Concluding Dogmatic Postscript

Abstract

Abstract 1. I noted earlier that, in both the Philosophical Fragments and its Postscript, Johannes Climacus emphasizes that the pivotal difference between belief in God and belief in the Christian God (between religiousness A and religiousness B) is the conviction that human beings exist in the condition of original sin. He is, however, unforthcoming about the detailed content of, and the justification for, this seemingly paradoxical conviction (which, as its alternative title of ‘hereditary sin’ underlines, apparently conceives of guilt as a biological inheritance beyond any exercise of individual responsibility), and thus leaves undeveloped what he presents as the critical manifestation of faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Does Climacus intend this striking lacuna to tempt us to supplement his words by turning to what is often taken to be the immediate source of this Christian doctrine—the Genesis narrative of Adam and Eve, and their transgression of God’s command concerning the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? If so, that tale’s talk of forbidden apples and aprons of shame is very likely to suggest that a belief in original sin amounts to an opening of one’s eyes to the inherent evil of human sexuality and sensuality, and hence to the taintedness of human existence as such. Nietzsche would call it a libel against the body.