305
Izvirni znanstveni članek/Article (1.01)
Bogoslovni vestnik/Theological Quarterly 83 (2023) 2, 305—326
Besedilo prejeto/Received:07/2022; sprejeto/Accepted:04/2023
UDK/UDC: 1Kierkegaard S.: 2-185.36
DOI: 10.34291/BV2023/02/Slowikowski
© 2023 Słowikowski, CC BY 4.0
Andrzej Słowikowski
Forgiveness as the Way to Salvation: A Soteriological 
Account of Forgiveness in the Religious Writings of 
Kierkegaard and Its Meaning for Immanent Ethics
Odpuščanje kot pot do odrešenja: soteriološki prikaz 
odpuščanja v Kierkegaardovih verskih spisih in nje-
gov pomen za imanentno etiko
Abstract: This paper attempts to draw a strict Christian vision of forgiveness from 
Kierkegaard’s religious writings and to present its possible meaning for immanent 
ethics. The starting point of the considerations presented herein is the presuppo-
sition that forgiveness, as an essentially Christian phenomenon, does not refer 
to immanent interpersonal relations, but has its own deep, transcendent dimen-
sion. In this view, forgiveness is founded on the spiritual understanding of love 
of one’s neighbour as an act in which God always mediates in the relation bet -
ween two people. It is He who really forgives and, in this act, reconciles and 
equalizes the one who loves and the sinner with each other. Such forgiveness 
does not concern some particular sinful act, but the sin of life—living without 
God in the world. In this sense, forgiveness is a creative work of love which trans-
forms the being of man and recreates it in the new reality of love, opening befo-
re the individual the way to salvation. At the end of the text, I argue that such 
forgiveness may have great importance for immanent ethics if only the epistemic 
and moral distance between temporal and eternal reality is kept.
Keywords: forgiveness, love, soteriology, Christianity, Kierkegaard, transcendent 
ethics, immanent ethics
Povzetek: Prispevek skuša iz Kierkegaardovih verskih spisov izluščiti strogo krščan-
sko vizijo odpuščanja in predstaviti njen morebitni pomen za imanentno etiko. 
Izhodišče predstavljenih razmišljanj je predpostavka, da se odpuščanje kot bi-
stveno krščanski pojav ne nanaša na imanentne medosebne odnose, temveč 
ima svojo globoko, transcendentno razsežnost. V tem smislu odpuščanje teme-
lji na duhovnem razumevanju ljubezni do bližnjega kot dejanja, v katerem v 
odnosu med dvema človekoma vedno posreduje Bog. On je tisti, ki zares od-
pušča in s tem dejanjem spravi in izenači ljubečega ter grešnika. Takšno odpu-
ščanje ne zadeva kakega posebnega grešnega dejanja, ampak greh življenja – 

306 Bogoslovni vestnik 83 (2023) • 2
življenje v svetu brez Boga. V tem smislu je odpuščanje ustvarjalno delo ljube-
zni, ki človeško bitje preoblikuje, ga poustvarja v novi resničnosti ljubezni in 
pred posameznikom odpira pot k odrešenju. Na koncu prispevka trdim, da ima 
takšno odpuščanje za imanentno etiko lahko velik pomen, če le ohranimo epi-
stemično in moralno razdaljo med časno in večno resničnostjo.
Ključne besede: odpuščanje, ljubezen, soteriologija, krščanstvo, Kierkegaard, tran-
scendentna etika, imanentna etika
1. Introduction
The problem of forgiveness is one of those issues in which Kierkegaard’s religious 
thought cumulates.
1
 Essentially all of the Danish philosopher’s thought regarding 
the spiritual development of the person is organized around the sin of the indi-
vidual and the possibility of the individual’s liberating himself from its influence. 
This article is an attempt to develop a certain radical account of Christian forgive-
ness, which, based on Kierkegaard’s thought, refers both to the spiritual vision of 
love presented in his Works of Love, as well as to a broader spiritual concept of 
man that emerges from the entirety of his religious writings. Of key importance 
here is Sylvia Walsh’s comment that: “Of all the later literature, The Sickness unto 
Death has probably received the most critical attention, while the devotional wri-
tings of the period have been virtually ignored. But it is precisely in these works 
that one finds the heart of Kierkegaard’s understanding of the consciousness of 
sin and its relation to the forgiveness of sin in living Christianly.” (Walsh 2005, 32)
Kierkegaard presents his understanding of the act of forgiveness primarily in 
the discourses devoted to the subject matter “Love Will Hide a Multitude of Sins” 
(1 Pt 4:8)
2
. His vision finds its implicit but clear exemplification in the other set 
of his discourses referring to the character of “The Woman Who Was a Sinner” 
from the Gospel of Luke (Lk 7:36-50).
3
 In order for the correspondence between 
these two pictures to be complete, however, it is necessary to cast a critical eye 
on the way in which Kierkegaard sees the encounter of Jesus with the sinful wom-
1 
This article was completed thanks to funding by the National Science Centre, Poland; project no. 
2016/23/D/HS1/02236.
2 
Kierkegaard published discourses devoted to this topic in various series of his discourses over the span 
of his creative output. He first considers this topic in two texts from Three Upbuilding Discourses, pub-
lished in 1843 (Kierkegaard 1990, 55–68; 69–78), next taking it up in the second series of Works of Love 
from 1847 titled Love Hides a Multitude of Sins (1995, 280–299) and finally in the second of Two Dis-
courses at the Communion on Fridays from 1851 (1997b, 179–188).
3 
These are discourses written and published in a later phase of Kierkegaard’s output, though still before 
his last polemical stage. The first discourse comes from the 1849 collection Three Discourses at the 
Communion on Fridays (Kierkegaard 1997b, 135–144), the second was published as An Upbuilding 
Discourse in 1850 (Kierkegaard 1997b, 145–160), and the third opened 1851’s Two Discourses at the 
Communion on Fridays (283–292). In the discourses devoted to the subject “Love Will Hide a Multitude 
of Sins,” Kierkegaard himself invokes the character of “The Woman Who Was a Sinner” (Kierkegaard 
1990, 75–76; 77; 1995, 282) which was the motivating factor behind seeking such a correspondence as 
an original interpretative approach in this article.

307 Andrzej Słowikowski - Forgiveness as the Way to Salvation
an in the home of the Pharisee. A crucial supplement for understanding his vision 
of forgiveness are Kierkegaard’s thoughts concerning Christian reconciliation as 
set out in The Victory of the Conciliatory Spirit in Love, Which Wins the One Over-
come (Kierkegaard 1995, 331–344), as well as his comments regarding the prob-
lem of forgiveness and salvation found in other discourses, pseudonymous writ-
ings and in his notes from Journals.
The authors of publications devoted to the problem of forgiveness in Kierkeg-
aard’s discourses have, so far, focused primarily on the possibility of applying se-
lect fragments of his thought to the contemporary discussion of this issue. John 
Lippitt, in his book Love’s Forgiveness: Kierkegaard, Resentment, Humility and 
Hope (2020) as well as in several texts predating this work, has devoted the most 
attention to this problem (Lippitt 2013a; 2013b; 2017). Lippitt presents a deep, 
multidimensional picture of how Christian forgiveness as understood by Kierkeg-
aard can enrich our universal-human, moral decisions relating to this act. He uses 
Kierkegaard’s deliberations to argue for a certain way of thinking about forgive-
ness (unconditional forgiveness understood not as an obligation, but as a praise-
worthy and admirable gift), one that is present in the contemporary ethics debate. 
Despite admitting the importance and need for Lippitt’s arguments for uncondi-
tional forgiveness in the ethics debate, in this paper I intend to advance a differ-
ent dimension of forgiveness that emerges from Kierkegaard’s thought. My delib-
erations run, to some extent, contrary to those developed by Lippitt.
The main aim of this paper is to provide, within the context presented above, 
and based on Kierkegaard’s religious discourses, a certain vision of Christian for-
giveness as a soteriological event. Forgiveness Kierkegaard speaks of does not re-
fer to the typical life situation in which one, having committed a blameworthy act 
towards another, asks for forgiveness (conditional forgiveness), or to the situation 
where one receives forgiveness from a victim without asking for it (unconditional 
forgiveness), but to the spiritual dimension of the individual’s existence, the goal 
of which, in a Christian sense, is to obtain salvation. On Kierkegaard’s account, the 
actual act of forgiveness arising between two individuals proves to be a moment 
of divine intervention which completely transforms the life of a person.
Forgiveness so understood differs significantly from the way this problem is 
formulated in the debates in contemporary ethics (See Słowikowski 2020). It does 
not refer to an interpersonal ethical relation but to the transcendent Christian 
problem of creating an individual to live in Divine love and to spread this love in 
the world. On the Christian account presented by Kierkegaard, only love brings 
forgiveness. In this sense, the individual who, in following the prototype of Christ, 
spreads forgiveness through love, opens up before himself and others the pros-
pect of salvation.
This spiritual, soteriological understanding of forgiveness which, in essence, 
has a transcendent dimension (just like Kierkegaard’s entire ethics of Christian 
love—the so-called second ethics), is impossible to directly translate into the typ-
ically human understanding of this phenomenon, for it concerns a different real-

308 Bogoslovni vestnik 83 (2023) • 2
ity. The true Christian, an imitator of Christ—as portrayed by Kierkegaard—is a 
person fixated not on realizing temporal human ends (such as forgiving someone’s 
particular wrongdoing or forgiving some socio-political phenomenon or even con-
sidering, at the meta-level, whether forgiveness is generally sensible or possible), 
but on obtaining, through oneself and through others, the final aim of existence—
salvation.
This paper is tasked with showing, in this context, that immanent ethics (that 
is, universal-human ethics, that which is concerned with interpersonal relations) 
needs transcendent ethics (that is, Christian ethics as conceived by Kierkegaard). 
The former does not need the latter, however, in order to be able to apply the lat-
ter’s solutions directly to the former’s domain, this being impossible without the 
spiritual transformation of the people, whom transcendent ethics is meant to 
concern. In other words, in the world there is no Christian forgiveness without 
true Christians who spread it. Transcendent ethics is nevertheless needed in the 
temporal world as a certain higher idea, as a certain model for behaviour that 
gives an order to the universal-human world. 
In this sense, though of course one can attempt to combine transcendent eth-
ics with immanent ethics as Lippitt does—one then has to constantly bring atten-
tion to the distance separating the two and to stress that this distance is epis-
temically and morally significant. One should not blur the difference between the 
two, but accentuate it, just as Kierkegaard does when, for example, speaking of 
the infinite, qualitative difference between the eternal (transcendent ethics) and 
the temporal (immanent ethics) (Kierkegaard 1985, 41–47; 1992, 217; 412–413; 
492; 580; 1980b, 99; 121; 126–27). Here I do not intend to dispute or undermine 
specific arguments of Lippitt or of other authors who follow a similar interpretive 
path (Berry 1992, 196–217; Senyshyn 1998; Howell 2010; Pyper 2011; Ball 2019; 
Marcar 2019). My aim is to show that Kierkegaard’s main endeavour is to make it 
clear that Christian forgiveness is qualitatively different from the forgiveness that 
is discussed in ethical debates, both secular and Christian, that focus on the eth-
ical character of people.
To this end, in the steps that follow I will first briefly recount the spiritual con-
ception of Kierkegaard’s understanding of love, which underpins his account of 
forgiveness. I will then present his vision of the love-forgiveness dialectic in which 
there always exists a relation between the three sides. With this as a foundation, 
I will show what Kierkegaard’s Christian strategy of forgiveness as the hiding of 
sins consists in, a strategy which goes against common-sense ethical intuitions, 
its main goal being to arouse love in others. This will allow for a more critical 
analysis of how, in Kierkegaard’s thought, love is created in another person by 
means of the act of forgiveness, thereby summoning him to a new spiritual life. 
This in turn will serve as a basis to show how, on such an interpretation of Kierkeg-
aard’s religious writings, Christian forgiveness becomes an event with a soterio-
logical dimension. Having so constructed a picture of Christian forgiveness, in the 
conclusion I will try to show what the value of such an affirmative theological 
ideal consists in. To this end, I will attempt to consider why it is worthwhile to be 

309 Andrzej Słowikowski - Forgiveness as the Way to Salvation
ethically aware of this ideal’s existence, and how, while retaining its qualitative 
difference from immanent ethics, it can enhance the ordinary person’s ethical 
character in temporal life (i.e. the ethical character of those who are not Christians 
as understood by Kierkegaard, but who are deeply moral people in the universal-
human sense).
2. The Spiritual Concept of Love
To understand what Christian forgiveness is on Kierkegaard’s view, it must be 
shown in the context of the Christian account of love presented in Works of Love. 
Of the greatest importance here is the distinction between spiritual love and pre-
ferential love—and the kind of love that makes it possible to separate one attitude 
from the other is love for one’s neighbor (Kierkegaard 1995, 17–90). In short, spi-
ritual love is love for one’s neighbor, while every other kind of love is preferential 
love (all kinds of preference should be included here: erotic love, friendship, love 
for one’s spouse, for the child, for the homeland, and the like). The former belon-
gs to the order of transcendence and is that in which God’s love in man manifests 
itself; the latter refers to immanent reality and is a natural, purely human event.
The category of neighbour in Kierkegaard’s thought is treated maximally seri-
ously as that which, in accordance with the pattern of Jesus Christ, unites and 
equalizes all people in God (Kierkegaard 1995, 44; 49–50; 53; 58–60; 65–73; 80–
90; 99–102; 137–143). Love for one’s neighbour appears only where man unites 
through God with another person. Every moment in which love for one’s neigh-
bour is actualized in a person is a moment in which divine love manifests itself in 
this person; this occurrence is the utmost expression of humanity (62–63; 147; 
366; 1997a, 117–118). What is clear in this context is that normal, human displays 
of love—those relating to preference—are deprived of this transcendent feature, 
and though existentially they are very important in life, they cannot be a medium 
for a person’s relationship with God and do not lead the individual to spiritual 
fulfilment.
On the other hand, however, love for one’s neighbour in Kierkegaard’s view is 
not something voluntary, something one could choose as a life attitude on the 
basis of preferring one lifestyle or another. Love for one’s neighbour is the duty 
of every person as one who was created by God, and in it lies the essence of hu-
manity (22; 24; 29–44). This duty, however, is hidden in spirit and will remain in-
visible to anyone who does not delve deep into his interiority. Love for one’s 
neighbour is thus an object of choice, but this choice is a choice of self-denial, 
that is to say, of giving up preferential love as a fundamental way of relating to 
other people (52–56; 364–365; 369; 372–373). This means renouncing the atti-
tude of life which is manifested by the majority of people who are oriented in 
their existence towards fulfilling temporal goals. And that is why it is an extreme-
ly difficult choice, even an impossible one for someone who does not seek spiri-
tual transformation in his life.

310 Bogoslovni vestnik 83 (2023) • 2
This duty to love one’s neighbour points to yet another very important ele-
ment—the fact that one does not recognize in another one’s neighbour and that 
one does not treat him as one‘ s neighbour does mean that he ceases to be one‘ s 
neighbour (21–24). This is why a lack of relating to another as one’s neighbour 
reveals the sin of man—the lack of a real relation to God in existence (23; 236–237; 
257; 271–273; 281–282; 296–299). The lack of love for one’s neighbour is thus 
here an absence of love for God; it is a resignation from spiritual fulfilment in re-
lation to the Creator (1995, 112–114; 1997a, 195). A person who does not have 
a love for his neighbour within him is guided in his life by egoistic self-love, which 
is manifested in preferential love (1995, 21; 44; 52–58). And while there are, of 
course, different attitudes possible here, from those in the human sense, which 
are completely condemnable (such as using other people for one’s own needs) to 
the noblest (sacrificing oneself for another person), this ethical difference is, in a 
certain sense, only a quantitative difference in relation to the qualitative differ-
ence between preferential love and love for one’s neighbour (53; 139–142). For 
Kierkegaard, the lack of love for one’s neighbour is the source of evil in man; it is 
precisely that which requires forgiveness in the Christian sense.
3. The Dialectic of Love and Forgiveness
In the Christian account, Kierkegaard presents, the relation of love cannot simply 
be a relation between one person and another, but “/…/ is a relationship betwe-
en: a person—God—a person, that is, that God is the middle term” (Kierkegaard 
1995, 106–107). God, who establishes love as the foundation of a person’s life, 
must be present in every manifestation of this love if it is to relate to its source 
of creation (8–10; 215–217). This three-dimensional relation of love is not a mat-
ter of a person’s choice but constitutes the basis of his being established in love. 
When one person turns to another, he thereby turns to God, who is the only true 
and appropriate object of love (106–109; 120–121; 113; 130; 264–265). The ulti-
mate addressee of man’s acts is always God. Thus, if one performs an act against 
another, one at the same time in a spiritual sense performs an act against God and 
oneself, and when one performs an act for another, one at the same time performs 
an act for oneself and for God. This results from the fact that, on Kierkegaard’s 
account, “neighbor”, like God, is a middle term (54; 119; 142). Thus, there exists a 
full equality between love for God and love for one’s neighbour, such that to not 
love God is equivalent to not loving one’s neighbour, and not loving one’s neigh-
bour is to not love God. In this way, when a person, in his egoism, forgets about 
others and cares only for himself, God, too, forgets about him, and such a person 
fails to exist spiritually. And when a person, out of love, forgets about himself and 
sacrifices himself for others, God then remembers about him and maintains his 
spirit in existence (281). As a result, Kierkegaard says: 
“What love does, that it is; what it is, that it does—at one and the same 
moment. At the same moment it goes out of itself (the outward direction), 

311 Andrzej Słowikowski - Forgiveness as the Way to Salvation
it is in itself (the inward direction); and at the same moment it is in itself, 
it goes out of itself in such a way that this outward going and this retur-
ning, this returning and this outward going are simultaneously one and 
the same.” (280)
This dialectical reflexivity of love radiates upon the Christian understanding of 
forgiveness, which, on Kierkegaard’s account, is nothing more than a work of love 
(Berry 1992, 207; Ferreira 2001, 169; Lippitt 2017, 21; 22; 30). This means that, 
when one person forgives another, he at the same time receives forgiveness from 
God, and that, when he refuses to forgive another, he cannot expect to be shown 
forgiveness. Here Kierkegaard leaves no illusions: 
“Christianity’s view is: forgiveness is forgiveness; your forgiveness is your 
forgiveness; your forgiveness of another is your own forgiveness; the for-
giveness you give is the forgiveness you receive, not the reverse, that the 
forgiveness you receive is the forgiveness you give.” (Kierkegaard 1995, 380)
It is such, because forgiveness, like love, is never merely a relation between 
two people, but has, spiritually, a three-dimensional shape. This relation is always 
mediated by God, who alone can give ultimate forgiveness (339–342).
This Christian scheme of forgiveness founded upon love therefore always has 
on Kierkegaard’s account, three “actors”: the one through whom forgiveness 
flows—the one who loves; the one who is forgiven—the sinner; and the one who 
forgives—God. The central figure in this process-act of forgiveness is obviously 
God. However, it is not the case that forgiveness concerns, in an essential way, 
only the sinner. Kierkegaard stresses that it is equally necessary for the one who 
loves, through whom forgiveness flows (336; 343). The former needs forgiveness 
to free himself of sin and to discover his spiritual path in God, while the latter 
must strive for forgiveness so that he is able to reaffirm his spiritual existence in 
the Creator. As a result, at the moment forgiveness is given, both agents are equal 
to each other in God—they are both equally receivers and givers (1990, 149–151; 
156–158; 1995, 281–282)—neither is more important than the other as both are 
equally necessary: the sinner, to be able to become the one who loves; the one 
who loves, to be able to reaffirm his state. It thus turns out that forgiveness in the 
Christian sense must be that which flows out from the one who loves towards the 
sinner whom he encounters (1995, 335–337). Spreading the good news on Earth 
is therefore equivalent to spreading forgiveness and mercifulness to every indi-
vidual encountered, independently of any social connection with him. This results 
from the spiritual definition of love underscored by Kierkegaard and from Chris-
tianity’s equality of all people in relation to God (141–143). However, in order to 
spread forgiveness, one must conceal his actions in love, to undertake self-denial 
knowing that he is not the one who forgives, but instead the one through whom 
forgiveness flows, an instrument in the hands of God (340–341; 361–366). 
An ideal portrayal of this situation is offered by the encounter of the sinful 
woman with Jesus described in the Gospel of Luke (Lk 7:36-50). In this case, how-

312 Bogoslovni vestnik 83 (2023) • 2
ever, the Kierkegaardian lens does not fully reflect his own understanding of for-
giveness as an act of love. He sees the situation described as two-dimensional, 
that is, as an encounter of Christ the Savior with a sinful woman. For the model 
to be complete, one needs to see that Jesus here fulfils a double role, in accor-
dance with his dual nature as God-man—he is simultaneously the one who loves, 
through whom forgiveness flows, as well as God the Savior, who gives this forgive-
ness. Along such an interpretive angle, forgiveness arises in accordance with the 
three-dimensional pattern herein described: Jesus the human—God the Savior 
(Christ)—and the human sinner. Here the central role is played by the Savior, and 
it is he who utters the words of forgiveness, yet, for this to actually occur, both 
Jesus and the sinful woman must humble themselves before Him, to make them-
selves equal in relation to His Majesty. This can be seen in the behaviour of the 
sinful woman, which is the focus of Kierkegaard’s attention—her silence, weeping, 
and wiping of Jesus’s feet as a symbol she acknowledges her infirmity and forgets 
about herself (Kierkegaard 1997b, 139–142; 155–158). This is also evident in the 
behaviour of Jesus, who does not speak, but remains focused, allowing the sinful 
woman to perform her act of washing. Here, this act constitutes a symbolic level-
ling of each in God. Their absolute concentration on one another (the sinful wom-
an on Jesus, Jesus on the sinful woman), both desiring forgiveness, signifies their 
renunciation of themselves and their importance in relation to God as well as their 
utter reliance on Him, as a result of which space is made for His action.
4. The Hiding of Sins and the Awakening of Love in the 
Process of Forgiveness
Occupying the very center of Kierkegaard’s thought is the consideration as to 
how, in a Christian sense, one can really forgive another person, and what acti-
ons one should take towards this aim. To the fore in this context comes a certa-
in phenomenon: the ability to not see sins. Such an ability can develop only in a 
person of pure interiority (heart). Here the matter concerns a particular attitude 
towards another person in which the one who loves, in spite of an awareness of 
the other’s sinfulness, comes to him, not with direct reproval or admonition, but 
instead to try to discover and awaken in him the love established by God at the 
heart of each person. For Kierkegaard, building up another person in love begins 
precisely with the fact that: “The one who loves presupposes that love is in the 
other person’s heart and by this very presupposition builds up love in him—from 
the ground up, provided, of course, that in love he presupposes its presence in 
the ground.” (1995, 216–217) 
While the actions of a natural person tend to reveal the other’s guilt to force 
him to confess and to punish him or seek atonement for the sinful act committed, 
Kierkegaard insists that the truly loving Christian must behave in the opposite way. 
Here the attitude of the individual, in accordance with the dialectic of love, reve-
als his interiority:

313 Andrzej Słowikowski - Forgiveness as the Way to Salvation
“A person’s inner being, then, determines what he discovers and what he 
hides /…/. When envy lives in the heart, the eye has the power to elicit 
the impure even from the pure; but when love lives in the heart, the eye 
has the power to love forth the good in the impure, but this eye sees not 
the impure but the pure, which it loves and loves forth by loving it. Yes, 
there is a power of this world that in its language translates good into evil, 
but there is a power from above that translates evil into good—it is the 
love that hides a multitude of sins. When hate lives in the heart, sin is right 
there at the door of a human being, and the multitude of its cravings is 
present to him; but when love lives in the heart, then sin flees far away 
and he does not even catch a glimpse of it.” (1990, 60–61)
Seeing and showing another’s sins is, on this dialectical account, a sign of one’s 
own inner impurity. However, it is the power of love, so to speak, to be able to 
disregard the sinfulness of the other to reach what is in him originally good, which 
alone can help him cope with his sin. In the discourse “Love Hopes All Things—and 
Yet Is Never Put to Shame,” Kierkegaard notes that the relation of the one who 
loves to other people consists in his hope that, at any moment, there exists a pos-
sibility of good for the other. He must therefore “hope for him” until the very end, 
believing in the good of the other to the very end. Not hoping for the other, not 
searching out the good in him means, in this sense, not loving (1995, 253–256).
The essence of Kierkegaard’s thought here is that the one who loves hides the 
multitudes of another person’s sins since he knows that condemning particular 
evil acts of his will not change him in a spiritual sense. It may, in the best-case 
scenario, bring it about that, in an ethical sense, he will become more mindful in 
his life. This, however, will not lead him to Christian forgiveness. For this to be-
come possible, it is necessary to approach this other person in such a way that, 
despite her many sins, one will see what people like her do not see—the love es-
tablished by God within her. The profundity of the attitude of the one who loves 
consists in his being able to refer to the sinner such that, instead of his own sin-
fulness, the sinner discovers the love residing within himself, which allows him to 
reflexively acknowledge his sin, and which awakens within him the desire for for-
giveness (72–74; 77).
4
The task of the one who loves—he, who is to forgive the sinner—is thus to bring 
it about that the sinner recognizes himself as a sinner so that he discovers his sin 
and becomes terrified by it: such is the condition of upbuilding each person 
(1997a, 96–97). Of concern in this matter is not some particular sinful act or some 
concrete instance of immoral behaviour, but rather what lies beneath it—the sin 
of abandoning God, of living without God in the world (1993a, 32–36; 1997b, 136; 
4 
In addition to forgiveness, Kierkegaard provides two other ways to hide sin. They are: silence and miti-
gating explanation (Kierkegaard 1995, 289–294; Ferreira 2001 174–175; Howell 2010, 33–36). Most 
commentators grant that Kierkegaard lists three independent ways to hide sins, of which the most 
excellent is forgiveness.

314 Bogoslovni vestnik 83 (2023) • 2
143; 180–181).
5
 Instead of focusing on a particular sin of another person, the 
forgiveness of which will not, in a spiritual sense, change anything in the long run, 
the one who loves focuses on what is important, the source of evil in this person. 
However, to experience one’s absolute guilt without an internal foundation of 
consciousness that love resides within oneself and spreads forgiveness and divine 
mercy would mean an immediate inner death, the destruction of one’s spirit. It 
is for this reason that the first task of the one who loves is to awaken in the sinner 
the love established within him, to make him aware of God’s love for him, to bring 
it about that he desires this love. It is only in this moment that the inner restora-
tion of a person begins, the process of discovering his own sin and the search for 
forgiveness. The consciousness of sin must therefore always be accompanied by 
the consciousness of forgiveness and cannot ever manifest itself without it (1993b, 
246; 2010, 181–82; 1992, 524).
The process of discovering one’s own sin within the realization of God’s love 
for man is inversely related to seeing the sins of others. For the more one focuses 
on the sins of other people, the more one does not perceive one’s own sins and 
does not search out forgiveness; and the more one desires forgiveness, the more 
one stops seeing the sins of others, seeing instead one’s own inner imperfection, 
which completely involves one and orders one to search for forgiveness. Kierkeg-
aard is speaking in this context about one’s knowledge of evil, which is common 
in people living in sin, and about one’s opposite knowledge of the good, charac-
teristic of the one who loves. It is from this skill of perceiving the good that one’s 
reluctance to perceive evil stems (1995, 285–287). At the same time, the attitude 
of the one who loves is not anthropologically naive as was the case with the atti-
tude of Prince Myshkin from Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot. The one who loves is marked 
by an intentional lack of interest in evil resulting from the knowledge that curios-
ity about evil is never spiritually pure and always leads to sin. 
In consequence, in the Christian account presented by Kierkegaard, it is pre-
cisely this not seeing the sins of another which gives him the chance to discover 
his own sin—while this pointing out of his sins and placing blame only binds him 
more to them. This logic is inverse to the intuitions and behaviour of the natural 
person. In a spiritual sense, the matter comes down, not to showing another his 
sin, but to giving him a tool that allows him to discover it on his own and to give 
him the strength to do away with it.
A paradigmatic example of such a situation is the entire context of Jesus’ en-
counter with the sinful woman, about which the Holy Scripture says only perfunc-
torily that: “A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was 
eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of per-
fume.” (Lk 7:37) Kierkegaard does not consider what leads to their encounter but 
instead focuses on the behaviour of the sinful woman, which offers some impor-
tant guidance. He underscores that the sinful woman—being a symbol of how 
5 
In this sense, Kierkegaard states, in The Sickness unto Death, that: “sin is specifically a qualification of 
spirit” (Kierkegaard 1980b, 81), and “every sin is before God” (80).

315 Andrzej Słowikowski - Forgiveness as the Way to Salvation
one should desire forgiveness and accept it (Kierkegaard 1997b, 140–143)—comes 
to the home of the Pharisee having already made a decision (150; 155). This act 
of deciding is key since no one can find forgiveness who is not determined to ob-
tain it. The act of confession, which must necessarily accompany forgiveness, re-
quires that one strives for purification, at all costs and regardless of one’s unfa-
vourable inner situation or inner anxieties, as an absolutely overriding goal (137–
139). The question arises as to how one can awaken in oneself such a state of 
inner determination. Kierkegaard notes that of the utmost importance is one’s 
complete concentration on one’s sin and the desire to rid oneself of it. Awareness 
of this inner infirmity that fills man makes everything apart from the search for 
the forgiveness of sins meaningless (150–155). This is a state of individualistic 
self-hatred, hatred for the evil which hitherto defined the life of the person, the 
feeling that continued existence in this state is pointless (138–139).
Yet one should ask a question for which neither Holy Scripture nor Kierkegaard 
provides an answer—that is, what exactly happened in the life of the sinful wom-
an, such that she decided against herself and her life hitherto, against everything 
that seemed at the moment to testify against her, to go to the home of the Phar-
isee and devote herself to Jesus? It seems that to unravel this puzzle, one ought 
to reference what Kierkegaard says about “love hiding a multitude of sins” since, 
in accordance with Kierkegaard’s “theory” of forgiveness, for the sinful woman to 
be able to decide to perform a gesture of confession (being, in this case, the sym-
bolic act of washing Jesus’s feet with her tears) she would have had to meet ear-
lier in her life one who loves, who, not wanting to see her sins, discovered the 
good residing in her and awakened the love established in her heart. This some-
body must have been Jesus. It is he who somehow must have earlier influenced 
the sinful woman, he who must have removed the veil of sin and activated the 
love residing within her. The most important element here that must appear in 
the sinner is the desire for forgiveness. This desire, however, cannot arise in and 
of itself; an impulse from the outside is necessary, some person or event capable 
of pulling him off the beaten path of sin. In this context, Kierkegaard says pre-
cisely that the one who loves is reconciled with the other long before the other 
even thinks about searching for reconciliation (1995, 335–337). This anticipatory 
move by the one who loves, his going out to the sinner with love—this here is key. 
In the New Testament story, Jesus is precisely such a person—a Saint (1997b, 
138–139) whose appearance knocks people out of their sinful reality and forces 
them to disclose the thoughts of the heart (Lk 2:34-35; Kierkegaard 1991, 96; 126; 
132; 136). This awakening of the heart concerns every person and each stands 
then before a decision: either to be offended or to believe (Kierkegaard 1980b, 
98; 122; 1991, 33; 40; 81; 96–97; 105; 111; 115–116; 139; 141).
It is worth noting that though Kierkegaard obviously sees in Jesus a Saint, he 
acknowledges His Holiness as an attribute of His Divinity (1997b, 181–182; 184–
188). One should, however, see the Jesus who proclaims the gospel as a man and 
not God. He becomes God only in those moments in which he performs the mir-
acles of forgiveness and healing when he gives signs. As a matter of fact, these 

316 Bogoslovni vestnik 83 (2023) • 2
are his most difficult moments of trial: allowing his Divinity to speak through him-
self and reaffirming himself in his calling as the Son of God. While at the same 
time remaining incognito, recognizable only through faith, imperceptible to the 
purely temporal gaze that searches out empirical evidence (1991, 123–144).
The sinful woman, like Mary (Lk 10:42), chose “the one thing needful” (Kierkeg-
aard 1997b, 149), allowing herself to be directed by the love awakened in her by 
Jesus. Worthy of note is that this love that was awakened within her was not yet 
actual, fulfilled love—that is, Christian love as in Kierkegaard’s account, but was 
a state of a certain indebtedness in this love, a discovery of the possibility of this 
love’s existence, a desire that she, the sinful woman, have that which was revealed 
to her in Jesus. This means that the sinful woman, in going to the home of the 
Pharisee, acts, really, under the influence of Jesus’ love, who leads her, not under 
the influence of her own love. This situation is analogous to that in which one acts 
under the influence of a desire for something which remains only a possibility, 
which at the same time draws one to itself, leading one to make an ultimate 
choice. This mechanism characterizing the workings of human freedom is bril-
liantly described by Kierkegaard in the form of the titular “Concept of Anxiety” as 
“freedom’s possibility” (1980a, 41–42; 49; 61; 91; 123; 155). In other words, Jesus, 
in awakening in the sinful woman the love established within her, actually reveals 
to her “love’s possibility,” which activates in her the working of freedom that 
strives to fulfil this love.
5. Creating Love in Forgiveness
Love cannot be actualized in the individual’s existence without forgiveness, that 
is, without being absolved of sin. The state of love and the state of sin are mu-
tually exclusive—the former means being a servant of the good, while the latter 
means remaining under the influence of evil. Thus, one cannot become one who 
loves when at the same time one is not internally purified, separated from sin. 
The very act of forgiveness, which Kierkegaard places special emphasis on, re-
quires faith because only faith has the power to create something in spiritual re-
ality, that is, to bring to life that which is invisible and to take away into non-being 
that which is visible (Kierkegaard 1995, 294–296). It is precisely the faith in love 
that makes love truly exist in a spiritual sense and fills the existence of the Chris-
tian (5; 16). Such love simply does not exist physically in the world—it is not an 
object. Its existence is possible only by virtue of the faith of the individual, who, 
through himself, bears witness to this love before others. Only the loving indi-
vidual, by believing in God’s love,
6
 can become one through whom love manifests 
6 
The subject of faith in God’s love as the most important element of a person’s spiritual being is the 
focus of two of Kierkegaard’s discourses: “All Things Must Serve Us for Good—When We Love God” 
from the third series Christian Discourses (Kierkegaard 1997a, 188–201) and “The Joy of It That in Rela-
tion to God a Person Always Suffers as Guilty” from the third series of Upbuilding Discourses in Various 
Spirits (1993b, 264–88).

317 Andrzej Słowikowski - Forgiveness as the Way to Salvation
in the world in accordance with the pattern set by Jesus. Properly speaking, in this 
love, the one who loves becomes, in Kierkegaardian terms, contemporary with 
Christ (1991, 62–66). The actions of the one who loves are, in this way, an instru-
ment for God Himself, who reveals Himself in them. God simultaneously both 
removes what others see—a person’s sin—and establishes that which cannot be 
directly seen in the world of the senses, that which requires faith—the forgive-
ness of sins. It is no coincidence that the forgiveness of sins, made possible sole-
ly by faith, is for Kierkegaard an expression of Christian paradox (1992, 224–228; 
538–539)—for it is, in a spiritual sense, and by virtue of eternity, a bringing to life 
of that which is unreal to the senses and a depriving of existence that which is 
real to them. As Kierkegaard explains: “But when love forgives, the miracle of faith 
happens /…/: that what is seen is, by being forgiven, not seen.” (1995, 295) Of 
course, the act of forgiving sins and all that this encompasses makes sense only 
in spiritual reality and does not strip the individual of his moral responsibility to-
wards others in the temporal world. The fact that sin does not weigh on the indi-
vidual spiritually does not change the fact that others can blame him for his sins 
just as they could previously. For here the matter concerns a change of the indi-
vidual’s internal status, not his position in the world.
Kierkegaard notes that from the rational point of view, the forgiveness of sins 
is something impossible, something that should not occur. In Kierkegaard’s view, 
forgiveness is so impossible for human reason that people’s first reaction to it 
should be to take offense, where not reacting in this way constitutes evidence of 
their spiritlessness or indifference in this regard (Kierkegaard 1980b, 116; 1997a, 
107). The possibility of the forgiveness of sins is here what Kierkegaard believes 
most differentiates man from God (1980b, 121–122).
Under such an account, it becomes clear that through God’s love and in God’s 
love—as manifested in the one who loves—forgiveness creates love in the sinner, 
that is, it establishes in him the reality of love, at the same time annihilating his 
sin, wiping away the reality of sin. A transformation of reality occurs at this mo-
ment, which becomes possible thanks to two acts performed by God. On one 
hand, God, in hoping for the sinner, brings him into a new life in love, while on 
the other, in forgetting his sin, deprives said sin of its real existence (Kierkegaard 
1995, 295–96). To deprive sin of its real existence means, in a spiritual sense, that 
sin no longer affects the existence of the individual, that it no longer directs his 
life, that it disappears from his life.
Thus, in the act of forgiveness that occurs between the one who loves and the 
sinner by means of God’s mediation, the reality of the sinner’s life is reestablished 
anew. Worth noting is that here Kierkegaard makes use of ontic terms, and thus 
the matter concerns an authentic change in one’s being, the sinner’s transforma-
tion into one who loves. This is possible as, for Kierkegaard, the fundamental, 
decisive reality of one’s life is not the sensory world but that of the spirit—it is in 
the latter that what is actual and true for the individual is decided (145–146; 
383–384).

318 Bogoslovni vestnik 83 (2023) • 2
This transformation of the spirit is experienced by the sinful woman when she 
hears Jesus’s words of forgiveness “Therefore I say to you, her many sins are for-
given her, because she loved much.” These words seem to be spoken in a cause-
and-effect mode: first, that “she loved much” and then, that “her many sins are 
forgiven her”. Kierkegaard, in his interpretation of this case, applies this line of 
reasoning as well, as he acknowledges, somewhat contrary to his own “theory” 
of forgiveness, that the sinful woman’s love somehow actualized before the words 
of forgiveness were uttered, thus suggesting that her love was prior to them (Ki-
erkegaard 1997b, 143). As a result, Kierkegaard states that the act of forgiveness 
doubles love in the individual, causing it to acquire additional power (175–176).
7
Yet, in accordance with the “theory” of forgiveness presented herein, these 
words of forgiveness cannot simply pronounce the sinful woman’s love, they must 
create it. That which she was previously guided by was not her current love but 
her desire for it and for purification. The words “because she loved much” cannot, 
therefore, refer to what proceeded earlier, but must reference what was happen-
ing the moment Jesus spoke them. He declares the spiritual fact, that, at that mo-
ment, “her many sins are forgiven her,” since at that moment “she loved much”. 
If it were otherwise, this would mean that, first of all, God is unnecessary for her, 
as she could actualize her love herself, which, in turn, contradicts the theory of 
truth presented by Kierkegaard in Philosophical Fragments (1985, 13–22). Love is 
here, in a spiritual sense, equivalent to the truth, and for it to be learned, the 
teacher, who is equally necessary in teaching both, must offer the follower the 
condition for discovering it. This condition is forgiveness, which lies behind what 
Kierkegaard calls “rebirth” in Philosophical Fragments (19). In this way, the sinful 
woman’s transition from a state in which love is possible to the state in which it 
actually unfolds.
6. Salvation through Forgiveness—Reconciliation in Love
Christian forgiveness as Kierkegaard understands it must lead to reconciliation 
(1995, 313–314; 335–337; 343–344)—the forgiveness offered by the one who 
loves must correspond to its being accepted by the sinner. If forgiveness is not 
accepted, this means that the one who loves did not succeed in awakening love 
within the sinner. In this case, this is not full forgiveness, but only the possibility 
of forgiveness directed towards the sinner. It is only when the forgiveness being 
offered encounters in another the desire to be forgiven that there is a chance for 
the reconciliation of both individuals in God. It is important to note that it is not 
the case that the one who loves comes forward unselfishly, in a spiritual sense, 
with forgiveness. It is obvious that, insofar as the life of the senses is concerned, 
what he offers is entirely unselfish, however on the spiritual level—as Kierkega-
ard stresses with all his might—the one who loves needs forgiveness as much as 
7 
John Lippitt in his book (2020, 76–83) provides the detailed description of this problem with the Ki-
erkegaardian interpretation of Jesus’ words of forgiveness.

319 Andrzej Słowikowski - Forgiveness as the Way to Salvation
the sinner does (1970, 49), for it is only by spreading love to others in the form 
of forgiveness that one can reaffirm oneself in this love, thereby strengthening 
one’s spiritual bond with God.
Reconciliation is an act which directly proceeds forgiveness: it is that which oc-
curs immediately after love becomes actualized in the sinner. As only two equals 
can enter into reconciliation, it is when the actualized love of the sinner answers 
the initial love of the one who loves that this reconciliation—that which signifies 
the unity of their love in God—occurs. This reconciliatory act ends the formal pro-
cess of forgiveness and transforms the sinner into one who loves and whose mission 
becomes to spread love, in forgiveness, to one’s neighbour, that is, to all people.
It must be understood that, on the account that can be constructed from a 
reading of Kierkegaard’s works, the moment one’s love is actualized, that is, the 
moment a person is created in the spiritual reality of love is the very moment the 
perspective of salvation opens up before him. Of course, for as long as the indi-
vidual lives, he must spread forgiveness, thereby reaffirming himself in the for-
giveness he receives, but every act of forgiveness and reconciliation, starting with 
the very first such act, is an act of fulfilment in God. 
It is not obvious that salvation here is dependent only upon the acts of a per-
son. His actions must be placed into a broader context of atonement in Christ. As 
David Gouwens notes, in Kierkegaard’s account: “Salvation is not reduced to ex-
perience (because of logical priority and actuality of atonement), but soteriology 
includes human response and experience.” (Gouwens 1996, 149) This means that 
the subjective salvation of the individual can occur only in the objective and ac-
tual sphere of Christ’s love, that is, in the love of one’s neighbour, which is the 
response of man’s love for God to God’s primary love for man.
8
And in this way, if the moment one’s love is actualized happens to be the mo-
ment of one’s death—as in the case of the robber whom Jesus forgives on the 
cross (Lk 23:43)—this moment then proves to be the moment of the individual’s 
fulfilment in God as well as his being saved. In this way his salvation is equal to 
that of the one who loves, who might even have spread love in the world for 
thirty years. A feeling of injustice relating to this equality arises only in the natural 
person, who his guided by a temporal sense of justice. From the spiritual point of 
view, the matter is one of complete logical consistency, as in both cases the unity 
and equality of God’s love for man in man’s love for God are fulfilled to the same 
degree.
It may be said that the moment one reconciles with another in God, one be-
comes and is a Christian and is thereby at the end of one’s existence; moreover, 
the individual is “there” each time reconciliation occurs through him in forgiveness. 
This is a state in which, regardless of the individual’s actual life situation in tempo-
rality, he can at every moment of his life remain in a spiritual sense fulfilled in God, 
for at every moment the individual is realizing his existential end. This is possible 
8 
A detailed and multidimensional analysis of the problem of atonement in Kierkegaard’s thought is 
provided by Lee C. Barrett (2013).

320 Bogoslovni vestnik 83 (2023) • 2
because, on Kierkegaard’s account, the means and the end in Christianity are al-
ways one and the same (Kierkegaard 1993b, 141–143). On precisely this basis, the 
forgiveness one gives to another (that which one does at a given moment—the 
means) is, at the same time, forgiveness for him, the forgiver (that which one wants 
to achieve in eternity—the end). Kierkegaard states that a person: “is not eter-
nally responsible for achieving his end in temporality, but he is unconditionally 
eternally responsible for which means he uses. When he wills to use or uses only 
the means that truly is the good means, he is, eternally understood, at the end” 
(141). This is precisely what the Kierkegaardian concept of becoming and being a 
Christian consists in: when a person becomes one (the means) he thereby at the 
same time is one (the end), and for precisely this reason he cannot, for as long as 
he is alive, stop becoming a Christian, as then he would stop being one. The state 
in which the Christian here finds himself is described by Kierkegaard as being pres-
ent to himself or being contemporary with himself, which can be interpreted as 
being in accordance with one’s vocation in God (1997b, 39; 44–45; 1997a, 74–75). 
In this context Kierkegaard very strongly emphasizes the words spoken by Jesus on 
the cross to the robber: “This very day you are in paradise.” (Lk 23:41)
It is in this state that both Jesus and the sinful woman find themselves when 
they reconcile with one another by virtue of The Redeemer uttering his words of 
forgiveness. In this scene, one should see in Jesus Christ both the man (Jesus), 
who fulfils his vocation as the Son of God, and the Redeemer (Christ), who actu-
alizes the love within the sinful woman and reaffirms Jesus in his mission to spread 
love to others. Each time Jesus forgives or performs a miracle, he, as a person, 
yields to his Divine nature, which speaks through him.
Of importance here as well are the edifying words Christ directs towards Simon 
immediately after the words of forgiveness are uttered: “But one who is forgiven 
little loves little.” (Lk 7:47) Kierkegaard’s interpretation of these words reverses 
their meaning, for Kierkegaard reads them as: “he is forgiven little—because he 
loves little.” (Kierkegaard 1997b, 169; 171–173; 175) This results from his logi-
cally literal reading of the words of forgiveness and confirms his thesis that the 
love within the sinful woman for Jesus exists prior to Jesus’s words of forgiveness. 
However, if one is to remain consistent with the thesis that the sinful woman’s 
love was brought forth concurrently with her forgiveness, these words mean 
something else. They refer to the idea that if there is no one who can forgive, then 
likewise there is no one who can awaken love in another person. This means, 
therefore, that there is no possibility for the sinner, without the help of another 
person, to discover within himself the possibility of love and the desire for forgive-
ness. This is why Christianity cannot exist without love of one’s neighbour—there 
must always be one who spreads love to another, as otherwise Christianity as a 
religion of love ceases to truly exist.
Simon also seems to be an important figure in this whole story since he con-
stitutes a counter-attitude towards the sinful woman, all the while being a person 
who, in the presence of a saint, is offended by him (137–138). In his thoughts, 
Simon accuses Jesus, thereby putting him in the situation of a spiritual trial. Jesus 

321 Andrzej Słowikowski - Forgiveness as the Way to Salvation
perfectly guesses the intentions of Simon and thus gives him the sinful woman as 
an example. Such a move must be a shock for Simon and at the same time con-
stitutes a chance for his inner awakening. If he understands the words directed 
to him by Jesus, love will awaken within him; if not, his offense will deepen. For 
Kierkegaard, Simon is above all a symbol of his reader, for when Jesus Christ turns 
to Simon, he turns to each person who has not yet begun to fulfil the Christian 
ideal in his life (141–142). It bears stressing that, on Kierkegaard’s account, when 
Jesus turns to another with his Gospel message, he at the same time turns to one 
who reads the Gospel (1995, 14; 97). The words directed towards Simon are thus 
the words directed towards each person meant to awaken in him the love resid-
ing within, pushing him towards the search for forgiveness.
Finally, it is worth noting, that the natural place for forgiveness to happen, the 
place Kierkegaard speaks of, is where the Christian encounters God—in Church. 
And, ultimately, Kierkegaard himself actually takes the entire situation that occurs 
between Jesus and the sinful woman to the church altar. Such an approach appears 
primarily in the last discourse from the cycle of texts addressing the passage Luke 
7:47. In this text, Kierkegaard is no longer referring to the personage of the sinful 
woman, but to the edifying words Jesus Christ directs towards Simon (1997b, 167–
177). By presenting the sinful woman as a pattern of the individual’s desire for 
forgiveness, Kierkegaard speaks of the daily confession of sins of Christians con-
temporary to him, trying to awaken within him an attitude of utmost seriousness 
towards this act. It is precisely in this confession that a person’s love should be 
activated and reaffirmed and thereafter spread to others. In this place Kierkegaard 
passes over the role of the priest, thanks to which the Danish philosopher’s inter-
pretation becomes two-dimensional, just as in the case of Jesus’s encounter with 
the sinful woman—the entire situation unfolds between a sinner and the Redeem-
er (This topic is the main issue of the final discourse from the cycle Love Will Hide 
a Multitude of Sins from Two Discourses at the Communion on Fridays [Kierkegaard 
1997b, 179–188]). Yet it seems it is precisely the priest who should be the one who 
loves, the one who comes out with love to the sinners who confess their sins in 
church. It is he who should be able to awaken love within people and to reconcile 
with them in God such that they then be able to spread this love to others and that 
he be able to reaffirm himself in his calling to be the loving priest. In this so seri-
ously understood communion, the church becomes a place for the occurrence of 
Christian love—a place where God forgives sins and where people reconcile with 
God. In this sense, Jesus’s encounter with the sinful woman could be fully repro-
duced before the altar, in accordance with Kierkegaard’s intention.
7. Conclusion: Christian Forgiveness—Its Meaning for 
Immanent Ethics
Kierkegaard, of course, realizes that, when speaking of Christian forgiveness as an 
act of love for one’s neighbour, he presents an extremely high ideal, one that can 

322 Bogoslovni vestnik 83 (2023) • 2
be met by very few in each generation (Kierkegaard 1992, 488; 1991, 247; 2012, 
190). These individuals move this living, Christin ideal into the future—they bear 
witness to the transcendent and eternal truth of Christianity in the immanent 
and temporal world. The question thus arises as to why Kierkegaard introduces 
this ideal knowing well that not just a great majority, but in fact an overwhelming 
majority of his readers are unable to fulfil it. Why does he so fiercely defend the 
distinctiveness of the Christian ideal and the need to maintain its proper tran-
scendent form?
This problem can be solved in two spheres: the epistemic and the moral. In the 
epistemic sphere, the Christian ideal of love and forgiveness points to the ultimate 
purpose and meaning of humanity. In presenting it, Kierkegaard illustrates how 
absolute good manifests itself in human existence and how this good radically 
transforms and arranges human being in relation to the world and to other peo-
ple. At the same time, however, Kierkegaard shows just how extreme the sacri-
fices are if man is to fulfil this ideal. Kierkegaard devoted a great deal of his Chris-
tian works to phenomena such as renunciation, self-denial, dying to oneself and 
to the world. All of these are meant to show that discovering one’s spiritual, tran-
scendent relation with God requires breaking with normal (sinful), human exis-
tence that is (in the best-case scenario) focused on fulfilling the immanent ideal.
This spiritual level, as has already been stated, is attained by few, yet for Ki-
erkegaard it remains an object of intense focus due to the fact that consciousness 
of its existence determines the highest level of a person’s being, in relation to 
which the relativity and self-interest specific to all other human attitudes become 
visible. The transcendent ideal clearly structures other human attitudes and im-
parts a deep dimension to the phenomena of human existence. In this sense, a 
consciousness of the existence of forgiveness as an act of love allows one to con-
sider all purely immanent concepts of forgiveness in a different light. It cannot, of 
course, replace them, but it shows the essential spiritual difference between for-
giveness in which only a certain agreement between people is performed and one 
which speaks of God’s spiritual creation of man to live in love.
This difference has important epistemic implications, for it shows that, in a 
Christian (transcendent) and universal-human (immanent) sense, the matter at 
hand concerns two completely different acts of forgiveness that refer to two sep-
arate realities of life. At the same time, the unity of a human being’s spiritual 
structure causes us to think that here, formally speaking, we are concerned with 
one and the same phenomenon (one forgiveness) that manifests itself in different 
ways (different acts of forgiveness) depending on what reality it refers to (imma-
nence or transcendence).
In the light of this statement, we may go so far as to claim that by being con-
scious of the existence of Christian forgiveness one can better understand what 
forgiveness in the immanent world is; it might also indirectly incline people to 
perform morally better acts of forgiveness. No element of transcendent forgive-
ness, however, could reveal itself in purely human forgiveness, as, for the latter 

323 Andrzej Słowikowski - Forgiveness as the Way to Salvation
to occur, the presence of God would be necessary, which only a true Christian—an 
imitator of Christ—can bring unto the world.
This epistemic distance so fiercely defended by Kierkegaard is here of the ut-
most importance, for if it is not preserved, the transcendent ideal and immanent 
ideal bleed into one another. It is in this way that what Kierkegaard calls the aes-
thetization of Christianity occurs (1992, 557–561; 562; 572–573; 580–581; 605; 
608), a linking of absolute Christian values with temporal and relative human in-
terests. As a result, Christianity ceases to be a timeless way of being centered on 
attaining salvation and instead becomes a certain type of doctrine to serve people 
in their efforts to realize their temporal social and political aims. God, rather than 
creating (via forgiveness) human beings meant to love, is turned into a certain 
idea, one which allows people to legitimize their position in the world (as well as 
moral position). It is precisely this that what Kierkegaard calls the possibility of 
offense is meant to protect Christianity from (1980b, 117; 125; 128–129).
 In the moral dimension, the result of this epistemic distance is that the tran-
scendent, Christian ethics of love for one’s neighbour that Kierkegaard proposes 
lacks a direct transposition into immanent, universal-human ethics, which strives 
towards establishing rules by which people coexist harmoniously with one an-
other. No rule of transcendent ethics can be directly applied in the universal-hu-
man world since doing so immediately shatters this world, relativizes its principles, 
and deprives this world of its autonomicity. This underpins the conflict between 
faith and reason that Kierkegaard studied so deeply with reference to Abraham’s 
situation in Fear and Trembling.
It is on this basis that Christian forgiveness, when applied directly to ordinary 
human forgiveness, poses absurd and incomprehensible demands on people who 
have yet to undergo a transformation of love. Here, the victim is not only sup-
posed to forgive his transgressor, but to love him as well—as he loves those clos-
est to him—and to do unto him all the good that is possible. The transgressor, in 
turn, should not only admit his guilt and repent but must spread this ideal of love 
further among people. Without a spiritual transformation in love, no human be-
ing can do this, not the victim (even if he is morally the best of men) and even less 
the perpetrator of evil.
In spite of this, the consciousness of the existence of such a transcendent ideal, 
even if one cannot apply it in one’s own life, may be pivotal to how one sees and re -
alizes the immanent ideal in one’s life. This transcendent ideal here provides an ex -
istential grounding, points to the source of all good (God) and evil (sin) in the world 
and creates certain patterns of behaviour that can reinforce the immanent moral 
attitude, perhaps thereby bringing the individual closer to Christian forgiveness.
The patterns of behaviour indirectly inspired by the Christian ideal of love and 
forgiveness include, among others, focusing on the possible good in another per-
son, not on the particular evil of his act; the tri-relational nature of the ethical 
attitude—the search for a higher, common good in one’s relation with another 
person and the attempt to reconcile with this person in spite of existing divisions; 

324 Bogoslovni vestnik 83 (2023) • 2
consciousness of the reflexivity of one’s own moral attitude—my relation to an-
other has a considerable impact on my relation to myself (what I do comes back 
to me—what I give I myself receive); and finally, the search for life fulfilments by 
means of doing moral good.
9
These patterns of behaviour may, on the one hand, resemble certain obvious 
bits of human wisdom. On the other hand, however, consciousness that these 
patterns have their source in a transcendent ethics that encodes complete self-
lessness and full equality between one person and another in relation to God may 
do much to reinforce one’s ability to apply said patterns in one’s moral attitude. 
It seems that, even in people with purely secular moral attitudes who do not agree 
with defining the values of good and evil in relation to God or sin, these attitude-
patterns, as understood by Kierkegaard, can inspire respect, and point the way to 
a strengthening of one’s own moral attitude. Obviously, these patterns cannot be 
applied directly without a transformation of love, but the ability to adapt them 
formally to the contents of immanent ethics offers the possibility of strengthen-
ing one’s own moral attitude and gives rise to a capacity for creating an authentic 
moral good, one which is only to a slight degree burdened by one’s own self-in-
terest (as at the level of immanence this is never possible to completely remove). 
In this sense, in the act of forgiveness, it is on one hand not possible to transfer 
Christian forgiveness into the immanent world—for it is not possible for some 
person to generate love in another person unless the former has himself already 
been called to it. Yet on the other hand, in ordinary human forgiveness, the vic-
tim’s being driven by the possibility of awakening moral good in the transgressor 
not only makes the former better morally but may also create a moral pattern of 
conduct for other people. However, this being driven by the moral good of others 
requires consciousness of the existence of a higher common good to which the 
victim must subjugate himself and in which he must level himself with the trans-
gressor in order to truly forgive him. Such a morally advanced attitude of forgive-
ness can clearly be inspired by Kierkegaard’s transcendent considerations, yet it 
does not thereby erase the epistemic distance between the transcendent ideal 
and the immanent ideal and does not distort the proper sense of Christianity’s 
existence in the world.
9 
The intriguing example transcendent principles being formally transferred into the immanent world is 
provided by Sharon Krishek in her book Kierkegaard on Faith and Love (2016). There she claims, in 
reference to Kierkegaard’s Works of Love, that not only is it love for one’s neighbour that is based on 
the model of double movement of faith described by Kierkegaard in Fear and Trembling, but every 
relation of true love (in this case, romantic love). On Krishek’s interpretation each relation of love first 
requires sacrifice, which kills the egoism in love, to be followed by self-affirmation, by self-fulfilment.

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