That Kierkegaard with his prolific contempt for parsons and professors should at long last have been translated into English largely by a parson and a professor, that is ironical but not ultimately serious. But that a man who wanted to “create difficulties everywhere”1 and be an offense should be praised and buried in academic appreciations without offending anybody, that is tragic. With other writers one may begin with an appreciative exposition and end with a criticism or two; with Kierkegaard one should first be offended. We should work our way through initial objections.
Because these objections reflect the vexation and offense of what Kierkegaard might have called an existing individual, and because eventually they give way to another attitude and are qualified, it would be misleading to state them either impersonally as assured results or personally as convictions. What else remains? I shall follow Kierkegaard’s example and invent a pseudonym. This device will permit me to offer in short order and without judicious qualifications the offense that must precede appropriation. I shall borrow a chapter heading from Kierkegaard’s own Fear and Trembling and begin with
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