Kierkegaard's Writings, X, Volume 10: Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions

by Søren Kierkegaard

Overview

Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions was the last of seven works signed by Kierkegaard and published simultaneously with an anonymously authored companion piece. Imagined Occasions both complements and stands in contrast to Kierkegaard's pseudonymously published Stages on Life's Way.


The two volumes not only have a chronological relation but treat some of the same distinct themes. The first of the three discourses, "On the Occasion of a Confession," centers on stillness, wonder, and one's search for God--in contrast to the speechmaking on erotic love in "In Vino Veritas," part one of Stages. The second discourse, "On the Occasion of a Wedding," complements the second part of Stages, in which Judge William delivers a panegyric on marriage. The third discourse, "At a Graveside," sharpens the ethical and religious earnestness implicit in Stages's "'Guilty'/'Not Guilty'" and completes this collection.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781400832323
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	10/05/2009
Series:	Kierkegaard's Writings , #10
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	200
File size:	449 KB

Read an Excerpt

Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions

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By Søren Kierkegaard, Howard V. Hong, Edna H. Hong

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 1993 Howard V. Hong
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4008-3232-3

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CHAPTER 1

On the Occasion of a Confession

Father in heaven, how well we know that seeking v always has its promise; how much the more, then, seeking 177 you, the giver of all the promises and of all good gifts! How well we know that the seeker does not always need to wander out into the world, because the more holy that is which he seeks, the closer it is to him, and if he seeks you, O God, you are closest of all to him! But we also know that seeking always has its toil and its spiritual trial—how much more, then, the terror in seeking you, you Mighty One! If even the person who in thought puts his trust in his kinship, if even he with his thought does not without terror venture out into those decisions when he through doubt seeks your footprint in the wise order of existence, when he through despair seeks your footprint in the obedience of rebellious events to a providence; if he whom you called your friend, the one who walks in your sight, if even he does not without trembling seek friendship's encounter with you, you the only Mighty One; if the one praying, who loves you with his whole heart, if even he does not without anxiety venture into prayer's struggle with his God; if even the one dying, for whom you exchange life, if even he docs not without shuddering relinquish the temporal when you call; if even the wretched one whom the world gives sheer suffering, if even he, too, does not without terror flee to you, you who do not soothe a little but are everything—how, then, does the sinner dare to seek you, you righteous God! But that is why he does not seek you as these do, but he seeks you in the confession of sins.

There is indeed a place for that, my listener, and you know where; and there is indeed an opportunity for it, my listener, and you know how; and there is indeed a moment, and it is v called this very day. How still! In God's house there is peace 178 [Fred], but deepest within the inclosure [det Omfredede] there is a closed room. The one who goes there seeks stillness; the one who sits there is in stillness; even if there is speaking, the stillness only intensifies. How still! There is no fellowship—each one is by himself; there is no call for united effort—each one is called to individual responsibility; there is no invitation to community—each one is alone. The person who is making a confession is alone—indeed, as alone as a dying person. Whether those who were precious and dear to him and who love him are crowded in great numbers around the bed of the dying one, or whether he lies there abandoned by the world because he abandoned it or it abandoned him—the dying one is alone, they are both struggling alone. The mind strays, and thousands, ten thousands, do not restrain it if the solitary one does not know comfort.

Whether thousands were waiting and yearning for the one who in confessing seeks stillness, or whether the one leaving confession is the insignificant and wretched person no one waits for and no one troubles about, this difference is only a jest; the truth is, the earnest truth was, that they both were alone. All his friends, the world's glory, and the far-flung importance of his achievements are of no help to the powerful person—unless it would be to disturb the stillness for him, which is the greatest harm. It does not harm the poor nobody to be abandoned if it helps him to find stillness. It is difficult for a camel to go through the eye of a needle and difficult for the man of the world to find stillness; whether he is powerful or insignificant, it is difficult to find stillness in life's noise, difficult to find it where it is even when he himself does not bring the noise along with him.

How still and how earnest! Yet there is no one who accuses; who would dare to be the accuser where everyone is guilty. Yet there is no one who judges; who would dare to judge where everyone considers his own accounting. There is no one who accuses except one's thoughts, no one who judges except the one who sees into what is hidden and hears confessions in secret. Yes, even when there is speaking, you are indeed the one who is speaking with yourself through the speaker's voice. What the speaker will say just to you, only you know; how you understand his words, he does not know—only you know that. Even if the speaker were your best friend, he still cannot know it as you know it. If you do not listen in this way, then you are not listening properly, then what he says is a noise that disturbs the stillness, and your attentiveness is a diversion that violates the stillness.

Whoever is afraid of this stillness, let him avoid it, but he does not dare to deny that it exists, because he does fear it. Whoever says that he sought stillness but did not find it is an envious deceiver who wants to frustrate others, because otherwise he would be silent and sad or he would say, "I did not seek it properly; therefore I did not find it." Nothing, nothing in the whole world, even if an earthquake shook the pillars of the church, not the most erroneous words of the most foolish of people, not the foulness of the basest hypocrite, can take the stillness away from you, but something very minor can certainly give someone the occasion to seek a false pretext. No, nothing except you yourself can take it away from you; just as little as all the world's power and all its wisdom and the united efforts of all humanity can give it to you, just as little can you yourself take it and give it away. It cannot be obtained for nothing, but it cannot be bought with gold; it cannot be taken by violence, but it does not come as a dream when you are sleeping; it does not haggle about terms, even if you wanted to benefit the whole human race. If you give everything away, that still does not necessarily mean that it is gained, but if you gain it you can then gladly possess everything as one who has nothing.

Whoever says that this stillness does not exist is merely making noise. Have you ever really heard that anyone in stillness made up his mind that it does not exist, even though you probably have heard big words and loud talk and noisy doings to get rid of stillness in order to have, instead of conscience and stillness and God's voice delivering judgment in stillness, a nature-echo from the crowd, a confused collective scream, a general opinion in which one, out of cowardice, fearing for oneself, is not alone. But you, my listener, if you fear this stillness, even though you are doing your best to have a conscience (without stillness conscience does not exist at all) and to have a good conscience, then keep on, then endure it; this stillness is not the stillness of death in which you perish, it is not the sickness unto death—it is the transition to life.

So, then, the confessor seeks God in the confession of sins, and the confession is the road and is a biding place on the road of salvation, where one pauses and collects one's thoughts and makes an accounting. And is it not true and proper that an accounting should be without deceit—then there is stillness, then everyone's mouth is stopped, then everyone becomes guilty and cannot answer once in a thousand times. With the help of distraction one becomes less guilty, perhaps even justified. But what lamentable justification! It is not unjust for you to forgive another person for his sake if he asks your forgiveness, or if you believe that he wishes it for God's sake, who requires it, or for your own sake, so you may not be disturbed. You are not accepting a bribe because you heed the prompting to reconciliation within you; neither are you procrastinating along the way if you, although you are the injured party, seek peace with your adversary while he is still on the way. Neither are you defrauding God of what belongs to him if you sell forgiveness for nothing; you are not wasting your time or misusing it if you ponder what may well serve as an excuse; and if no excuse is to be found you are not deceived if you, by means of love's holy deceit that transforms all the world's ridicule of your weakness into heavenly joy over your victory, believe that the offense must be excusable. But when it is a matter of your own accounting, then you certainly would do wrong to forgive yourself the least little thing, because one's own righteousness is even worse than one's own blackest private guilt. Then you would indeed be accepting a bribe if you followed the promptings of irresponsibility and craftiness in your own affairs; then you would be hindering yourself along the road and hindering the fervor of the spirit; then you would be wasting your time and misusing it in looking for escapes—indeed, then you would be deceived by a blasphemous deception, deceived precisely when you found the excuse!

Yes, alas, it is a strange transition, a change that makes the head swim! One moment ago the same person was going along, rich and powerful, and now, a moment later, although nothing has happened in the meantime, he cannot answer once in a thousand times. Who indeed is the rich and powerful one to whom the discourse refers here, who else but the injured party, the oppressed one, the one who has been treated unfairly, the one violated! Perhaps the perpetrator of violence who tramples on the oppressed, perhaps the powerful one whose path is marked by the wrongs he does, perhaps the rich whose wealth was increased by widows' tears, perhaps the despairing person who violates and mocks—perhaps all of these people cared but little about forgiveness; yet surely no king who rules over kingdoms and countries, no Croesus who possesses everything, and no philanthropist who feeds the hungry possesses anything as great or has anything as great to give away or anything as needful to give away as the person whose forgiveness someone else needs. Needs—indeed, needs it as the primary necessity. If anyone does not think so, it is still needed just as much—and the injured party possesses the most. A pagan whose name is inseparable from the idea of conquests and power said when his enemy showed the highest courage (so it seemed, alas, to the pagans) by committing suicide, "There he robbed me of my most glorious victory, because I would have forgiven him." Someone else said, "Because I love much, I will not ask for forgiveness. My wrong is perhaps not very great, forgiveness surely a very small thing to ask, but if it is not obtained, then the wrong is infinite and the power of forgiveness an infinite superiority over me." So, then, the innocent injured party was the rich man. But a moment ago in the setting of the world he dared to say, "Go ahead and do an injustice to me; you will still lose the most, because you need my forgiveness"—and now a moment later the stillness encompasses him; he does not know what he has to forgive, and the accounting shows that he cannot answer once in a thousand times. This is how the accounting is if he has the stillness around him and does not himself bring along the disturbance. The accounting of the person who did the wrong is the same as that of the person who was purest of all, even that of the innocent injured party. For this reason someone may be afraid of this stillness and its power and the infinite nothing into which it plunges all dissimilarities, even those of wrongs and forgiveness, and of the abyss into which the solitary one sinks in stillness.

It is the same as when the person who renounces the world shudders at the emptiness that seems to manifest itself. But one moment ago he desired so much and aspired and strove and slept badly at night and asked the latest news about others and envied some and ignored others and was unobtrusive in the right place and was active in friendship and enmity and forecast the weather and knew which way the wind was blowing and changed his plans and strove again and won and lost and never grew weary and kept his eye on the reward and caught a glimpse of the profits—and now, yes, the poor deceived man!—if in this renunciation he did not find the one thing needful, the poor deceived man who deceived himself, the poor man who by his own act became the victim of life's derision, because now the great thing he desired was perhaps realized, now he became rich, right now, oh, what despair, why right now, why not yesterday, but now when he did not entirely desire but also did not entirely renounce it!

It is the same with the person who experienced that there is a stillness in which every human being becomes guilty and only learned to fear it. If he was regarded as righteous in the eyes of people, and this was what he craved, if he was the injured party but was defiantly in proud possession of forgiveness, if he was not without guilt but enjoyed some esteem in the world—alas, the poor deceived man, how indignant he must be with the person who led him into and then led him astray in that stillness—but no one can do that, and his anger is powerless. Poor deceived man, if he were given the citizens' crown of justice by the public, an accolade he coveted; if thousands agreed to call him the man of justice in the nation, something his conceited ears delighted to hear—why now, now when his ears are probably not entirely stopped up, but he has not entirely comprehended the infinite secret of stillness either! Poor deceived man, if the guilty party now came to his door, if the moment when forgiveness could be dearly purchased was there, the moment of triumph he had joyfully anticipated, why now, why not yesterday, why now, now when he indeed did not voluptuously relish the vehemence of revenge and pride, but he did not entirely comprehend the earnest message of his own guilt either! The person who comprehended this was truly not deceived. Blessed is the one who understands this. If anyone has the task of preaching, of teaching others about their guilt, of teaching—something that this discourse, which is without authority, does not do—he does have the consolation that the purest of heart is precisely the one most willing to comprehend his own guilt most deeply. When it is a matter of that greatest and most daring venture of placing everyone under guilt when one is guilty oneself, there where even the brave one's thought comes to a standstill if he does not fear to include himself, but thought offers opposition at the sight of what, humanly speaking, is pure and lovable, at the sight of the beautiful purity of young womanhood that is ignorant of the world, unfamiliar with its incitements, and is sincerely meek and humble—there, if the task of the discourse bids him proclaim sin as the common lot of the human race, there he will find an understanding that perhaps humiliates him himself.

The confessor seeks God in the confession of sins, and the confession is the road and is a biding place on the road of salvation, where one pauses and collects one's thoughts. We shall, then, pause and on the occasion of a confession speak about:

what it means to seek God.

And we shall define it more precisely by bearing in mind that without purity no human being can see God and without becoming a sinner no human being can come to know him.

If anyone feels made to pause in a wrong way at the task, then let him throw away the discourse lest the person who runs faster be detained by the slow one. The value of a meditation is, of course, always dubious; at times it can help one come to what is crucial, and at times it can also hinder—just as a short preliminary run can be of help at the crucial point of a jump but a preliminary run of several miles would even prevent it. But if anyone has frequently felt made to pause in life without, however, finding stillness, if he has sought stillness where it indeed is and yet has not really found it and reproaches himself for it, if he has fought and yet not won, then let him try again, let him move along with the discourse, but freely and voluntarily. There is nothing that binds him, no obligation; no reproach awaits him if he fails, inasmuch as the discourse is indeed without authority. But neither would he want the discourse to say of the stillness in that solemn and sacred place that it is of such a nature that if a person could remain there and did not have to go out into life's confusion again he would then always have the stillness with him, because the person who demands that demands too much of the discourse, namely, that it should deceive him, as if it were the place, externally understood, that determined the outcome, as if the very same thing would not happen to him if he remained in that solemn and sacred place as happens to him in the world, as if he would not then first and foremost be terrified by an illusion in which he had been reassured that it was the place that counted. To be sure, a poet has rightly said that a sigh to God without words is the best worship; then one could also believe that the infrequent visit to the sacred place, when one comes from far away, would be the best worship, because both contribute to the illusion. A sigh without words is the best worship if the thought of God is only to shed a twilight glow over existence, like the blue mountains on the distant horizon, if the unclarity of the soul's condition is to be satisfied with the greatest possible ambiguity. But if God is to be present to the soul, then the sigh presumably finds the thought, and the thought presumably the words—but also the difficulty, of which one has no inkling at a distance. In our day we are told to the point of fatuousness that it is not the highest to live in stillness, where there is no danger—to the point of fatuousness, because danger is there just as much as in confusion, and, to come to the point, the great thing is neither to be in the solitude nor to be in the confusion, but the great thing is to overcome the danger—and the most mediocre thing is to work oneself weary pondering which is the more difficult, because that kind of work is futile and neither here nor there, like the worker himself, who, after all, is neither in the confusion nor in the solitude but in the busy absentmindedness of thoughts.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions by Søren Kierkegaard, Howard V. Hong, Edna H. Hong. Copyright © 1993 Howard V. Hong. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

• Frontmatter, pg. i
• Contents, pg. v
• Historical Introduction, pg. vii
• Preface, pg. 1
• On The Occasion of a Confession, pg. 7
• On the Occasion of a Wedding, pg. 41
• At a Graveside, pg. 69
• Key to References, pg. 103
• Original Title Page of Three Discourses 011 Imagined Occasions, pg. 106
• Selected Entries from Kierkegaard's Journals and Papers Pertaining to Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, pg. 109
• Acknowiedgments, pg. 153
• Collation of Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions in the Danish Editions of Kierkegaard's Collected Works, pg. 157
• Notes, pg. 159
• Bibliographical Note, pg. 171
• Index, pg. 173
• Advisory Board, pg. 183

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