“The thesis that all knowing is recollecting belongs to speculative thought, and recollecting is immanence, and point of view of speculation and the eternal there is no paradox. The difficulty, however, is that no human being is speculation, but the speculating person is an existing human being, subject to the claims of existence” (p. 206n).

Over the course of the next few pages, there are repetitive variations on this: “The eternal truth has come into existence in time. This is the paradox” (p. 209) and, “When the eternal truth relates itself to an existing person, it becomes the paradox” (ibid).

In other words, he is critiquing the speculative efforts to get outside of existence to achieve a bird’s-eye view of reality when in fact this is impossible. From our standpoint, which we cannot get out of, there is in fact a paradox. This is, of course, all a part of Kierkegaard’s deep ‘existentialism’, which was typically in response to the Danish Hegelians (than it was to Hegel, usually). So, in sum, for Kirkegaard/Climcaus, we can most likely never get outside of our subjectivity which will entail how things ‘appear’ on our end.

Peace,

Eric

I’m not sure what S.K. would say either, because he was usually–ironically–at an pseudonymously ironic distance in his aesthetic works. Although, Anti-Climacus also does call Jesus Christ the “sign of contradiction” as he continued to talk about the paradoxical nature of the God-man. Usually these things are built off the logical notion but point to more than that. But who knows.

I do know that Thomas Aquinas has a bit about how this stuff about Christ’s two natures only appears distinct to us, and I think he was intimating something along the lines of divine simplicity, but I’m no Aquinas scholar.

Anyway, I’m writing my MA thesis right now on contradiction, paradox, and irony in Hegel and Kierkegaard and couldn’t help pipe up a bit

Peace,

Eric

Excellent post, thank you. I can’t help but notice just one teeny tiny thing: “These are real differences of belief about the divine nature: there’s no virtue in trying to believe a contradiction.” What you are referring to there is exactly right, but I would just add that the incarnation in the Chalcedonian formula is a ‘contradiction’ of sorts in the hypostatic union of the two wills (Hence all of Kierkegaard’s writings as Climacus, especially in the Fragments of Christ as the “Absolute paradox.”)