2 is so resolved that it is able to accomplish its purpose " In

order to overcome the "offence" the king must be able to actually be as the maiden. He cannot simply assume the disguise of an equal, as a human king might. The identification must be total. Only a love which is 'omnipotent' could accomplish such a task, achieving complete identity with the human condition.

Therefore the God must suffer all things, endure all things...He must suffer hunger in the desert, he must thirst in the time of his agony, he must be forsaken in death, absolutely like the humblest - behold the man! His suffering is not that of his death, but this entire life is a story of suffering; and it is love that guffers, the love which gives all is itself in want.

We note in the above quotation that Kierkegaard keeps the word "absolutely" even as he is describing the passibility of God.

1. Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments, p. 39 2. ibid

This is consistent with his radical idea of "the Absolute", made available to human understanding only through an absolute, "omnipotent" love. The concept is a dialectical rendering of absolute deity in the form used by St. Bernard, which Feuerbach had criticized: "Impassibilis est Deus, sed non incompassibilis, cui proprium est misereri semper et parcere." (God cannot suffer but he is not incom- passionate, for his character is always to have mercy and pardon. Kierkegaard realized, like Feuerbach, that such a God could not identify with the human condition. Whereas Feuerbach dispensed with the notion of God as an absolute deity, Kierkegaard attempts to show that he can be, indeed must be, absolutely omnipotent in love (paradoxical though this may seem). God must be able to suffer, he must be able to completely identify himself with the human condi­ tion, if the alienation between the Absolute and the conditional, the infinite and the finite, the eternal and time, the divine and the human, is to be overcome. But the "offence" is not overcome by God's sheer power; Kierkegaard suggests another kind of omnipotence, only by which "the condition" for the apprehension of Truth is estab­ lished. The unequal is rendered equal. Love between the infinite and the finite becomes possible; a reciprocal, I-thou relationship replaces the subject-king relationship. For Kierkegaard there is no doubt: "...it is love that suffers, the love which gives all is itself in want." Only by means of an omnipotent love which "absolut­ ely" identifies with the human condition is God able to break the alienation which has resulted from sin. Indeed, God's absoluteness, his "unfathomable" character, his eternal being which enters and exists in time, cannot be separated from his quality of omnipotent,

1. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sup. Cant. Serino 26, quoted by Feuerbach in The Essence of I

Christianity, op. cit. p. 54; (comment above, Ch. l) j

2. It is not obvious in S.K. 's analogy of the king and the maiden that the "offence" might j be caused by sin. The necessity for sin to play a significant role in S.K. 's idea of | the Incarnation and Atonement highlights an emphasis upon The Fall. cf. Philosophical

I

supremely relational, love.

Thus the Incarnation reveals the only "Teacher" who is able

to create both "Truth" and "the condition "for its understanding. Whereas human teachers are only able to 'deliver' learning in a maieutic sense, God's love "goes beyond" the Socratic ideal. The particular is place in absolute relation to the Absolute; the aliena­ tion between the Teacher and learner is broken, and a "new birth" is made possible as the individual encounters a God who not only is love but who also may ^ loved. But Kierkegaard's dialectical interpretation of the Moment in which the eternal comes to rest in time goes even further. God is not only revealed as love, breaking the barriers which prevent the human's love for God in return, but the Moment also discloses the 'how' of the human's love for his fellows.

The Incarnation reveals a God who is the eminent ground of all love, and who requires a "like for like" response from human beings. The inherent principle of the love disclosed, according to Kierkegaard, is that "love does not alter the beloved, it alters itself." Just as this kind of love is shown to the world by God, it is also a just requirement of the human's love for his neighbour. Omnipotence is consummated precisely in God's omnipotent desire to love his creatures, while at the same time preserving the creatures' freedom. In response to the love shown by God in Christ, the human selfish loves must be subjected to the "royal law" - that the neigh­ bour shall be loved.

4. The Absolute Relational God

Before going on to see how Kierkegaard develops his idea of love in the context of faith, let us summarize the central concepts which appear so far in connection to 'God the Absolute' and 'God the Servant'.

(1) God's 'absoluteness' is not in question. As the story of Abraham and Isaac demonstrates, God may make absolute demands on the individual which are not to be construed in terms of rational ethics, universal duty, or any system which purports to distinguish between right and wrong according to universal or community ideals.

Kierkegaard acknowledges that God's "omnipotent word" sustains the

heavens and the earth "by fiat".^ God is beyond all attempts of reason and dogmatic formulae; he is essentially "indescribable", unfathomable" in his absoluteness.

(2) God's love is an absolute quality derived from, and equated with, the nature of his absoluteness. It is not enough for him to merely demand obedience, as he did from Abraham. His creative capacity is able to create the conditions in which such obedience is possible; indeed, the obedience is transformed into something else, so that obedience loses its character as such for one who becomes a "knight of faith". How this occurs is not subject to rational analysis, but may only be 'understood' as God relates himself directly to the learner. At some point, a Moment, the eternal enters into existence "in virtue of the absurd"; the Truth of this entry, both as an event and as an event which is of utmost importance for the individual, can only be 'learned' through "the absolute relation of the individual to the Absolute". The juxtaposition of the terms "absolute" and "relation" gives us important insight into Kierkegaard's concept of God. Thus God's absoluteness is an absolute relation to humanity; God's love is 'omnipotent love' which is able to achieve his purpose without coercion, through creating the conditions for

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