Thank you for the shout-out at the end. 🙂 It is really intriguing what you’re proposing — the ecstatic and world-affirming mysticism seem to come together here in Kierkegaard in a really interesting way. As you’ve said — this ecstatic moment goes back to Plato (and probably earlier — Anaxagoras? Pythagoras? Adam?) — but what’s interesting is that it has always been a feature of Lutheran theology — what they sometimes call the “extra nos” or the outside of self, where we are brought “into” another — in Luther, this is the role of Faith (see Freedom of the Christian), and Volker Leppin, for example, has located it as originating in how Tauler and the TD communicate to Luther Rheinish Mysticism. Obviously this ecstatic moment is important to Weigel and Boehme as well — in such a way that that which drives us out of ourselves in ecstasy is the very Will and love of God, attracted to us by our own repentance (self-emptying, Gelassenheit, etc.). So — deep wells.
Also, I would love to follow the Von Baader train a little more — he was obviously familiar with this tradition in a fundamental way. As was Schelling. Though they could drink more fundamentally from Plato and others due to the Neoplatonic revival going on at the time (see Naomi Fisher’s great book on the topic, “Schelling’s Mystical Platonism”). 🙂
Where could I learn more about the Lutheran “extra nos” and the ways in which Luther was affected by Rhineland mysticism? And I’m afraid I’m not sure what the ‘TD’ refers to in “Tauler and the TD”—all of the mystical tradition is extremely new to me, so I have not had a chance to read much of anyone yet. Looking forward to learning more though! Do you have anyone from the German mystical tradition you’d recommend I start with?
I know almost nothing about Baader I’m afraid, other than that he was widely recognized by many of those who came after him, including SK, and that he was as you say very familiar with the mystical traditions of Greece and of the Rhineland. I’ll have to check out Naomi Fisher’s book on it though, that sounds excellent.
Oh sorry! TD is Theologia Germanica or Theologia Deutsche. It was a text published by Luther twice in the beginning of his career, he named it German Theology as an example of the way Germans had always held Pauline theology in high esteem.
I would say get your hands on a copy of Volker Leppin’s “Sola” book and the Tauler Sermons in the Spiritual Classics series. McGinn’s multi-volume work on Mysticism could help, too, particularly volumes 4 and 6. Leppin also has a good biography of Luther, “Martin Luther: a Late Medieval Life” that presents a good summary of his argument. 🙂
It would also be interesting to put your reading in dialogue with what Andrew and Alan Torrance’s study of Kierkegaardian epistemology. Perhaps the strongly Barthian reading of Kierkegaard/Hamann isn’t the only one available to us!
This is a solid, accessible reading of Kierkegaard's view on love and dependency combined with the very interesting proposal that Kierkegaard fits within the mystic tradition. I admit I am not very familiar with mysticism, but I've discovered now that there is a lutheran mystic tradition and that excites me.
The mystic resonance with the anatomy of the soul in The Sickness Unto Death is particularly noteworthy, I think.
"All this makes me wonder why so many readers of SK have been reticent to read him as a mystic alongside his ethical rigor." I have an essay that addresses precisely this problem of "misreading" or "limiting" Kierkegaard that I've been working on for a long time and is nearing completion. There is so much to mine from his work!
I generally agree with your dispute with Adorno, however I am tempted to push back on your claim that Adorno stating Kierkegaard "demands that love behave towards all men as if they were dead" is a particularly egregious misreading. I don't yet have the context for this quote from Adorno, but I could see Kierkegaard having some fun with this statement: I am reminded of the excerpt in Works of Love where Kierkegaard says something like Shakespeare's "all the world's a stage, and we are mere actors," and then continues on: "the king, the beggar, the jester, when the show is done and the curtain falls, go backstage and remove their costumes and are all one and the same: actors." I think Kierkegaard sees death as a sort of unifying event. I think it is too far to say that he believes we are actually stripped of our individuality at death, but that in death we are all equals, and this should inform how we love our neighbor. The lutheran in me similarly finds something fun to play with in Adorno's statement: yes, we are to love all as if they are dead, for that is precisely what they are, dead in sin! It is only in the love of Christ, worked into them by their neighbors who love them, that they are resurrected also and clothed in the righteousness (and life!) of Christ. I doubt Adorno was making the statement with any of this in mind, but I think it's always fun to see how something that appears incongruent can be folded in. Again, I lack the context surrounding that quote, so this might be moot if the surrounding passages completely eviscerate what I'm saying!
I'm glad you enjoyed it! Your essay about limiting Kierkegaard sounds excellent, I look forward to reading it once you are done with it. And yes the resonance in SK's account of the soul compared with the mystical grounding of the soul in God is suuuuper interesting I'll have to explore this further for sure.
Re: Adorno, I do love what you're doing there, turning it on its head—it's quite imaginative. I think unfortunately the actual context is much less illuminating than the way you are reading it (Adorno would've been much better off if he meant it as you did!); here's a bit of the surrounding context:
"It is of no concern, to the Christian beloved one, whether or not he is loved. He has no power over this love. Incidentally, the reproduction of Kierkegaard’s “aesthetic” standpoint in his religious stage, for which this example has been given, recurs throughout his work. It is unnecessary to point out how close this love comes to callousness. Perhaps one may most accurately summarize Kierkegaard’s doctrine of love by saying that he demands that love behave towards all men as if they were dead."
He does go on to say that this (supposed) aspect of SK's thought is both the best and worst of his philosophy, but I have not finished reading it so I'm not sure exactly where Adorno goes with that.
Thank you for the shout-out at the end. 🙂 It is really intriguing what you’re proposing — the ecstatic and world-affirming mysticism seem to come together here in Kierkegaard in a really interesting way. As you’ve said — this ecstatic moment goes back to Plato (and probably earlier — Anaxagoras? Pythagoras? Adam?) — but what’s interesting is that it has always been a feature of Lutheran theology — what they sometimes call the “extra nos” or the outside of self, where we are brought “into” another — in Luther, this is the role of Faith (see Freedom of the Christian), and Volker Leppin, for example, has located it as originating in how Tauler and the TD communicate to Luther Rheinish Mysticism. Obviously this ecstatic moment is important to Weigel and Boehme as well — in such a way that that which drives us out of ourselves in ecstasy is the very Will and love of God, attracted to us by our own repentance (self-emptying, Gelassenheit, etc.). So — deep wells.
Also, I would love to follow the Von Baader train a little more — he was obviously familiar with this tradition in a fundamental way. As was Schelling. Though they could drink more fundamentally from Plato and others due to the Neoplatonic revival going on at the time (see Naomi Fisher’s great book on the topic, “Schelling’s Mystical Platonism”). 🙂
Where could I learn more about the Lutheran “extra nos” and the ways in which Luther was affected by Rhineland mysticism? And I’m afraid I’m not sure what the ‘TD’ refers to in “Tauler and the TD”—all of the mystical tradition is extremely new to me, so I have not had a chance to read much of anyone yet. Looking forward to learning more though! Do you have anyone from the German mystical tradition you’d recommend I start with?
I know almost nothing about Baader I’m afraid, other than that he was widely recognized by many of those who came after him, including SK, and that he was as you say very familiar with the mystical traditions of Greece and of the Rhineland. I’ll have to check out Naomi Fisher’s book on it though, that sounds excellent.
Oh sorry! TD is Theologia Germanica or Theologia Deutsche. It was a text published by Luther twice in the beginning of his career, he named it German Theology as an example of the way Germans had always held Pauline theology in high esteem.
I would say get your hands on a copy of Volker Leppin’s “Sola” book and the Tauler Sermons in the Spiritual Classics series. McGinn’s multi-volume work on Mysticism could help, too, particularly volumes 4 and 6. Leppin also has a good biography of Luther, “Martin Luther: a Late Medieval Life” that presents a good summary of his argument. 🙂
It would also be interesting to put your reading in dialogue with what Andrew and Alan Torrance’s study of Kierkegaardian epistemology. Perhaps the strongly Barthian reading of Kierkegaard/Hamann isn’t the only one available to us!
I’ll have to look into it eventually!
This is a solid, accessible reading of Kierkegaard's view on love and dependency combined with the very interesting proposal that Kierkegaard fits within the mystic tradition. I admit I am not very familiar with mysticism, but I've discovered now that there is a lutheran mystic tradition and that excites me.
The mystic resonance with the anatomy of the soul in The Sickness Unto Death is particularly noteworthy, I think.
"All this makes me wonder why so many readers of SK have been reticent to read him as a mystic alongside his ethical rigor." I have an essay that addresses precisely this problem of "misreading" or "limiting" Kierkegaard that I've been working on for a long time and is nearing completion. There is so much to mine from his work!
I generally agree with your dispute with Adorno, however I am tempted to push back on your claim that Adorno stating Kierkegaard "demands that love behave towards all men as if they were dead" is a particularly egregious misreading. I don't yet have the context for this quote from Adorno, but I could see Kierkegaard having some fun with this statement: I am reminded of the excerpt in Works of Love where Kierkegaard says something like Shakespeare's "all the world's a stage, and we are mere actors," and then continues on: "the king, the beggar, the jester, when the show is done and the curtain falls, go backstage and remove their costumes and are all one and the same: actors." I think Kierkegaard sees death as a sort of unifying event. I think it is too far to say that he believes we are actually stripped of our individuality at death, but that in death we are all equals, and this should inform how we love our neighbor. The lutheran in me similarly finds something fun to play with in Adorno's statement: yes, we are to love all as if they are dead, for that is precisely what they are, dead in sin! It is only in the love of Christ, worked into them by their neighbors who love them, that they are resurrected also and clothed in the righteousness (and life!) of Christ. I doubt Adorno was making the statement with any of this in mind, but I think it's always fun to see how something that appears incongruent can be folded in. Again, I lack the context surrounding that quote, so this might be moot if the surrounding passages completely eviscerate what I'm saying!
I am looking forward to the next essay!
I'm glad you enjoyed it! Your essay about limiting Kierkegaard sounds excellent, I look forward to reading it once you are done with it. And yes the resonance in SK's account of the soul compared with the mystical grounding of the soul in God is suuuuper interesting I'll have to explore this further for sure.
Re: Adorno, I do love what you're doing there, turning it on its head—it's quite imaginative. I think unfortunately the actual context is much less illuminating than the way you are reading it (Adorno would've been much better off if he meant it as you did!); here's a bit of the surrounding context:
"It is of no concern, to the Christian beloved one, whether or not he is loved. He has no power over this love. Incidentally, the reproduction of Kierkegaard’s “aesthetic” standpoint in his religious stage, for which this example has been given, recurs throughout his work. It is unnecessary to point out how close this love comes to callousness. Perhaps one may most accurately summarize Kierkegaard’s doctrine of love by saying that he demands that love behave towards all men as if they were dead."
He does go on to say that this (supposed) aspect of SK's thought is both the best and worst of his philosophy, but I have not finished reading it so I'm not sure exactly where Adorno goes with that.