Let us take an instance of true self-denial. Luther, for example. He was strictly disciplined to be able to express the kind of piety that in the Middle Ages was honored and glorified under the name of self-denial -- which therefore was not true self-denial. And Luther denounced precisely that kind of piety. Suppose he had chosen to become a very distinguished ecclesiastic in order thereby to be rewarded for his self-denial in witnessing against the false kind of self-denial. In that case, it would again not have been true self-denial. But honest Luther saw properly. He witnessed against what the age regarded as true self-denial; he cut himself off from the opportunity of scoring a success thereby; perhaps Governance also helped him in this respect -- and here is true self-denial.
A person is saved by faith alone
At that time, there appeared a man from God and with faith, Martin Luther: with faith (for truly this required faith) or by faith he established faith in its rights. His life expressed works -- let us never forget that -- but he said: A person is saved by faith alone. The anger was great. I know of no stronger expression of how great it was in Luther's eyes than that he decided that in order to get things straight: the Apostle James must be shoved aside. Imagine Luther's respect for an apostle -- and then to have to dare to do this in order to get faith restored to its rights!
Whether the turn that Luther made cannot all too easily become a wrong road as soon as there is no Luther
Present-day Christendom, at least that which I am talking about, adheres to Luther; it is another matter whether Luther could acknowledge it, whether the turn that Luther made cannot all too easily become a wrong road as soon as there is no Luther whose life makes the true turn the truth. In any case, if someone wants to see whether there are some dubious aspects in the contemporary situation, it is certainly best to look back to Luther and the turn he made.
The error from which Luther turned was an exaggeration with regard to works
The error from which Luther turned was an exaggeration with regard to works. And he was entirely right; he did not make a mistake -- a person is justified solely and only by faith. That is the way he talked and taught -- and believed. And that this was not taking grace in vain -- to that his life witnessed. Splendid!
But already the next generation slackened
But already the next generation slackened; it did not turn with horror away from exaggeration with regard to works (in which exaggeration Luther lived) toward faith. No, it made the Lutheran position into doctrine, and in this way faith also diminished in vital power. Then it diminished from generation to generation. Works -- well, God knows there was no longer any question about that; it would be a shame to accuse this later age of exaggeration with regard to works, and neither were people so silly that they presumed to want to have merit for what they exempted themselves from doing. But, now, faith -- I wonder if it is to be found on earth?
One is born a Christian
What Christ required as a condition for coming into the situation in which there can be any question of becoming a Christian, a decisive action -- that is not needed anymore. A person's life is essentially homogeneous with the secular mentality and this world. So one perhaps hears a little about something that perhaps is Christianity; one reads a little, thinks a little about Christianity, experiences a mood once in a while -- and then one is a believer and a Christian. Indeed, one is already that in advance; one is born a Christian, oddly enough, and what makes it even more odd, one is born a Lutheran. It is undeniably a very dubious way to become a believer and Christian. Indeed, it has very little resemblance to Luther's way -- from the horror, through having tortured himself in a monastery for a number of years without finding rest for his soul or rest from this horror, finally to find faith's blessed way out, so that it was no wonder that this much-tried man witnessed so powerfully against building one's salvation upon works, not against works -- it was only the sly world that heard wrong.
If the Christianity of the Middle Ages is called monastic-ascetic Christianity, then the Christianity of today could be called professorial-scholarly Christianity
But since they had abolished becoming a Christian through a decisive action that can bring about the setting (situation) in which it is decided whether one is willing to be Christian or not, they substituted thinking about Christianity, in order to be doing at least something, and they thought to become Christian along this road in order thereby to go even further than faith. They did not stop with faith -- no wonder, since they did not do as Luther did, come to faith from an exaggeration with regard to works, but started out immediately with faith, which "naturally" everyone has. If the Christianity of the Middle Ages is called monastic-ascetic Christianity, then the Christianity of today could be called professorial-scholarly Christianity. Not everyone could become a professor, of course, but everyone took on a tinge of a professor of sorts and of the scholarly. Just as in the beginning not all became martyrs, but all stood in relation to the martyr, and just as in the Middle Ages not all entered the monastery, but all stood in relation to the monastery and saw the true Christian in one who entered it, so in our day all stand in relation to the professor -- the professor is the true Christian. And with the professor came scientific scholarship, and with scholarship came doubts, and with scholarship and doubts came the scholarly public, and then came reasons pro and contra, and pro und contral were Germanized, "denn [because] pro und contra allow sich [themselves] to say very much in the matter."
The professor! This man is not mentioned in the New Testament, from which one sees in the first place that Christianity came into the world without professors. Anyone with any eye for Christianity will certainly see that no one is as qualified to smuggle Christianity out of the world as "the professor" is, because the professor shifts the whole viewpoint of Christianity.
Faith Does Not Exist
This is why imitation must be affirmed. To the professor corresponds Christianity as objective teaching, doctrine. This conception of Christianity, with the help of doubt or with the help of reasons, plays the victory into the hands of doubt and changes decision, which Christianity most decisively stresses as crucial, into postponement from day to week to month to year to a lifetime. When the "professor" stands at his highest level and Christianity perceives itself in the professor as it once perceived itself in the monastery, the condition in Christendom will be -- Christianity does not really exist, adhuc sub judice lis est [the case is still before the court]; the conclusion with regard to what Christianity is, or what is Christianity, is waited. Faith does not exist; at most it is a mood that vacillates between recalling Christianity as a vanished something and waiting for it as a future something. Imitation is an impossibility, because inasmuch as everything is put in abeyance, one cannot possibly begin anything decisive, but one's existence drifts with the current and one utilizes natural self-love to make life as cozy as possible for oneself. The "professor" cannot fasten down anything; what he can do is to put everything in abeyance. At times the professor seems to propund something utterly trustworthy. This, however, is an illusion and is due more to his demeanor and assurances; looked at more closely, his firmest point is still in the realm of scientific-scholarly doubt and consequently in abeyance. Only imitation can tie the knot at the end. But just as the king blanched when an invisible hand wrote upon the wall, "You have been weighed and found wanting, " so the professor blanches before imitation -- it, too, expresses: you, with the weight of all your objective scholarship, your folios and systems, have been weighed and found wanting. No wonder, since Christianly it is precisely the objective scholarship that weighs least on the scales. -- When the "monastery" is the deviation, faith must be affirmed; when the "professor" is the deviation, imitation must be affirmed.
Sources:
Kierkegaard, Soren. For Self-Examination : Judge For Yourself, Translated and edited by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1990, 16 (XII 307), 193-196 (XII 461-XII 464).
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