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Selected Works Cornelio Fabro, Volume 2: Selected Articles on Søren Kierkegaard
Selected Works Cornelio Fabro, Volume 2: Selected Articles on Søren Kierkegaard
Selected Works Cornelio Fabro, Volume 2: Selected Articles on Søren Kierkegaard
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Selected Works Cornelio Fabro, Volume 2: Selected Articles on Søren Kierkegaard

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Selected Works of Cornelio Fabro Volume 2: Selected Articles on Søren Kierkegaard, is the second volume of the English Selected Works of Cornelio Fabro. In addition to an introduction by Dr. Joshua Furnal, of Radboud University Nijmegen, this volume includes the following articles, published together for the first time: - “Actuality (Reality).” In Concepts and Alternatives in Kierkegaard. Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, edited by Niels Thulstrup and Marie Mikulová Thulstrup, vol. 3, 111–113. Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzel, 1980. - “Analogy.” In Theological Concepts in Kierkegaard. Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, edited by Niels Thulstrup and Marie Mikulová Thulstrup, vol. 5, 96–98. Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzel, 1980. - “Aristotle and Aristotelianism.” In Kierkegaard and Great Traditions. Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, edited by Niels Thulstrup and Marie Mikulová Thulstrup, vol. 6, 27–53. Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzel, 1981. Originally published as “La πίστις aristotelica nell’opera di S. Kierkegaard,” Proteus. Rivista di Filosofia 5, no. 13 (January-April 1974): 3–24. - “Atheism.” In Theological Concepts in Kierkegaard. Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, edited by Niels Thulstrup and Marie Mikulová Thulstrup, vol. 5, 270–272. Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzel, 1980. -“Edification.” In Some of Kierkegaard’s Main Categories. Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, edited by Niels Thulstrup and Marie Mikulová Thulstrup, vol. 16, 154–163. Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzel, 1988. - “Faith and Reason in Kierkegaard’s Dialectic.” Translated by J. B. Mondin. In A Kierkegaard Critique, edited by Howard A. Johnson and Niels Thulstrup, 156–206. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1962. Originally published as “Fede e ragione nella dialettica di Kierkegaard,” in Dall’essere all’esistente (Brescia: Morcelliana, 1957), 127–185. - “The ‘Subjectivity of Truth’ and the Interpretation of Kierkegaard.” Kierkegaard-Studiet, no. 1 (January 1964): 35–43. There are also three further articles, bringing this volume to a total of 10 articles.
LanguageEnglish
PublisherIVE Press
Release dateAug 21, 2020
ISBN9781947568136
Selected Works Cornelio Fabro, Volume 2: Selected Articles on Søren Kierkegaard

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    Selected Works Cornelio Fabro, Volume 2 - Cornelio Fabro

    INTRODUCTION

    JOSHUA FURNAL

    Fr. Cornelio Fabro, CSS (1911–1995) was perhaps the most important priest-philosopher in the twentieth century, who was best known outside of Italy for his retrieval of the notion of participation in the metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas. Less well known is the nature and extent participation plays in Fabro’s engagement with modern atheism¹ and Marxism, phenomenology, and European philosophy—particularly Søren Kierkegaard’s writings. For instance, in a journal entry from 1946, Yves Congar, OP wrote that Fabro paid him a visit to talk to me especially about Kierkegaard. He learnt Danish in order to be able to read him. And he knows him magnificently well. Very open on modern philosophical trends.² Fabro also had a major impact on Ralph McInerny, who invited Fabro as a Visiting Professor to the University of Notre Dame in the spring semester of 1965 to teach a course on modern atheism. Reflecting on Fabro’s visit to Notre Dame, McInerny wrote:

    I had been reading [Fabro] for years; while doing my doctoral dissertation I had made use of his Italian edition of Kierkegaard’s Journals, which contains many scholarly and illuminating notes; during my first year of teaching I read his La nozione metafisica di partecipazione. Subsequently, I read much of what he has written. His scope, his scholarship, his boundless interests caused me to think of him as a member of that small group of truly top-flight Thomists. It was a pleasure, therefore, to have him at my own university and to find that he is every bit as interesting a person as he is a scholar.³

    This introduction explores how Fabro discovered an important resource in Kierkegaard’s spirituality and metaphysics. In particular, Fabro appreciated Kierkegaard’s distinction and integration of faith and reason, and the way Kierkegaard drew upon Catholic sources to inform his own theological development. For Fabro, the background of Kierkegaard’s philosophical strategy can be illuminated by his use of Aristotle regarding the ontological priority of being, which at once motivates Kierkegaard’s critique of Hegel’s idealism and provides a link to the metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas. In this introduction, I will attempt to do three things: (i) to introduce briefly Fabro’s Thomistic approach to Kierkegaard’s writings; (ii) to highlight the ecumenical aspects of Kierkegaard’s Christian spirituality; and (iii) to explore Kierkegaard’s use of Aristotle as the background to Kierkegaard’s view of subjectivity and ethico-religious truth. My claim is that rather than viewing Kierkegaard as the irrational antithesis of a Thomist approach, Fabro discovered in Kierkegaard’s writings an important resource for his Thomist project. To better understand the uniqueness of Fabro’s approach to Kierkegaard’s writings, it is necessary to take a brief look at Fabro’s view of Kierkegaard’s spirituality and metaphysics.

    1. FABRO’S UNIQUE APPROACH TO KIERKEGAARD

    Between 1962–1988 Fabro published roughly ten articles about Kierkegaard in English. Although these articles capture only a fraction of Fabro’s comprehensive treatment of Kierkegaard in Italian, they do highlight Fabro’s contribution to Kierkegaard studies. In particular, Fabro rightly perceived the need for Kierkegaard scholars to pay more attention to Kierkegaard’s spirituality and Kierkegaard’s use of metaphysical concepts to recover Kierkegaard’s positive intellectual contribution beyond his mistaken status of an irrational gadfly. Fabro re-examined Kierkegaard’s emphasis upon edification and his analysis of despair as indebted to his Christian spirituality, which resourced Kierkegaard’s critique of Hegel’s idealism. Fabro also wrote short encyclopaedic articles on topics in Kierkegaard’s thought that connected him to the metaphysical tradition: Aristotle, Actuality, Analogy, Atheism, Faith and Reason, and Subjectivity and Truth. In Fabro’s view, many Kierkegaard scholars neglected his treatment of metaphysics and Christian spirituality because they neglected his journals. To compensate for this, between 1948–1951 Fabro published the first edition of his three volume Italian translation of Kierkegaard’s journals from the original Danish texts, which became the standard text not just in Italian but also in Spanish and Portuguese.

    The Breakup

    It is no secret that the biographical context for Kierkegaard’s early writings was his infamous broken engagement with Regine Olsen in 1841.⁵ In fact, Fabro describes Kierkegaard’s immense literary output as an echo of this event, which left an indelible mark on him, almost an interior seal of his spiritual vocation (125). For Fabro, the interpretive key for understanding Kierkegaard remains the central document, his Journals, which Fabro describes as "a unique source on the spiritual itinerary of man for all times, which fears no rival even when compared with the Confessions of St. Augustine" (126). Fabro observes that in Kierkegaard’s Journals, Regine’s presence becomes a continuous thread, invisible but operating everywhere, in the tension of his spiritual transfiguration and Fabro claims that Kierkegaard as a writer and a person cannot be understood without Regina (126). Fabro says that this is evident in sorrowful passages like: What have I lost, or rather, deprived myself of . . . when I grew dizzy gazing down into her infinite devotion; for nothing is as infinite as love . . . what have I lost, the only thing I loved.⁶ From texts like these, Fabro argues that Kierkegaard in no way deceived Regina—he truly loved her (127).⁷

    In Fabro’s view, Kierkegaard broke off the happy engagement with Regine not because he feared the commitment of marriage, but rather because he struggled with a deep sense of self-hatred and melancholy. In 1843, Kierkegaard wrote: Had I had faith I would have stayed with Regine (cf. 129).⁸ Later reflecting on this event, Kierkegaard wrote that he regretted this decision immediately: "the next day I saw that I had made a mistake. Penitent that I was, my vita ante acta, my melancholia, that was enough. I suffered indescribably during that period.⁹ Fabro observes that the spiritual bond that he felt for her had never diminished and this is evident in the fact that in his will Kierkegaard left his writings to Regine (129). Fabro also notes that Kierkegaard sought to maintain this spiritual union with Regine even after their breakup to provide her with moral support at a distance, which Fabro remarks that such efforts must disconcert some psychologists (130). Rather than objectifying Kierkegaard by psychoanalyzing his writings (Fabro singles out the exaggerations made by Erich Przywara), Fabro urges readers to leave this mystery to Kierkegaard himself to sort out (130).¹⁰ Following Fabro’s advice, we shall leave Kierkegaard with the last word on this matter: Beloved she was. My existence was to accentuate her life absolutely, my activity as an author could also be viewed as a monument to her praise and honor. I am taking her with me into history."¹¹

    Edification

    Alongside Kierkegaard’s Journals, Fabro argued that Kierkegaard’s Upbuilding Discourses were essential for bringing coherence to Kierkegaard’s authorship. Fabro claimed that this was a fact that the European reception of Kierkegaard often neglected, which resulted in a distorted picture of Kierkegaard’s writings. Fabro divides Kierkegaard’s authorship into two categories: (a) the early pseudonymous publications from 1842–1846, which Fabro calls the exterior cycle of Regina (aesthetic-ethical); and (b) the interior cycle from 1847–1855 (ethico-religious), which includes Kierkegaard’s masterpiece Works of Love. Fabro also mentions the importance of the fact that Kierkegaard used an indirect mode of communication with the pseudonymous cycle and a direct mode with the interior cycle. Fabro rightly observes that Kierkegaard intended to use indirect communication to encourage the reader toward the personal appropriation of the religious moment, not in a coercive manner but rather leaving the decision to the reader (46).

    For Fabro, edification as a mode of address was distinctly Kierkegaardian, which falls between philosophical discourse and apologetics. Fabro says that Kierkegaard deployed edifying speech as a critique of both Hegel’s idealism and Christendom (41). For Hegel, the edifying belonged to the inferior realm of religious dualism that was reconciled conceptually by rationalist philosophy, which was free from the mythical representations of creation, sin, and redemption (cf. 42).¹² For Kierkegaard, the edifying is "not an opiate which lulls to sleep; it is the Amen of the finite spirit and is an aspect of knowledge which ought not to be ignored (42, note b). Fabro writes that for Kierkegaard, rather than being a feeling that obstructs understanding, the Beautiful, the Sacred, the Eternal, Religion, and Love are baits that are kept to attract and ensnare the will, which indicates our longing for the divine (42). Fabro draws attention to Kierkegaard’s analogical mode of reasoning: Exchanging the temporal for the eternal (commonly said about death) can be used to great effect in the edifying (cf. 43).¹³ Fabro argues that Kierkegaard’s position is important because it represents a clash between immanence and transcendence, which highlights the ultimate determination of the sense of being and the destiny of humanity" (43).

    In short, Fabro says that for Kierkegaard, rather than being merely an empty concept, the edifying pertains to the existential aspect of the act of faith—the truly edifying is not characterized by saccharine piety but rather free risk (43). Fabro writes that there is something perplexing about the edifying, just as the Virgin Mary was much perplexed by the angel’s greeting (Lk 1:29). Against Hegel’s dismissal of the edifying, Kierkegaard reminds us that edification is a condition of truth (understood as self-coincidence) leading us further to ponder in our heart how nothing is impossible with God (Lk 1:37). Fabro sums up Kierkegaard’s point: If the fearsome is eliminated, edification disappears as well because the fearsome is the edification (44).

    2. FABRO ON KIERKEGAARD’S SPIRITUALITY

    After the Christian philosophy debates in France during the 1930s and the end of the Second World War, Fabro wrote an article in 1948 that addressed the positive relation of faith and reason in Kierkegaard’s writings. This article was expanded and reprinted in English in 1962, but in it, Fabro addresses the main perceived danger in Kierkegaard’s critique of rationalism: the threat of introducing another kind of rationalism by limiting reason and policing its competency.¹⁴ Fabro acknowledges this manifest issue in Kierkegaard’s writings, but, following Peter Wust, Fabro argues that the underlying point Kierkegaard makes is that rather than abandoning reason, the act of faith makes possible the passionate act of reason-giving in search for understanding.¹⁵ Fabro makes this argument on the basis of Kierkegaard’s distinction between the disinterested contemplation of the intellect, which is limited by, or distinguished from the interested will in action and faith.

    For Fabro, Kierkegaard’s emphasis on the subjectivity of faith and truth refers to the coincidence of will and intellect to successfully meet an ethico-religious standard regarding the truth and the good.¹⁶ The how of faith refers to the inward, free, and willful appropriation of truth in a decisive way that impacts the course of one’s life. Moreover, the act of faith freely and willfully exhibits this truthful self-coincidence in terms of living out that truth by grace which meets freedom in the act of faith. In his own words, Fabro writes:

    That a person does not obtain perfect equality except before God [for Gud] is one of the most profound insights of Kierkegaard’s existentialism and corresponds to the authentically Christian situation. . . . Before God, in relation to eternity, all individual differences are cancelled out and do not constitute the least amount of privilege; since God wants from everyone the choice of one’s freedom, a choice that is available to everyone equally, because it is a matter of the will and love, not a matter of the intellect and sophistication. (Cf. 59n11)¹⁷

    Whereas rationalism makes dispassionate observation and intellectual knowledge the foundational measure for the truth of faith, fideism makes the will and mere belief foundational for knowledge and reflection. Instead of separating the will from the intellect, Fabro argues that Kierkegaard distinguishes faith and knowledge in order to relate them on the basis of authority in a way that establishes the rational character and freedom of the will as universal and regulative of knowledge.¹⁸

    In this way, Fabro writes that for Kierkegaard what counts in faith is not speculation but abnegation; it is not the teaching or the comprehension of an object, but the person and the authority of the one who enunciates it: Christianity relates itself to authority (cf. 61).¹⁹ Viewed abstractly in an aesthetic-intellectual way, the relation between the act and object of faith is paradoxical and it is either accepted in faith or rejected as nonsense. Viewed concretely in an ethico-religious way, the relation between the object and the act of faith is real, revelatory, and existential.²⁰ Fabro concludes that for Kierkegaard, the act of faith involves an interpersonal encounter rather than a disinterested contemplation of atemporal forms.²¹ In other words, Fabro argues that for Kierkegaard, the act of faith is an existential concern that is maximally interested with freedom rather than an intellectual puzzle to be disinterestedly deciphered by discursive reason. Thus, the opposite of faith is not doubt but despair.

    Kierkegaard’s Development with the Problem of Despair and Forgiveness

    In 1962, Fabro published an article on the problem of despair as an effect of sin in Kierkegaard’s spirituality. In this article, Fabro traced Kierkegaard’s position back to St. Alphonsus de Liguori and St. John Climacus in the Catholic (Latin and Greek) tradition.²² Fabro argued that by reading The Concept of Anxiety (1844), The Sickness unto Death (1849), and Kierkegaard’s Journals from that period, one discovers an affinity between Catholic thought and Kierkegaard’s spirituality. In fact, Fabro claims that this affinity cannot be explained away as just mere references to pietism, as a common ground of approach between the two beliefs, but should be attributed to Kierkegaard’s direct knowledge of the Catholic sources with which his library is replete (132/133).²³ Fabro makes this elaborate argument to counter the Swedish Kierkegaard scholar Torsten Bohlin, who claimed that Kierkegaard merely repeats Schleiermacher’s notion of despair.²⁴ Against this view, Fabro emphasizes the wider ecumenical sources of Kierkegaard’s spirituality, specifically Johannes Tauler, the German mystical tradition, and Johannes Arndt who were certainly known to Kierkegaard and are cited by him (140/141).²⁵

    Fabro also observes that the topic of despair in Kierkegaard’s journals dates back to at least 1839, where Kierkegaard mentions St. Gregory the Great’s remarks on acedia or lethargic moments of dullness [Sløvhed], which his father called "a quiet despair" [en stille Fortvivlelse].²⁶ For Aquinas, the existential fact of indecisive boredom can be a morally neutral emotional perception of the possibility of sin, which provides an embryonic theological clue to the call of grace on the knife-edge of freedom.²⁷ Fabro notes that for Kierkegaard, anxiety illuminates the possibility of freedom in an indeterminate state, and actual sin represents the realised possibility of freedom as actual unfreedom oriented toward despair. Fabro says that for Kierkegaard, the transition of desperation from the state of personal experience to that of the theological concept and to his dialectics of dread-sin-desperation, where sin assumes a central demoniacal function, seems to be a later development in Kierkegaard’s theology (142/143). In Fabro’s view, Kierkegaard provides an astute analysis of sin and self-deception whereby sin is committed out of weakness of will and then remains in the grip of sin by despairing over this situation as being beyond the reach of forgiveness. For Kierkegaard, this is the place where Christ’s Atonement is found, which is required to bring this self-destructive process to a stop.²⁸

    Fabro notes how the remission of sins was a topic that Kierkegaard struggled to distinguish from fate throughout his life. For instance, in 1834, Kierkegaard writes about the nagging feeling of the after-effects of sin beyond justification by faith.²⁹ Kierkegaard’s consciousness of sin grew as he associated God’s forgiveness with the impossibility that God could forget something: to believe in the remission of sins is a paradox, the absurd.³⁰ Yet Kierkegaard writes in 1848 that a necessary condition of self-consciousness is the decisive crisis [afgjørende Crisis] of believing in the forgiveness of sins, which pertains to one’s whole self, which is sinful and corrupts everything as soon as it comes into the slightest contact with it.³¹ Fabro draws attention to Kierkegaard’s attempt at confession in his journal entries during Holy Week in 1848, where Kierkegaard writes about his encounter with God’s forgiveness and grace: "My entire nature [Væsen] is changed. My concealment and enclosedness [Skjulthed og Indesluttethed] have been broken—I may speak. Great God, have mercy! and the entry concludes with: For me, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday have indeed become true holy days (cf. 134/135).³² In the margin, Kierkegaard writes that Regina was unable to break the silence of my melancholia. The fact that I loved her—nothing is more certain—and thus my melancholia had something to gnaw on." Kierkegaard continues:

    It is essentially because of her, my melancholia [Tungsinds], and my money that I became an author. Now, with God’s help, I shall become myself; now I have faith that Christ will help me conquer my melancholia, and then I will become a priest.³³

    Kierkegaard writes on Easter Monday that my self-enclosedness can’t be broken, at least not right now but I certainly believe in the forgiveness of sins, but I understand it in such a way, as before, that I must bear my punishment throughout my life, remain in this painful prison of enclosedness, cut off in a deeper sense from the society of other human beings—though eased by the thought that God has forgiven me although in faith, I defend myself against despair, bearing the pain and punishment of enclosedness (cf. 134/135).³⁴ Later in 1850, Kierkegaard says that he changed his mind regarding the impossibility of the remission of sins. Kierkegaard learned that it involves the dawning of a new aspect that no longer identifies suffering as God’s punishment for sin, but rather seeing God’s accompaniment amid suffering.³⁵

    Fabro accounts for Kierkegaard’s theological development on this point by recalling that it was not Luther, but rather the Syrian mystic, St. John Climacus (ca. 579–649), the namesake of two of Kierkegaard’s pseudonyms, who associated despair with the sin against the Holy Spirit. For Kierkegaard, there is a distinction between the sin of weakness and the sin of despair, and Fabro claims that Kierkegaard’s account of sin is indebted to St. John Climacus. The original Climacus encouraged an ascetic vigilance over oneself so that in seeking forgiveness it does not dialectically become a demonic temptation.³⁶

    If a saint from the Greek tradition was not sufficient, Fabro turns to St. Alphonsus de Liguori in the Latin tradition to situate Kierkegaard’s spirituality more firmly in the wider catholic tradition. Although Alphonsus does not mention John Climacus, he does treat a similar topic. To uncover this parallel, Fabro cites a passage from Preparation for Death where St. Alphonsus reflects upon St. Paul’s admonition: Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? (Rom 2:4 NRSV). St. Alphonsus attributes to St. Augustine a dialectical claim that "the devil deludes men in two ways, by despair and hope" (cf. 138/139).³⁷ Alphonsus says that Augustine advises his reader that before we sin, we should fear God’s justice; but after we sin, we should hope for God’s mercy. If the sinner should mix up this relation in the wrong way, God’s justice can become a temptation to despair, and God’s mercy can become a license to sin again.³⁸ Alphonsus reminds his reader that the sinner who offends God’s justice may find God’s mercy, but if the sinner abuses God’s mercy, then one only has recourse to God’s justice. Fabro points to another relevant passage from Liguori regarding the habit of sin leading to unrepentant self-destruction as a parallel to a basic concern in Kierkegaard’s spirituality. Reflecting on a passage from Job 16:14 and St. Gregory the Great, St. Alphonsus writes that the sinner eventually loses the stamina (provided by grace) to defend oneself against sin and its consequences.³⁹ In short, Fabro argues that the material treated by St. John Climacus and St. Alphonsus agrees in substance with that of Climacus [Kierkegaard’s pseudonym], this being the standard doctrine of Christian spirituality (138/139).

    However, if Fabro sees a link between Kierkegaard’s spirituality and that of St. Climacus and St. Alphonsus regarding the sin of despair, then there is a parting of ways regarding the source of temptation. For St. John Climacus, temptation comes from the devil, but for Kierkegaard’s pseudonyms there is no external agent who tempts us—neither the devil nor hereditary sin—but rather I am the only one responsible for freely succumbing to temptation as the internal threat of unfreedom. For Kierkegaard, a temptation [Fristelse] from the devil is not identical with a spiritual trial [Anfægtelse] from God who puts our faith to the test.⁴⁰

    Fabro observes that for this reason, Kierkegaard’s spirituality remains unique in the Christian tradition because of the way he considers the dialectical play of the individual ‘I’ and its liberty (136/137). For Fabro, Kierkegaard’s theology of despair as actual sin brings Kierkegaard quite close to the best theological tradition (St. Thomas, for example) and he identifies at once original sin and the free (negative) choice of the first man as the beginning of human history, placing the Incarnation as the beginning of Christianity, and "the free and positive decision of God, a historical fact concerning which every man must make a choice" (142/143 f.). For Fabro, Kierkegaard’s theology of sin is uniquely Christian, in that he establishes it on the basis of human freedom and distinguishes the sin of weakness from the sin of despair that leads to death. Fabro believes that Kierkegaard’s apologetic stance in modernity is worth retrieving since he

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