Lopez 1

Armando Lopez

2011 Matchette Essay Competition

4 April 2011

With Fear And Trembling: A Comparative Philosophical Analysis of Kierkegaard And The Desert Fathers

“Christianity’s first and foremost duty is to return to the monastery from which Luther broke away.” - Kierkegaard’s journals, 1854

I. Introduction/Attunement

Søren Kierkegaard is largely considered a progenitor of the philosophical movement

known as Existentialism. Writing in Denmark in the middle of the 19th century, he

found himself in a society characterized by the Enlightenment values of democracy,

public opinion and the primacy of reason. The predominance of these values in both

civic and intellectual circles disgusted him, principally because of their implications

for individualism and the understanding of Christianity. The center of gravity of

Kierkegaard’s philosophy is his celebration of the individual over the collective, life

marked by passion rather than reflection, and a Christianity constituted as a zealous

way of life, as opposed to the mere acceptance of doctrines. It is from here that he

launches his polemics against the Kantian and Hegelian projects of systematic

rationalization of knowledge and history on the one hand, and the facilitation1 of

‘Christendom’ by Lutheranism and the Danish State Church on the other2. In their

1 I use ‘facilitate’ in the literal sense of ‘making easier’, from the French faciliter, which means ‘to render easy’. 2 Solomon, “Existentialism”, 1

Lopez 2

stead he proposes a life not of detached rationalism, but one of passionate action

and commitment, chosen by the individual and not for him by the public; and a

Christianity that is infinitely difficult, demands constant striving, and is indefensible

and inexplicable by means of reason. For Kierkegaard, a Christian could only be ‘the

most spectacular of men, ’ because he endures the strictures imposed on him by the

concomitant suffering of the faith he chose for himself, independent of any kind of

popular or rational basis for choice3. The individual, passion, and Christianity are all

inextricably interconnected in Kierkegaard’s philosophy: when confronted with the

‘objective uncertainty’ of reflection, the individual is compelled by passion to make a

decision; faith is passion at its highest, and it is only through faith that one can make

the ‘leap’ to Christianity4.

Kierkegaard’s picture of faith is purposefully at odds with much of traditional

Protestantism. Its inherent difficulty and emphasis on ‘striving’ (works) even hint

(albeit subtly) at Catholicism: indeed, some have even proposed an ‘anonymous

Catholicism’ in Kierkegaard’s writings.5 It is not the purpose of this essay to show a

congruence between Kierkegaard’s philosophy and the dogma of Roman

Catholicism, partly because such attempts have been made elsewhere6, but also

because it is seems, prima facie, irrelevant to draw parallels between a thinker who

was intentionally anti-systematic; and a very complex, very doctrinaire body of

thought.

3 Solomon, “From Rationalism To Existentialism”, 744 Solomon, “Existentialism”, 18-195 Roos, “Søren Kierkegaard and Catholicism”, 36 See Jack Mulder Jr., Kierkegaard and the Catholic Tradition (Bloomington: University of Indiana, 2010)

Lopez 3

So who can be a Christian, according to Kierkegaard? Protestantism, which

he called, “the crudest and most brutal plebeianism7,” does not seem to foster true

Christians. Nor does the Catholic Church, with its insistence on assenting to the

official teachings prescribed by the Magisterium, appear to be a communion of true

Christians either. Who else, then, could even conceive of being a Christian? It as if

the only one who fits Kierkegaard’s requirements is Kierkegaard himself!8 Is there

any evidence that between Christ and the mid 1800s, there had been any Christians

any all?

This essay will attempt to show that there have indeed been Christians who

fit Kierkegaard’s qualifications before the 19th century, who are neither Protestant

nor Catholic, but predate such denominations. The author will attempt to prove that

the Desert Fathers - the first monks in Christian history, who practiced their

monasticism in the Egyptian and Palestinian deserts between the third and sixth

centuries - richly exemplify many aspects of Kierkegaard’s thought in word and

practice, roughly 1.5 millennia before Kierkegaard even penned the first letter of his

philosophy. What this essay will not do is try to read into Kierkegaard an

‘anonymous Eastern/Coptic Orthodoxy’: rather, it will attempt to flesh out a

coherent case for the Desert Fathers as Kierkegaardian Christians based on the

connaturality between Kierkegaard’s philosophy and the Sayings of the Desert

Fathers.

II. Difficulties

7 Kierkegaard, “Journals,” 2458 Solomon, “From Rationalism to Existentialism,” 98

Lopez 4

Such an endeavor is not without its difficulties. An honest comparative analysis

assumes that the analyzer is not simply picking this fact or that, this text or that,

from each source, so as to artificially construct two apparently similar entities in

order to make his point. Worse than a strawman fallacy, this would be to create two

strawmen and then marry them. So as to fully disclose the situation at hand, the

author would like to bring to light the difficulty in teasing out coherent, unified

‘systems’ of thought in the two sources presented. Kierkegaard, on the one hand,

was blatantly anti-systematic, and attacks on systematization run throughout

virtually all of his writings, especially in his critiques of Hegel. His writings are

scattered over many books, frequently penned under pseudonyms, and they often

argue against each other.9 Not only the content of his writing but the corpus itself is

a kind of polemic against systematic philosophy, and as such one must be very

careful when attempting to configure a consistent stream of thought from his

writings. On the other hand, the sayings Desert Fathers pose a challenge in that, like

most ‘sayings’ literature, they are a compilation of admonitions and pieces of advice

from different people, at different times, and in different places. Outside of

worshipping God and tacitly acknowledging the necessity of austere monasticism,

there was no single, absolute rule shared by every monastic in the Desert. On the

contrary, most monks and ascetics were encouraged to practice their monasticism

on their own terms, and Abba (Father) Arsenius, a monk from Scetis in the early 5th

century, reiterates that, “each man should act according to his own spiritual way10”.

The Sayings, in their original contexts, were particular, concerning a certain topic, in

9 Solomon, From Rationalism to Existentialism, 7310 Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert, 67-68

Lopez 5

a certain place, at a certain time. They were not meant to be ‘common currency’.11

As such it is not uncommon to find two sayings that are in tension with each other, if

not contradictory – and this could pose a serious problem if one desires a cohesive

understanding of how the Desert Fathers thought.

To mitigate the potential dangers of a comparative analysis of two unstable

sources, the author has used as his guides texts written by contemporary experts on

each source, which include textbooks, anthologies, introductions and prefaces.

There will be constant reference to these texts in the aim of constructing for

Kierkegaard an accurate portrait of his philosophy and for the Desert Fathers a

general ethos for their way of life.

III. Asceticism, Sin, and Suffering

Kierkegaard’s views on asceticism are found mostly in his journals. In the quote

cited before the introduction, he calls the return to the monastery the ‘first and

foremost duty’ of Christianity. Elsewhere in the journals, he calls this return a

Retreat:

“It is a unique type of retreat that we must make. Back to the monastery,

from which Luther fled – that is the truth – this is what must be done… The

fault with the monastery was not asceticism, celibacy, etc.; no, the fault was

that Christianity had been moderated by making the admission that all this

was considered to be extraordinarily Christian – and the purely secular

nonsense to be considered ordinary Christianity… asceticism and all that is

11 Ibid., 12-13

Lopez 6

related to it is the very first essential requirement of witnesses to the truth…

because, wherever God’s assistance is given, there will the progress that is

made recognize the fact that the debt is becoming greater, the matter more

difficult (emphasis mine).12”

If taken literally, the demand for a retreat to the monastery, especially in 19th

century Lutheran Denmark, is an extreme action to take – though it should not

surprise us if he were serious about this imperative, given the extremity of some of

Kierkegaard’s other claims. In a later journal entry, however, Kierkegaard

elucidates his true intentions:

“I do not intend to reintroduce the monastery, even if I could; my proposal is

only that we become conscious – what truth there is in this – that we are

approaching truth by our concessions.13”

The substance of Kierkegaard’s invocation of the image of the monastery is precisely

that monasticism serves as a paradigm for the asceticism and suffering he believes

is essential to being a Christian. He believes such a response is a natural corollary to

the consciousness of one’s being before God. The despair one feels over one’s

imperfection becomes magnified when one is conscious of being confronted with

God, since God is the standard for perfection. The realization of the magnitude of

one’s imperfection before God is called Sin, and it is the pervasive awareness of

12 This quotation comes from the combination of two fragments found in Roos, Søren Kierkegaard and Catholicism, 1-2; and Solomon, From Rationalism To Existentialism, 7413 Roos, Søren Kierkegaard and Catholicism, 9

Lopez 7

one’s being in Sin that stirs up the suffering and dread that Kierkegaard thinks is

characteristic of the Christian.14

It has yet to be made explicitly clear, however, why one should practice

asceticism as a response to the recognition of one’s Sin, as Kierkegaard does not give

us a straightforward answer. Perhaps the Desert Fathers could help in clarifying the

leap. With astonishing similarity, Abba Matoes said:

“The nearer a man draws to God, the more he sees himself a sinner. It was

when Isaiah the prophet saw God, that he declared himself ‘a man with

unclean lips.’ (Is. 6.5)15

Awareness of Sin was an integral part of the Desert Fathers’ lives. Abba Dioscorus is

noted as saying that if he could see his sins, three or four men would not be enough

to weep over them.16 Abba Sisoes once told a fellow monk, “I go to sleep in sin and I

awaken in sin.”17 In accordance with Kierkegaard, this brought the Fathers much

weeping and sadness. What was the solution to this sorrow? According to Abba

Nilus, “Prayer is a remedy against grief and depression.”18 And what is prayer?

“Prayer is hard work and a great struggle to one’s last breath,” not something you do

before meals and going to sleep, but a life “continually turned towards God.”19 The

imperative to ascetic action and struggle was a fundamental characteristic of Desert

monasticism. The sayings of the Desert Fathers are littered with hundreds of calls

14 Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death, Trans. Alastari Hannay, 12, 1415 The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Trans. Benedicta Ward, 14316 Ibid., 5517 Ibid., 21918 The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Trans. Benedicta Ward, 15319 Ibid., xxi

Lopez 8

to asceticism and passionate striving, such as that of Isidore the Priest: “If you

desire salvation, do everything that leads you to it.”20 An active life of prayerful

action, then, serves not as a ‘cure’ for the sorrow of Sin, but is rather the only

suitable response to it. Self-perfection, an act of imitation of Christ, through

asceticism becomes the defining attribute of a Christian’s life. It is for this reason

that Kierkegaard affirms the value of asceticism as being the ‘very first essential

requirement’ for the Christian.

III. Subjectivity, the Individual, and Resistance to Dogmatism

Insofar as being a Christian means to stand before God, it means to stand before him

alone, as an individual. Individuality and subjective truth play very prominent roles

in Kierkegaard’s philosophy, and are probably his most popular ideas among the

general public today. As relates to religion, subjective truth emphasizes not the

what of Christianity but the how of the Christian.21 Faith in the subjective mode

deals exclusively with the relationship of the individual subject to God, which, as we

have seen, demands a life of suffering, obedience, and asceticism. Faith, then, is not

merely the acceptance of certain doctrines or the willingness to believe in those

doctrines on any kind of rational basis: God is not an object about which we can

have an objective knowledge, because he too is a subject, and can only be grasped by

faith, that is, through the relationship. Our understanding of God, then, is purely

subjective, and any attempt to ‘know’ God objectively winds up in faulty,

unconvincing proofs for his existence, which Kierkegaard believes is worse than

20 Ibid, 10721 Solmon, Existentialism, 20

Lopez 9

blasphemy: “So rather let us mock God out and out, this would always be preferable

to the disparaging air of importance with which one would try to prove God’s

existence.”22 Assenting to the doctrines of Christianity on the basis of the likelihood

of their objective truth, is not what it means to be a Christian.

While the ‘leap’ to faith necessitates that one grant certain paradoxes of

Christian doctrine unquestioningly (such as the notion that God became man23),

there remains a unique flavor of individualism in the leap:

“The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wishes me to do;

the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can

live and die.”24

While not free to simply make up Christianity as you go, there remains a distinct

sense of individual purpose, aside from a doctrinaire acquiescence to the central

paradoxes of Christianity – “what God really wishes me to do.” In this sense, the

Christian is not beholden to every doctrinal tenet of Christianity (Kierkegaard

himself, for example, rejects the notion of predestination popular among his

Protestant countrymen25) but only those that are vital to it. The subjective quality of

faith allows the Christian to follow the unique calling bestowed on him individually

by God.

In the Desert Fathers, we do not have an articulated philosophy of subjective

truth, nor of the subjective quality of faith. This may be due to the fact that they

22 Solomon, From Rationalism to Existentialism, 7623 Solomon, From Rationalism to Existentialism, 9924 Kierkegaard, “Journals,” 4425 Roos, Søren Kierkegaard and Catholicism, 14

Lopez 10

were not ‘thinkers,’ per se, but ‘doers’. Abba James puts it quite nicely: “We do not

need words only, for, at the present time, there are many words among men, but we

need works, for this is what is required, not words which do not bear fruit.”26

Nonetheless, as Thomas Merton notes, there was a general awareness among the

Fathers of the “strictly individual character (emphasis mine)” of salvation.27 The

whole purpose of the ‘words’ (sayings) was to edify the individual in his own search

for God.28 After all, the Desert Fathers fled the cities to the desert for two principle

reasons. The first is that society – that is, Rome - was marked by values of pagan

traditions that limited them to the horizons of the corporeal world, and for the

Christian to passively accept these values, “was purely and simply a disaster.”29 The

second reason, and one that seems paradoxical in the light of the first, was that they

fled the Empire right when Christianity was becoming the unofficial religion of

Rome. The politicization of Christianity, indeed, this baptism of the known world as

‘Christian,’ spurred deep suspicions in these men, who believed that the only true

Christian society was a numinous, heavenly one.30 Kierkegaard could hardly bare

the politicization of Christianity in Denmark: could he dare to imagine life in a

‘Christian’ Rome? But the Desert Fathers exemplified the necessity of isolating

oneself from the crowd, indeed, an entire empire, in order to truly find God in a way

free of systematization and rationality. Abba Doulas said, “Detach yourself from the

love of the multitude, lest your enemy question your spirit and trouble your inner

26 Benedicta Ward, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, 10427 Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert, 328 Ibid., 12-1329 Ibid., 330 Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert, 3-4

Lopez 11

peace.”31 Abba Moses puts it more graphically: “The man who flees and lives in

solitude is like a bunch of grapes ripened by the sun, but he who remains amongst

men is like an unripe grape.”32

This freedom from prefigured doctrinal constraints found in the cities could

potentially give birth to certain dangers. One is that there could arise from the

desert itself a set of rigid dogmas, nullifying the entire intent of the flight to the

desert in the first place. But the fact is that one can never speak of the teaching or

the rule of the Fathers, because they were intentionally unsystematic in their ascetic

practices.33 Abba Amoun of Nitria asks Abba Antony, “Since my rule is stricter than

yours how is it that your name is better known amongst men than mine is?” Abba

Antony, the first ascetic to go to the desert and the founder of Christian monasticism

answers with a simple wisdom that is a trademark of the Desert Fathers: “It is

because I love God more than you.”34 It is not the severity of asceticism, but the

extent to which one seeks God in inwardness that is the true measure of greatness

among the Fathers. All of them impose different rules on themselves, but their goal

is the same: Communion (a relationship) with God. As Abba Poemon says, “The

practices of one saint differ from those of another, but it is the same Spirit that

works in all of them.”35

A second danger of abandoning the doctrinal formulas of the urban church is

the possibility for heresy. But as we have said, the Desert Fathers were not

31 Benedicta Ward, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, 5532 Ibid., 14033 Ibid., xxi34 Benedicta Ward, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, 3135 Ibid., 95

Lopez 12

reflective drafters of treatises. They were doers, not armchair theologians. Like

Kierkegaard’s Christian, they did not reject the central doctrines of Christianity, but

rather, “they accepted and clung to them in their simplest and most elementary

shape.”36 These were the guiding principles of a life of faith that they chose for

themselves, free of any systematic theologies or the force of popular influence.

IV. Spheres Of Existence

For Kierkegaard, people can be grouped into three categories: the aesthetic, the

ethical, and the religious. The aesthetic life is characterized by instant gratification

and lack of passionate commitment, a kind of lighthearted prancing through life and

enjoying of the baser pleasures. The aesthete is very susceptible to boredom, and

must employ a ‘rotation method,’ in which he toggles through different projects to

work on for a little bit at a time, in order to not be completely listless.37 The ethical

life is defined by the ‘universal,’ by the submission of self-interest to moral duty and

the greater good of the community he finds himself in. The ethical man

acknowledges his being part of society, and lives in a way that treats each person as

an end in himself, as Kant prescribed.38 He is committed to making choices and

passionately investing himself in those choices. The central problem with the

ethical life is that when moral absolutes clash (for example, the case of hiding Jews

from Nazis, but not being able to lie if the Nazis ask you if you are hiding them) can

lead to the despairing revelation of your own imperfection and limited power (Sin).

It is from here that some make the leap to the religious sphere. Here, the individual

36 Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert, 637 Solomon, Existentialism, 10-1138 Solomon, From Rationalism to Existentialism, 94

Lopez 13

transcends the universal, and he is no longer beholden to some human code of

ethics but to the will of God himself.39 In the previous sections we have elucidated

what characterizes a religious person (A Christian): truth for him is subjective, not

objective as in the ethical sphere; in recognition of his sin, he suffers greatly; and

because of that recognition he is compelled to live a life of action and asceticism, of

‘becoming.’ His reason for choosing the religious sphere is not based on some kind

of objective likelihood that the tenets of religion are rationally feasible, but because

in the face of Sin he is compelled to choose the paradox of faith.

Of the considerations presented in this essay, the philosophy of the spheres

of existence is least coherently mirrored by the Desert Fathers. Part of this may be

that, as we have shown, the community of the desert, which is itself a kind of

confederacy of individuals, almost monolithically consists of persons in the religious

sphere. There are no aesthetes in the desert, since by virtue of their refusal of

commitment and their preference for immediate pleasure they could not endure the

passionate immersion and long-suffering of the monastic way of life; consequently

there’s little to no mention of people who qualify as aesthetes.

In some instances, the emphasis on work and action blurs the breach

between the ethical and religious spheres in The Sayings. These instances are few

and far between, and the opaque distinctions between these two spheres usually

serve only as an auxiliary means to the more central admonition. There is one

salient case, however, in which the distinction between the Kierkegaardian

categories of the ethical and the religious among monks is made exceptionally clear.

39 Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, Trans. Alastair Hannay, 83-85

Lopez 14

In The Lives of the Desert Fathers, Abba John of Lycopolis shares his thoughts with

traveling admirers of the Fathers:

“For an ascetic is good if he is constantly training himself in the world, if he

shows brotherly love and practises hospitality and charity, if he gives alms

and is generous to visitors, if he helps the sick and does not give offence to

anyone. 63. He is good, he is exceedingly good, for he is a man who puts the

commandments into practice and does them. But he is occupied with

earthly things. Better and greater than he is the contemplative, who has

risen from active works to the spiritual sphere and has left it to others to be

anxious of earthly things… he is concerned with the things of heaven. He

stands unimpeded in the presence of God, without any anxiety holding him

back. For such a man spends his life with God; he is occupied with God, and

praises him with ceaseless hymnody.”40

In this excerpt we find astonishing parallels with the ascetic in the world and

Kierkegaard’s account of the crisis of the ethical person. The ascetic is ‘occupied

with earthly things,’ marred by the ‘anxiety’ over them. Couched in the context of

the ascetic’s great ethical qualities, this occupation and anxiety seems to stem from

the great and conflicting demands of putting the moral absolutes, like the Ten

Commandments, into action. He may be caught in a moral bind where carrying out

one Commandment may mean breaking another; and when he is convinced of the

absolute imperative of fulfilling all the commandments, what else could result from

this tension but anxiety? In his righteous action, he is made conscious of his Sin,

that he is still in Sin despite his steadfastly moral life.40The Lives of the Desert Fathers, Trans. Normal Russell, 62

Lopez 15

How can he escape this dread? By rising from ‘active works to the spiritual

sphere’: John of Lycopolis even uses the same geometric imagery as Kierkegaard.

He would transcend the moral absolutes of the Ten Commandments to be occupied

with God, a teleological suspension of the ethical wherein he becomes subservient no

longer to codes of ethics but to a higher Telos.41 He “leaps into the arms of God,”

where spends his life with him and ‘praises him with ceaseless hymnody.42 This is a

prime example of the motivation for the leap to faith, which, about one and a half

millennia before Kierkegaard, shares striking resemblances.

By this point we have shown the many ways in whih the Desert Fathers

prefigured the philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard. They embodied his call to

asceticism and action, exemplified the individual’s subjectivity of faith, and even

shared conceptions of his‘stages on life’s way. There is much more literature on

both Kierkegaard and the Desert Fathers than could be considered in this paper, but

this cursory gloss should provide enough insight into the matter to prove its

worthiness for philosophical and even theological study.

41 Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, Trans. Alastair Hannay, 85, 42 Solomon, From Rationalism to Existentialism,

Lopez 16

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Climacus, Anti. The Sickness Unto Death. Ed. Søren Kierkgaard. Trans. Alastair      Hannay. 1849. New York: Penguin Books, 2004. Print.

De Silentio, Johannes. Fear And Trembling. Ed. Søren Kierkegaard. Trans.      Alastair Hannay. 1985. New York: Penguin Books, 2003. Print.

Kierkegaard, Søren. The Journals of Kierkegaard. Ed. and trans. Alexander Dru.      1939. New York: Harper Torchbook, 1959. Print.

Merton, Thomas, trans. The Wisdom of the Desert. New York: New Directions, 1970.      Print.

Roos, Heinrichh. Søren Kierkegaard and Catholicism. Trans. Richard M Brackett,      S.J. Westminster: Newman Press, 1954. Print.

Russell, Norman, trans. The Lives of the Desert Fathers. Kalamazoo: Cistercian      Publications, 1980. Print.

Solomon, Robert C., ed. Existentialism. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford, 2005. Print.

- - -. From Rationalism to Existentialism. 1972. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield,      2001. Print.

Ward, Benedica, SLG, trans. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers. 2nd ed. 1975.      Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1984. Print.