"The 'what-ifs?' increase exponentially when your heart is walking around outside of your body wearing Buzz Lightyear light up shoes."
- BlestWithSons
Wednesday, August 9, 2006
Whoa.
“The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.â€What do you think?
- Soren Kierkegaard
[Hat Tip: That ramshackle rumhouse across the road]
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Comments on "Kierkegaard on Christian Scholarship":
2. Phil-a-buster
- 08/09/2006 8:04 am CDT
Awesome Quote. I especially love the last sentence.
I think he says here like what preachers want Mark Twain to be saying when Twain said, "It's not the parts of the Bible I don't understand that bother me. It's the parts that do."
Twain did say that, but he meant something entirely different. He was speaking, in context, as a skeptic who had serious problems with the Bible. He didn't like what the Bible said and disagreed with the "parts he understood". He didn't mean that quote from a standpoint of wanting to obey, as Kierkegaard seems to here.
4. Damien
- 08/09/2006 9:07 am CDT
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.
-G. K. Chesterton
5. nhe
- 08/09/2006 9:20 am CDT
I suppose the Golden Rule sums it all up.......but if we need it expanded, its in Romans 12 - and he's right it is pretty simple:
9Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality.
14Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. 16Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position.[a] Do not be conceited.
17Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody.
7. salguod
- 08/09/2006 5:50 pm CDT
Hmm, I guess that means you don't read my blog after all, eh? :-)
It's a great quote and, unfortunately, very true.
8. Custard
- 08/09/2006 9:35 pm CDT
Just to credit you that it's you I'm "borrowing" this quote from....
9. Terry
- 08/09/2006 9:43 pm CDT
Very impressive passage. Kierkegaard's right, how often do you follow every passage in the Bible? Romans 12 above is one, Luke 18 is another.
Luke 18:21-25: When Jesus heard this he said to him, "There is still one thing left for you: sell all that you have and distribute it to the poor, and you will have a treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." But when he heard this he became quite sad, for he was very rich. Jesus looked at him (now sad) and said, "How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God!
If we took them literally, "our lives would be ruined".
Thank goodness for Christian scholarship, indeed.
11. Kevin
- 08/10/2006 3:07 am CDT
This quote offers a valid caution, but it also represents a very cynical, negative view of Christian scholarship.
Granted that Kieerkegard was speaking to a different time and place, but when I think about the godly men whose profession and calling this quote undercuts, I couldn't say that I like it.
Was it Calvin's intention to defend himself against the Bible? Luther's? Packer's? Piper's? Wright's?
13. Danny Kaye
- 08/10/2006 4:30 am CDT
Hey Salguod.
Whose that Jeff Morris guy who left a comment on our post? He writes exactly like me!
He must be a really ok guy.
(heh-heh)
14. Damien
- 08/10/2006 4:44 am CDT
We don't neccessarily have to take Kierkegaard to be saying "all Christian scholarship" in a completely literal and comprehensive sense. And notice he starts by saying "we Christians" which even includes himself in a derogatory way. Sometimes the New Testament uses the term "the Jews" without qualifying it to mean that group of Jews which was murderously opposed to Jesus. This phrase is obviously shorthand for "the unbelieving Jews."
Kierkegaard is commenting on fallen human nature in it's obstinate opposition to the rule of God; something both the unregenerate and the regenerate possess to varying degrees. It's not a pretty sight. As Robert Murray M'Cheyne confessed: "The seed of every sin is in my breast."
There's a marked tendency within scholarly circles (and each of us) to explain things away rather than embrace simple and obvious truths presented to us in Scripture.
15. Leslie28
- 08/10/2006 6:20 am CDT
Authenticity isn't cheap. No wonder it was bought at such a price. It is much harder to live as we are called to live than talk about why we should.
This is one of those coins that just keeps flipping--heads, tails, heads tails. . .
We study to reap wisdom, we study to defend our sin. We study to show the way to unbelievers, we study to prove our fellow believers wrong in their studies. We defend our faith, we attack "wrong doctrine".
Thank God for grace, eh?
No, really. . .thank God for grace.
I keep forgetting to. Most days I'm too busy studying what men think the bible says, commenting on it, and distracting myself with the stuff of life in between.
16. Ame
- 08/10/2006 7:54 pm CDT
It's easy to believe the Bible is Truth when we don't even really know what the Bible says. When we actually read it and know what it says, then we must challenge our belief that the Bible is Truth ... and then we must choose.
17. Kevin
- 08/11/2006 3:37 am CDT
Damien:
Perhaps you are right. On the other hand, to say that from the very beginning Christian scholarship has been about protecting Christians from the Bible and that herein lies its "real place" doesn't leave much room for your view, in my opinion.
Again, Kieerkegaard makes a good point. I just wish he wouldn't have denigrated a godly and honorable profession in the process.
18. Ellen
- 08/11/2006 4:14 am CDT
Kierkegaard’s right, how often do you follow every passage in the Bible?
We can't. That's why we need a savior.
The more I read the Bible, the more I realize how lost I was and the more grateful I am for Christ's sacrifice on the cross.
19. Terry
- 08/11/2006 9:25 pm CDT
"Again, Kierkegaard makes a good point. I just wish he wouldn’t have denigrated a godly and honorable profession in the process."
Hey, it's not just Kierkegaard who did that; anyone remember Nietzsche? Both these geniuses knew that 19th century Christian scholarship was the pits and attacked it thusly. But where Nietzsche threw everything about Christianity away, at least Kierkegaard tries to rekindle the faith.
20. David Marcoe
- 08/12/2006 11:51 am CDT
Nietzsche was an arrogant iconoclast, or, to borrow a a quote from Quills (which wasn't about Nietzsche, btw), "You're just a malcontent who can spell."
Both these geniuses knew that 19th century Christian scholarship was the pits and attacked it thusly.
See, when I think about 19th century Christian scholarship, I think about the vacuous and slipshod attempts to discredit and deconstruct the faith on Nietzsche's side of the fence. The scholarship was just laughable, even for the period. Granted, the Church was on auto-pilot. In the US, the death of Puritanism by the end of the 18th century has either left liberals schismatics who were the epitome of Kierkegaard's comments (Unitarians and various wings of the "High Church" denoms) or conservatives who embraced anti-intellectualism (Baptists, Methodists...). And Europe had just taken a plain 'ol dive in to insanity...which resulted in people like Nietzsche.
I can think of a few Christian giants of intellect who stand out duriong the period--Lord Acton, Cardinal Newman, Abraham Kuyper--but the Church was definitely abandoning its head, its heart, and its balls to stand up for thr truth.
D'oh. Looks like Alan posted something on this a year ago.