Therefore, Kierkegaard understood that the form of the gospel is absolutely vital to it being understood correctly and believed that the particular form intrinsic to the gospel is “hiddenness.” As one who sought to communicate this gospel he endeavored to undertake this form in his own authorship.
Poul Martin Møller
The impact of Professor Poul Martin Møller on the development of Kierkegaard’s interest in the relation between form and content is important to recognize. Møller was an unconventional teacher whose admiration of Socrates was influential for Kierkegaard. Møller sought to embody his belief in the importance of a life’s relation to what was taught, so his philosophy “was lived out in conversations in the market square and with ordinary people.”97 However, this method presented a problem for Kierkegaard as his follower, who “feared, not without reason, that when Møller was no longer able to support his ideas with his own living personality—and thereby demonstrate their legitimacy—posterity would be unable to sense the scope of his contribution to a philosophy of living.”98 Kierkegaard embraced similar convictions to Møller in terms of the importance of form and subjective pathos (passions) in communication but, just as Kierkegaard extended his friend’s Socratic ideas, he also extended Møller’s form of communicating them.99 Kierkegaard sought to improve on Møller’s method of indirect, lived communication, shifting it from being outworked primarily through the medium of live performance to literature.100
Whatever Møller may have encouraged or even initiated in Kierkegaard, it is the New Testament that led Kierkegaard to see a more substantial foundation for understanding the significance of the relation between form and content in the Christian event of the incarnation. This theological foundation gave rise to Kierkegaard pursuing a form of authorship that was characterized by hiddenness.101 By being roused to the importance of form’s relation to content through Socrates and Møller, Kierkegaard found the fulfillment of such congruence in the gospel. The particular shape this congruence took was the hidden invitation of God to the individual.
Being Hidden “In the Truth”
In summary, Kierkegaard saw form (not merely content) as being a vital factor in communication. He ultimately saw such congruence between form and content as being embodied in the incarnation of the God-Man, who came hidden “in the form of a servant.”102 Thus in communicating the gospel, Kierkegaard understood that his communication must likewise be undertaken in hiddenness in order to complement and preserve the subjective invitation of God. Before we conclude this chapter, one final point of clarification is necessary.
Søren Kierkegaard fundamentally understood that his entire life was hidden in Christ, and that Christ himself was the truth.103 Therefore, attempting to undertake his authorial task through the form of hiddenness was not only necessary for his outward communication, but was itself an outworking of his own Christian discipleship.104 Striving after Christ is to strive after the truth, who is also the way: “only then do I in truth know the truth, when it becomes a life in me.”105 For Kierkegaard, the truth is embodied: it is characterized by a congruence between form and content, where the believer strives to be who she is, that is, hidden in Christ.106 And because Christ is the only truly congruent one, the communication of his truth is to be in the truth: that is, to be hidden in Christ.
Thus, this is my thesis:
Through Kierkegaard’s understanding of the gospel, his authorship took the form of hiddenness.
Conclusion
In this chapter we have sought to establish a link between Kierkegaard’s understanding of Christianity and his own life’s task as an author. Through examining his understanding of the Christian doctrine of the incarnation, we have seen that this formed the basis for his understanding of the necessity of the congruence between form and content. So we have seen that Kierkegaard’s belief of God being hidden in the particular person of Jesus necessitated Kierkegaard’s own authorial form of hiddenness. Now we turn to look in greater detail at that which Kierkegaard was reacting to.
73. “Kierkegaard’s conception of his authorship and his incarnational view of God in Christ should be understood together . . .” (Rasmussen, Between Irony and Witness, 2).
74. Kierkegaard understood that “The Glory of Being Human” consisted of being an individual. As he explains in his own name, “God set human beings apart and made each human being this one individual being . . .” and to neglect this fact by a person associating herself with “the crowd” is a negation of such glory: “The individual animal is an individual only in a numerical sense and belongs to what the most renowned of pagan thinkers called the attribute of animality: the mass. In this way, those who despairingly turn away from those elementary thoughts in order to plunge into the mass element of comparison make themselves into mere numerical individuals, regarding themselves as if they were animals, whether they emerge from the comparison at the top or at the bottom of the pile” (Kierkegaard, Spiritual Writings, 121–22).
75. It is important to realize though that for Kierkegaard there was actually no such thing as a “single individual” apart from under God. See Rae, Kierkegaard’s Vision of the Incarnation, 145. But this category is important for a preliminary understanding of what Kierkegaard wanted his reader to be aware of in order to truly consider Christianity, and could be a good summation of the goal of the pseudonymous authorship before Postscript, as we shall explore below.