indeed the equivalent of the absolute

point of view upon (in relation to) the absolute, we can understand

the abyssal gap that separates it from the Hegelian recapitulation of Ab-

solute Knowledge. It is the symmetrical opposite of the metaphysicalsub

specie aerternitatis even though and especially if eternity is the name for

the totallized historicity of Spirit. It is a stop, the standpoint of the re-

sponding subject facing the sign,66 the standpoint of the (true) reader,

of Anti-Cimacus himself. But that also means the beginning, for it is

66 Cf. NB18:4 inSKS23, 256f.



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also the (re)start or the impulsion for existential temporality now moved

and structured by the striving of imitation: relation to truth within radical

difference (which cannot be dialectically exceeded) grounds now dynamic

temporality. History does not restart, but the (hi)story of an individualdoes.

From the perspective of Anti-Climacus, contemporaneity is the situa-

tion of reading, but, at the same time, the ground of writing. For Anti-Cli-

macus, this point is the very beginning of his writing, since writing pro-

ceeds from reading (face-to-face with the truth). The necessary end of

time and the imposed beginning of time. We said: horizon of the whole

work; we should say also: ideal origin.



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delecroix. final words. training to christianity as a terminal writing

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