Grundtvig og hans samtids tænkemåde. Overvejelser over Grundtvigs stilling i dansk åndsliv

Abstract

Grundtvig and the Mentality of his Times. Considerations on Grundtvig’s position in the spiritual life of Denmark

by William Michelsen.

The interest during the 1970’s in Grundtvig’s thought, (for example by Ejvind Larsen and Ebbe Kløvedal Reich) has its source - as in his own time - in his criticism of the age. But did Grundtvig really have a different mentality to take the place of the general way of thinking? This question is answered here and in the following article (on Grundtvig’s theory of knowledge) on the basis of a series of seminars on Grundtvig’s position in the debate on Danish culture at the Scandinavian Institute, Aarhus University.

The problem that particularly engaged Grundtvig’s age was raised by the French revolution, and was concerned not only with politics but mainly with faith and knowledge, or with the relationship between religion and science. Kaj Thaning is undoubtedly right when he points out that in 1832 there was a significant change in Grundtvig’s thoughts on this relationship. This can be seen from the preface to his Handbook on World-History (Haandbog i Verdens-Historien) from 1833, in which he writes that ‘only gradually’ has he learned to distinguish between ‘Church and School’, which is his expression for the distinction between religion and faith on the one hand and philosophy and science on the other. Together with this change in Grundtvig’s attitude to the problem came a new relationship between his contemporaries and himself. He was no longer considered a fanatical outsider, but a man whose words and opinions were to be reckoned with. He was urged by the students to run a course of lectures on contemporary history, he was appointed to a Copenhagen parish by the King, in 1849 he was in the national assembly that drew up the new constitution, and later he became a member of the new parliament. But it would be rash to regard this as Grundtvig’s genuflection to the ‘secular’ view of the relationship between faith and knowledge that was common in his time. For Grundtvig had realized that his opponents, clergymen or scientists, must be offered the same freedom of expression as he demanded for himself. Grundtvig continued to find the answer to what is true Christianity in the creed, and whether the faith is true and genuine no man can answer. What remained was the question - Has science or philosophy the right to stop a person from becoming a Christian? As Grundtvig gradually realized that on the whole the age agreed with him in answering the question negatively, he came to see that it was not his task to prevent his opponents from expressing their opinions and exercising their power. Time would tell who was right. The period 1800- 1870, or the Golden Age of Danish Literature, as it has been called, was characterized generally by an amicable agreement between Christianity and science, resting on the philosophy of Kant and his successors. It was assumed that Christianity could be reconciled with an idealist philosophy of life, from Henrik Steffens’ ‘Introduction to Lectures in Philosophy in 1802 right up to 1866 when Georg Brandes rejected the agreement and finally broke with it in his lectures on Emigrant Literature 1871-72, in which he declared it impossible to live in the age of Darwin and still assume and embrace the concept of an original paradise and a fall.

The finest expression of the agreement between faith and knowledge is to be found in H .C . Ørsted's Dialogues, particularly in his ‘Conversation about Mysticism’, (Samtale over Mysticismen) written in 1807, and ‘The Spiritual in the Physical’ (Det Aandelige i det Legemlige) printed in 1849 in the collection ‘The Spirit in Nature’ (Aanden i Naturen - translated into English and reprinted several times). Other characteristic expressions of this agreement are to be found in the poems of Adam Oehlenschlager, J.L. Heiberg and Fr. Paludan-Müller (‘Adam Homo III, 1848). The most serious protest against Ørsted came from his friend Bishop J.P. Mynster, who was answered again by Ørsted in the Second Part of his work, published shortly before his death in 1851. The seriousness of the problem can be seen in H.C. Andersen’s works, particularly in ‘The Snow Queen’ (Snedronningen, 1844) and in the novel ‘To Be or Not To Be’ (At være eller ikke være, 1857).

Two writers who each in their own way took a different line from this dominant ideology were Ingemann, with his deliberately romantic philosophy, and Blicher, whose Christianity often differed sharply from idealist philosophy. However, the most shocking rejection of the agreement between Christianity and idealist philosophy found expression in Søren Kierkegaard’s ‘Philosophical Fragments’ (Philosophiske Smuler 1844), ‘Concluding, Unscientific Postscript’ (Afsluttende uvidenskabelig Eßerskriß 1846) and ‘The Moment’ (Øieblikket 1855). Rasmus Nielsen, Professor of Philosophy at Copenhagen University, sided with Kierkegaard and maintained (though not until after Kierkegaard’s death) that faith and knowledge - precisely because they were two disparate principles - could be united in the same consciousness. It was this point of view that Georg Brandes repudiated so sharply in 1866. In this respect he joined forces with Hans Bröchner, who meanwhile had been appointed lecturer in Philosophy.

Grundtvig’s position during the period is difficult to decide, partly because on his first appearance as an author in 1807 he agreed so clearly with Schelling that he had to be regarded as an adherent of idealist philosophy. In the preface to his probational sermon 1810, however, he declared himself unable to maintain Schelling’s intellectual position as the basis of a Christian gospel. So what did he put in its place? ‘The Word of the Lord’, that is, the Bible. But how was it possible to restore its authority? Grundtvig’s answer was: through history. His three ‘Chronicles of the World’ (Verdenskrøniker) from 1812, 1814 and 1817 are all attempts to attain this end, but, as Grundtvig recognized in 1833, they ‘failed’.

Why did they fail? Because their way of thinking was totally foreign to the age. The view of history on which they were based was hardly even understood. H.C. Ørsted attacked them in 1814 on the incorrect but understandable premise that Grundtvig was a disciple of idealist religion, who contrary to Luther’s teaching fought against philosophy and science.

Before 1832 Grundtvig supported the concept of a unified culture, in which religion, politics and science were in the closest agreement with one another. But gradually he came to realize what the consequences were when science, (natural science as well as the liberal sciences) had to decide which religion the common man was to have. And that is the background for the clear distinction that he makes after 1832 between the Church, the State and the School. His is the expression of a new cultural programme, dividing religion, politics and science.

For his own part, Grundtvig maintained the ‘Mosaic-Christian’ philosophy as the true one, and the prerequisite for co-operation in the world of the school. Not the Christian faith, but the Christian philosophy (‘Anskuelse’). But this prerequisite for scientific and educational cooperation has not been understood, either by his supporters or his opponents. The reason is that his way of thinking, i.e. his philosophy, was so very different from that of his age. If that is to be understood, then one is forced to ponder deeply the alternative to the idealist philosophy of the age that Grundtvig felt forced to construct and which is found in the journal ‘Danne-Virke’ 1816- 19.

A closer examination of Grundtvig’s authorship from 1812-17 shows that in 1815 a complete change in his evaluation of Kant’s philosophy took place, under the impression of Kant’s ‘Kritik der Reinen Vernunft’, which he now calls ‘the cleverest way to obscure the clear truths the World saw’. In his piece ‘Europe, France and Napoleon’ 1815, Grundtvig lays bare this disagreement between Bible Christianity and idealist philosophy. But Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, which took place before the book was published, robbed it at a stroke of any relevance, and thus it became a thing of little consequence. Here Grundtvig found confirmation that time is the measure of all things; and history research is the true science about man and the life of man. This, however, demands a philosophical basis, which it finds in ‘Danne-Virke’.