Between Deception and Authority: Kierkegaard’s Use of Scripture in the Discourses, “Thoughts That Wound from Behind—for Upbuilding”

Abstract This paper explores the tension in Kierkegaard’s Christian discourses between Kierkegaard’s overt emphasis on Scriptural authority and Kierkegaard’s imaginative Scriptural use, through an analysis of the discourse series, “Thoughts That Wound from Behind—for Upbuilding.” The paper argues that Kierkegaard employs Scriptural language both imaginatively to create distanciation and directly to create confrontation, without differentiating how Scriptural authority functions in these two uses. The paper concludes that when Kierkegaard emphasizes Scriptural authority, he is really emphasizing the authority of “Christian concepts” stabilized in Christian tradition, and that he utilizes Scripture freely and imaginatively to challenge readers with those authoritative concepts.