Delecroix. Final Words. Training To Christianity As A Terminal Writing PDF

Final Words:
Training in Christianity as a Terminal Writing

By Vincent Delecroix
Abstract
This essay aims to show how (and in what sense and to what extent) Training in
Christianity can be seen as a “terminal” writing, how it can be understood, in
every sense, as a last speech. Though Kierkegaard went on writing after publish-
ing Training in Christianity, the last words of Anti-Climacus can be seen as a cul-
minating point. They constitute what could be called the final words, or the
words of the end. But this end could be understood in different ways: 1) as
the end of a career and a definitive turn in the movement of self-becoming shap-
ed and nourished by the act of writing; 2) as the highest point of Kierkegaardian
discourse (“superior pseudonymity”) inhabited by the highest figure, the figure
of ideality; 3) as the situs where the final categories or, rather, the categories of
the end can be shown and uttered; 4) as the end of history, insofar as this dis-
course wants to take place at the end of a catastrophic and precisely anti-Hege-
lian history, but also as it provides the category (contemporaneity) to end history
or destroy the non-real reality of history.
1. End of Career and Time of Judgment
Training in Christianity is usually understood as “pseudo-pseudony-

mous,”1 to coin a phrase. Most of all because there are very few differen-
ces, it seems, between its vehement tone and KierkegaardÌs final open at-
tack against the established order and Christendom. We think we hear the
same voice; we hear the same warnings and requests. It is easy to see
Kierkegaard through the transparent literary body of Anti-Climacus
and thus it seems the border separating pseudonimity from “veronymity”
can be continuously crossed, almost without change. And, as we will see,
Kierkegaard himself hesitated on this point. At the very least, it is evident
1 See for instance, Stephen N. Dunning KierkegaardÌs Dialectic of Inwardness: a

Structural Analysis of the Theory of Stages, Princeton: Princeton University
Press 1985, p. 214.
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92 Vincent Delecroix
that the last work of Anti-Climacus provides almost the entire argumen-
tation and content for the final orientation of Kierkegaardian discourse:
it gives the discourse its final telos. But if we leave aside the retrospective
view from the last writings to Training in Christianity, what is the meaning
of such apparent transparency? What if we were to insist on both the bor-
der and the crossing and take the choice of pseudonymity seriously, ac-
cording to its rigorous intention?
It is well known that Kierkegaard was once tempted to give up writ-
ing. In such a mood, he liquidated pseudonymity with an explicit ac-
knowledgment at the end of the Postscript. This gesture, by the way,
put an end to ClimacusÌ writing activity. In fact, Postscript became a turn-
ing point2 or a rotary axis for the whole production. In particular, it
opened a field for the “second authorship,” and most of all for a new, sym-
metrical (not contradictory) major pseudonym, the author of The Sick-
ness unto Death and Training in Christianity. With Training in Christianity,
in which the point of view of the “superior pseudonym” culminates, it is
another standpoint, and there is again something like a liquidation of
pseudonymity. Of course, it is tempting to draw another parallel with
the previous liquidation, with the (temporary) completion of the works
by Climacus (“inferior” pseudonym), because, at this time, it is again a
question of “giving up writing.”3
To say that Training in Christianity is the last great pseudonymous
work does not merely mean that Kierkegaard thereafter writes under
his own name and signature. It also means, in a deeper sense, that Kier-
kegaardÌs signature is extracted from the complex web within which it
was caught, extracted from the alternance and simultaneity of “writings
from the left hand” and “writings from the right hand.” This is a notewor-
thy point. Therefore, one could be tempted to consider Training in Chris-
tianity as a way-out of pseudonymity, a freeing of KierkegaardÌs own
voice.4 That is, it is also a way out of literature. But does it also represent
a way-in, a way into a definitive type of relation to God, an opening to the
2 SV2 XIII, 557 – 580.

3 NB11:204 in SKS 22, 127.
4 We could say that such a freeing is already included in the very text of Training
in Christianity itself: No. 3 repeats and revives, in the writing and without any
modifications, a preaching uttered by Kierkegaard viva voce. Writing is no
more the mimesis or repetition of orality: it is no more than no longer an abso-
lute transparent medium. And this preaching, according to the authorÌs own
words, had an effect back upon the composition of the two other numbers
(No. 1 and No. 2) which were written after it.

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Final Words: Training in Christianity as a Terminal Writing 93
second immediacy? In other words, does it represent the final term of an

upbringing given by authorship, as though the production of his own
works “has educated him,”5 the final term of a self-becoming? Certainly
not, otherwise the whole idea of becoming a Christian would not make
sense and, moreover, we would miss the fact that Kierkegaard is not
and never will be Anti-Climacus and never claims to have reached such
a point himself. Nevertheless, it can still be considered a turning point,
not only in his work but in his life. But in what way? From this point, au-
thorship – or we should say: what remains of writing – not only becomes
veronymous but univocal, maybe uni-tonal. Henceforth, writing is almost
entirely devoted to polemics, to the extension – which is another turning
point – of the polemics initiated here against the established order or es-
tablished Christendom.6 This is due to the fact that, as Armed Neutrality
put it, “the true Christian perspective is polemical.”7 But does this turn
not lead to writing itself somehow becoming devalued? Not only philo-
sophical writing, not only poetical and pseudonymous writing, but author-
ship itself as it contributed to KierkegaardÌs upbringing?
Psychologically speaking, one could consider this “way-out” as the re-
sult of a successful exorcism of melancholy, an exorcism constituted by
writing – especially by pseudonymous writing – something like a hinge
that leads towards a real coincidence with oneself, a coincidence that
up to that point had failed to appear. Anti-ClimacusÌ writing would
have had a retropsective effect on Kierkegaard himself, back in return,
but most of all because he was its reader, more than its author: he was
the first, maybe the only one, to hear and listen to what Anti-Climacus
was saying, to hear the “for awakening” which constitutes the proper ton-
5 Cf. NB6:74 in SKS 21, 56; SV2 XIII, 602, 619; SKS 13, 18f.
6 It seems that the invention of the pseudomym Anti-Climacus was first linked to
a strong polemical position and initially characterized by the polemical tone.
Then it was characterized by the authority of the “extraordinary Christian.”
Cf. NB5:8 in SKS 20, 373: “[H]an maa da ironisk og humoristisk være reent Fan-
den-i-voldsk.” Here it is the tone or modality of discourse which is initially
stressed when Anti-Climacus has to be described, and not any existential or con-
ceptual position. When the name and the idea first appear in the Papirer, it is
immediately preceded by polemical remarks against Christendom; and, a few
pages later, the writing of what will become Training in Christianity begins with-
in a polemical perspective. Cf. NB5:14 in SKS 20, 376f. The name “Anti-Climax”
is previoulsy used, still in a polemical context (about the absurdity of defending
and proving Christianity); “superior” [mesterlige] is his own qualifier.
7 Pap. X 5 B 107, p. 289.

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ality of Training in Christianity. The “for awakening” awakened him.8 In

other words, it formed a crucial point for KierkegaardÌs own Christianity.
Training in Christianity trained him in a decisive way. Additionally, this
would explain in part why he was reluctant to publish it. In 1849, he
noted: “The work Training in Christianity has great personal meaning
for me – i. e. I must immediately acknowledge that I am part of the
small number of people who need such violent means – and should I pub-
lish it myself instead of benefitting from it and beginning to become a
Christian myself in the most serious sense? Chimeras.”9 In a way, this
work could have remained merely ad se ipsum, precisely as a spiritual ex-
ercise, a practice – a training in Christianity whose content aims to show
what training in Christianity means. Then it could be said that Training in
Christianity rounds off an education, the authorÌs upbringing and an up-
bringing by authorship. It pushed Kierkegaard to the final step (and per-
haps, from this moment on, he really began to imitate) and, in this way,
fulfilled the mission devoted to an authorship conceived as an existential
itinerary towards Christianity and towards the Self.
From the point of view of writing, Training in Christianity leads writ-
ing towards the polemical aspect of this awakening. In this manner, it is a
religious discourse and it opens up religious discourse, since “every reli-
gious author is polemical.”10 The passage through the superior discursive
categories of “edification” (The Sickness unto Death)11 and “awakening”
(Training in Christianity) – given that the latter is the highest and from
any point of view the last category12 – is a decisive turn. If the awakening
(like the edification and not like the edifying) is linked to an authorial po-
sition which Kierkegaard cannot assume under his own name, Kierke-
gaardÌs position under his own name can in turn be reoriented – and it
is reoriented because writing Training in Christianity (that is, in fact, read-
ing it) has changed his own relationship to Christianity and has radical-
8 NB11:204 in SKS 22, 127f.

9 Ibid.
10 SV2 XIII, 592.
11 Cf. NB11:204 in SKS 22, 127,30: “[The Sickness unto Death] is entitled “for ed-
ification,” which is more than my own category, the poetÌs category: Íedifying.Ì”
We choose this a translation for “Opbyggelse” and “det Opbyggelige.”
12 Cf. NB11:212 in SKS 22, 132. About The Sickness unto Death, Kierkegaard
writes: “Basically, I should have written: for awakening. That is in fact its char-
acter, and that is the progress generated in my own productivity.…But it does
not need to be said yet. It will come in a crucial way with the next writing: Train-
ing in Christianity.”

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ized his relation to Christendom. Anti-Climacus has given him a voice,

and a last stand, as far as the specific voice of Anti-Climacus is the JudgeÌs
voice [en Dommers Røst]. Anti-Climacus is a judge.13 Certainly Kierke-
gaard himself is not that kind of judge; as a reader rather than the author,
he is rather judged and this is the precise reason why “writing” was his
own education: because he was a reader more than a writer of his own
works.14 He is judged by the voice he has himself fictitiously produced
– because the one who paints such high ideality is always judged by it.15
But the last activity of writing will be oriented by the judgment by
which the whole of Christendom will be judged.16 The status of the pseu-
donymity in Training in Christianity is therefore linked to the meaning
and conditions of this judgment. What opens up this text is something
that could be called the writing of judgment, the last writing for the
Last Judgment, since the leitmotif of the last works, from 1850 to 1855,
is judgment and self-examination. The end of writing is Doomsday.
But this is also because the use of pseudonymity, linked to Kierke-
gaardÌs own inferiority regarding the existential and religious position
of the author of such a text, linked to the possibility of the writing of
the religious stage, raises problems. It even raises contradictions and
the Journals name them. Concerning commentary on Jn 12:32, which con-
stitutes the content of No. 3 in Training in Christianity, he writes: “This
writing canÌt be made pseudonymous, because it rages against the treach-
ery which preaching is subjected to, i. e. the impersonal – and a pseudo-
nym is quite impersonal.”17 Pseudonymity could appear as a “dialectical
heresy” [dialestisk Kjætterie], an “inconsequence,” and Kierkegaard can
only note it, without explaining it. Nevertheless, there is a key in the an-
swer to this objection and so it must be quoted in full:
On the other hand, IÌm nevertheless engaged as an editor, and I will assume re-
sponsibility for it, and everything will be understood as if I said it. This is there-
fore essential progress: what needs to be said gets said, and it is attributed to me.
The “more” [det Mere] here relies on the fact that, while the one who speaks
[den Talende] is no one, a pseudonym, the editor is a real person, who acknowl-
edges that he is judged by the pseudonymous discourse.18
13 NB11:228 in SKS 22, 139.

14 SKS 13, 19.
15 NB11:228 in SKS 22, 139.
16 This appears obviously with the work from 1851, For Self-Examination.
17 NB15:63 in SKS 23, 43.
18 Ibid.

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The pseudonym-editor relationship conceived as a relation between au-

thor and reader, already used to a large extent in the aesthetic writings,
takes on a peculiar function here and a different meaning – because
what is at stake is becoming the reader of a work “for awakening.” The
editor is in charge of connecting speech and the real person (this is an es-
sential point), speech and a singular existing subject; but at the same time,
the status of the singular existing subject is that of a reader. From the
point of view of the effects of speech, Kierkegaard is at the same time
judge (because he assumes responsibility for the speech) and the judged.
The discourse is saved from impersonality, but at the same time Kierke-
gaard cannot himself be merged with the position of the judge, which is
essential in order to carry out his own education through this writing.
In other words, one could say that KierkegaardÌs position regarding
such a text is the position of self-judgement or self-examination. For a
self-examination will lead to this: the reader talking to himself judges him-
self.19 This is because pseudonymity still relies on a maieutical principle20
or strategy – and by these means, the whole of Christendom, as reader or
listener, will judge itself. Here is the meaning of the “moral” which ends
Training in Christianity, No. 1. Self-examination, in fact, is the practical
purpose of the entire maieutical orientation of the Kierkegaardian dis-
course; and so Training in Christianity, again, completely realizes this gen-
eral purpose and opens up, for the later writing, the univocal discourse
devoted to it. The work itself refers to such a task by speaking about
the effect of indirect communication on the receiver.21 The speech,
then, will play the role of mirror, insofar as this kind of metaphor signals
the general Kierkegaardian conception of true reception (listening, read-
ing, understanding),22 both for “philosophical” discourse as well as the
Word: a general and permanent de te narratur fabula.23 And as far as
such a conception is inheritated from the Socratic conception of the result
of philosophical discourse, Anti-Climacus represents the highest figure of
the Christian Socrates.
19 SV2 XII, 341.

20 We agree, of course, with M. Strawser who connects all pseudonymity with
maieutics. His remark concerns Training in Christianity. Cf. Michael Strawser
Both/And. Reading Kierkegaard from Irony to Edification, New York: Fordham
University Press 1997, p. 150.
21 SKS 12, 129 – 132.
22 This is the main principle of KierkegaardÌs conception of reading as far as it is
inherited from the model for reading the Word. Cf. SKS 13, 53f.
23 SKS 3, 15; 4, 377; 6, 440f.

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Now as Kierkegaard himself puts it, this strategy failed – so that pseu-
donymity could disappear. On May 16, 1855, on the occasion of the re-
publication (without any modification) of Training in Christianity, he
writes in Fædrelandet: “If it had to be published now that my considera-
tions for the late bishop have been dropped, now that I have verified, like
when I first published it, that the established order is in a Christian sense
unbearable, here are few changes: it would no longer be pseudony-
mous.”24 For if, as a commentator puts it, “the pseudonym has the effect
of immediately freeing readers from the claim of the text”25 and he then
tries to indirectly provoke the readerÌs self-reflexion, the keeping of pseu-
donymity only depends on such a maieutical success. The actual situation
justifies the abandonment of pseudonymity, showing by this the fragility
of pseudonymity itself: its status seems to be determined solely by a stra-
tegic and pragmatic purpose.26 The framework it belongs to now seems to
be purely communicational and pragmatic, putting the stress on the per-
locutory effects of the speech acts: the awakeningÌs purpose decides the
literary status of the author.
Forsaking pseudonymity means embracing an “open attack.” But
even though he leaves pseudonymity behind, Kierkegaard does not
take the position of the extraordinary Christian: even in the last issues
of Øjeblikket, he introduces himself as “non-Christian”; yet he is able
to “Socratically” show that “the others are even less Christian than he
is.”27 Devoted primarly to “Christian healing,” Training in Christianity
in fact opened the days of judgment, as the cure failed, and not self-judg-
ment.
Nevertheless, even though it was “tiny,” pseudonymity was still there,
as an indirect strategy, an attack that must simultaneously bring about de-
fense and self-examination and this was the way to introduce Christianity
into Christendom: the truth could have penetrated the established
order.28 But can Christendom still be saved? The answer to this question
decides whether pseudonymity must remain or be given up. No self-ex-
amination happened; Christendom didnÌt want to understand. Christen-
dom shows that it doesnÌt want to be saved, because it doesnÌt want to
24 SKS 14, 213.

25 Michael Strawser Both/And, p. 149.
26 Including his “scruples” regarding Bishop Mynster. Yet one must be careful not
to reduce the entire meaning of Training in ChristianityÌs pseudonymity to this
question.
27 SKS 13, 405.
28 Ibid.

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save itself by its own means while relying on the hope of grace.29 Salvation
is only a matter of grace as the requested imitation of Christ does not war-
rant that the imitator will be saved; but Christendom is in charge of will-
ing and striving. And it didnÌt.30 In those conditions, “we donÌt have the
right to rely on grace.”31 So the condition of Christendom settles the sta-
tus of the text, something like a consideration of the end of time, the end
of Christian times. Christendom didnÌt want to be saved and we could say
that the author of Training in Christianity took his stand at the beginning
of the end.
2. The Ideal Completion and Achievement of the Work
A. Ideal Author
Nonetheless this end still remains contingent, in some way, both from a
historical and biographical point of view. Training in Christianity is also
the work of the end because it is here that pseudonymity reaches its high-
est point. This point is the very condition of possibility of the writing of
the religious stage, the culminating situs of speech, the absolute peak of
existence. But this place is both the place of the language of ideality
and the place where the ideal figure stands. The distinction between infe-
rior pseudonymity and superior pseudonymity is of course essential, but
with respect to The Sickness unto Death, Training in Christianity has a
special status. In the case of The Sickness unto Death, this superior pseu-
donymity is understood as the condition of possibility (that is to say legiti-
macy) for religious discourse, that is, the very condition for understanding
the primary religious determinations. But its function is double in the case
of Training in Christianity. Here superior pseudonymity concerns both the
authorship and Christian becoming: Anti-Climacus is both the ideal au-
thor and the extraordinary Christian; he shows himself to be a model
for authorship and for existence. Therefore, he is both the origin or the
source of truly religious discourse (of the religious stage) and the
model-figure of the religious stage who illuminates himself. In turn his
29 The first condition to be saved is to want to be saved. Cf. NB11:208 in SKS 22,
130.
30 On Training in ChristianityÌs reception and the strategy of open attack that fol-
lowed, see Bruce H. Kirmmse Kierkegaard in Golden Age Denmark, Blooming-
ton: Indiana University Press 1990, pp. 449 – 480.
31 SKS 14, 213.

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language is subjected to a last and crucial inflexion or conversion: this

language becomes both judgment and injunction, the main categories
and concepts become both heuristic or theoretical categories and critical
(polemical) and practical categories. The whole theoretical dimension, if
it can be called such, or whatÌs left of the theoretical in Anti-ClimacusÌ
speech, is completely enveloped by the prescriptive – as if it were accom-
panied by the only truly Christian words: “Go and do the same.”32 A dis-
course which is charged with “exposing” ChristianityÌs truth cannot be an
“exposition”; it involves a definitive inflexion in the propositional status
of philosophical discourse. This is the point where philosophical discourse
is converted into edification via an internal necessity. In order to appear,
the “object” of the discourse imposes not only a new external form but an
internal conversion of the signifying mode or status of the linguistic asser-
tions (strictly speaking, they are no longer assertions).
The superior pseudonymity can be understood in connection with the
real personality of Kierkegaard and in connection with Kierkegaard as an
author. Climacus was not Christian, Anti-Climacus is a Christian at an ex-
traordinarily high level. Between them stands, or stood, the Kierkegaard
(under his own name) of the Edifying Discourses and Christian Discours-
es – but also the Kierkegaard of the Discourses at the Communion of Fri-
days, which, as is said in a journal, “are in relation with the last pseudo-
nym Anti-Climacus.”33 As such, not only is a symmetrical relation estab-
lished between the two main pseudonyms, but there is also a change in
the understanding of the status of pseudonymity or in the conception of
the “poetical” that pseudonymity provides. If the poetical, notably with
Climacus, is conceived as a failure and an exteriority regarding the reli-
gious stage, the poetical linked to the Anti-Climacus pseudonymity estab-
lishes, on the contrary, the ideal medium for an adequate and internal dis-
course, adequate because internal. Training in Christianity is both poetical
and religious. It doesnÌt express a poetical relation to Christianity, but re-
veals every other authorial position (that of the other pseudonyms but
also of Kierkegaard himself) as a relation to the ideality.
The language of Anti-Climacus is the language of the religious itself,
the adequate medium for it to come to light. For the first time, the reli-
gious talks, and he talks directly. However, both from the point of view
of the real author and the point of view of the maieutical purpose, this
is a poetical communication. It is a poetical communication because Kier-
32 SKS 13, 67f.

33 NB13:57 in SKS 22, 309.

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kegaard cannot be or cannot embody this point of view: “I myself just

strive to naively be a Christian.” Poeticity receives an opposite meaning
here to the one it has in inferior pseudonymity: neither withdrawal, nor
illegitimacy, nor failure, but, on the contrary, ideal legitimacy and adequa-
cy.
The invention of the superior pseudonymity thus allows Kierkegaard
to solve the major difficulty of his entire authorship: the possibility of a
legitimate and adequate discourse about Christianity, that is, about be-
coming a Christian. Legitimacy and adequacy mean the same here: a dis-
course is correct according to the point from which it is asserted; it is true
thanks to its origin. And it is the qualification or quality of the author that
makes the discourse true with regard to what it says, because here it is a
matter of the ethical or ethico-religious level: a statement is not true ac-
cording to its adequate referentiality concerning a matter of facts, but ac-
cording to the speaking subject. This is the criteria by which the authorial
position is decided. At this point, Kierkegaard identifies authority and au-
thorship. As such, the classical understanding of the relation between a
“real” author and pseudonymous author must be reversed; it is the pseu-
donymous author who is the only true author of the religious discourse;
he is truly author (and truthful). According to this position, every other
authorship is pseudo-authorship, including Kierkegaard himself: Kierke-
gaard remains “without authority.” As such, he cannot be the author of a
true/legitimate discourse about Christianity – he can only be a reader.
Anti-Climacus therefore presents himself as the figure of the absolute
point of view upon the absolute. And this authority comes to light within
what he himself says, that is, the true relationship to Christ (contempora-
neity). If he can speak, if he can truly speak, it is because he is contem-
poraneous. He says this contemporaneity but he also shows it by his
own authorship, by meditating upon the Word, since writing is the med-
itation upon the Word and since meditation upon this Word requires con-
temporaneity. And he meditates on the Word that expresses (talks about)
the true relationship to Christ. Indeed the Word chosen here is not any
word: it is the Word whose understanding states the relation to the
Word. Therefore, by relating himself to this Word, he does what he says
and what the Word expresses: being in the situation of contemporaneity.
Here, it is a true reduplication inside writing, for if reduplication intrinsi-
cally links discourse to the real person, such a person is here the literary
figure of the author: the pseudonymous authorship, then, represents or
mimes reduplication.

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No one but he can meditate on this word; inversely meditating upon

this word lifts the author up into an absolute relationship to the absolute.
By truly meditating on this relation one is in such a relation. His author-
ship is in itself such a relation and this is the reason why the writing of
Training in Christianity is in itself a training in Christianity. Or, in others
terms, the first training in Christianity is to write Training in Christianity.
Of course, one must be careful with this idea of an “absolute point of
view upon the absolute.” This “point of view” is neither a point of view
from above nor the identification of the subject with the absolute, for
such an identification can only happen within the false medium of knowl-
edge and it tears the singular subject out of real and singular existence,
transforming him into the non-existing universal subject of absolute
knowledge, the chimeric Subject-Object. The ideality of Anti-Climacus
is not the ideality of the absolute subject, otherwise it would place him
in contradiction with Climacus (and not in a position of symmetrical su-
periority). On the contrary his ideality lies in the supreme step of the di-
alectical relation to truth, which is Christ, a relation of faith. In a sense,
the entirety of Training in Christianity is devoted to showing that the ab-
solute relation to the absolute happens within the medium of radical dif-
ference, that imitation (the relation to Christ) is the exact opposite of
speculative identification; in other words, it is only thinkable and possible
within paradox and offense. Ideality is thus not a point of view in which
difference is overcome whilst being maintained in existence: it is an abso-
lute relation within difference to the absolute – and this is the schemae
which is precisely what should be understood as imitation.
But there remains one final reversal, since the “authorÌs function,” to
speak like Foucault, is at the same time brought to its highest point and
radically devalued by the subordination of writing to reading. If the dis-
course of Anti-Climacus represents the completion of the Kierkegaardian
discourse, it represents the moment when writing is converted into read-
ing (or into listening to the Word). The perfect and completed writing is
the writing which is formed within the relation of the author to the Word
– and this relation is at the same time the very subject of what is written.
Consequently one can say that there is an absolute position for authorship
only in the reading, only when writing is reading. The conception of the
author as a producer, creator, genius, or even solely as the first origin
of speech is a romantic and aesthetic conception: the religious point of
view overturns such a conception and invalidates it. The author is no lon-
ger a creator; he deprives himself of his own creative spontaneity. The
hand, one could say, is converted into an ear; the mouth receives what

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it is able to say from another origin. The fact that Anti-Climacus is the
absolute author means that he is second, passive – a receiver. The ideal
author is a reader. And it is Training in Christianity that says this –
since its topic is the answer or response to the Word – and that shows
this as it the reading comes from itself.
B. Ideal Figure
But Anti-Climacus is more than an ideal author. Or, more precisely, he is
a “prototype” for authorship because he is the extraordinary Christian:
he is the ideal author because he is an ideal existential figure. And
then he represents the ideality of being a Christian by presenting himself
in his very words. Is this a fault? “His representation of the ideality can be
absolutely true, and I must bow before it.”34 Not only as a writer but also
as an individual Kierkegaard must acknowledge that he is lower than
Anti-Climacus; but he must also acknowledge that this representation
of complete ideality is essential. The dynamic tension towards ideality
drives the becoming-Christian, “since becoming a Christian is finally to
become contemporaneous with Christ”35 and Anti-Climacus is character-
ized by such a situation of contemporaneity. Again, the difference be-
tween the two writings of Anti-Climacus must be understood. The former
takes the form of treatise or of a “Christian psychological exposition”
about a fundamental religious category. The latter is a meditation (and
a polemical meditation) on the Word. Thus Training in Christianity repre-
sents the culmination of the superior pseudonymity itself since Anti-Cli-
macus is himself somehow the matter of his own writing given that he em-
bodies the authentic relation to the Word. The text embodies the point of
view (and this is how the text is a training in Christianity). The practice is
then both the content and the form of the text, but most of all it proposes
a figure, a figure who talks about what he is. In Fear and Trembling, the
religious figure was mute and moreover characterized by his muteness;
with Anti-Climacus in Training in Christianity he not only talks but indi-
cates himself.
In this manner, Training in Christianity represents the essential desti-
nation for the Kierkegaardian production: it proposes the ideal figure,
and at the same time speaks about the religious relation to ideality36 (si-
34 NB11:209 in SKS 22, 130.

35 SKS 12, 75.
36 For instance, cf. SKS 12, 186f.

Authenticated
multaneously, Kierkegaard himself as reader enters into relation with the

ideality represented by Anti-Climacus). A few lines from Armed Neutral-
ity immediately show the crucial turn accomplished by Training in Chris-
tianity in the constitution of an ideal figure.37 The entire task of the Kier-
kegaardian oeuvre was in the end to shape and release an image of the
Christian, given that Kierkegaardian discourse tends towards edification.
The whole production is devoted to the production of the image (model,
pattern) because it aims at edification. And this ambition unveils the very
difference between the operation of the Kierkegaardian discourse and the
operation of philosophical (speculative) discourse, since the former tends
to be a “discourse of power.”38 Training in Christianity thus achieves this
task, showing where the Christian must be (contemporaneity) in order to
be a real Christian, proposing the highest figure of a Christian, and more-
over making this proposition an injunction (with consequent polemical
effects). The role, nature, and function of the image are then completely
fulfilled. As such, Training in Christianity serves the purpose of convert-
ing philosophical discourse into a pragmatic form communication: the
image here is no longer a theoretical tool or means devoted to an expo-
sition or an explanation; it must not be evaluated in (problematic) terms
of “representability” but rather in pragmatic terms of efficiency. Actually
its function is both theoretical (showing the main features of the religious
stage) and pragmatic (proposing a pattern for existence).
This ideality must therefore remain ideality. The author must then re-
main pseudonymous. Identifying himself with the author, presenting him-
self as the extraordinary Christian, would have been a strategic and fatal
mistake for Kierkegaard. Such a mistake would pervert the pragmatic
purpose of the communication: the religious discourse would sink into
enthusiasm and paradoxically stand in the way of the task of awakening.
“The task of introducing this image into reality and of putting it forward –
who does it belong to?”39 Kierkegaard asks. In order to prevent a drift
into enthusiasm, Kierkegaard must stay in the background – and this is
also the reason why he hesitates to publish Training in Christianity and
finally gives up publishing The Point of View for My Work as an Author.40
However, writing itself cannot be seen as the total achievement of the
true and absolute relation to the absolute: Anti-Climacus still remains a
37 Pap. X 5 B 107, pp. 290 – 293.

38 Cf. Pap. VIII 2 B 89, p. 189.
39 Pap. X 5 B 107, p. 291.
40 Cf. NB11:204 in SKS 22, 127f.

Authenticated
writer. Anti-Climacus still offers the representation of the Christian as a

writer and his Christianity is that of a Christian writer. Or even the Chris-
tian as a “simple” reader – and reading must be given up in order to
“overcome” inwardness and enter the public field of imitation.41 Christi-
anity is still inserted in a text. The act of writing therefore still offers only
a mimesis of a real and active existential relation to Christ. Thus, in Train-
ing in Christianity, Anti-Climacus does indeed complete the Kierkegaard-
ian discourse and its true horizon, but this achievement is one of writing
and it happens within or inside writing – it is not an existential achieve-
ment. There is something beyond writing, even though writing partici-
pates in self-becoming. The Christian writerÌs existence could thus appear
solely as the beginning of Christian existence, or as a mimesis of Christian
existence since a relation to the Word here shapes a text rather than a life
(though this writing is also a component of Christian existence), or even
as a poetical existence, a semi-poetical relation to the absolute, despite
the fact that the author no longer belongs to aesthetics. So Anti-Climacus
may be the last figure of literature, talking at the moment when literature
at the same time becomes Christian and dissolves itself: he still belongs to
literature, he is still caught in the literary web but points beyond litera-
ture.
Of course literature and writing do not count as nothing: they provide
the way for upbringing and self-becoming. Writing, according to Kierke-
gaard, was the way he clarified his own relationship to Christianity. Liter-
ature is not, or not only, a curse, the curse of the poetic life (an escape
from real existence, the dizzy and fruitless temptation of pure possibility),
the curse of melancholy (the inability to adjust to oneself), or even the
curse of reflection. Nevertheless the terminal and ideal figure embodied
by Anti-Climacus in Training in Christianity does indicate literatureÌs nec-
essary dismissal.
The end of Training in Christianity itself significantly raises the prob-
lem of the meaning and purpose of Christian art.42 What does portraying
ideality really mean? This is the final step of the argumentation devoted
to the distinction between an imitator and an admirer. We know indeed
that literature understood in the form of a communication of power is
41 On this difficulty, see George Pattison “If Kierkegaard is Right about Reading,
Why Read Kierkegaard?” in Søren Kierkegaard. Critical Assessments of Leading
Philosophers, vol. 1, ed. by Daniel W. Conway, London and New York: Rout-
ledge 2002, pp. 198f.
42 SKS 12, 246 – 249.

Authenticated
now consecrated to offering a pragmatic pattern; the literary representa-

tion of ideality does not solely provide a beautiful picture. But can liter-
ature inoculate itself against this risk? The question about the way to rep-
resent ideality (and not only the prototype) runs throughout the whole
book (for instance, how to represent kenosis to a child).43 The conclusion
of such a discussion shows the impassable boundaries of art, but one
should pay special attention to the fact that the question does not concern
the inability to represent what is actually unrepresentable (God); the
question is not about the limit of the power of literature. Nor does the
question raise the traditional religious problem of iconolatry or icono-
clasm (or even aniconism). The necessary “crucifixion of the image,” as
G. Pattison said,44 does not here belong strictly to a question of the rep-
resentability of the “object,” rather it is a matter of pragmatic effects and
ethical destination. Can art bring about anything but admiration? Can the
receiver be anything but an admirer? The dreadful image proposed by
Anti-Climacus could still, even paradoxically, be admired. Moreover, he
himself could still be no more than an admirer – through writing. Or
can literature, by its own means, by its own intrinsic operation of produc-
ing images, via its own ability of re-description, fulfill the destination im-
posed by Kierkegaard on the discourse? Can literature really make what
P. Ricoeur defines as “existential propositions”?45 We can see here how
Training in Christianity has advanced Kierkegaardian reflection about
the nature of literature and writing, about their imaging process, to its
final limit and to the final boundaries of the literary field.
By all means, then, Training in Christianity could present the uncom-
mon case of an author overcome by his own authorship – we should say:
transcended by his own authorship. This case of internal transcendence is
quite noteworthy. Usually authorship tends to a point of achievement as
its horizon and this movement is itself never achieved: the absolute Book
or the absolute true word, the great Work, the ideal image of the work
still remains a horizon or a target writing aims at. This horizon belongs
to a future which is perpetually postponed. The real work, with regard
to this ideal image, is given a temporary, incomplete or failing status: it
43 SKS 12, 177 – 179.

44 Cf. George Pattison Kierkegaard: The Aesthetic and the Religious: From Magic
to the Crucifixion of the Image, London: Macmillian, 1992.
45 Cf. Paul Ricoeur La m¤taphore vive, Paris: Seuil 1975, pp. 302f. Especially on the
use of images, metaphors, patterns, and models in religious discourse, see Paul
Ricoeur “Paul Ricoeur on Biblical Hermeneutics,” in Semeia 4, 1975,
pp. 29 – 148.

Authenticated
always appears as a work in process, in fragments, or as an exertion. Yet

this supposed future of the work, a genuine eschaton for the process of
writing, seems here, on the contrary, to be realized inside the work and
before the end of writing. The ideal end or final term of the work takes
place inside the work. The end is before the end.
3. Final Conceptuality and the Change of Paradigm: Imitation
Anti-Climacus thus stands at the end, embodying the last state of speech.
This means that Training in Christianity is also the place for the terminal
categories, categories which can be considered from the standpoint of a
work devoted to Christian becoming, both as the ground and as the high-
est categories,46 and thus the leading categories for the last writings to
such extent that they could be seen as rhetorical developments or the
WordÌs grounded developments of the whole content of Training in Chris-
tianity. Terminal or limit-categories also imply that they are deeply rooted
in a borderline experience since the speech or discourse stating these cat-
egories comes from the “locus” of contemporaneity – and this is the site
of “the extraordinary.” This is the only place where they can be seen and
approached in their true sense. As such, they belong to the highest expe-
rience. But this site also represents a turning point in philosophical dis-
course because it is the place of a speech that speaks of Christianity in
its radical heterogeneity. In other words, it is a place of a paradigm
shift; it is the place where philosophical discourse must switch from
one paradigm to another. And this is also why the nature and form of
speech is subject to radical change: no longer is it theoretical or theolog-
ical (which still remains speculative), but rather prescriptive.
These categories do not take place at the frontier of what is thinkable
but at the frontier of what can be philosophically thought and expressed;
they rely on a possible reversal of philosophy inside philosophy itself. This
reversal was prepared by existential thought in that we can consider
Training in Christianity as the final version of the central philosophical
46 Training in Christianity represents the completion of The Sickness unto Death.

Such an interpretation, largely repeated by scholars, is based on KierkegaardÌs
own view of the link between the two Anti-Climacus works. Consistent with
his interpretation, Stephen N. Dunning mistakenly claims that this final moment
exposes “the Aufhebung [sic] of sin-consciousness.” S. N. Dunning KierkegaardÌs
Dialectic of Inwardness, p. 236.

Authenticated
problem of Philosophical Fragments, the problem of truth or, more pre-

cisely, the problem concerning the relation [Forholdet] to truth. Just
like Climacus, Anti-Climacus raises PilateÌs question.47 Moreover, on its
own (religious) level, Training in Christianity establishes an almost sym-
metrical or analogical sequence that “repeats” the sequence of Philo-
sophical Fragments, a sequence that binds “the master” (or “the god”),
“paradox,” “offense,” “contemporaneity,” “the relation of the disciple
to the truth.” However, such a sequence is no longer constructed from
the standpoint of a “thought-project” but rather on the basis of Scripture.
In a way, Anti-Climacus says no more than Climacus does: faith as a re-
lation to the truth is the relation to the Master (and not to the doctrine)
understood as absolute paradox. Yet in another manner, the change of
standpoint changes everything, by changing the level and the sphere
(that is, also the linguistic sphere) in which this proposition or statement
is formulated. And it is in this manner that the philosophical question it-
self is made unrecognizable.
This repetition is therefore not only a translation or a transcription of
what was once uttered in the (aesthetico-) philosophical order into the
language of the religious stage or into the religious stage itself. This pas-
sage of translation brings about a reversal of the very framework within
which the problem of truth can be understood: the framework is qualita-
tively modified. The traditional philosophical problem was pushed to its
terminal limits by Climacus, beyond (and against) its speculative achieve-
ment. From the inside, then, philosophy was pushed to overcome and re-
verse the paradigm within which truth and the relation to truth could be
understood: the paradigm speculatively completed by Hegel – the gno-
seological paradigm of the question of truth constructed by the whole his-
tory of metaphysics. As long as philosophy belongs to such a gnoseolog-
ical paradigm, it is unable to answer this question – what is truth? What it
means to be related to the truth? – a fortiori it is impossible to answer the
question: what is the relation to the truth if truth is Christ? ThereÌs an
“infinite difference”48 between the two paradigms, between the two con-
ceptions of the relation to the truth. On the other hand, Anti-ClimacusÌ
final answer (imitation) was only possible inasmuch as it was prepared
for by the internal philosophical subversion of the paradigm – otherwise
he simply would have been incomprehensible. This subversion is the con-
version to existential thought. From the standpoint of the philosophical
47 SKS 12, 200f.

48 SKS 12, 202.

Authenticated
history of the question of truth, this speech is incomprehensible or unin-

telligible; however, it is made comprehensible by the constitution of an
other discourse. Indeed it is this other discourse that prepares for the con-
version of the relation to truth understood as knowing into a relation to
truth understood as being.49
Only through a conversion can the final categories – contemporane-
ity, offense, imitation – be truly formulated: it is the new medium of ex-
istential thought that makes them visible. What is substituted for the gno-
seological model is a hermeneutic paradigm: the relation to truth is
henceforth structured by the sequence understanding-interpretation-imi-
tation. This substitution is particularly evident in the placement of the
fundamental relation (the relation to truth as Christ): it is henceforth
comprehended within the framework of a theory of the sign – which usu-
ally attracts scholarsÌ attention50 – itself included within a theory of com-
munication, the last stage of KierkegaardÌs theory of communication. The
relation of knowing or knowledge is converted into a relation of (inter-
pretative) understanding, insofar as its “object” (the truth) is a sign and
insofar as “the sign only possesses a being for the one who knows that
it is a sign.”51 This kind of interpretative relation to the sign (to the
truth as sign) is no longer theoretical; it no longer belongs to the para-
digm of vision (theoria) which was once the way to understand any rela-
tion of such a kind. Interpretation here (the relation to the sign) is not a
question of vision (or intellectual vision, inspectio mentis), but of practice.
The reason it is a question of practice is the fact that the sign is interpret-
ed as a call. Thus the whole relation to the truth – that is to say, the her-
meneutic definition of the truth itself – must be understood under the
schemae of call/response (and not question/answer). This hermeneutic
structure is the fundamental religious structure.52 And, finally, the specific
kind of response held in such a hermeneutic sequence is practical: inter-
pretation is practice. Christianity as Anti-Climacus understands it pre-
vents the assimilation of understanding under a paradigm of vision;
thus it no longer fits under the paradigm of knowledge either, insofar
as the latter privileges vision.
49 SKS 12, 202: “The truth does not consist in knowing it, but in being it.”
50 Cf. Roger Poole Kierkegaard. The Indirect Communication, Charlottesville and
London: University Press of Virginia 1993, pp. 244 – 261.
51 SKS 12, 129.
52 Cf. Paul Ricoeur Amour et justice, (Gifford Lectures, IX), Paris: Seuil 2008,
pp. 45 – 47, pp. 77 – 78, p. 86.

Authenticated
The obstacle to the theoretical model – or, rather, its internal distor-
tion – is first due to the sign being a sign of contradiction. This means that
the sign not only point towards a meaning or signification beyond itself; it
doesnÌt even merely confirm the endlessly repeated difference between
the inner and outer – it also points towards something that is its opposite.
Faith is thus not only the operation of “reading” something else through
an immediate sign, but of holding together the sign (the man of humble
condition or a singular man) with its opposite (God), the opposite it
points to. This tension is an interpretative binding: the logical contradic-
tion that cannot be grasped from a logical point of view is illogically main-
tained by interpretation. Under this interpretation faith must not say that
it is God despite the appearance (incognito is not a simple disguise as the
ancient gods used to veil themselves), but because of it. Moreover faith
must understand (interpret) the appearance itself as not being an appear-
ance – otherwise it slides into paganism or docetism, and the presence of
truth as incarnation would not be “grasped.”
The sign is also conceived as a call – but not as a kind of unveiling or a
disclosure to vision (which would repeat the specular pattern). As such,
interpretation is conceived as response, since “faith is a very precise
kind of reception.”53 Interpretation is understood according to a schemae
of communication (and not of referential semantics) and a theory of com-
munication that is mainly focused on reception. But this is not only the
case for the part specifically devoted to such a “theory”:54 Training in
Christianity is entirely structured by the sequence invitation-halt-re-
sponse. And this is the reason why Mt 11:28 is the decisive text: it is
the Christian text concerning the call as sign and the call/response struc-
ture as the fundamental religious structure.
In a manner of speaking, the sign gives him away in a word, it is the
Word. And this word does not belong to a declarative type of proposition
or statement, but to an injunctive type. So interpretation includes two op-
erations: referring each statement to the duly “identified” speaking sub-
ject and responding to the call that is the real meaning of the statement.
According to the Kierkegaardian view of communication, the meaning of
the message must be referred to its origin – the speaking subject. The fun-
damental question here is: Who?55 Who is speaking? Who is giving the
53 SKS 12, 144. My emphasis.

54 SKS 12, 129 – 147.
55 SKS 12, 37: “[We must] stop at what is infinitely more important and more de-
cisive: the person of the inviter.”

Authenticated
invitation? If understanding the word means adequately answering it, we

must be aware that we can only correctly answer if we have correctly in-
terpreted the origin-sign which is the speaking subject himself. If not, we
donÌt understand. There are thus several ways not to understand: not to
understand the Word as an injunction; not to understand understanding
itself as practice (Christianity as doctrine); and not to correctly (faithful-
ly) interpret the origin-sign of the speech (admiration).56
The closing category of this hermeneutic sequence is imitation. Imita-
tion is the existential interpretative understanding. It fits entirely with the
new paradigm for the question of truth and completes it. It corresponds to
the “definition” according to which correct relation to the truth is not
knowing the truth but being the truth. This is not just a substitution but
more precisely a reversal, since being the truth is knowing it.57 But if imi-
tation as existential interpretation seems to return us to a paradigm of vi-
sion, this paradigm is in fact clearly disordered and subverted: first be-
cause the “image” offered to such a “vision” is a sign of contradiction
and secondly because the relation to the image is not theoretical but prac-
tical. Since we never saw Christ in his glory (and we could not have done
so, otherwise this vision would be paganism), the relation to the prototype
– this relation to the truth means to be the truth – implies at the same time
that vision transcends the immediate image (the humble man is God) and
remains at the level of this immediate image (the prototype is the humble
man who suffers). The essential distinction between an imitator and an
admirer matches with the distinction between such a correct interpreta-
tion (understanding the kenosis as the revelation of the truth and under-
standing this revelation as call to practice) and an interpretation that proj-
ects the interpretative operation into the former (philosophical) para-
digm.
This point also reveals something about the real nature of the
“image.” Strictly speaking, it is not an “image” of the usual kind; what
is offered to us is a life – or the image of a life: the life of Christ is the
56 We are now also able to transfer such a conception to the level of reading so that
Anti-Climacus not only substitutes exegesis for theology, but also, with his own
practice of reading and writing, introduces a strict version of sola scriptura
against scholarship (SV2 XII, 369: “O! To be alone with the Holy Word! If
you arenÌt, then you arenÌt reading the Holy Word”). These principles were to
be developed in a commentary to Jas 1:22. Cf. For Self-Examination in SKS
13, 53 – 76.
57 SKS 12, 202.

Authenticated
paradigm for imitation.58 According to a hermeneutic point of view, a cru-

cial distinction should be made between the “image” (the object of admi-
ration) and the narrative structure which is the real referent for interpre-
tation as imitation. Their semiotic status is different – and so is the modal-
ity of interpretation. The image is to be seen, the narrative structure to be
conformed to – the operation performed by the “reader” or the interpret-
er is not the same. But, most of all, all interpretation of any word and
meaning must finally be referred to such a narrative: a statement is under-
stood with regard to material of the narrative and its meaning is con-
structed by such an operation. Thus, one could say the “image of life”
is both a prototype for active interpretative (imitation) and the condition
of the WordÌs meaning.
Imitation is thus the final category. Imitation is the highest kind of re-
sponse, the highest quality of understanding. There is nothing beyond,
imitation is for the new paradigm what Absolute Knowledge was for
the previous one. Yet, because there is a radical reversal of these para-
digms, we must also say that imitation is the exact “anti-category” to
be opposed to the final category of the entire history of metaphysics. A
category which belongs to a paradigm of radical difference – whilst the
previous one was the metaphysical paradigm of identity – insofar imita-
tion is constructed on a paradoxical structure: one must fit the prototype,
but at the same time the prototype as God is incommensurable. Claiming
to identity oneself with or equate oneself with him is therefore both im-
possible and impious.59 Opposite the static and ideal identification as re-
sult of knowledgeÌs metaphysical process, imitation is thus effort, that is,
the dynamic tension of the relation to truth within the differenceÌs medi-
um. Formulating such a category, then, means putting an end to this his-
tory – the long history of the metaphysical question of truth.
4. The End of History and the End of Time and Times: Contemporaneity
Training in Christianity is thus situated in a time of closure. More precise-
ly, it speaks from a terminal moment of a history which has followed a
movement opposite to the movement of thought in the Hegelian philos-
ophy of history. Modernity is not the moment of the “effectivity” or “re-
alisation” of the truth of Christianity (by understanding and overcoming
58 SKS 12, 115.

59 NB28:6 in SKS 25, 217 – 219.

Authenticated
faith), but rather its destruction: both through the triumph of the specu-
lative pattern and through the triumph of the Church – in fact, through
the triumph of the belief in the philosophy of history, since the established
order is the historical realization of speculative belief in history. History is
not the story of the progressive revelation of the truth, history is not its
becoming-real, 60 the divine movement through which God becomes Ab-
solute Spirit and comes to his truth and effectivity in coming to himself,
the realized Absolute Spirit as God knowing himself within Absolute
Knowledge. And present times do not witness the institution of the
Realm (since the realm still and for ever does and will not belong to
this world), but rather the universal spread of the Triumphant Church
which is the Hegelian and antechristic replica of the Realm. Obviously
the question and the conflict of interpretations is based on the ambivalent
meaning of the Hegelian “Werweltlichtung” (of Christianity) conceived as
reconciliation and as the final term of a process in reality; it is based on
the ontological weight attributed to Weltgeschichte and finally on the idea
of a historical process of truth. According to Training in Christianity, the
truth is strictly heterogeneous to the world – as ChristÌs suffering shows:
in time, because incarnate, truth remains heterogeneous to historical
time. The distinction and opposition between the Militant Church and
the Triumphant Church that occupies a large part of the end of Training
in Christianity 61 is based on the difference between two conceptions of the
connection between history and truth, opposing the idea of “reality with
the determination of truth” and “effectivity.”
Contemporaneity thus initiates not only the destruction of history, but
the destruction of the speculative idea of history (the intrinsic link be-
tween truth and history). Thus Training in Christianity is not only located
at the end of catastrophic history, at the end of times, but initiates the an-
nihilation of (historical) time: at the end of times, it initiates the end of
time.
For History is not the story of the truth but the story of the oblivion of
the truth, the story of the universal veiling of the truth. For Kierkegaard,
Training in Christianity does not only initiate what might be labeled a
writing of the end, the writing of the Last Judgment against Christendom
60 The problem for Anti-Climacus is indeed to determine what “true” reality is,
i. e., historical reality. This is why he establishes a trichotomy between poetry
(fiction), history (reality), and contemporaneity (reality with the determination
of truth). Cf. SKS 12, 75f.
61 SKS 12, 205 – 226.

Authenticated
(the established order cannot be saved), but also emerges from a philo-
sophical destruction of history itself. Only for a speculative pattern can
truth be solely in the process toward the end; and this is due to the fact
that truth is conceived according a gnoseological paradigm (cumulative or
dialectical). Change the paradigm and you change the meaning of history:
truth is at the beginning, at the source – this is why we can say the model
stands backwards62 – and the true relation to truth consists of standing
closest to the source, that is, in contemporaneity.
One could consider that the stress put on contemporaneity supports
some kind of “primitivism,”63 an idea shared by all the movements of
Radical Reform, not only a romantic nostalgia but something like a
yearning for return through history, a proposition for a regressive move-
ment leading to the old times of primitive Christianity, a backwards jump
or leap (precisely the leap of faith), some kind of salto mortale above his-
tory. The prototype is backwards – The Point of View for my Work as an
Author declares: “the movement is: backwards.”64 Contemporaneity
then would be seen as a retro-version (and not only a reversal) devoted
to reversing the course of history.
But this turn is not a return – it is suspension. Suspension of the “1800
years of history” in the situation of contemporaneity. But not only sus-
pension: destruction. Destruction of the ontological weight of history,
since historicity is a reality that does not itself possess the determination
of truth,65 but also a destruction of the philosophy of history such that it
seems necessary here to hold two contradictory propositions together:
“history is catastrophic” (history is the story of loss) and “history is noth-
ing” (historicity has no weight with regard to the truth). This is because
truth is entirely concentrated in one point. If the Kierkegaardian concep-
tion of history seems to be the sinister (and inverted) parody of a specu-
lative philosophy of history, it is because the event of incarnation com-
pletely soaks up the whole meaning and weight of historicity. Regarding
this event, that weight is nothing, a mere nihil. The fact that history still
has weight and meaning (a catastrophic one) is only due to the fact
that we performatively believe it has weight; it is due to the fact that
we believe in the philosophy of history. Philosophically or intellectually
62 SKS 12, 232.

63 Cf. Pap. VIII 2 B 86, p. 171f; Pap.VIII 2 B 89, p. 186.
64 SV2 XIII, 603.
65 SKS 12, 75f. This thought, again, is a repetition of ClimacusÌ reflections in Phil-
osophical Fragments. Cf. SKS 4, 272 – 286.

Authenticated
giving weight to history gives it a real weight indeed: it is a historical de-

cision that orients history. For making such a nihil the deciding element
for truth (the philosophy of history) is properly the annihilation of
truth – this is why the Hegelian “real-isation” (as historical process) ac-
tually means an “an-nihil-ation.” In reverse, Anti-ClimacusÌ contempora-
neity initiates the annihilation of historical temporality. What is broken
up here is both history and the philosophy of history.
What ruptures historical temporality is the moment or instant. The
moment does not belong to historical temporality but, coming under con-
temporaneity, it is the qualitative and fundamental element of existential
temporality. It is “located,” improperly speaking, at the meeting point of,
on the one hand, the extinction of historicity and of the emergence of au-
thentic existential time, and on the other hand, the time of existing sub-
jectivity in its relation to the truth and as relation to the truth. Such a
“present,” the present of contemporaneity, is not the eternal present of
the true Idea given to vision (the relation to truth definitively extracted
from time) and neither does it belong any longer to some kind of “meta-
physics of presence.” Such a metaphysics intrinsically connects presence
and unveiling to a vision – but vision is broken here, and the paradigm
of vision is transgressed. This present is not that of eidos.
Thus, this end is not at the end or at the beginning but at every point
of historical time, since it belongs to subjective temporality. Every gener-
ation goes back to square one, because every subject goes back to square
one. And this end retains the same quality at each point in time. Contem-
poraneity is not a historical present, otherwise the historically contempo-
raneous individuals (the one who saw Christ) could be said nearer to
truth than others. This inequality would be nonreligious, but also absurd
with regard to the nature of time and the true relation to truth. As the
difference is absolute and infinite, as “immediate vision” gives nothing,
historical proximity means nothing.
If, then, contemporaneity is indeed the equivalent of the absolute
“point of view” upon (in relation to) the absolute, we can understand
the abyssal gap that separates it from the Hegelian recapitulation of Ab-
solute Knowledge. It is the symmetrical opposite of the metaphysical sub
specie aerternitatis – even though and especially if eternity is the name for
the totallized historicity of Spirit. It is a stop, the standpoint of the re-
sponding subject facing the sign,66 the standpoint of the (true) reader,
of Anti-Cimacus himself. But that also means the beginning, for it is
66 Cf. NB18:4 in SKS 23, 256f.

Authenticated
also the (re)start or the impulsion for existential temporality now moved
and structured by the striving of imitation: relation to truth within radical
difference (which cannot be dialectically exceeded) grounds now dynamic
temporality. History does not restart, but the (hi)story of an individual
does.
From the perspective of Anti-Climacus, contemporaneity is the situa-
tion of reading, but, at the same time, the ground of writing. For Anti-Cli-
macus, this point is the very beginning of his writing, since writing pro-
ceeds from reading (face-to-face with the truth). The necessary end of
time and the imposed beginning of time. We said: horizon of the whole
work; we should say also: ideal origin.

Authenticated
Authenticated

Delecroix. Final Words. Training To Christianity As A Terminal Writing PDF

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Final Words:

Training in Christianity as a Terminal Writing

1. End of Career and Time of Judgment

Training in Christianity is usually understood as “pseudo-pseudony-

1 See for instance, Stephen N. Dunning KierkegaardÌs Dialectic of Inwardness: a

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2 SV2 XIII, 557 – 580.

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second immediacy? In other words, does it represent the final term of an

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ality of Training in Christianity. The “for awakening” awakened him.8 In

8 NB11:204 in SKS 22, 127f.

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ized his relation to Christendom. Anti-Climacus has given him a voice,

13 NB11:228 in SKS 22, 139.

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The pseudonym-editor relationship conceived as a relation between au-

19 SV2 XII, 341.

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24 SKS 14, 213.

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2. The Ideal Completion and Achievement of the Work

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language is subjected to a last and crucial inflexion or conversion: this

32 SKS 13, 67f.

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kegaard cannot be or cannot embody this point of view: “I myself just

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No one but he can meditate on this word; inversely meditating upon

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34 NB11:209 in SKS 22, 130.

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multaneously, Kierkegaard himself as reader enters into relation with the

37 Pap. X 5 B 107, pp. 290 – 293.

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writer. Anti-Climacus still offers the representation of the Christian as a

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now consecrated to offering a pragmatic pattern; the literary representa-

43 SKS 12, 177 – 179.

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always appears as a work in process, in fragments, or as an exertion. Yet

3. Final Conceptuality and the Change of Paradigm: Imitation

46 Training in Christianity represents the completion of The Sickness unto Death.

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problem of Philosophical Fragments, the problem of truth or, more pre-

47 SKS 12, 200f.

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history of the question of truth, this speech is incomprehensible or unin-

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53 SKS 12, 144. My emphasis.

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invitation? If understanding the word means adequately answering it, we

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paradigm for imitation.58 According to a hermeneutic point of view, a cru-

58 SKS 12, 115.

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62 SKS 12, 232.

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giving weight to history gives it a real weight indeed: it is a historical de-

66 Cf. NB18:4 in SKS 23, 256f.

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