Et skabelsesteologisk perspektiv på Danne-Virke

Resumé

The “Danne-Virke” Viewed in the Perspective of “Creation” Theology

By Helge Baden Nielsen

is a paper read to the Annual Conference of the GS on 14. January 1988. Its theme is Grundtvig’s alternative to the transcendental idealism of German philosophy that prevailed in Denmark during the better part of Grundtvig’s lifetime. The first part of the paper is devoted to other angles on the “Danne-Virke” in the literature on Grundtvig, be it a literary approach as with Flemming Lundgreen-Nielsen, or one in terms of the history of Grundtvig’s personal development as with Kaj Thaning in Grundtvig-Studier 1953. In this context Baden Nielsen thinks it vital to emphasize that any dividing-up of Grundtvig’s work into periods tend to obscure an implicit continuity in Grundtvig’s thinking that stems from his position as a theologian. The Bible was the very air he breathed, and here his thinking began in the opinion of Baden Nielsen. That also holds true of Nordens Mytologi 1808. According to his almanac for 1813 he read the New Testament five times during that year. In the last instance he was a Christian thinker who fought to get his message through, whether he worked as a priest, a historian, or a philosopher, or for that matter as a budding poet, inspired by the poetics of Romanticism. His development means that his theological insights are deepened so as to illuminate still wider areas of experience. What has been described as conversions and spiritual breaks are often something external: changes in his method of working or in the way he faces the world and the contemporary age. An example is his sermon for Saint Stephen’s Day 1815. Now he wants to implicate faith in a new way, in human affairs as well as in his thinking. With reference to everyday speech and elementary human experience he wishes to establish the Judaeo-Christian doctrine of revelation as irrefutably true. But in essence his position is as before. His basic assumption is the idea of man as created in God’s image. Consequently he holds by the anthropology of Creation theology as did Luther. He wanted to expose as untenable the school of philosophy that had influenced the intellectual elite. If one gets “wed” to a particular way of philosophizing, the result may be that the very scope and independence of theology will be undermined. As Maker God is not remote, but near at hand, speaking to man through creation and history. Concurring with Henning Høirup Baden Nielsen thinks Grundtvig’s assessment of philosophical idealism highly accurate, whether man exist by virtue o/himself (being independent) or, at least, in his own right (being free in the strictest sense of the word), for that is what it is all about, as Grundtvig puts it in the Danne-Virke I, p. 114.

According to Baden Nielsen Thaning’s contention that in the Danne-Virke Grundtvig gets stuck or runs out of energy is not strictly correct. It would be truer to say, according to Baden Nielsen, that he took his work of enlightenment and clarification as far as it was beneficial to himself. Any true philosophy about man Grundtvig holds to be historical. In the view of Baden Nielsen, such a historical philosophy (“vidskab”) reflects man’s struggle to understand himself as one who exists. The following quote by Grundtvig contains the gist of his anthropology:

“...when man exists, neither by virtue of himself or in his own right, when he is a creature, ... then all activity within him and all works by him presuppose an impact made on his constituent parts, all spiritual activity and all spiritual works an impulse from the Spirit upon the body and consciousness. Physical activity presupposes a physical impulse, and a spiritual one conditions spiritual action, and all that is required in man is an aptitude for receiving impulses, which, on its side, cannot possibly exist by virtue of itself or in its own right, but presupposes a processing of any received impact.” (Danne-Virke II, p. 183 f.).

Man’s identity is external to himself. It is Luther’s idea of “justitia aliena” expressed in terms of phenomenology in Baden Nielsen’s view. With my hand I feel that I have a body. There is an established relationship between an ego and a body. I have become aware of myself. This “clear idea” Grundtvig holds to be “exactly the rational self-consciousness, without which all self-contemplation and all clear ideas about things in their relation to each other and to us were impossible.” (Danne-Virke II p. 154). Thanks to this primary insight man has conceived of himself as dependent on time and space, “as temporary and dependent, being aware of the fact that he could not call himself independent without contradicting himself. ” (Ibid. p. 158) But according to Baden Nielsen this way of thinking rests entirely on one particular theological presumption that man was created in God’s image, that God made the world through His Word and made an image of Himself in man. (The reality of Creation and the reality of Incarnation). This theological presumption is not proved, but is confirmed by the very structure of human existence. Perception he sees as the condition making it possible for God to produce His own image, in which He may reveal himself to man.

Perception is also fundamental to Grundtvig’s idea of Revelation: “Seeing is no act on the part of the seer, but perception. Not the mirror, but the object, or rather the progenitor of them both and their relationship produce the spectacle (or vision), and a spiritual vision that shows itself in a physical speculum is a revelation.” (D anne-Virke III, p. 282). This spiritual vision is communicated to man by the Word, which is registered by hearing, while being Spirit as well.

Baden Nielsen detects a circular structure in Grundtvig’s reasoning: his initial assumption is faith in the reality of Creation, which is confirmed by experience and the very structure of human existence. And conversely: It is impossible for Grundtvig to proceed from temporal, physical human life without the problem of spirit and eternity being brought up by the antithesis of Truth and Untruth.

According to Baden Nielsen Grundtvig’s main aim was to lay down the irrefutability of an understanding of life in terms of the idea of Creation. By illuminating the unseverable connection he found between Christianity and human life, he would be armed in a new way when he would again be called upon to vindicate Christianity in the pulpit. The insights he attained in the Danne- Virke were to prove fruitful for his sermons, while later on bringing about his discovery of his spiritual affinity with Irenaeus.