What must be done — whether by me or by another
Monday in Whitsun Week. S. Kierkegaard.
First and foremost, and on the greatest possible scale, an end must be put to the whole official — well-meaning — falsehood which well-meaningly — conjures up and maintains the illusion that what is preached is Christianity, the Christianity of the New Testament. Here is a case where no quarter must be given. If the Freethinkers have already dealt this falsehood a pretty shrewd blow, it can be only more forcible (if one does not wish otherwise) when he who fights has not Satan on his side but God.
Then when that is done, the question must be put in this form: After all, is not this really the true situation, that from generation to generation things have so gone from bad to worse with us men, that we men from generation to generation are so degenerate, so demoralized, have to such a degree become hardly more than beasts, that unfortunately the situation is such that — instead of the impudent fudge about Christianity being perfectible,15 and we advancing, to such a point indeed that Christianity no longer satisfies us — that we wretched, pitiable men, who are priced by the dozen or the score, when it comes to the point are not really able to bear this divine thing which is the Christianity of the New Testament, and that therefore we must be content with the sort of religiousness which is now the official thing — when already it has been made known, you are to note, that it is not the Christianity of the New Testament? In this way the case must now be stated, and the question must be put, whether perhaps it is with the human race as it is with the individual, who the older he grows the more good-for-nothing he becomes — something he cannot alter and therefore must humbly put up with — whether it is perhaps the same with the race, so that it cannot be altered, and it is not God's requirement of us that we should alter it, but we must put up with it, humbly acknowledging our wretchedness; whether the human race has not now reached the age when it is literally true that no longer is there to be found or to be born an individual who is capable of being a Christian in the New Testament sense. In this way the case must be stated: away then, away with all optical illusions! Out with the truth! Out with the declaration that we no longer are capable of being Christians in the New Testament sense! — and, for all that, we feel the need of daring to hope in an eternal blessedness, which we also might get on very different terms than those proposed by the New Testament.
When the case is stated thus, it will become apparent whether there is anything true in this expectation, whether it has the consent of divine governance — if not, then everything must fall to pieces, in order that in this horror the individual might again come into existence who could bear the Christianity of the New Testament. But an end must be put to the official — well-meaning — falsehood.
Translator's Footnotes
15This was naturally the claim of men like Martensen who were bent upon interpreting Christianity in a Hegelian sense, and of course S. K. denounces it again and again.