Was Kierkegaard a Universalist?

Abstract

Christian universalism, or the theory of universal salvation, is increasingly popular among religious thinkers. A small group of scholars has put forward the contentious claim that Kierkegaard was a universalist, despite that he refers in places to the idea of eternal damnation as essential to Christianity. This paper examines the evidence both for and against the view that Kierkegaard was a universalist and concludes that despite Kierkegaard’s occasional references to the importance of the idea of eternal damnation to Christianity, there is reason to believe that Kierkegaard may have been a universalist, both in terms of the substance of his thought, including two unequivocal statements in his journals that he believed everyone would eventually be saved and in terms of his rhetorical style which prioritizes the effect his writings would have on the reader over the literal truth of the views they present.

1. Introduction

Christian universalism, or the theory of universal salvation, is increasingly popular among religious thinkers and religious individuals more generally. Once considered a heresy, its contemporary proponents include David Bentley Hart, author of That All Shall be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation [1], Thomas Talbott, author of The Inescapable Love of God [2], and Robin Perry, author of the pseudonymously published The Evangelical Universalist: The biblical hope that God’s love will save us all [3]. A two-volume comprehensive study of the history of Christian universalism was also published in 2019 under the titles A Larger Hope? Universal Salvation from Christian Beginnings to Julian of Norwich [4], and A Larger Hope? Universal Salvation from the Reformation to the Nineteenth Century [5].

Confusion remains, however, concerning exactly what universalism is. It is sometimes confused with religious pluralism, but it is, in fact, quite distinct from pluralism. Pluralism says essentially that all religions are effectively on an equal footing, that each is an attempt to connect its adherents with transcendent truth via traditions embedded in particular cultural and historical practices. Pluralists are not necessarily universalists. That is, each religion has a view of the shape an individual life should take, so each has its own eschatology, which often includes some concept of eventual annihilation, or even eternal damnation, for those whose lives fail to achieve that shape. Universalism, on the other hand, may or may not be pluralistic. Christian universalists believe salvation is through Christ alone. What distinguishes them from Christians who are not universalists is that they believe everyone will eventually be redeemed by Christ, even if this redemption may involve a period of punishment.

Universal restoration, or apokatastasis, the idea that all rational creatures are finally restored to God, appears to have been a popular view in the early church.1 Its proponents included not merely Origen but also earlier Christian thinkers such as Bardaisan of Edessa and Clement of Alexandria, and later Christian thinkers such as Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazianzus, Evagrius Ponticus, and John Scotus Eriugena, to name just a few.2 The popularity of universalism among early Christians should not be surprising because there is plentiful biblical support for the view in both the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament. Lamentations 3:31 asserts, for example, that “the Lord will not reject forever”, and that “[a]lthough he causes grief, he will have compassion according to his steadfast love.” In the New Testament, John 12:31, for example, has Jesus asserting that he will draw “all people” to himself upon his resurrection. This point is repeated when Jesus says in John 17:2, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your son so that the son may glorify you, since you have given him the authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him” (emphasis added). I Corinthians 15:22 states that “for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ” (emphasis added). I John 2:2 states that Jesus is “the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world.”3 And then again, in I Timothy 2:4, it is asserted that God “desires everyone to be saved.”

It may be objected, of course, that God may desire that everyone be saved, but that does not mean God obtains this. That God wants everyone to be saved does not necessarily mean everyone will be saved. After all, God has given people free will and an implication of this is that people have the freedom to reject God. The problem with this view is that it has ominous implications for the traditional view that God is omnipotent. That is, if God does not receive what God wants, that means God is, in the end, defeated, and the idea that an omnipotent being could be defeated is simply incoherent.

Still, the problem remains that people appear able to reject God, and this is likely the reason for the references to “damnation” in both the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament. It is far from clear, however, that there are any references to “eternal damnation.” The New Testament, according to Ramelli, contains

very few passages that might be taken to indicate an eternal damnation: the most obvious candidates are those that speak of “αίώνιον fire” and “αίώνιος punishment”, and of the worm “that does not die” and the fire “that cannot be quenched” (e.g., Matt 18:8–9; 25:41). However, while all of these phrases indicate otherworldly suffering, none of these indicates its eternity [6,7]4. They have not a quantitative, but a qualitative meaning; they denote that this fire, punishment, and worm are not similar to those of this world/age, but belong to the other world/age. For fire in this world can be quenched and worms in this world die, but in the world to come it will not be so. As for the adjective αίώνιος (aiōnios), it never means “eternal” in Scripture unless it refers to God; when it refers to life, death, and other things such as “fire”, it means “belonging to the world to come”, “otherworldly”, “divine”. In the Bible, only life in the other world is called “eternal” proper (άΐδιος/aïdios),5 whereas death, punishment, and fire are never called άΐδια, but only αίώνια, “otherworldly”.

[8]6

Elaborate arguments were advanced by early Christians to support that evil could not endure forever and that sin itself would eventually be destroyed by God, arguments that would appear to be based, at least in part, on the view that there are few, if any, references to eternal damnation in Christian scriptures. It is not my intention here to defend these arguments or the more specific claim that there are few if any references to “eternal damnation” in Christian scriptures. My objective is simply to present what would appear to have been the view of early universalists and what they would have taken as support for that view. Many, such as Origen, believed in a period of punishment for those who refused to renounce sin or to come to Christ while they were alive (hence the necessity of a place of correction), but believed that this punishment would eventually result in their reformation and restoration to God. An appreciation of the existence of such views among early Christians, and indeed even among later Christians such as German pietists, provides an essential context for any attempt to understand Kierkegaard’s eschatology.

2. Kierkegaard and Universalism

2.1. Evidence against the View That Kierkegaard Was a Universalist

Whether Kierkegaard was a universalist is far from clear. There are scholars who appear to think he was [9]7, and there are places in Kierkegaard’s works that suggest he may have had universalist leanings. Kierkegaard famously says, for example, in Philosophical Crumbs [10] that if a person did not receive the condition for understanding the truth from God (i.e., Christ) in this life, “[i]f they met each other in another life, this teacher would again be able to give the condition” (SKS Vol. 4, p. 226/Crumbs, p. 95). Since the “condition” in question is faith, the implication is that those who lack faith, for whatever reason, are not damned to hell for eternity but will have repeated chances to attain it. Kierkegaard may even have believed that the faithless would continue to be presented with such chances until, finally, they did receive it.

The difficulty with this interpretation, apart from its apparent reliance on the doctrine of reincarnation, is that the passage in question continues “[b]ut one who had once received it [but lost it again] would be a stranger to him”, because “[t]he condition was something entrusted, for which the receiver would always be required to give an account” (SKS Vol. 4, p. 226/Crumbs, p. 95). That does not necessarily mean that someone who had not had faith in this life would be damned to hell eternally, but it does have ominous implications for those who had faith in this life and then lost it.

There are multiple references to both “hell”, or Helvede, and “damnation”, or Fortabelse, in Kierkegaard’s writings (though, interestingly, exponentially more references in the commentaries on Kierkegaard’s writings in the new Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter8 [11] than in the writings themselves). Even that does not necessarily mean, however, that Kierkegaard believed in eternal damnation because universalists from Origen in the third century, up to George MacDonald in the nineteenth century, also refer occasionally to hell or to damnation though as a place, or form, of corrective rather than retributive punishment.

A casual search on the online edition of Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter (Søren Kierkegaard’s writings) [11] is not encouraging for those who would like to view Kierkegaard as a universalist. Though infrequent, references to “eternal damnation”, or evig Fortabelse, occur throughout Kierkegaard’s writings, both published and unpublished, beginning at least as early as 1845 and continuing until his attack on the Danish Lutheran Church just before his death in 1855.

The reference from 1845 occurs in one of Kierkegaard’s journals in the context of what looks like notes relating to various writing projects,9 and appears to provide further ruminations on “the problem of the Crumbs”, published a year earlier, on whether an eternal consciousness can “have a historical point of departure” (SKS Vol. 4, p. 213/Crumbs, 83).

In a way, it is easy to prove that punishment in Hell is eternal [Helvede-Straffens Evighed], and in any case here it is once again possible to demonstrate how difficult it is to get a historical point of departure for an eternal salvation in time, and in addition, how thoughtlessly hum[an] [12]10 beings behave. The first point (the problem of The Crumbs) [10]11 is supposed to be so easy to understand, everyone can grasp it. No one wants to accept the second point (the eternity of punishment in Hell, i.e., eternal damnation [evig Usalighed]), and the Church teaches about it in vain, because it is safe to assume that no one believes it. Alas! Alas! Alas, what thinkers! The problem is entirely the same. If anyone can think of the one (a decision in time regarding an eternal salvation) then he has eo ipso also thought of the other one. If time can be an adequate medium for a decision regarding an eternal salvation, then of course it is also one for an eternal damnation [evig Usalighed].

(SKS Vol. 18, p. 252/KJN, Vol. 2, p. 232)

There are also references to “eternal damnation” in Works of Love, published in 1847. Kierkegaard writes there that “Christianity discovered a danger called eternal damnation” (SKS Vol. 9, p. 195/WOL, p. 196). At least two references to “eternal damnation” occur in Christian Discourses, written in 1848 (though not published until 1850).

No wonder that one is unaware of the possibility of offense with respect to being and becoming a Christian. No wonder established Christendom is like sheer meaninglessness. That a man, fully and firmly convinced, therefore in fear and trembling, that only in faith in Christ is there eternal happiness, outside it only eternal perdition [evig Fortabelse], and that offense is the danger—that he could get it into his head to venture everything—in that there is meaning.

(SKS 12, p. 118/PC, p. 112)

and

The greatest distance, greater than from the most distant star to the earth, greater than any human skill can measure, is the distance from God’s grace to God’s wrath, from the Christian to the pagan, from being blessedly saved in grace to “eternal perdition [evig Fortabelse] away from God”.

(SKS 10, p. 77–78/CD, p. 69)12

Kierkegaard writes in his journals in 1849 that

If you take the horror of eternity away (either eternal salvation [evig Salighed] or eternal perdition [evig Fortabelse]), then the willingness to follow Jesus is basically a fantasy. For only the seriousness of the eternal can obligate and motivate someone to take the decisive risk, and only the seriousness of the eternal can justify doing so.

(SKS 22, p. 92/KJN Vol. 6, p. 88)

And, in 1851, he writes in Judge for Yourselves: “‘O miserable, despicable mammon,’ that is what his life expressed, ‘miserable mammon, with which a person defiles himself by hoarding, which he accumulates to his own ruination [Fordærvelse], which he possesses to his own damnation [Fortabelse], in order finally to curse himself eternally in hell [i Helvede evigt at forbande sig self]” (SKS 16, pp. 225–226/JFY, p. 177).

Most of Kierkegaard’s references to “eternal damnation” appear, however, to come late in his life and, in particular, in connection with his attack on the Church. He writes in his journals, for example, in 1854, that “The NT [i.e., New Testament] is clearly based on the view that there is eternal damnation [evig Fortabelse]” (SKS 25, pp. 259–260/KJN, Vol. 9, p. 262). He observes as well concerning the span of human life that “the person who is capable of grasping God’s notion of how brief those 70 years are, and how frightful eternal perdition [evig Fortabelse13 is—he will understand that it cannot occur to God that there might be any hesitation on the part of the hum[an] being, as if this condition [of suffering in this life] were too rigorous” (SKS 26, p. 146/KJN Vol. 10, p. 145). He refers to eternal perdition again in 1854 when he says in a journal entry “nor are we exactly inclined to be properly serious with respect to the matter concerning an eternal salvation and eternal perdition [evig Fortabelse] to be won or lost in this life, we are a little afraid that this could make one’s life too serious” (SKS 27, p. 629/KJN Vol. 11, 2, p. 333).

“The New Testament’s point of view”, begins another entry from the same year,

is solely and exclusively: eternity. This is the topic, this is what it concerns itself with—and then it says it as it is: If there is talk of an eternal damnation [evig Fortabelse], then whatever you might suffer in these few temporal years is nothing, yes, sheer grace, even if you got off with suffering the most possible in those few years and then were eternally blessed [evigt blev salig]. That is, the N.T. is so lost in the eternal that it treats this life entirely as a bagatelle.

(SKS 26, p. 348/KJN Vol. 10, p. 358)

“It was with a fear and trembling”, observes Kierkegaard, “of which we have scarcely any notion that the first Christians related to the idea of the accounting and judgement of eternity, that the significance of this life was to be a test—frightful effort!—the outcome of which was eternal salvation or eternal perdition [evig Fortabelse]” (SKS Vol 27, p. 642/KJN, Vol. 11, 2, p. 347).

If Christianity truly exists, he observes, again in a journal entry from 1854, “then this means that the eternal is so important for a hum[an] being that for him this life is a bagatelle, this life with every possible suffering [is] still but a bagatelle compared with escaping eternal perdition [evig Fortabelse]” (SKS Vol. 26, p. 350/KJN Vol. 10, p. 358). There are two more references to “eternal perdition” in another journal entry from 1854 where Kierkegaard says that “that grace is to be saved from eternal perdition [evig Fortabelse]” (SKS 26, p. 351/KJN Vol. 10, p. 359).

A journal entry from 1855, the period of Kierkegaard’s attack on the Danish Lutheran Church, reads as follows:

With Xnty [i.e., Christianity], God, the almighty ruler of heaven and earth, the majesty of majesties wanted to govern, to bring up human beings. Now, it is of course clear that he understands how to govern. His idea was to govern with the assistance of eternity as the background: an eternal salvation—or an eternal perdition [evig Fortabelse].

(SKS Vol. 27, p. 664/KJN Vol. 11, 2, p. 370)

Kierkegaard observes in the seventh installment of The Moment, from 1855, that parents cannot tell their children that the world into they bring them “is, Christianly, a sinful, ungodly, wicked world; that misery, agony, and wretchedness await everyone who is born if he is among those who are saved; and that eternal damnation [evig Fortabelse] awaits those for whom it goes the opposite way in this world. (SKS 13, p. 307/Moment and Late Writings, p. 251).

Another reference to eternal damnation appears in the ninth installment of The Moment where Kierkegaard asks the following:

But what good is it, what good is it to have this life, assisted by the preacher-lie, made easy and cozy? Eternity is not fooled. And just as rigidly as the human race stands on its right to punish, even with death, this not wanting to be like the others, so inflexibly does eternity hold to its right to punish with eternal damnation the reassuring of oneself by being just like the others.

(SKS 13, p. 377/Moment and Late Writings, p. 315)

“In an article in Nordisk Kirketidende”, Kierkegaard writes in his journal in 1854, “Fenger from Slotsbjergbye wrote affirming the eternity of punishment in hell [Helvedstraffens Evighed] and scoffing at the Christians who imagine themselves to be Christian without having heaven-hell. From a Christian point of view, he is right” (SKS Vol. 27, p. 640/KJN vol. 11: Part 2, p. 345)

The rest of the entry proceeds to argue that there is insufficient concern among Christians for the situation of those who may be damned to hell for eternity and that Fenger was himself among those whose concern seemed insufficient.

2.2. The Evidence in Support of the View That Kierkegaard Was a Universalist

It is conceivable, of course, that when Kierkegaard observes that there is insufficient concern among Christians for the situation of those who may be damned to hell, he was simply pointing out that if there were a hell to which God damned anyone eternally, as so many Christians believe, then Christians should be far more concerned with the spiritual situation of their fellow man, not to mention their own spiritual situation, than they tend to be. This sort of explanation is possible with respect to many of Kierkegaard’s references to “eternal damnation.” After all, Kierkegaard had an excellent command of ancient Greek and, hence, had to be aware of the essentially equivocal nature of all references in the New Testament to αίών and αίώνιος. The difficulty is that without some positive evidence to support that Kierkegaard was a universalist, the fact that it is possible to explain away many, if not all, of Kierkegaard’s references to eternal damnation cannot advance from the status of a possibility to that of a probability.

Fortunately, such positive evidence does exist. The pervasiveness of universalism in early Christianity is importantly relevant to the question of whether Kierkegaard was a universalist not simply because Kierkegaard would have been exposed to much of this material as part of his theological studies but also because Kierkegaard was particularly interested in what he sometimes referred to as “original Christianity” (oprindelige Christendom).14 and references to Origen, Clement of Alexandria, and John Scotus Erigena are found in his works.15 Kierkegaard’s familiarity with the works of early Christian universalists means that he was likely also familiar with their views on universal salvation. His exposure to the theory of universal salvation was not limited, however, to its occurrence in the thought of early Christians. Belief in universal salvation is also characteristic of many early German pietists, such as Johann Wilhelm Petersen (1649–1726) and his wife Johanna (1644–1724), Johann Albrecth Bengel, Enrst Christoph Hochman von Hochenau (1670–1721), Alexander Mack (1679–1735), and many of the Moravian Brethren group from which the Herrnhuter stemmed [5]16. Kierkegaard’s father, Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard, was a member of the Herrnhut community in Copenhagen and hosted informal meetings with other members in his home. Not only that, “when he joined a regular parish church within Copenhagen, he joined the parish of Pastor Saxtorph, the only Herrnhuter and most confirmed pietist among the official clergy in Copenhagen” ([13], p. 34).

One of the chief texts of the German pietists was Alexander Mack’s Brief and Simple Exposition of the Outward But Yet Sacred Rights and Ordinances of the House of God ([14], pp. 113–115). Mack writes there that

Many who have heard about universal restoration commit the great folly not to deny themselves completely but rather hope for the restoration. This hope will most certainly come to naught when they enter the torment, and can see no end to it. Their pitiful comfort will vanish like smoke. Therefore, it is much better to practice this simple truth that one should try to become worthy in the time of grace to escape the wrath of God and the torments of hell, rather than deliberate how or when it would be possible to escape from it again. It is as if a thief were to console himself like this: “Oh, even if I am seized because of the theft, my punishment will have its end.” Would not that be a miserable consolation!

Therefore, that is a much better and more blessed gospel which teaches how to escape the wrath of God than the gospel which teaches that eternal punishment has an end. Even though this is true, it should not be preached as a gospel to the Godless [5]17.

The view that the threat of eternal torment may be essential to generating what Kierkegaard refers to as religious “seriousness” [Alvor] in a person is echoed in his observation from 1849 that “[i]f you take the horror of eternity [Evighedens Forfærdelse] away (either eternal salvation [evig Salighed] or eternal perdition [evig Fortabelse]), then the willingness to follow Jesus is basically a fantasy. For only the seriousness of the eternal [Evighedens Alvor] can obligate and motivate someone to take the decisive risk, and only the seriousness of the eternal can justify doing so” (SKS 22, p. 92/KJN 6, p. 88).

That is, Kierkegaard’s emphasis on the apparent necessity of the threat of eternal damnation appears to be motivated not by ontological concerns so much as by phenomenological ones, which is to say, by an understanding of human psychology. This can be seen even more clearly in a journal entry from 1854.

“Luther understood the matter as follows”, writes Kierkegaard in his journal,

no hum[an] being can endure the anxiety associated with the belief that his striving is to be decisive with regard to eternal salvation or eternal perdition. No, no, says Luther, this can only lead to despair or to blasphemy. And therefore (take note), therefore (for Luther clearly alters the Xnty [i.e., Christianity] of the New Testament on the grounds that hum[an] beings otherwise might despair)—therefore it cannot be so. You are saved by grace—and then see to it that you strive as much as you can…

…But I repeatedly come back to this: that Luther should have made the true situation clear. In my view, it is not a rebellious act for subjects, who truly cannot pay their taxes, to say straightforwardly to the monarch: We cannot pay the taxes. What is not permissible, however, is to misrepresent the amount of the taxes, quietly make the amount less than it is—and then honestly pay it.

(SKS Vol. 25, pp. 476–477/KJN Vol. 9, pp. 482–483)

What is important about this passage is that while Kierkegaard objects to Luther’s presentation of Christianity, he agrees with him in terms of substance. Kierkegaard agrees with Luther that we cannot live up to what would appear to be the demands of Christianity but that we are saved by grace despite this. Kierkegaard’s position is thus ontologically identical to Luther’s. It is their phenomenology that differs. Kierkegaard appears to believe that people must experience the anxiety associated with the view that their striving is decisive with regard to eternal salvation or eternal perdition, that they must experience it and, in effect, be crushed under it because only in that state of the complete abandonment of hope is the encounter with God in the person of Christ possible, and only in that encounter is eternal salvation attained.

“Alas, we who are brought up from childhood in [Christianity]”, writes Kierkegaard in his journals in 1853:

we all live, after all, in the toned-down, irresponsible notion, so pleasant for hum[an] beings, that surely we will all be saved: the N.T. [i.e., New Testament] expresses the opposite: a little flock that will be eternally saved, and the remainder. Oh my God! I can become anxious unto death when I think about whether I will be saved—ah, but I can become almost equally anxious, indeed, just as anxious, when I think about whether someone else will not be eternally saved, someone else, someone else whom one loves as much as one loves oneself, for whom one would do everything.

Alas, we who are brought up from childhood in Xnty [i.e., Christianity], we have no notion of the great Christian collisions, this hating father and mother, etc.—for is it not like hating them when one lives in a faith through which one believes that one will be saved, and one then cannot get the others to embrace it, and thus, according to that same faith, one must believe that they will be eternally lost [evigt fortabte]—is it not like hating them when one does not choose to let go of one’s faith and follow the beloved! But there is no hint of such collisions in “Xndom” [i.e., Christendom] where of course we are all Xns [i.e., Christians] and all will be saved!

(SKS 25, p.253/KJN Vol. 9, p. 255)

Kierkegaard emphasizes the psychological significance of the threat of eternal damnation again the following year when he writes the following:

I cannot understand that a person can bear to live in the belief that he would be blessed while others go to hell [Helvede], forever lost [evig fortabte]. However, as said, this is because I have been demoralized; it is r[ea]lly because of such damned childish rubbish that respect for divine majesty has been lost.

Only when a hum[an] being fights for the eternal blessedness [evig Salighed] of his soul, only then is he able to endure or venture forth into what the first Christians endured, but this implies, eo ipso that others are lost [fortabes].

If someone were to say, [“]I, for my part, will bear everything as long as it does not mean that others must go to hell [Helvede],[“] the reply must be, [“]In that case, you are not bearing everything; you will see that, when push comes to shove, if you lack the firm conviction that you are fighting for the eternal blessedness [evig Salighed] of your soul (and if this is clear and certain, then it is eo ipso clear that others are going to hell [Helvede])—then you will see that you cannot bear everything—you are reducing the stakes. For only this tension of struggling for one’s eternal blessedness [evig Salighed] can lead a pers[on] truly to endure everything.

(SKS 25, p. 406/KJN 9, p. 410 [1854])

It is thus possible that when Kierkegaard talks about the idea of “eternal damnation” as essential to Christianity, he means that in a phenomenological, not an ontological sense. That is, Kierkegaard may well have believed that the idea of eternal damnation was essential to the consciousness of one who would become a Christian. There may be no other road to Christianity, according to Kierkegaard, than to venture everything for it, and it may not be possible to venture everything if one believes that in the end, it will not really matter because everyone will be saved independently of how they lived.

Kierkegaard was famously concerned with the effect his writings would have on others. It is possible he thought, like other universalists before him, that the idea of universal salvation just would not be very helpful to people in that it would incline them to take Christianity less seriously. It might be objected, however, that the fact that some of his references to eternal damnation are in his journals and papers (i.e., in material not obviously meant for public consumption) poses problems for that thesis.

There are several possible responses to that objection. First, as noted earlier, at least some of the passages in question may well be drafts of pieces Kierkegaard had in mind to publish. Second, even the passages that would not appear to have been drafts of pieces intended for publication may have been akin to philosophical or theological thought experiments. That is, they may have been attempts to work out the inherent logic of a view of Christianity that included eternal damnation rather than attempts to present Kierkegaard’s own views. Third, it is also possible, and arguably even probable, that such passages reflect Kierkegaard’s fear that he might himself become complacent about his own salvation and that he, thus, felt it necessary to continue to entertain at least the theoretical possibility of eternal damnation.

So, was Kierkegaard a universalist? There are passages from his journals that provide the kind of support for the thesis that can be found in the thoughts of other universalists. “[T]he world has come into being through a falling away from God”, writes Kierkegaard in 1855,

it exists against his will, every day it exists against God’s will; he wants to have it back. He does not want to annihilate it with his omnipotence, for that is not how the whole is constituted; it is a world of freedom that freely fell away from him and that he wants to have back.

(SKS 27, p. 685/KJN Vol. 11, 2, pp. 393–394, emphasis added)

But if God, who is omnipotent, wants something, then presumably, he will use that omnipotence to obtain it, and all of it. This view arguably underlies Kierkegaard’s observation that God appeared in the person of Christ “not to judge but to save, not to make his dwelling place known so that the lost might seek him, but in order to seek out the lost” (SKS 27, p. 355/KJN Vol. 11 2, p. 59). That is, this observation suggests Kierkegaard believes God, in the person of Christ, intends to find and save each fallen person, independently of whether that person wishes this.

“As we stipulate, with greater and greater precision, the conditions for salvation”, writes Kierkegaard, are regarded

to that same degree [where] it becomes clear there are fewer and fewer whom we may dare believe will be saved. But for sympathy it is a torment to be saved in contrast to others.

So, I have come to understand the situation this way: The conditions for salvation are posited in relation to each single individual hum[an] being, and for every individual they are different. There is a universal proclamation of Xnty [Christianity], but as far as the conditions of salvation are concerned, every single individual must relate himself to God as a single individual.

(SKS Vol 25, p. 475/KJN Vol. 9, p. 481)

So, the dynamic of individual salvation is something of a mystery. That Kierkegaard believed in it, however, and believed that everyone would eventually experience it is not a mystery. This is reflected in a journal entry from 1851 where Kierkegaard observes that “[t]o say to others: [“]…. or you are eternally damned”—no, I am not capable of that. For me, the situation is always that all the others will surely be saved, that is certain—only with me can here be anything dubious” (SKS Vol. 24, p. 330/KJN Vol. 8, p. 333, emphasis added).

Kierkegaard’s universalism is expressed even more directly in a crucial passage in a journal entry from 1854. It reads as follows:

[W]hat the old bishop once said to me is not true—namely, that I spoke as if others were going to hell. No, if I can be said to speak at all of going to hell, then I am going along with them. But I do not believe that; on the contrary, I believe that we will all be saved, I too, and this awakens my deepest wonder.

[15,16]18

So, what are we to make of the apparent contradiction between Kierkegaard’s various pronouncements concerning “eternal damnation” and his unequivocal statement toward the end of his life in favor of universal salvation? It is possible that Kierkegaard simply changed his mind on this issue. He may well have been ambivalent about it throughout his life. It is also possible, however, that Kierkegaard was attracted to universalism early on, not simply through his exposure to it in the thought of the aforementioned Church Fathers and the German pietist tradition in which he was raised, but also because of its inherent logic.

It is simply impossible to tell from the evidence of the authorship whether Kierkegaard, in fact, always believed in the reality of universal salvation but wrote about the importance in Christianity of the idea of eternal damnation because he felt the idea was essential to avoid spiritual complacency, or whether he came gradually to adopt the view of eternal salvation. The weight of the evidence is arguably on the first hypothesis, however, given that Kierkegaard nowhere acknowledges such a purported gradual transition in his views on this issue or what might have been the reasons for it. Indeed, the one unequivocal statement Kierkegaard makes in support of eternal salvation involves no acknowledgment that he ever held any other view, and the fact that this statement is formulated in the past tense (i.e., “[w]hat the old bishop once said to me…that I spoke as if others were going to hell…” [emphasis added]), and is hence a defense not of the position Kierkegaard held at the time he made the journal entry, but of the position he held at the time “the old bishop” had made the accusation in question against him, supports that Kierkegaard had in fact always been a universalist.

We need to look again at the passage from which Kierkegaard’s statement in support of universalism comes in order to answer definitively the question of why he writes, at least occasionally, about the importance to Christianity of the idea of eternal damnation. The paragraph that contains the statement begins: “What I have repeated again and again should be kept in mind: ‘I am without authority, am only a poet.”19 That is, Kierkegaard did not write straightforward didactic works in the manner of conventional theologians. He expressed his views indirectly, either through the simple use of pseudonymity or through more subtle means such as sarcasm, irony, and hyperbole. Kierkegaard believed that what was presented as Christianity in his day was a watered-down version of what it had originally been and what it was essentially. He believed that the public needed, effectively, to be shocked into an appreciation of what Christianity genuinely was. This can be seen in a conversation Kierkegaard had with his friend Emil Boesen on his deathbed in Frederiks Hospital. Boesen asked Kierkegaard whether he might want to soften any of his public proclamations about Christianity given that they did not really correspond to actuality but were harsher (“De vare jo ikke tilsvarende ti Virkeligheden, men strengere”).

“But it must be harsher”, Kierkegaard responded, “it won’t help otherwise. I’m convinced that when the bomb explodes, it must be like that!” ([17], p. 153, emphasis added).

That is, Kierkegaard’s concern as an author was not to state directly what he believed to be the truth of Christianity but to guide others to that truth by the most effective means possible, and if that meant painting a harsher picture of Christianity then he believed was accurate, then that was what he was going to do.