Abstract

This article refers to Kierkegaard’s complex Christian apologetics. Several of his works, mainly those stemming from the ‘second authorship’, are interpreted under the aspect of Kierkegaard’s paradoxical defense of Christianity, aimed in particular, not against the so-called ‘heathens’, but against those who self-confidently advance its credibility on dubious grounds. To substantiate the importance of this defense it is shown that it has recently received a noteworthy actuality in the light of a ‘newly arisen superior tone in philosophy’; a tone voiced by ‘enthusiasts’ of a religiously inspired social ethics of recognition, friendship, community, Bildung and tradition. Their concern is about the ‘malaise of modernity’, the excessive liberalism and individualism of contemporary culture, for which religion supposedly is the sollution. Their critique is confronted with Kierkegaard’s ethos of suspense and his concept of ‘armed neutrality’. Judged from this existential religious perspective, the enthusiasts are defending a revaluation and resurrection of what is merely a pseudo-Christian spirit. They represent a ‘spiritual materialism’ unconsciously inspired by the hidden and repressed offense they take to the a-social ‘verticality’ of Christianity, in particularly to the Christian dogmas with respect to the subject of sin and love