Original Sin and Transmission of Trauma: A Dialog between Kierkegaard’s Hamartiology and the Phenomenon of Transgenerationality

I Introduction

“About suffering they were never wrong,

The old Masters: how well they understood

Its human position: how it takes place

While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along.”^[1]

These opening lines of the poem “Museé des Beaux Artes” by W.H. Auden describe the individualistic character of suffering. Someone who fits well in Auden’s group of “old masters,” given he “understood suffering so well,” is Søren Kierkegaard. As is well known, suffering plays a crucial role in his oeuvre. Kierkegaard’s reflections on suffering, especially in the context of selfhood and faith,^[2] emphasize anxiety and despair. A phenomenon not explicitly named in his works and not commonly connected to Kierkegaard’s writing is trauma.

However, the characterization of trauma in psychological literature as “a lasting shattering of self-understanding and understanding of the world” is a prominent aspect in Kierkegaard’s work.^[3] Therefore, a synopsis of the phenomena original sin and transgenerational trauma is a promising research area. In addition, without providing a detailed diagnostic description, many aspects of the human condition such as suffering, despair, and melancholy are prominent in Kierkegaard’s writings, which, when considered from a psychological perspective, are broadly conceived symptoms of a trauma sequelae. Consequently, these aspects also represent symptoms of a transgenerational transmissional trauma. This trauma will be the focus of the article.

This article identifies analogies between the two concepts under consideration: original sin and transgenerational trauma. In a first step, the article outlines the complex psychological process of the transgenerational transmission of trauma in general terms (II). Based on these remarks, the essay presents parallel structures of displaying and penetrating original sin and transmission of trauma with particular focus on The Concept of Anxiety (III). In a third step, both perspectives provide evidence for ways of resolving transgenerational trauma. The article then argues for the added value gained by the Christian perspective on salvation, namely hope and courage, to the secular understanding of posttraumatic healing (IV).

II Transgenerational Transmission of Trauma

About 30 years after the beginning of the Yugoslavian war in 1991, a Berlin cultural association showed the film series Materiality of Memories, which cinematically dealt with the war and its aftermath. Coincidentally, the series premiered on the same day Russia attacked Ukraine (February 24, 2022). The film series thus gained a completely new (and desolate) relevance. Borjana Gaković, one of the two curators, experienced the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina firsthand and gave an interview on the German radio station “Deutschlandfunk,” shortly after this memorable day. Learning what happened in Ukraine on the opening day “was terrible,” she emphasizes, because she knows that these traumas do not only burden the generation directly affected: “Trauma is unfortunately inherited,” she says. A lot of things are not spoken about at home, they are carried away and kept quiet. People grow up with the idea that “there is a secret that is not talked about. And that, too, leaves traces.”^[4]

The distressing picture drawn by the film scholar is not only the result of a subjective impression but is confirmed by trauma research. This research shows that William Faulkner’s saying, “There’s no such thing as past”^[5] applies above all to the psychological phenomenon of the transgenerational transmission of trauma.

Two operational definitions of the relevant terms are needed to proceed further. The 2009 definition of trauma by trauma-psychologists Fischer and Riedesser, describes a traumatic experience as a “vital discrepancy experience between threatening situational factors and the individual coping possibilities, which is accompanied by feelings of helplessness and defenseless abandonment and thus causes a permanent shaking of self-understanding and understanding of the world.”^[6] Moving beyond this definition, an additional remark is necessary. Of course, the development of greater awareness and understanding has developed regarding experiencing and dealing with traumatic experiences is a positive aspect. However, the terms “trauma” and/or “traumatic experience” should not be used in an inflationary manner. Not all stressful events represent a psychological injury of psycho-traumatological relevance.^[7] Transferring the perspective onto the phenomenon of transgenerationality, according to the definition of the Scientific Service of the German Federal Government, transgenerational transmission of trauma is “generally understood to mean the transmission of a trauma experienced by a particular person to his or her children and subsequent generations. According to current knowledge, the transmission of trauma can occur in different ways, directly or indirectly, and with different effects and reactions of those affected by it.”^[8]

Concepts regarding this complex psychological process are diverse. These concepts are not overall integrative or consistent. Additionally, research agrees that the transgenerational nature of trauma is not a determinism. However, the transmission of trauma to subsequent generations and the pathological sequelae are now recognized as clinical evidence, even in the diversity of their manifestations.^[9] Moreover the focus of research and trauma-related literature thus far has primarily been on the transmission of collective traumatizing experiences.^[10] Only since the 1960s has the transmission of trauma been described and researched in depth, particularly among the direct descendants of Holocaust survivors. In his work, psychiatrist Vivian Rakoff has been a pioneer in the field. Rakoff was the first researcher to publish an article in medical literature on the transmission of trauma in the Holocaust survivor population in 1966.^[11] Prior to the research field gaining traction for 10 years,^[12] and currently also finding a prominent place in public discourse, the research literature in this field of trauma research expanded rapidly after the initial research in the 1980 and 1990s.

For 5 decades, the focus of trauma research has remained focused on the descendants of Holocaust survivors,^[13] yet in current research the perspective has broadened. There are prominent researchers in the field such as Dori Laub, Rachel Yehuda, and especially Dan Baron who have caused a shift in the perspective in the research, dealing with the transmission of traumatic experiences to the children of Nazi perpetrators. Moreover, there are further elements to the research, such as Maria Yellow Horse Braveheart’s studies, focusing on this phenomenon in the indigenous population of North America, Joy de Gruy, who is the founder of the “Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome” theory, as well as Natan P. F. Kellermann. Kellermann outlines a “transmission theory” for the transmission of trauma to subsequent generations that incorporates a variety of approaches. The clinical psychologist’s theory aims to “explain the intergenerational Holocaust trauma consequences from either a biological or psychosocial perspective, incorporating the psychoanalytic model as well as the family systems and socialization model.”^[14] Of course, this multidimensional theory cannot be explored in detail in this essay, yet the main aspects should be mentioned briefly, given their further relevance for the later part of this argument. These four approaches (biological, psychosocial, psychoanalytic, family system and socialization) deal especially with the transmission to the so-called “second generation.” However, one can assume from corresponding psychological research that the effects of untreated inherited traumas and the resulting mental disorders not only do not weaken but intensify in the third generation.^[15]

So far, there are only vague indications of the consequences for the fourth generation, but the members of this generation also seem to be affected.^[16] Accordingly, the social psychologist Angela Moré claims: “Where reappraisal is not or only incompletely successful, the emotional legacy becomes a burden for the grandchildren and great-grandchildren as well.”^[17]

The four models Kellerman uses for his transmission theory will be outlined in the following section. Outlining these different approaches to the transmission of trauma at this point is crucial, as they already give a preview on the parallel structure in the understanding of sin assumed in this article.

III Transgenerational Transmission of Trauma in The Concept of Anxiety

Can a modern explanatory model, that integrates biological and psychological aspects be applied as a template for understanding original sin? Didn’t Vigilius Haufniensis state clearly in the first sentence of the introduction to The Concept of Anxiety “that every scientific issue within the larger compass of science has its definite place, its measure and its limit?”^[25]

While this classification remains, there are three main congruencies that promote a dialogue with Kierkegaard to explore the structural similarity of sin and trauma and that make an interdisciplinary approach plausible: a) Kierkegaard’s traumatic family history, b) Kierkegaard’s psychological interest, and c) Kierkegaard’s hamartiological anthropology. These aspects cannot and should not be considered here in isolation; rather they must be understood under the premise that they mutually condition and generate each other. Speaking of Kierkegaard’s traumatic family history (a) in this article, does not display the intent to make a retrospective remote psychological diagnosis for him. However, the designation of what he underwent with his next of kin as “traumatic” aims at showing how one might discover traces of the processing of existential challenges and traumatic experiences in his oeuvre. A trauma is first an abnormal event, yet the reaction to this traumatic event is per se normal. In accordance with the original Greek meaning of the word “wound,” trauma provides insight into the inner self of the human. Or as Alfried Längle asserts it: “The abysmal nature of experience in trauma leads directly into the deep structure of existence and therefore represents a particularly interesting theme of existential analysis. In existential analysis…the abysmal nature of being (instead of nothingness) is experienced.”^[26] In the truest sense of the word, the term “abysmal” already leads into the direction of The Concept of Anxiety. But before considering this writing in detail, what I have titled here “Kierkegaard’s traumatic family history” should be illuminated.

Included within this framework of an investigation of Kierkegaard’s “traumatic family history” are strokes of fate that afflicted the Kierkegaard family, as well as Søren’s relationship to his parental home, especially his relationship to his father. The patriarch seemed to be struggling with trauma-associated emotions himself. His growing up in misery made him curse God, whereupon he was accompanied throughout his life by the persuasion that he was now under the curse of having to outlive all his children and wives because of this blasphemous transgression.^[27] Considering oneself to be under a curse could be interpreted as a trauma-associated emotion. The same applies to the son Søren, to whom this very curse and the fear of its consequences was transmitted. The previously mentioned psychosocial models are applicable here.

The trope of trauma as the “unspeakable”^[28] applies—at least for some time—also to Kierkegaard’s youth in Nytorv 2. Joakim Garff showed that “Kierkegaard—for the time being—was able to hold the traumatic experiences of his childhood at arm’s length”^[29] and that “this idyllic, pastel-toned version of the Kierkegaard home [which is drawn in Johannes Climacus or De omnibus dubitandum est] was a poetic fiction.”^[30] The references to the father’s “overweening assaults”^[31] cannot be filled with “concrete details.”^[32] The son, however, can transform the traumatizing dealings of the father into “artistic capital,”^[33] which he “managed brilliantly, investing it in his pseudonymous writings.”^[34]

These transference aspects are insightful, particularly when understood in correlation to Kierkegaard’s reflections as an adult in 1848:

Oh, how frightful it is when for a moment I think of the dark background of my life, right from the earliest days. The anxiety with which my father filled my soul, his own frightful melancholia, the many things in this connection that I cannot even write down. I acquired such anxiety about Xnty, and yet I felt myself strongly drawn toward it.^[35]

If read in combination with what he wrote thirteen years earlier about his fear of Christianity, while preparing for his final theological exam, one sees the direct line of influence:

Add to that the strange suffocating atmosphere one encounters in Christianity…If we look first at life here on earth, they come up with the explanation that all is sinful, nature as well as man; they talk of the wide path in contrast to the narrow one…Practically wherever the Christian is occupied with the future it is punishment, devastation, ruin, eternal torment, and suffering that hover before his eyes; and just as in this respect the Christian’s imagination is fertile and wayward, so when it comes to describing the bliss of the faithful and the chosen, it is correspondingly spare. Bliss is portrayed as a beatific gazing with staring, lackluster eyes, and large, fixed pupils, or a swimming, moist look that prohibits any clear vision.^[36]

On the one hand, one can see in various facets what a large space anxiety and despair, which are basic dimensions of traumatic experiences, occupy in his thinking and his approach to existence. They are not only applicable to his individual existence but also to his writings examining the essence of humanity. On the other hand, these entries make it apparent why Kierkegaard is driven to break away from and forced to reevaluate the traditional topos of sin by developing a “transmoralistic”^[37] hamartiology grounded in freedom.^[38] The psychological interest and dealing with the tragedies of his life, find in “‘fiction’… their form.”^[39] Therefore, “personal experiences and repressed events grope their way forward”^[40] and are expressed manifoldly in Kierkegaard’s writings.

The Concept of Anxiety is used here as the main textual evidence, since it profitably connects the anthropologically based hamartiology to the findings on the transmission of trauma. The focus is not only on self-awareness. Kierkegaard also reflects on the collective and social aspects.

In his reflections on original sin in The Concept of Anxiety, Kierkegaard famously has Haufniensis make two crucial decisions regarding his anthropology in a thought experiment: the description of man as a generational being—“To explain Adam’s sin is therefore to explain hereditary sin”^[41]—and his determination as a dynamic structure, namely as a synthesis of body, soul and spirit.^[42]

For the purpose of this article, it is worth taking a close look at this definition of the human being. Even if Kierkegaard gives priority to the subject in his thinking, the subject is embedded in the history of humanity and is a relational being. This definition of a human individuum invalidates the assumption that Kierkegaard stays in a pure and constricted individualism.^[43] Haufniensis states the relation between the individual and the whole of humanity whereby it is “essential to human existence: that man is individuum and as such simultaneously himself and the whole race, and in such a way that the whole race participates in the individual and the individual in the whole race.”^[44] For him, this relation leads to the conclusion that, “if a particular individual could fall away entirely from the race, his falling away would require a different qualification of the race.”^[45]

Deng Zang concisely summarizes this determination of the relationship and its consequences: “The human individual is not out of contingency, but in principle a being of species. And individual history, the self-realization of each individual, is about a (voluntary) adoption of the dispositions, that predetermine human beings as a species, but without necessarily having an effect on each individual. This includes sin de potentia, the generic possibility of the decision to do evil.”^[46] Here, the distinction between sinfulness and sin comes into play, which is authoritative in the text. What can be particularly misleading in this regard is the designation of the identified generic essence with the term “original sin.” Thus, Emanuel Hirsch suggested that Haufniensis’s dogmatic reflections regarding the human predisposition to sin should be titled the doctrine of “original sinfulness.”^[47]

The fact that every human belongs to a species, or more concisely is a social being, i. e., that humans do not exist in pure subjectivity, means for Haufniesis that humans are part of two relations. On the one hand, the individuum is related to the generations of humanity, i. e., of descent, and on the other hand the second relation arises from being part of a society and the social co-beings. Given the necessary historical nature of societal transmission and sociality, Kierkegaard calls the latter the “historical relationship.”^[48] What do these insights mean for structural parallels of sin and trauma?

To paraphrase: An individual does not automatically sin because of the guilt of the father, yet the history of humanity does not begin anew with each individual. The goal of connecting the two, in Kierkegaard’s reformulation of the traditional doctrine of sin into a statement of existence, is to bring forth individual freedom in hamartiology, which then goes hand in hand with guilt and—especially relevant here—the responsibility of the individual. One might interpret the correlations to mean that the inherited trauma is present potentially. The decision to accept the essence in one’s becoming as a subject and to pass it on de actu—or not—is a process grounded in the freedom of the individual.

However, wouldn’t this understanding of the passing of inherited traumas be an imposition on the individual, especially if the idea is projected onto the passing on of traumas? Would doing so even be justifiable and not cynical towards traumatized individuals? After all, no one chooses to be traumatized. The role of the individual should not be underestimated, since trauma transmission research has clearly established:

From (assumed) membership in the offspring of a victim group, one cannot generalize to transgenerational traumatization. There is a danger here that individual fates are simplistically subjected to the abstraction of the fate of a group (Kühner 2008). In the sense of a humanistic view of humanity, the uniqueness of the individual must always be taken into account.^[49]

To avoid misunderstanding: the question is not about giving the individual freedom of choice and responsibility regarding the transmission of a trauma, but the question is how the individual deals with the transmitted trauma. Understanding how trauma can be resolved is crucial. One must escape powerlessness, become transparent to oneself while becoming aware of one’s contextualization, even in the transmission itself. Kierkegaard might refer to this self-awareness as the first step towards negative freedom necessary to obtain positive freedom. Additionally, two aspects of his thinking are crucial for the pursuit of a perspective beyond the trauma, namely: hope and courage. The abilities to have courage and hope are crucial for one not to sink into sin, for suffering without hope and without the courage to face the existential challenges of human freedom cause one to give in to sin.^[50]

IV A Christian Approach to Deal with Transgenerational Trauma

A theological perspective on the experience of human suffering, as presented in the light of inherited trauma, must deal with the theological heritage itself, namely, the common understanding of human suffering as a divine-pedagogical tool. In other words, punishment is understood as part of the connection between deeds and consequences or “a vehicle for God’s saving grace.”^[51] This passive and destructive understanding of suffering from the theological perspective needs to be avoided. Instead, the article argues for the fruitful possibility of individual agency in suffering, which I consider to be fruitful and influential.

I would like to conclude with theological reflections on the virtues of hope and courage especially in their connection to salvation. According to Kierkegaard, the virtues are to be understood in their connection to selfhood. For him courage and hope are realized in faith and thereby become decisive for the self-realization of the sinful individual. Additionally, they can also be conceived from a theological perspective as decisive components in overcoming trauma, which can be maintained in the parallel structural understanding of sin and trauma made possible by Haufniesis’ Hamartiology.^[52]

At the outset, the article pointed out that trauma is not only passed on but can actually intensify (like sin according to Kierkegaard). However, although this intensification should not be disregarded, it should not be regarded as a deterministic process.

Moreover, the confrontation with the traumatic experiences of the parents…can have different effects on the descendants. As interviews with affected persons show, dealing with the suffering of parents can also be positively processed as a meaningful legacy for one’s own life. In fact, it seems possible that the confrontation with the parental legacy, which was originally perceived as a burden, takes a positive turn in the course of time, in that the burdening experiences of the parents are gradually re-evaluated as an important and valuable experiential component of one’s own life.^[53]

Kierkegaard’s thought provides a way to work on the above-mentioned practices in self-reflection and self-empowerment in literary form. He is aware of his individual entanglements (i. e., family background with its sequalae) and the ones that come with human existence (sinfulness) that lead to suffering. In faith he can find the enabling reason, to see these entanglements from the perspective of their overcoming.

On the one hand, aiming at overcoming one’s suffering means to have courage: the courage to believe. A passage from the Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, which describes this relationship between courage, suffering and patience, can provide helpful insights:

But what, then, is courage? Is it courage to go where pleasure beckons, to look and see where the pleasant is? Or does not showing courage [Mod] require instead that there be resistance [Modstand] (as the language itself seems to suggest), such as when the courageous one looks the danger in the face, since the danger is not something that delights the eye to sec. Or, to illustrate this, is it not like the courageous rider’s spurring his horse forward against some horror; one does not see in the eyes of the courageous one that the physical eyes shrink from the danger, because the courage penetrates the expression of the eyes themselves, but the rider and the horse illustrate how the courage is compounded. The rider is the courageous one, the horse is skittish, but the horse and its shying correspond to what is base in the man and his shying, which courage subdues. Thus courage freely wills the suffering…But what, then, is patience [Taalmod]? Is not patience the courage [Mod] that freely takes upon itself the suffering that cannot be avoided? The unavoidable is what will crush courage. Within the suffering person himself there is a traitorous resistance that is allied with the dreadfulness of unavoidability, and united they would crush him; but patience, despite this, submits to the suffering and in just that way finds itself free in the unavoidable suffering. Thus patience performs an even greater miracle, if you will, than does courage, because courage goes freely into the suffering that could be avoided, but patience makes itself free in the unavoidable suffering. With his courage the free person freely allows himself to be imprisoned, but with his patience the prisoner makes himself free.^[54]

For Kierkegaard, the context of meaning and life is offered by the search for being a Christian. His point of reference is God, because through his assumption of the eternal in the human being, one must seek the solution as salvation in the transcendent.^[55] By acquiring the negative freedom from external constraints which come with the historical relation of an authentic devotion to eternity in Christian self-love, it is then possible for the individual. This transformation is then expressed in supporting the self-development of one’s neighbor, understood as an act of love.

In a Kierkegaardian way, this article has tried to approach the subject in orienting deliberations. This level of analysis would be fruitful for further research on subjectivity and the approach to selfhood in connection to psychological trauma research. To be noted, however, is that the various approaches to transgenerational transmission also find their place and their very own language in Kierkegaard in a multidimensional way: the psychological approach in the genesis of the individual, the social-cultural approach through the category of co-being, and the biological approach through the view of the human being as a species being. Of course, during Kierkegaard’s time, psychology was in its infancy and there was no talk of epigenetics yet. Nevertheless, trauma research provides the tools to understand, systematize, and interpret certain phenomena which Kierkegaard addresses in his work.

If the doctrine of sin is not purely theological, then the entirety of the topic relates to human existence as such. Hence, according to Kierkegaard, while also considering their specific limits, theology must be practiced interdisciplinarily, particularly in dialogue with the sciences.

In conclusion, there are two important aspects to be considered. First, one can formulate that the collective trauma of sin, to which—theologically speaking—all humans are exposed, can be repeatedly overcome in the process of becoming oneself. For Kierkegaard, this overcoming occurs only in faith. Second, one can conclude that the theory of transgenerational transmission of trauma can be found in Kierkegaard’s private life as well as in his literary modes of thought. His concept of suffering in life is noted by voluntariness and thankfulness towards God—not because of or despite suffering, but through suffering.

If the specific theological perspective is to be used to add value to the treatment of (transmissional) trauma, they key is to see the empowering impact of faith, as displayed throughout Kierkegaard’s writing. In contrast to the fragility inherent in every human relationship, the relationship between God and a human being is characterized by a constancy: It does not know No, as it is based on divine love for creation and has no end, as it is eternal.^[56] In the relationship, the self can rest in “responsive freedom”^[57] and in “the power that established it.”^[58] Thus, despite the responsibility that the individual is charged with regarding his or herself and the courage that the self needs to accept this task, the ultimate reference to God and the hope in faith are a discharge for the individual which can have patience in expectancy.^[59] These constants provide the support in faith that enables the individual to remain steadfast in the face of suffering and challenges, while “God is not disclosed in the crosses of our experiences, but rather beside our crosses.”^[60] Striving to become one’s true self is ultimately in harmony with divine creation and supported by God.

Julia Feder’s reflections on the post-traumatic theology of healing from sexual trauma are apt in this regard:

Christian hope can provide a language to empower courageous activity undertaken toward healing that authentically expects something new but is also grounded in a realistic understanding of human capacities. The language of Christian eschatological hope is able to hold in tension what we can accomplish (with God), and an awareness that the fullness of healing has still not yet arrived. A Christian eschatological vision expands the grounds for human hope beyond the limits of human achievement, such that we can affirm the fragmentary and partial achievements of personal, interpersonal, and socio-political healing as mediations of God’s promise of salvation without restricting our imaginative vision merely to what appears possible through human ends. This allows us to lift up small successes as participation in bringing about God’s desire for the world.^[61]

This perspective is not applicable to a purely secular reading. However, both partners of the article’s dialog can turn, just as Kierkegaard did so many times, to Goethe’s Faust, who says: “What you have inherited from your fathers, you must earn it in order to possess it. What you do not use is a heavy burden.”^[62]

To “imagine a new future with courage”^[63] and to strive for self-agency in overcoming a passive and one-dimensional understanding, is a contribution drawn from this synopsis of original sin and transmissional trauma.