From THE MOMENT (1855)

On hypocrisy.

“There is nothing to which God is so much opposed as hypocrisy—according to God’s stipulation, it is precisely life’s task to be transformed, since every human being is by nature a born hypocrite. There is nothing the world admires as much as the more subtle and the most subtle forms of hypocrisy.”

Kierkegaard’s 1854-55 writings against the Danish state church are brash, controversial, and often offensive. That is not to say, however, that they lack philosophical and theological import. In this passage, taken from the eighth issue of his broadside The Moment, Kierkegaard identifies his so-called “attack upon Christendom” with an attack upon “hypocrisy” (Hyklerie). On the one hand, this approach is rooted in the New Testament injunction that one should practice what one preaches:

“Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples, saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat: all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not. For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers” (Matt. 23: 1-4).”

Just as Jesus criticizes the Pharisees, so is Kierkegaard criticizing the clerical leaders of the mainstream church. But there is another layer to this analysis, since Kierkegaard also insists that human beings are naturally hypocritical. This claim is far too complex to explicate here, other than to say that it is likely related to Kierkegaard’s conception of the self. As a synthesis of necessity and possibility, matter and spirit, the human being is constantly trying to attain a transformative harmonization of the two. But when this does not occur—rather often, on account of despair and sin—the upshot is a misrelation between inner and outer—or Hyklerie.