The concept of a Christian in Kierkegaard

Abstract

Though Kierkegaard's writings were intended to convey how a man is to become a Christian, his main works give no account of the content of the concept of a Christian : they treat only of its formal side. The author proposes, however, that Kierkegaard's views on the concept's content are to be found in the uncompleted manuscript, ‘Armed Neutrality’. In this, aspects of pietistic veneration and of mystery combine with Kierkegaard's affirmation of humanity to constitute the idea of a Christian as an individual existing in relation to the decisive truth — an idea that is the basis of Christian Humanism.