                           20020210.00

                    Kierkegaard as Dogmatist

     Although those of us who consider ourselves religious
pluralists would like to recruit Kierkegaard's memory to our
ranks, relying, among other things, on his special relationship
to Lessing, on the primacy of subjectivity in his thinking, and
on his specific proscription of biblical, sacramental and
ecclesiastical zealotry, we must nonetheless respectful of
historical fact, remind ourselves that in two of his most ardent
commitments, Kierkegaard was not a pluralist, and was as
intolerant of differences of opinion and experience as the most
orthodox of believers.

     I refer specifically to his attacks, early in his literary
career, upon Hegel and the adherents of Hegelian philosophy and
to his attacks against Bishop Martensen and the Danish State
Lutheran Church toward the end.  In both instances the
psychological case history is the same: A clear and unsparing
analysis of his opponent's views; total absence of any empathy
with the self-chosen adversary, total lack of understanding of
the spiritual, intellectual, social and political forces that
compelled the philosophy professors on the one hand and the
church officials, the bishop and the pastors on the other to
think and act as they did. devoid of any awareness of the absence
of choice in their behavior and in his own. A biting, hurtful and
ungenerous sarcasm, devoid of any real humor and without any
dialectical perspective.

     My conclusion is not a judgment of Kierkegaard as having
been wicked or hypocritical. My conclusion is that we are all
alike; that it is meaningless and wretched to criticize one
another from the outside, but that criticism from the inside is
the awareness of ones own inadequacy.  The dogmatist makes no
pretence of understanding the pluralist; When the pluralist
understands the dogmatist, the pluralist comes to resemble to
dogmatist.  To understand the dogmatist is to become like him.
In the end the pluralist has no choice but to become dogmatic,
for either he becomes dogmatic in denying the subjectivity of the
dogmatist or he becomes dogmatic in affirming the subjectivity of
the dogmatist, thereby identifying with him. In either case, by
either route, the pluralist becomes assimilated to the dogmatist.
The conclusion, the bottom line, being that dogmatism is an
engrained characteristic of human thought, an essential function
from which we cannot escape; against the corrosive social and
psychological, spiritual consequences of which we can immunize
ourselves, but always only partially, incompletely and always
only temporarily.

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