Clouds of the Cross in Luther and Kierkegaard: Revelation as Unknowing (Carl S. Hughes) - A review

CLOUDS OF THE CROSS IN LUTHER AND KIERKEGAARD: Revelation as Unknowing. By Carl S. Hughes. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2024. XX + 199 pages.

Martin Luther is, by most accounts, the father of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation. Luther’s message was quite simple. We are saved by grace through faith. He offered this message as a response to Roman Catholic teachings regarding the role of merit in achieving salvation, and with it the practice of indulgences as a means of escaping purgatory. Other Reformers came along and offered their own take, but grace remained a central piece of the puzzle. Luther also emphasized the centrality of the Bible to his reforming efforts. He believed that by engaging with the Bible, which he translated into German, one could encounter divine revelation. Søren Kierkegaard was a nineteenth-century Danish Lutheran philosopher, author, and critic of the state church (Lutheran). While he embraced parts of Luther’s theology, he also broke from Luther at points. This was especially true when it comes to his view of Luther’s emphasis on grace, believing it needed to be balanced with a recognition that works also play a role. So, while Luther considered the Letter of James to be an epistle of straw, Kierkegaard believed that James had much to offer a moribund Danish Lutheran Church of the nineteenth century.

While both of these men made significant contributions to the way we understand the Christian faith, we need informed guides to help us better understand their perspectives and the implications of their work for the present. Carl Hughes is well-equipped to do just that. Hughes is an associate professor of theology and chair of the Department of Theology, Philosophy, and Classical Languages at Texas Lutheran University. He is the author of several books and articles on Kierkegaard. He is also a lay member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. I should note that Carl serves as a member of the ELCA team for the ELCA-Disciples of Christ Bilateral Dialog, an effort that I serve as the Disciples co-chair.  

In Clouds of the Cross in Luther and Kierkegaard, Hughes seeks to help us gain a better understanding of how these two theologians understood revelation and what that means for contemporary theology. For both theologians, revelation involved more than the Bible, though Luther could equate the two while Kierkegaard sought to keep them separate.

While I am not an expert on either Luther or Kierkegaard, I believe that both theologians are important figures whose writings have greatly impacted the life of the church. Since I have a lesser grip on Kierkegaard’s theology, I was interested in how Hughes would present Kierkegaard’s ideas on the concept of revelation and how he would relate Kierkegaard’s views with that of Luther. I found what he had to say quite helpful.

As noted above, Hughes approaches this conversation as a Lutheran scholar who grew up among conservative Lutherans. He was introduced to Lutheran theology early in life and from early on affirmed the basic creedal positions. He has since moved away from his earlier position toward a more progressive vision. Nevertheless, he remains a committed Lutheran. What Hughes does here is offer Luther and Kierkegaard up as suitable conversation partners. He notes that “they share a common Christo-centrism—both emphasizing that the heart of Christian revelation lies in the person of Christ, rather than in more general truths about God” (p. 5). However, they were, in other ways, polar opposites. Thus, “Luther’s core conviction is that trying to earn God’s favor through works is futile and that Christians are saved by grace alone. Kierkegaard calls out his fellow Lutherans for their complacency and demands that they actually strive to imitate Christ, rather than just believing things about him” (pp. 5-6). Those who know Dietrich Bonhoeffer will recognize here a critique of what Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace.”  

In comparing and contrasting Luther and Kierkegaard on this matter of revelation, Hughes makes it clear that context matters. Luther addressed a church that needed an emphasis on grace, while Kierkegaard encountered a complacent state church that took grace for granted. With that in mind, Hughes attempts to separate out the ways these two theologians agreed and disagreed so that we might have a better sense of their legacy. Ultimately, Hughes appears to prefer Kierkegaard, seeing him as an important lens through which to view Luther.

When it comes to the idea of revelation, Hughes grew up believing that revelation was a form of knowledge. In his context, nothing mystical was expected. While Luther could be read as affirming such a perspective, while emphasizing theological certainty, there is another side to Luther. This other Luther allows for more of the mystical, that is, a cloud of unknowing, to form his view of God and God’s revelation. To get a sense of what Luther is up to, Hughes distinguishes between Luther of the Light and Luther of the Cloud. The former is the one who argued with Erasmus and affirmed a straightforward literal reading of Scripture, allowing no allegorical or metaphorical readings. At the same time, there is the Luther of the Cloud, who recognizes that there are things he does not and cannot know. Hughes prefers the Luther of the Cloud since the Luther of the Light could be rather narrow in his thinking.

When it comes to Kierkegaard, he was attracted to apophatic theology or the via negativa. He pushed against objectifying Christ, offering a more subjective approach that was personal in nature. As for his vision of revelation, while it included Scripture, in his view revelation was bigger than scripture. Thus, Kierkegaard engaged with his faith in a much more subjective and personal way than did Luther. When it came to Scripture, he did not feel constrained to determine the author’s meaning, such that the original meaning was determinative. It’s one of the reasons that he took little interest in the emergent embrace of the historical-critical method of reading scripture. Hughes writes: “Instead of equating scripture with an intellectual content—a set of doctrines, moral rules, or historical facts—he argues that its fundamental purpose is to form selves and shape lives” (p. 107). The purpose then is to cultivate a love of God. Thus, for Kierkegaard, the biblical stories served as existential mirrors in that they reflected Christ. Hughes writes that for Kierkegaard, “If we are to see Christ, he insists, then we will do so always and only in relationship to ourselves” (p. 105).

One of the keys to understanding Kierkegaard's work, as Hughes lays it out, is his concern that the Lutheran church of his period had grown cold and ingrown. His belief, as I read Hughes, is that Luther spoke to his age, but something new was needed in Kierkegaard's age. In laying out Kierkegaard's views, Hughes introduces us to works that are probably less well-known to the common reader. He wrote pieces that often laid out opposing positions, leaving us wondering what he believed. However, what Kierkegaard does is reveal the problem when even the theology of the cross, Luther's vision, can become a theology of glory. Hughes points out that whereas Luther drew upon Paul and John in his emphasis on grace, Kierkegaard sought to balance things by drawing on James, a book that Luther considered an epistle of straw. But, while Hughes believes Kierkegaard’s views differed from Luther's, Luther would have given his blessing on Kierkegaard's critique of Luther's views. Both men offered views that involved contradictions. Neither one was bothered by a lack of consistency. When the Luther of the Cloud revealed himself, he could embrace subjectivity, while the Luther of the Light focused on a more objective vision, which often became narrow, as seen in his debates with Erasmus. Kierkegaard, however, fully embraced subjectivity, which he saw as a corrective to the objectifying nature of nineteenth-century Lutheran theology.

Neither Luther nor Kierkegaard are easy to read and understand. Neither man offered a consistent theology, but they shared a common commitment to the Christian faith. While Luther was the founder figure, Kierkegaard was not afraid to critique the theology of the founder. This is a scholarly (yes, academic) book. Thus, at times it can be dense, especially when it comes to Kierkegaard whose subjectivity requires diligent engagement. What is important about Carl Hughes’ Clouds of the Cross in Lutherand Kierkegaard, is that Hughes invites us to view Luther through a lens offered by Kierkegaard. In doing so he reminds us that the reformation that Luther undertook is never finished.