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Christian existentialism
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Main page Christian existentialism is a theo-philosophical movement Part of a series on the

Contents which takes an existentialist approach to Christian theology. The History of
Featured content school of thought is often traced back to the work of the Danish Christian theology
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philosopher and theologian Sren Kierkegaard (18131855),
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who some consider the father of existentialism.[1]
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diverse history including Augustine, Aquinas, Pascal and
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Maritain, (see section 4, paragraph 2 below, where some but not
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all contributors to Christian existentialism are noted).
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Contents
Recent changes Background
1 Kierkegaardian themes
Contact page Theology Early Christianity Timeline
2 Major premises History of Christianity
Tools 3 The Bible Ecclesiastical polity Trinitarianism
What links here 4 Notable Christian existentialists Nontrinitarianism Restorationism
Christology Mariology Biblical canon
Related changes 5 Radical Existential Christianity[17]
Deuterocanonical books
Upload file 6 See also
Special pages Ecumenical Creeds
7 References Apostles' Nicene
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8 External links Chalcedonian Athanasian
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Wikidata item Patristics and Councils
Church Fathers Augustine
Cite this page
Kierkegaardian themes [edit] Nicaea Ephesus Chalcedon

Print/export Post-Nicene development

Christian existentialism relies on Heresy Monophysitism Monothelitism
Create a book Kierkegaard's understanding of Iconoclasm Gregory I Alcuin Photios
Download as PDF EastWest Schism Scholasticism
Christianity. Kierkegaard argued
Printable version Aquinas Anselm Palamas
that the universe is fundamentally
Reformation
Languages paradoxical, and that its greatest
Reformation Luther Melanchthon
paradox is the transcendent union Indulgences Justification Five solae
etina of God and humans in the person of 95 Theses Book of Concord
Dansk Jesus Christ. He also posited having Predestination Calvinism Arminianism
English Reformation
a personal relationship with God Counter-Reformation Trent

that supersedes all prescribed
Franais Since the Reformation
Bahasa Indonesia
moralities, social structures and Pietism John Wesley
Norsk communal norms,[2] since he Great Awakenings Holiness movement
Restoration Movement Existentialism
Portugus Sren Kierkegaard asserted that following social
Liberalism
Suomi conventions is essentially a personal Modernism in the Catholic Church
aesthetic choice made by individuals.[citation needed] Postmodernism Vatican II
Edit links Radical Orthodoxy Hermeneutics
Kierkegaard proposed that each person must make independent Liberation theology Christian anarchism
choices, which then constitute his existence. Each person suffers
Christianity portal
from the anguish of indecision (whether knowingly or
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unknowingly) until he commits to a particular choice about the
way to live. Kierkegaard also proposed three rubrics with which
to understand the conditions that issue from distinct life choices: the aesthetic, the ethical, and the
religious.

Major premises [edit]

One of the major premises of Kirkegaardian Christian existentialismentails calling the masses back to a
more genuine form of Christianity. This form is often identified with some notion of Early Christianity,
which mostly existed during the first three centuries after Christ's crucifixion. Beginning with the Edict of
Milan, which was issued by Roman Emperor Constantine I in AD 313, Christianity enjoyed a level of
popularity among Romans and later among other Europeans. And yet Kierkegaard asserted that by the
19th century, the ultimate meaning of New Testament Christianity (love, cf. agape, mercy and loving-
kindness) had become perverted, and Christianity had deviated considerably from its original threefold
message of grace, humility, and love.

Another major premise of Kierkegaardian Christian existentialism involves Kierkegaard's conception of

God and Love. For the most part, Kierkegaard equates God with Love.[3] Thus, when a person engages in
the act of loving, he is in effect achieving an aspect of the divine. Kierkegaard also viewed the individual
as a necessary synthesis of both finite and infinite elements. Therefore, when an individual does not
come to a full realization of his infinite side, he is said to be in despair. For many contemporary Christian
theologians, the notion of despair can be viewed assin. However, to Kierkegaard, a man sinned when he
was exposed to this idea of despair and chose a path other than one in accordance with God's will.

A final major premise of Kierkegaardian Christian existentialism entails the systematic undoing ofevil
acts. Kierkegaard asserted that once an action had been completed, it should be evaluated in the face of
God, for holding oneself up to divine scrutiny was the only way to judge one's actions. Because actions
constitute the manner in which something is deemed good or bad, one must be constantly conscious of
the potential consequences of his actions. Kierkegaard believed that the choice for goodness ultimately
came down to each individual. Yet Kierkegaard also foresaw the potential limiting of choices for
individuals who fell into despair.[4]

The Bible [edit]

Christian Existentialism often refers to what it calls theindirect style of Christ's teachings, which it
considers to be a distinctive and important aspect of his ministry. Christ's point, it says, is often left
unsaid in any particular parable or saying, to permit each individual to confront the truth on his own.[5]
This is particularly evident in (but is certainly not limited to) his parables. For example, in the Gospel of
Matthew (Matthew 18:21-35 ), Jesus tells a story about a man who is heavily in debt (theparable of the
unforgiving servant). The debtor and his family are about to be sold into slavery, but he pleads for their
lives. His master accordingly cancels the debt and sets them free. Later the man who was in debt abuses
some people who owe him money, and he has them thrown in jail. Upon being informed of what this
man has done, the master brings him in and says, "Why are you doing this? Weren't your debts
canceled?" Then the debtor is thrown into jail until the debt is paid. Jesus ends his story by saying, "This
is how it will be for you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart."

Often Christ's parables are a response to a question he is asked. After he tells the parable, he returns
the question to the individual who originally asked it. Often we see a person asking a speculative
question involving one's duty before God, and Christ's response is more or less the same questionbut
as God would ask that individual. For example, in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 10:25 ), a teacher of the law
asks Jesus what it means to love one's neighbor as oneself. Jesus replies by telling the story of the Good
Samaritan. In the story a man is beaten by thieves. A priest and aLevite pass him by, but a Samaritan
takes pity on him and generously sets him up at an innpaying his tab in advance. Then Jesus returns
the question, "Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of
robbers?". Jesus does not answer the question because he requires the individual to answer it, and thus
to understand existence in the Bible, one must recognize who that passage is speaking to in particular.
To Kierkegaard, it is the individual hearing the passage.

A good example of indirect communication in the Old Testament is the story ofDavid and Nathan in 2
Samuel 12:1-14 . David had committed adultery with a woman, Bathsheba, which resulted in her
pregnancy. He then ordered her husband, Uriah, to come home from a war front so that he might sleep
with his wife, thus making it appear as if Uriah had in fact conceived with Bathsheba. Instead, Uriah
would not break faith with his fellow soldiers still on the battlefield and refused to sleep with her. David
then ordered him back out to the battlefront where he would surely die, thus making Bathsheba a widow
and available for marriage, which David soon arranged. David initially thought he had gotten away with
murder, until Nathan arrived to tell him a story about two men, one rich and the other poor. The poor
man was a shepherd with only one lamb, which he raised with his family. The lamb ate at his table and
slept in his arms. One day a traveler came to visit the rich man; instead of taking one of his own sheep,
the rich man seized the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for his guest. When
Nathan finished his story, David burned with anger and said (among other things): "As surely as the Lord
lives, the man who did this deserves to die!". Nathan responded by saying "You are the man!". Realizing
his guilt, David becomes filled with terror and remorse, tearfully repenting of his evil deed.

An existential reading of the Bible demands that the reader recognize that he is an existingsubject,
studying the words that God communicates to him personally. This is in contrast to looking at a
collection of "truths" which are outside and unrelated to the reader.[6] Such a reader is not obligated to
follow the commandments as if an external agent is forcing them upon him, but as though they are
inside him and guiding him internally. This is the task Kierkegaard takes up when he asks: "Who has the
more difficult task: the teacher who lectures on earnest things a meteor's distance from everyday life, or
the learner who should put it to use?"[7] Existentially speaking, the Bible doesn't become an authority in
a person's life until they permit the Bible to be their personal authority.

Notable Christian existentialists [edit]

Christian existentialists include German Protestant theologians Paul Tillich and Rudolph Bultmann, British
Anglican theologian John Macquarrie, American theologian Lincoln Swain,[8] American philosopher
Clifford Williams, French Catholic philosophers Gabriel Marcel, Emmanuel Mounier, and Pierre Boutang,
German philosopher Karl Jaspers, Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno, and Russian philosophers
Nikolai Berdyaev and Lev Shestov. Karl Barth added to Kierkegaard's ideas the notion that existential
despair leads an individual to an awareness of God's infinite nature. Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky
could be placed within the tradition of Christian existentialism.

The roots of existentialism have been traced back as far as StAugustine.[9][10][11] Some of the most
striking passages in Pascal's Penses, including the famous section on the Wager, deal with existentialist
themes.[12][13][14][15] Jacques Maritain, in Existence and the Existent: An Essay on Christian
Existentialism,[16] finds the core of true existentialism in the thought ofThomas Aquinas.

Radical Existential Christianity [17] [edit]

Radical Existential Christians faith is in their sensible and immediate and direct experience of God
indwelling in human terms. They do not use or accept any mediators and media between themselves
and their experience of God indwelling. The radical Christian is existentialistic in essence and in
existence. The ultimate existential significance, meaning and purpose of God, manifests in persons
immediately and directly being formed spiritually by God indwelling in intelligible human terms. The root
of radical existential Christianity is not extremism itself. Extremism can serve many masters. The root of
radical existential Christianity is not us or what we do. We do not make or create our Christian existence.
It does not come as a result of a decision we personally make. The existence we presume to shape is not
the existence that actually shapes us. The root of radical existential Christianity is in being or existing in
the extreme, without anyone or anything standing between or interfering in the individual personal
relation of union between the persons spirit and the spirit of Christ. The radical Protestants of the 17th
century, for example Quakers, were theo-philosophically aligned with radical existential Christian.

See also [edit]

Atheist existentialism
Christian existential apologetics
Christian humanism
Christian philosophy
Eastern Orthodox theology
Fideism
Free will in theology
Jewish existentialism
Meaning (existential)
Neo-orthodoxy
Postliberal theology
Postmodern Christianity

References [edit]

1. ^ M.J. Eliade & C.J. Adams (1987). Encyclopedia of Religion (v.5). Macmillan Publishing Company.
2. ^ Sren Kierkegaard (1846). Concluding Unscientific Postscript, authored pseudonymously as Johannes
Climacus.
3. ^ Sren Kierkegaard (1849). The Sickness Unto Death Trans. Alastair Hannay (New York: Penguin Books,
2004), 14.
4. ^ Sren Kierkegaard (1849). The Sickness Unto Death Trans. Alastair Hannay (New York: Penguin Books,
2004), 24.
5. ^ Donald D. Palmer (1996). Kierkegaard For Beginners. London, England: Writers And Readers Limited. p.
25.
6. ^ Howard V. Hong (1983). "Historical Introduction" to Fear and Trembling. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton
University Press, p. x.
7. ^ Sren Kierkegaard (1847). Works of Love. Harper & Row, Publishers. New York, N.Y. 1962. p. 62.
8. ^ Lincoln Swain (2005). Five Articles , Soma: A Review of Religion and Culture.
9. ^ Gordon R. Lewis (Winter 1965). "Augustine and Existentialism" . Journal of the Evangelical Theological
Society 8,1, pp. 1322.
10. ^ Michial Farmer (6 July 2010). "A Primer on Religious Existentialism, Pt. 4: Augustine" .
 christianhumanist.org
11. ^ Craig J. N. de Paulo, ed. (2006). The Influence of Augustine on Heidegger: The Emergence of An
Augustinian Phenomenology. Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press.
12. ^ Desmond Clarke (2011). "Blaise Pascal" , Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
13. ^ Clifford Williams (July 3, 2005). "Pascal" . cliffordwilliams.net
14. ^ Michial Farmer (20 July 2010). "A Primer on Religious Existentialism, Pt. 5: Blaise Pascal" .
christianhumanist.org
15. ^ Michial Farmer (27 July 2010). "A Primer on Religious Existentialism, Pt. 6: Apologetics" .
christianhumanist.org
16. ^ Jacques Maritain (1947). Existence and the Existent: An Essay on Christian Existentialism (Court trait de
l'existence et de l'existent), translated by Lewis Galantiere and Gerald B. Phelan. New York: Pantheon
Books, 1948.
17. ^ Di Giovanni, Aldo (2014). The Existing Christ: an Existential Christology. Charlston: CreateSpace
Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 9781503134911.
External links [edit]

A website that explores the existential teachings of Jesus, with references to Kierkegaard and Tillich

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This page was last edited on 7 September 2017, at 13:56.

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