Sin samtids kritiker - N.F.S. Grundtvig 1783-1872

Abstract

A Critic of his Age

N . F. S. Grundtvig 1783-1872

Grundtvig’s position in the intellectual life of his age, on the occasion of his bi-centenary

By William Michelsen

The main aim of this article is to consider the whole of Grundtvig’s writings as an important element in the general cultural debate of the time, in a similar way to those of S.ren Kierkegaard. The chief point of view is that from first to last Grundtvig was a critic of his age, but that the contemporary attitude to Grundtvig changed in the 1830’s. Before 1832 he was regarded as a peculiar outsider; but from then on he exerted an increasingly powerful influence on the educational and the political debate as much as on the Church debate. It is from this point onwards that his cultural aims receive a consistent and lasting character.

It is impossible to understand Grundtvig’s ideas without relating them to historical situations and Grundtvig’s attitude to them. We must be aware of the changes in his attitudes in order to understand his development: in 1801 he left his childhood orthodoxy and became a rationalist, but in 1805 he realised to his surprise that he had to agree with Henrich Steffens in principle and thus he turned to German idealistic philosophy. In 1810, after a spiritual crisis, he returned to the literal Bible faith of his childhood. In 1825, however, he realized after much meditation that the answer to the question: What is true Christianity? lay not in the Bible but in the apostolic creed. Not until 1832 does he discover that it is impossible toforce anyone into the Christian faith. His earlier attempts to do so had been the result of a secret doubt. True faith, like philosophy and scholarship, demands freedom. When spiritual force is used on man, he becomes corrupted. Rather than a unified Christian culture Grundtvig now championed freedom in religion, scholarship and education. In 1848 he also extends this to political freedom of a democratic nature, first as a member of the constituent assembly, then as a member of parliament.

As a consequence of the increasing support Grundtvig won, it became difficult to distinguish between his own ideas and his supporters’ implementation of them, which often took a different form from the one Grundtvig had imagined. In some cases, especially in the carrying out of Grundtvig’s educational ideas, Grundtvig himself recognized these changes. In other cases he had to clarify his point of view. This was particularly true of the relationship between Danishness and Christianity and of the Schleswig question. However, the most difficult task of all is to understand Grundtvig’s relationship to German idealistic philosophy, to which he subscribed in the years 1805-10, albeit with reservations. When he withdrew his sympathy, he was forced toformulate his own philosophical viewpoint instead. It turned out to be necessary for him to reject not only the philosophies of Schelling and Fichte, but also of Kant. His theory of knowledge now rests on three internal and external senses: feeling, sight and hearing. And his anthropology or view of man still rests on the Bible, also after 1832.

The sharpest opposition to this philosophical and theological viewpoint came from the physicist, H. C. Ørsted, and the theologian, J. P. Mynster. What was required was an amicable settlement between Christianity and science, based on idealistic philosophy. Grundtvig never succeeded, therefore, in obtaining a clerical post in the years 1813-21, nor was he given any university post as a history teacher. So that when in 1822-26 he was appointed to a living in Copenhagen, he could express himself so strongly on the work of a professor in New Testament theology that he was convicted of libel - upon which he resigned his living. In 1829-31 he undertook three trips to England, where he unearthed original Old English manuscripts. After his experiences on these trips Grundtvig declared that he was willing to co-operate with people of different opinion provided they agreed with him that ‘natural man is created in God’s image and in God’s life-spirit possessed all that he required’ to achieve his divine destiny, but that he had been stricken early on ‘by a great mishap which had thrown the nature of man into disorder’ (he avoids the expression, ‘the fall of man’). He further maintained that one’s opponents must be accorded the same freedom that one demands for oneself. The crucial point in Grundtvig’s demands on those he is willing to co-operate with is that these demands apply only to the philosophy of life and the view of man, but not tofaith. The Christian faith cannot be forced on anyone.

Before 1832 Grundtvig had been unable to imagine that such a freedom could exist within the State Church. He thought that the orthodox Christians would have to leave the Church if a modern idealistic theologian was allowed to remain in his job as teacher of the clergy in the State Church. And many would possibly still agree with him. Grundtvig too showed himself ready to take this consequence in 1831, when his supporters in Copenhagen applied to the King for permission toform a free Lutheran congregation. The application was turned down. Instead Grundtvig was allowed to preach at evensong in the same church where the same congregation had wished to hold their services.

The reason for this may have been fear of the formation of a free congregation which was happening in an unsanctified house in Copenhagen, at which Grundtvig was twice the speaker. The decision was of great importance for freedom within the State Church. For Grundtvig it meant that he need not leave the State Church. For he had long ago realised, and had given expression to this during his discussion of Wesley in his World Chronicle 1817, that he ought to leave the State Church only if he was forced to do so (as Luther was forced out of the Catholic Church). And this never happened to Grundtvig.

Is it we who must develop ourselves into a divine perfection - or is it God who must save us through the faith into which as Christians we are baptised? Those who believe the former Grundtvig calls ‘Naturalists’, and only those who believe the latter are true Christians in his eyes. The twoforms of religiousness express ‘a contradictory belief concerning natural man’, he says.

It is impossible to reconcile them; but it is necessary that they recognize each other. There is no denying that Christianity has played a momentous part in world history; but the religion of the Norsemen, before they became Christian has also played a major role. Both forms of faith can be seen from a historical angle, and according to Grundtvig from this viewpoint it should be possible for each to recognize the other’s faith today. It is from this perspective that he writes Norse Mythology in 1832.

Thus Grundtvig makes history the basis of his distinction between faith and knowledge, and thence between Church, State and School, i.e. religion, politics and scholarship. In the preface to his Handbook of World History from 1833 he says that ‘just as the Christian Church must powerfully reject every attempt by the State and the School to reform it as they please, so it has no right toforce either the State or the School into a Church mould.’ It was this cultural programme which completely altered the contemporary attitude to Grundtvig; and it is the ideas deriving from it that have again become relevant during and since the Second World War. Grundtvig never wished to conceal the division over spiritual matters which is precisely a characteristic of man. It is not the Christian faith but the ability to express himself in language that makes man what he is. He must therefore be conscious of himself as man before he can become a Christian; ‘First a man, then a Christian’, says Grundtvig’s poem. In another poem he declares that ‘there is still much of the heathen in me’.

Grundtvig’s political concerns can be listed as follows:

1. The foundation of a Folk High School as the basis for the participation of the whole country in politics. Grundtvig planned that this high school should be at Sorø.

2. A purely scholastic high school in Scandinavia situated in Gothenburg.

3. The right to participate in Church rituals outside the parish one is living in.

4. Removal of the compulsion to use the authorized Hymnbook.

5. An extensive language project to assist the Danish minority in South Jutland (the Duchy of Schleswig) as well as the Frisians and the Germans there.

6. Oral proceedings in all the courts, including the high court.

7. Retention of the originally unlimited franchise to both the landsting and the folketing (the two chambers of parliament).

Only three of these points were carried out in Grundtvig’s lifetime: nos. 3, 4 and 6. No. 3 gave rise to the establishment of grundtvigian free congregations within the State Church (and free churches outside the State Church), a peculiar feature of Danish Church life. No. 4 resulted in the introduction of a new hymnbook with 90 hymns either adapted or written by Grundtvig; the number today is 101 adapted and 170 written by him. It is first and foremost through these hymns that Grundtvig’s ideas have become known. He exerted his greatest political influence during the First Schleswig War (1848-50), when he published the weekly magazine The Dane. The most important of his educational writings is The School for Life and The Academy at Sor. (1838) and The Union of Scholarship in the North (1839). But the philosophical basis for his ideas is to be found in the periodical Danevirke (1816-19). Grundtvig has shown that it is possible to think along other lines than those staked out by Kant, Hegel and Marx. It is not necessary to tie oneself down to either an idealistic or a materialistic philosophy. It is possible to admit that there are boundaries for man’s abilities and actions, and that our knowledge is limited by time. It is not unreasonable to imagine that the world is created by a power that is not knowable through human reason. It is possible to understand human reason as developing from the senses, by which man, like the animals, finds his bearings in the world. A thought, according to Grundtvig, is a feeling that has become aware of itself. Thus he does not divide man’s self into two conflicting abilities, feeling and reason. He regards man ‘as a divine experiment that proves how spirit and dust can interpenetrate and be transfigured into a united divine consciousness’. He does not therefore see the creation principle as a contradiction of the evolution principle but imagines a further development for man towards a greater likeness to his creator. On this view of man it is not impossible - as Georg Brandes claimed it was in 1872, the year Grundtvig died – to unite Darwin’s evolution theory with the Christian conception of man as created but deflected from his divine destiny.