The Sources of Awe and Reassurance in Kierkegaard's Guds Uforanderlighed

Abstract

This article reports the use of four tests to determine whether the relevant main portions of Kierkegaard's sermon, Guds Uforanderlighed, associate Forfaerdelse (awe) with Uforanderlige (the Unchangeable One) and Beroligelse (reassurance) with Uforanderlighed (Unchangeableness) as suggested by a key section of the text. The first test compares the observed and expected frequencies of each of sixteen distinct Uforanderlige and Uforanderlighed expressions in the awe and reassurance sections of this text. The remainder of the tests are all chi-square tests of the relevant observed frequencies in these same two sections: the second that of all Uforanderlige and all Uforanderlighed expressions; the third that of all evig and all non-evig expressions; and the fourth that of all Uforanderlige expressions with and without the pronoun Du. The evidence suggests that the source of awe is the Unchangeable One and that of reassurance God's Unchangeableness.