Kierkegaard, the Apophatic Theologian

Enrahonar 29, 1998 1 1 91 2 3 Kierkegaard, the Apophatic Theologian David Kangas Yale University The question about the «theological» status of Kierk e g a a rd's authorship has always been a complicated one. The reception of his work in the twe n t i e t h c e n t u ry has ve e red from strong theological readings by neo-ort h o d ox theologians to strongly anti-theological readings by post-structuralist and dec o n s t ru c t i ve interpreters. The authorship itself was conceived within the milieu of, and as a response to, the theology of speculative idealism —a theological genre which has also been subject to radically different eva l u a t i o n s . Hegelian theology, for example, has been read both as the repristination of trinitarian ort h o d oxy as well as the harbinger of the death of theological discourse. Certainly there appears to be no consensus in sight on the theological status of either Kierk e g a a rd's or Hegel's work. In this situation, it may be neither possible nor desireable to assign Kierk e g a a rd's thought to a single theological genre. Yet the question about the re l i g i o u sn a t u re of Kierk e g a a rd's discourse persists. Is it possible that within the thought of Kierk e g a a rd (and Hegel) the location and meaning of theological discourse has itself shifted? I want to allow this uncertainty and this question to constitute the horizon of this short essay in which I will neve rtheless suggest that the genre of K i e rk e g a a rd's thought can be understood as a kind of a p o p h a t i c, or negative , t h e o l o g y. Apophatic theology is first of all a d i s c o u r s eon the absolute which invo l ve s the denial that one can make positive predications about the nature of absolute, or God; one cannot say w h a t the absolute is. What characterize s apophatic thought as a discourse, howe ve r, is that it continues to speak about the absolute, though it avoids saying what it is. Communication happens t h rough the f o rmof the discourse. With apophatic theology, I will suggest, K i e rk e g a a rd's authorship shares the following qualities: 1) it presupposes a n o n - e n t i t a t i ve concept of the absolute which is, in some respect, «beyond being»; 2) it maintains a notion of discourse as «negative dialectic». In these two ways, Kierk e g a a rd's thought resembles the tradition of apophatic theology which extends from Plotinus through Ps e u d o - Dionysius and Ec k h a rt to Nicholas of Cu s a . 1 2 0 Enrahonar 29, 1998 David Kangas I. The Ab s o l u t e T h roughout his authorship and in his Pa p i re r K i e rk e g a a rd refers to the divine as «the absolute». In his Pa p i re r K i e rk e g a a rd formulates the concept of God as the absolute in two philosophically precise ways: 1) as «unconditioned, being in-and-for-itself» (det ubetingede, Io gf o r s i g v æ re n d e) (Pa p. XI 2, 133/J PI I , 1449), and 2) as «pure subjectivity» (rene Su b j e c t i v i t e t) —which is defined by K i e rk e g a a rd as an «infinite redoubling» (uendelig Fo rd o b l e l s e). When one considers the meaning of these formulations, it becomes apparent that both state an apophatic conception of God or the absolute. First I will consider the second formulation. Kierk e g a a rd writes: [ God] has not an element of objectivity in his being […] for this would limit God and re l a t i v i ze God; but God relates himself objectively to his own subjectiv i t y, but this again is simply a redoubling of his subjectivity […] God is infinite redoubling. (Pa p. XI 2A, 97; my italics) The concept of infinite redoubling derives directly from the greatest of the apophatic theologians —Meister Ec k h a rt. Ec k h a rt called God «negation of negation» and «doubling of affirmed being». Infinite redoubling is apophatic because it invo l ves a double negation: not merely the exclusion of object i ve and re l a t i ve being from God (a first negation), but the denial that Go d relates as a subject over against an object (a second negation). As a double negation, it expresses an indefinable «positivity»: it says that God's nature is « p u re act,» i.e., act without anything being acted upon. This is a radically none n t i t a t i ve and desubstantialized divine: God's being is purely posited being. The divine is made incommensurable with any result or anything determinate. God does not have a pre-existing, determinate nature which would be a c t u a l i zed in an infinite act of existence; God is not a substance at all, not e ven an infinite substance or a highest being. Infinite redoubling is, furt h e rm o r e, what Kierk e g a a rd calls a «totality determination» (To t a l i t e t s - Be s t e m m e l s e) : it expresses the indefinable positivity that God is neither subject nor object, but a t o t a l i t y i n c l u s i ve of both subjectivity and objectivity. Ac c o rding to this conception, God does not have an «outside»; God does not stand «over against» anything. The radical transcendence of the divine, there f o re, does not exc l u d e radical immanence. God is the ubique et nusquam, the «eve ry w h e re and n ow h e re » . K i e rk e g a a rd has also re f e r red to the divine as the «unconditioned, being in-and-for-itself». One is initially surprised to see that Kierk e g a a rd refers to the divine in this way, since this is precisely the Hegelian definition of the absolute. Kierk e g a a rd is able to employ this formulation because, for him, it has a totally apophatic meaning. In his dissertation, The Concept of Iro n y, K i e rk e g a a rd apophatically counterposes his own concept of being in-and-foritself to the Hegelian one by claiming that it is, not infinitely determinate being (as in Hegel), but the «infinitely abstract». As such, it is the «absolute Kierkegaard, the Apophatic Theologian Enrahonar 29, 1998 1 2 1 1 . He re and elsew h e re I refer to the third edition of Kierk e g a a rd's Samlede V æ rk e r. in the form of nothing» (det Absolute under Fo rm af In t e t) (SV3, 1, 256)1. On c e again, there is a relation between this understanding of the divine and the Ec k h a rtian concept of the divine. For Ec k h a rt, too, the Godhead is definable only as «nothing» (Ni c h t s), i.e., as that which lacks determination. In terms of these formulations of God as the absolute we must re c o n s ider the meaning of Kierk e g a a rd's famous «infinite qualitative difference» bet ween the divine and the non-divine. We must say that it is not a differe n c e b e t ween two beings or entities. It cannot be because, as the above passages indicate, God cannot be defined as abeing. T h e re f o re it is a false picture to p o rtray Kierk e g a a rd's God as a being standing separate from and simply ove r against the non-divine. The meaning of God as infinite redoubling is that Go d does not apprehend the world as something objective; God knows and relates to the world non-objective l y. The infinite qualitative difference must t h e re f o re refer to a difference of f o rmrather than a difference in being; a diff e rence which cannot be marked ontologically but can only be marked within the discourse on the absolute. For discourse, a desubstantialized absolute, the absolute under the form of nothing, re p resents something radically unk n owable and unsayable. To articulate the absolute within thought is pre c i s e l y to conve rt it into objective being and there by to lose it as the absolute; that is, to lose it absolutely. Hegelian discourse is the absolute loss of the divine p recisely because it would be the absolute's own discourse. For Kierk e g a a rd , thought and discourse follow an apophatic path: there is an attempt to speak about the divine without speaking about the divine, to let the absolute be the absolute, pure subjectivity. This re q u i res a speaking which does not posit an object, a speaking which is apophatic. To this we now turn. II. Apophatic Di s c o u r s e How, then, for Kierk e g a a rd, does one apprehend the absolute or God? How does one begin speaking at all? It is we l l - k n own that Kierk e g a a rd rejects the ontological argument for God's existence. This means that Kierk e g a a rd rejects the possibility of an ontological discourse on the divine; it indicates, more s p e c i f i c a l l y, that Kierk e g a a r d rejects the Hegelian position that discourse about the absolute is the absolute's own discourse about itself. It is also necessary to say, howe ve r, that Kierk e g a a rd rejects the position of Jacobi. Jacobi would say that, with respect to the absolute or God, one must simply give up discourse and fall into a silent intuition of God—a kind of apprehension of the meaning of the divine outside of discourse. For Kierk e g a a r d, such an intuition, or «immediacy», would be a false abstraction. As he makes clear in his unpublished De Omnibus Dubitandum est, Kierk e g a a rd holds the position that one cannot have consciousness outside of language. Language and consciousness are equiprimordial. T h e re f o re any relation to God or the absolute 1 2 2 Enrahonar 29, 1998 David Kangas must be thought as mediated by language. We have, then, a paradox which constitutes the ve ry heart of Kierk e g a a rdian discourse: on the one hand, the absolute is beyond articulation, ineffable; on the other hand, one cannot relate to the absolute except through language or discourse. This is the circ ular paradox which inhabits all apophatic discourse. For Kierk e g a a rd, it is the p roblem of «indirect communication». How, then, within this circle, is it possible to begin i n d i rect communication, to begin speaking about God? This is first of all a problem about how the mind is able to apprehend the absolute as that which constitutes the mind's own limit. For Kierk e g a a rd, the mind can apprehend the absolute only negat i ve l y. This means, it cannot apprehend the absolute directly out of its ow n i n i t i a t i ve and freedom. The intellect —or, to use Kierk e g a a rd's word, the «understanding» (Fo r s t a n d e n)— cannot produce the presence of the divine fro m out of itself. It cannot conve rt the divine, pure subjectivity, into an object which it would be able to apprehend directly or even in a mediated way. T h e possibility of Hegelian discourse depends upon this conversion. Yet for K i e rk e g a a rd, in order to apprehend the absolute the mind must radically e m p - ty itselfof objective content; it must «lock eve rything out of its consciousness» (S V 36, 46]; the understanding must be «put out of action» (e n t l e d i g e t) (S V 36 , 58). This emptiness of determinate content is what Ec k h a rt called «pove rt y » . What supports this radical emptying, howe ve r, is the understanding's d e s i re for the absolute. Kierk e g a a rd names this desire, this eros, «passion» (Li d e n s k a b) . The understanding is able to renounce itself or «will its own downfall» only t h rough the desire to «discover that which cannot be thought.» (SV3 6, 38) Due to the necessity of a moment of emptying, the mind's appre h e n s i o n of the absolute cannot be thought as the apprehension of determinate content. Knowledge of the absolute is more an «unknowing». This act of knowing, which is an unknowing, does not imply ontological identity with its object. Just as in apophatic theology, Kierk e g a a rd maintains the identity of the understanding with the absolute only as something essentially «momentary » . He re one should point out that Kierk e g a a rd's central concept, the moment (Ø i e b l i k k e t), is a we l l - k n own mystical cipher, employed in Plato's Pa r m e n i d e s as well as in Ps e u d o - Dionysius, referring to the bre a k t h rough to a know i n g of the absolute beyond concept. Kierk e g a a rd is explicit: «What we call the moment, Plato calls το ξαιφνÜσ (the sudden).» (SV3 6, 176) Mo m e n t a ry identity with the absolute is a non-stable point which has continually to be rewon. The task of striving and restriving for this limit, an essentially negative task, is what Kierk e g a a rd calls «negative dialectic» (which counters the Hegelian «positive dialectic»). Now, for Kierk e g a a rd just as for apophatic theology, discourse on the absolute must take the form of a negative dialectic. The intellect's action of emptying must repeat itself in discourse, at the level of signification. To be precise: with respect to God or the absolute, discourse must continually put the signified «out of action.» Language must cease to be used assertorically and become perf o r m a t i ve. To speak about God is not the act of making ontological Kierkegaard, the Apophatic Theologian Enrahonar 29, 1998 1 2 3 p redications of an absolute subject. The discourse can signify only m o m e n - t a r i l y: in order to let the absolute be the absolute, discourse cannot allow a re f e rential object to congeal; it cannot allow stable meanings to form. Just as God is a «redoubling», discourse must itself become redoubled, continually carried through a process of «double reflection» (dobbelt Re f l e x i o n). It must continually turn back upon itself to unsay what has been said. He re it is not m e rely a case of the «form» of the discourse (what Kierk e g a a rd calls the « a rt i s t r y») achieving a priority over its «content». Rather, it is the case that form and content, the «how» and the «what» of discourse, become identical. In Kierk e g a a rd, howe ve r, the identity of form and content does not mean, as perhaps certain versions of post-structuralism have it, that discourse becomes simply and self-consciously a discourse about discourse itself. It does not mean the e l i m i n a t i o nof re f e rence. No: for Kierk e g a a rd discourse is always discourse t ow a rd the absolute. The absolute remains a re f e rential horizon. What makes it apophatic, howe ve r, is the refusal to define the absolute, the refusal to identify the s u b j e c tof its discourse. In order to relate to the absolute or God, theref o re, one must have recourse to discourse; but even within discourse, Go d remains for Kierk e g a a rd «just a name» (blot et navn) (S V 3 6, 40), the «unk n own» (det Ub e k j e n d t e). (SV3 6, 44) Ul t i m a t e l y, signification for Kierk e g a a rd is something ethical: signification occurs not through the stabilization of a thematic meaning, but only when becomes the discourse, when the subject and object of the discourse become identical —and this, it will be noted, is the g ra m m a t i c a l analogue to the divine as «infinite re d o u b l i n g » .