Section I: “For Orientation in the Plan of the Fragments”

1. “That the Point of Departure Was Taken in the Pagan Consciousness, and Why”

This chapter comments and expands upon Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments and returns to a direct discussion of Christianity. Kierkegaard complains that misunderstandings and distortions plague Christianity on every side. On the one hand, speculative philosophy has reinterpreted Christianity so that it appears little different from “paganism.” On the other hand, Christians themselves often do not know what Christianity is because for them it is merely a formal label.

Kierkegaard explains that he avoided speaking explicitly of Christianity in the Fragments because Christian terms have been distorted, and therefore public discourse about Christianity has become largely meaningless. He thus chose an indirect approach. Given that every side has reinterpreted Christianity as equivalent to paganism, he found it logical to approach it from the standpoint of the best of classical philosophy, taking Socrates as his model.

Kierkegaard claims that the “confusion” into which Christianity has fallen arises from the pervasive notion that one becomes a Christian automatically as an infant at baptism. While not discounting the sacrament of baptism, Kierkegaard advocates emphasizing the existential striving to become a Christian throughout one’s life.