WORKS OF LOVE

KIERKEGAARD'S WRITINGS, XVI

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Contents

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Love's Hidden Life andIts Recognizability by Its Fruits

Luke 6:44. Every tree is known by its own fruit, forfigs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapespicked from a bramble bush.

If it were so, as conceited sagacity, proud of not being deceived,thinks, that we should believe nothing that we cannot see withour physical eyes, then we first and foremost ought to give upbelieving in love. If we were to do so and do it out of fear lest webe deceived, would we not then be deceived? We can, of course,be deceived in many ways. We can be deceived by believingwhat is untrue, but we certainly are also deceived by not believingwhat is true. We can be deceived by appearances, but wecertainly are also deceived by the sagacious appearance, by theflattering conceit that considers itself absolutely secure againstbeing deceived. Which deception is the more dangerous? Whoserecovery is more doubtful, that of the one who does not see, orthat of the person who sees and yet does not see? What is moredifficult—to awaken someone who is sleeping or to awakensomeone who, awake, is dreaming that he is awake? Which issadder, the sight that promptly and unconditionally moves one totears, the sight of someone unhappily deceived in love, or thesight that in a certain sense could tempt laughter, the sight of theself-deceived, whose fatuous conceit of not being deceived isindeed ridiculous and laughable if the ridiculousness of it werenot an even stronger expression for horror, since it shows that heis not worthy of tears.

To defraud oneself of [bedrage for] love [Kjerlighed] is the mostterrible, is an eternal loss, for which there is no compensationeither in time or in eternity. Ordinarily, when it is a matter ofbeing deceived [bedrages] in love, however different the case maybe, the one deceived is still related to love, and the deception isonly that the love was not where it was thought to be, but theself-deceived person has locked and is locking himself out oflove. There is also talk about being deceived by life or in life, butthe one who in his self-deception deceived himself out of living—hisloss is irreparable. Even for someone who all his life hasbeen deceived by life, eternity can have rich compensation instore, but the self-deceived person has prevented himself fromwinning the eternal. Indeed, what has the person actually lostwho, because of his love, became a victim of human deceptionif it turns out in eternity that love remains, whereas the deceptionhas ended! But the person who, very ingeniously, deceived himselfby sagaciously walking into the trap of sagacity, ah, even if allhis life he in his own conceit counted himself happy, what has henot lost when in eternity it turns out that he deceived himself! Intemporality a person perhaps can succeed in being able to dispensewith love; he perhaps can succeed in slipping through timewithout discovering the self-deception; he perhaps can succeed,how terrible, in becoming, in a delusion, proud of being in it—butin eternity he cannot dispense with love and cannot avoiddiscovering that he forfeited everything. How earnest existenceis, how very terrible it is precisely when it in punishment permitsthe self-willful person to go his own way, so he is allowed to goon living, proud of—being deceived, until eventually he is allowedto verify that he deceived himself forever! Truly, eternitydoes not let itselfbe mocked; instead it is something that does noteven need to use force but, omnipotent, uses a little mockery inorder to punish the presumptuous person dreadfully. What is it,namely, that connects the temporal and eternity, what else butlove, which for that very reason is before everything and remainsafter everything is gone. But precisely because love is eternity'sbond in this way, and precisely...