Concluding Unscientific Postscript

“To put it quite simply: How may I, Johannes Climacus, participate in the happiness promised by Christianity?”

Writing in the voice of his pseudonym, Johannes Climacus, Kierkegaard states the task of the Concluding Scientific Postscript: to define what Christianity means for the existing individual. The quote establishes the important role that the idea of eternal happiness as the goal of Christian life will play in the book. The word choice is significant, with Kierkegaard’s reference to “participation” previewing the subjective Christian’s active “appropriation” of their religion.

“For if passion is eliminated, faith no longer exists, and certainty and passion do not go together.”

For Kierkegaard, passion is the motivating force for life, leading to both knowledge and faith. Passion, paradoxically, increases in the presence of uncertainty; passion impels us to hold fast to a belief that seems to contradict reason and common sense.

“Christianity is spirit, spirit is inwardness, inwardness is subjectivity, subjectivity is essentially passion, and in its maximum an infinite, personal, passionate interest in one’s eternal happiness.”

This is a succinct statement of Kierkegaard’s views on the relationship between Christian faith, passion, and subjectivity, which are all oriented toward the individual’s eternal happiness. This view opposes the idea that Christianity is essentially an assent to objective doctrine or the performance of ethical action. Rather, Christianity is an inner relationship with God and his promises.