Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing by Søren Kierkegaard

First published: 1847, in Danish

Edition(s) used:Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing: Spiritual Preparation for the Feast of Confession, translated with an introductory essay by Douglas V. Steere. New York: Harper & Bros., 1938

Genre(s): Nonfiction

Subgenre(s): Didactic treatise; meditation and contemplation; sermons

Core issue(s): Confession; doubt; God; good vs. evil; perfection; suffering; truth

Overview

The seventh son of a wealthy wool merchant, Søren Kierkegaard resided all his life in the large family dwelling in central Copenhagen, where he was prominent as a literary figure. An unhappy love affair, quarrels with other writers, and, in his last years, disputes with the Church—all documented in lengthy journals—make up the story of his life. Graduated in theology, he put off taking orders (Lutheran); still, an overriding sense of what the Gospel can mean to those who embrace it with faith and love led him to sandwich between his various poetical and philosophical writings a number of “Edifying Discourses,” of which the present book is a memorable example.

Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing is a penitential sermon intended to accompany the office of Confession. To be sure, it is an amplified sermon, not meant to be preached but to be read; still, it is a sermon, with a text, appropriate divisions, long, somnolent stretches, and a conclusion exhorting the reader to change his or her ways. The sermon, which enjoins holiness, deserves a place in the literature of Christian perfection. “Purity of heart,” Søren Kierkegaard’s name for holiness, is conceived as right willing, that is, willing the Good, or what God wills—“the one thing needful.” The text comes from James 4:8: “Draw nigh to God and He will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts ye double-minded.” “Double-minded” (Greek dipsychos, a term peculiar to Jewish-Christian wisdom literature) means doubting, wavering, uncertain, and especially division of interest between the world and God. Appropriately in a preconfessional sermon, the preacher’s main concern is to expose double-mindedness (or, as we might say, bad faith, not in the sense of deceiving others but in the deeper sense of deceiving oneself). In any case, the opposite of double-mindedness, that is, willing one thing, does not lend itself to any elaboration. For Kierkegaard, it is equivalent to obeying the secret voice of conscience.

The divisions of the sermon (obscured by extraneous section headings in the American version) are conveniently stated by the author in more places than one. The argument falls into two main parts: a shorter part in which it is maintained that to will one thing one must lift one’s eyes to the heavens, for there is nothing on earth that can be willed with an undivided will; and a much longer part in which typical duplicities that creep into the creaturely will when it tries to conform itself to the will of the Creator are systematically exposed. In this second part, the author further distinguishes between willing and doing. The problem when one tries to will what heaven wills is that self-interest keeps creeping in.

The first, relatively short, part of the sermon, called “Willing the Good,” is of interest mainly in view of the claim of secular humanists that doubters can give meaning and weight to their lives by willing one thing without any reference to the Good. Select a cause, give it your all, and save your soul in so doing. Whether it is the best cause will always be debatable, but all that you need ask is whether it is a cause with which you have enough affinity to be authentic in the role you will be undertaking to play. A life is too precious to waste in drifting with the tide. Be somebody! Maybe you will find out that you are strong enough not even to need a cause to lean on. Choose your goal and follow it ruthlessly to the end!

How far does willing one thing—any one thing—equal purity of heart? Suppose the extreme case, Kierkegaard proposes. Can the unmitigated seeker after pleasure or wealth or power win a halo merely in virtue of the consistency with which the goal is pursued? No doubt such a person can—in the eyes of the double-minded. If halos were for average persons to bestow, quite possibly they would immortalize great sinners who have done what the bestower would sneakingly have liked to do. Questions arise, however. When one devotes oneself to pleasure or power or wealth or fame, is that person in fact willing one thing? First, may that person not be mistaken about the world? How can anyone will one thing in a world where everything changes, often into its opposite? “Carried to its extreme limit,” says Kierkegaard, “what is pleasure other than disgust? What is earthly honor at its dizzy pinnacle other than contempt for existence? What are riches, the highest superabundance of riches, other than poverty?” Second, is not such a person’s conception of self mistaken? One may imagine, perhaps, that one is self-made, the only one strong enough to overcome the indolence and mediocrity that enslave the human spirit. In thinking so, however, one is surely deluded. Moreover, Kierkegaard remarks, “if you should meet him in what he himself would call a weak moment, but which, alas, you would have to call a better moment,” you might find him envying “that man of single purpose who even in all his frailty still wills the Good.”

The second, much longer, part of the sermon is called “Willing the Good in Truth.” It is addressed to upright souls, to conventional Christians, to those who, like the Pharisee in the parable, are in the habit of addressing God with a certain complacency, and who are not like other people—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like yon publican. Its purpose is to show that good people ought not to get into the habit of approaching God too familiarly, not because of minor lapses but because of what might appear to one standing on the other side as treachery or double-dealing.

In division A of this second part, the sermon appeals to the hearers to get themselves together: “If it be possible for a man to will the Good in truth, then he must be at one with himself in willing to renounce all double-mindedness.” In developing this point, the preacher suggests that we ask ourselves whether we serve the Good with a single eye or with an eye out for rewards and punishments. Only briefly does Kierkegaard touch the question traditional to mystical theology as to whether perfect love of God requires that a person set aside all thought of eternal beatitude. Mainly, under rewards and punishments, Kierkegaard is thinking of the here-and-now question of whether serving the Good can or ought to be independent of one’s business and social interests. The double-mindedness here involved is fairly gross, although not always easy to root out. Kierkegaard compares it to the predicament of the man who loves a beautiful heiress: Would he love her as much if she were poor and ugly? More subtle than the outright question of rewards and punishments (or gains and losses) is the case in which an ambitious person, with an eye out for the main chance, is transfixed with a vision of the Good, and henceforth makes the service of the Good a career. He or she may become a great person, a universal benefactor. The question remains, however, with what will does that person serve the Good: Is the Good never subservient to personal ambition? With persons less capable of holding to a single course in life, double-mindedness is more likely to take the form of compromise. There is the person who is sometimes called a Sunday Christian. Such a person has, says the preacher, “a living feeling for the Good.” If one speaks to such a person of God’s love and providence, especially if one does so in a poetic fashion, the person is deeply moved. However, when an occasion presents itself in which that person might serve as an instrument of God’s love and providence, it will probably find him or her engrossed in private affairs.

In division B of this second part, the sermon appeals for total commitment. “If a man shall will the Good in truth, then he must be willing to do all for the Good or be willing to suffer all for the Good.” The “or” is important. Admittedly, doers of the good will have to suffer, but their suffering has some point to it. The word “or” reminds us that, besides persons who are fitted for an active life and who can serve the Good outwardly, there are many who are not fitted for an active life and who can serve the Good only inwardly. What doers and sufferers have in common is indicated by the word “all.” Whichever their lot, they must do or suffer all for the Good.

In treating of the active life, Kierkegaard minimizes the difference between various callings. For some, doing all means giving up a place in the world, leaving possessions, not even turning back to bury a father. However, for others, it may mean assuming wealth and power and managing these faithfully. As regards the Good, there is no difference between these callings, nor is the difficulty or magnitude of the task worthy of any note. Quarreling and comparisons involve double-mindedness. This is a minor point, however. Kierkegaard’s main concern in this section is the danger that arises whenever one tries to realize the Good in the temporal order. He calls it cleverness. “In its given reality the temporal order is in conflict with the Eternal.” Cleverness, however, makes its appearance. Remember Jesus’ temptations. By altering the Good here and there the clever one can win the world’s goodwill. Many will join together under the conviction that the Good, instead of being something that human beings need, is something that stands in need of humankind. So, the clever one is able to accomplish something in the world. However, asks the preacher, does memory never visit the popular idol? “Can you remember the deceptive turn you gave the thing, by which you won the blind masses? . . . Very well. Let it rest. No one shall get to know. . . . But eternally, eternally it will continue to be remembered.”

Now, what has the sermon to say to the sufferer—to “the person whom nature, from the very outset, as we humans are tempted to say, wronged, one who from birth was singled out by useless suffering: a burden to others; almost a burden to himself; and yes, what is worse, to be a born objection to the goodness of Providence”? Kierkegaard is thinking, no doubt, of the physically afflicted; but in his opinion the physical distress is less a problem than the mental anguish of being forever cut off from a happy life on earth. We laud the joys of childhood, of youth, of domestic life, says the preacher; but for the sufferer there is no happy childhood: If he is asked, “Why do you not play with the others?” he turns away. At the time of love, nobody loves him; and when anyone is friendly he knows that it is from compassion. So, he withdraws from life. Even at death, the handful of mourners say to each other that it is a blessing. He did, indeed, take part in life, says the preacher, in that he lived; but one thing he never knew, and that was “to be able to give and to receive like for like.” What has the sermon to say to the true sufferer? It will not mock him by saying, “You too can accomplish something—for others.” It will say, in truth, “You can still do—the highest thing of all. You can will to suffer all and thereby be committed to the Good. Oh, blessed justice, that the true sufferer can unconditionally do the highest quite as well as fortune’s favorite child!” Indeed, says Kierkegaard, it is from the sufferer and not from the outward achiever that we learn most profoundly and most reliably what the highest is.

Such, in skeletal form, is the sermon. Kierkegaard has introduced the sermon with a long meditation on the time for confession, and has followed it by what is almost another discourse reminding the reader of the necessity for decision. In these two additional parts, which one may bring together under the expression, “the eleventh hour,” Kierkegaard touches on the central theme of his philosophy, namely, human beings’ consciousness of eternity, together with the dread that it causes in their hearts and the decision which it holds continually before them. King Solomon said, “For everything there is a season” (Ecclesiastes 3:1); so, it is natural for us to suppose that there is a season for remorse and repentance just as there is a season for rejoicing and for sorrow. However, the eleventh hour is not a season but an understanding of life that should accompany us in every season. “It is a silent, daily anxiety,” says Kierkegaard. Every hour is appropriate for confession, and confession is always the eleventh hour. That it is an hour of decision is Kierkegaard’s concluding word. God “has set eternity in the heart” is another of Solomon’s sayings (Ecclesiastes 3:11). God has installed in each of us the voice of conscience with “its eternal right to be the exclusive voice.” The preacher is no more than a prompter. He has nothing to tell his hearers beyond reminding them of their own inner voice, which the voices of the crowd make it difficult to hear. Eternity, says Kierkegaard, scatters the crowd, giving to the individual infinite weight. Viewed in another manner, conscience is the presence in the temporal order that is prepared to change a nullity into an individual through decision. The talk does not ask you to withdraw from life, from a useful calling, from agreeable society. It does demand that you be eternally concerned, that you bring not merely your life goal under the aegis of the Good but also the means by which you hope to achieve this goal. Once again, to you who suffer: Solomon says, “Sorrow is better than laughter; for by the sadness of the countenance, the heart is made better” (Ecclesiastes 7:3). Hence, the talk asks you, How has your condition changed? This is not a question about the state of your health: The talk will not be diverted into that channel. It asks rather “whether you now live in such a way that you truthfully will only one thing.” “Not a change in suffering (for even if it is changed, it can only be a finite change), but in you, an infinite change in you from good to better.” You may be denied sympathy: People may be afraid to mention your suffering. Do not feel bitter about this. Ask only whether at your grave those standing by, instead of mumbling prayers of thanks that the sufferer is dead, will say, “The content of his life was suffering, yet his life has put many to shame.”

Christian Themes

Kierkegaard’s sermon reminds us that, if one is to draw near to God, one must do so by sincerely willing to be holy even as God is holy. He makes the following main points: Only persons who will the Good can be said to will one thing. If one is to be sincere in willing the Good, one’s will must be stripped of the entanglements of self-interest. A person who wills the Good in sincerity must be willing to do all or to suffer all for the Good. Finally, one wills the Good by obeying the voice of conscience, which speaks in time with the authority of eternity.

Sources for Further Study

Evans, C. Stephen, ed. Kierkegaard on Faith and the Self. Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2006. A collection of essays on Kierkegaard as a Christian philosopher. Bibliography, index.

Giles, James, ed. Kierkegaard and Freedom. New York: Palgrave, 2000. Essays on aspects of Kierkegaard’s concept of freedom, including Peter Rogers’s “Self-Deception and Freedom in Kierkegaard’s Purity of Heart.” Bibliography, index.

Kierkegaard, Søren. The Living Thoughts of Kierkegaard. Presented by W. H. Auden. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1952. Selections arranged under such headings as “The Present Age,” “Aesthetics, Ethics, Religion,” “The Subjective Thinker,” “Sin and Dread,” and “Christ the Offense.” Includes an appreciative introduction.

Rohde, Peter. Søren Kierkegaard: An Introduction to His Life and Philosophy. Translated with a foreword by Alan M. Williams. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1963. Sound insights presented for the general reader.

Stendahl, Brita K. Søren Kierkegaard. Boston: Twayne, 1976. A convenient review of the writings that offers a substantial general introduction to Kierkegaard’s thought. Bibliography.

Thomte, Reidar. Kierkegaard’s Philosophy of Religion. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1948. Surveys the development of Kierkegaard’s religious thought.