Moral Clarity in Light of the Suffering Servant: The Incarnation and the Moral Life in Reinhold Niebuhr and Søren Kierkegaard

Abstract

In this thesis I examine how Søren Kierkegaard and Reinhold Niebuhr understand the incarnation to ground and illuminate our moral life. In light of this, I also clarify the nature of Kierkegaard’s influence upon Niebuhr. In this study I ask the following: what actions can we, and must we, undertake in response to God’s descent in the incarnation? For both Kierkegaard and Niebuhr, in the lowly Christ we find our sinfulness revealed and our life made new, and thus for both our moral life is established and clarified in the incarnation. However, they diverge significantly concerning the nature and implications of this address.

In chapter two, I discuss Niebuhr’s account of the self, and how Kierkegaard influences Niebuhr’s anthropology. In chapter three I discuss Niebuhr’s Christology, and in particular how Niebuhr’s resistance to creedal metaphysics shapes his account of Christ’s person. Chapter four involves a discussion of how Kierkegaard understands knowledge of the truth to be obtained, and how he understands the nature of the self and sin. In Chapter five I focus upon Kierkegaard’s understanding of the incarnation. I argue that, for Kierkegaard, the paradoxical nature of Christ’s person has profound implications for how we come to know him. In chapter six, I discuss how each theologian understands repentance. For both, repentance is the entry point into our moral life. They offer, however, significantly different accounts of repentance. While Niebuhr contends that the moral task consonant with repentance is humble contrition, Kierkegaard instead argues that in repentance the individual always once again follows after Christ in imitation. In chapter seven I argue that these differing accounts of repentance are rooted in their respective understandings of Christ’s person. For Niebuhr, in Christ our moral life is illuminated, but not assumed. Because of this, we are not invited to emulate Christ’s life. Instead, we only find in this life a judgment of our own and a mercy that will overcome this judgment in the eschaton. For Kierkegaard, in Christ our life has been assumed and transformed in Christ’s death and resurrection. Because of this we are invited by the lowly Christ and be joined to his life. We are in Christ blessed with the task of following after him in imitation. In light of this, I argue that Niebuhr’s understanding of our moral life stands in need of correction. Niebuhr’s insights into the nature of history, while potent, are rooted in a Christology in which Jesus does not fully participate in our life. As a result, for Niebuhr our moral life cannot be altered decisively by Christ’s person and work, but only truthfully and ultimately illuminated. I argue that Kierkegaard offers a more compelling account of the moral life, because of his understanding of Christ’s person. For Kierkegaard, our life has been in Christ assumed, and in his death and resurrection transformed.