Andrew B. Torrance Climacus and Kierkegaard on the Outward Relationship with God Abstract: Overshadowed by a superficial reading of his pseudonym, Johannes Climacus’ statement “subjectivity is truth,” Søren Kierkegaard has come to be perceived in the theological world as overly individualistic and anthropocentric in his thinking. This has contributed to the perception that, for Kierkegaard, it is the individual Christian who is in charge of her Christian faith. In this essay, I endeavor to challenge this perception through an analysis of Climacus and Kierkegaard’s emphasis on the outward nature of the God-relationship. Over the past fifty years, the evangelical world has massively downplayed the im- portance of Søren Kierkegaard for Christian thought. While there have been a number of contributing factors to this state of affairs, it has been his caricature as an overly anthropocentric and individualistic thinker that has done the most to undermine his cause—particularly for those from within the Reformed tradi- tion. The most prominent figure to have contributed to this perception is Karl Barth. Under the influence of Emmanuel Hirsch’s “idealist-romantic” reading and Rudolph Bultmann’s existentialist reading of Kierkegaard’s Christian vision,¹ Barth presented Kierkegaard to the evangelical world as a figure who “fortified” an anthropocentric, pietistic vision of Christianity.² Since Barth, Kierkegaard has  Matthias Wilke, “Emanuel Hirsch: A German Dialogue with ‘Saint Søren,’” in Kierkegaard’s Influence on Theology , Tome I, German Protestant Theology , ed. by Jon Stewart, Aldershot: Ashgate 2012 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Resources and Reception, vol. 10), p. 173; quoting and translating Emanuel Hirsch, Geschichte der neuern evangelischen Theologie im Zusammen- hang mit den allgemeinen Bewegungen des europäischen Denkens, vols. 1– 5, Gütersloh: Be- rtelsmann 1949 – 54, vol. 5, p. 468. Wilke also notes here that Hirsch “sees a direct connection between Kierkegaard and the Pietism of Herrnhuter,German Romanticism, Schleiermacher, and German idealism” (ibid.).  Karl Barth, “A Thank-you and a Bow: Kierkegaard’s Reveille,” in Fragments Grave and Gay , trans. by M. Rumscheidt, London: Fontana 1971, p. 100. In a letter to Helene Barth on 22 nd January 1944, Barth writes, “I had to understand Jesus Christ and bring him from the periphery of my thought to the center. Because I cannot regard subjectivity as being truth, after a brief Andrew B. Torrance, St Mary’s College, The School of Divinity, University of St Andrews, South Street, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9JU, Scotland, UK, abt3@st-andrews.ac.uk Unauthenticated Download Date | 3/31/16 1:53 AM