“Paradox” is often grouped among the most significant concepts in Søren Kierkegaard’s authorship. Derived from the Greek adjective paradoxos, meaning “contrary to expectation” or “incredible,” the English noun “paradox” (like its Danish cognate) indicates a phenomenon or statement that contains a contradiction and yet may be true. One can encounter paradoxes in ordinary life. Take, for example, the oft-repeated maxim that “you have to spend money to make money.” Yet, paradoxes are also frequently used in literature and rhetoric. Famously, in the New Testament, Jesus Christ frequently teaches by way of paradox: “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it” (Mk. 8:35); “If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all” (Mk. 9:35). In these cases, Jesus employs paradox to capture his audience’s attention, making astonishing claims that, understood in a certain way, contain an underlying logic.
Yet, if paradox is a common tool for orators and poets, its role in philosophy is more controversial. After all, it would seem that philosophy’s task is to elucidate, rather than to perpetuate, the mysteries of the world. But not all have agreed. In Greek antiquity, for instance, the philosopher Zeno of Elea (ca. 490-430 BCE) posed a set of philosophical riddles that sought to falsify the teachings of philosophers such as Heraclitus of Ephesus (ca. 535-475 BCE). Later dubbed “Zeno’s paradoxes,” these propositions are argumenta ad absurdum, intending to expose the irrationality of their opposition. Whereas Heraclitus insisted that the world is constantly in flux (“No man ever steps in the same river twice”), Zeno countered that movement is impossible, since “that which is in locomotion must arrive at the halfway stage before it arrives at the goal.” On the face of it, Zeno’s “dichotomy paradox” defies common sense: I can stand up right now and immediately walk from my desk to the end of my office. And yet, Zeno is also pithily summing up what geometricians call “asymptotic behavior.” As I walk across my office, there are an infinite number of half way points between myself and the door, and there will always be another halfway point to cross before I reach the door. Theoretically, then, I will be walking forever or, put differently, I will never move at all. For an infinite number of points must be crossed before my goal can be reached.
Similarly, Kierkegaard’s use of paradox has significant implications for philosophy. In Philosophical Fragments (1844), Kierkegaard’s pseudonym Johannes Climacus maintains that the apex of human reason is not to develop a “theory of everything” but to discover its own limits. The human mind is not driven by what it knows but by what it doesn’t know, and thus the highest concept is that which transcends conceptualization. This “unknown,” which Climacus associates with “the god” (Guden), is the paradox that stokes the passion of thinking. In later years, Kierkegaard would approach this matter in a specifically Christological vein. Ascribed to the pseudonym Anti-Climacus, Practice in Christianity (1850) argues that Jesus Christ is “the absolute paradox” (absolut Paradoxet), insofar as divine nature and human nature are united in his single person. Doubtless Kierkegaard had in the back of his mind the doctrinally programmatic, if also controversial, Chalcedonian Definition, which was promulgated by the Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE:
[Christ] was begotten before the ages from the Father according to his deity, but in the last days for us and our salvation, the same one was born of the Virgin Mary, the bearer of God, according to his humanity. He is one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, and Only Begotten, who is made known in two natures (physeis) united unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably. The distinction between the natures (physeis) is not at all destroyed because of the union, but rather the property of each nature (physis) is preserved and concurs together into one person and subsistence.
Reason alone cannot reconcile the unconfused union of two opposing natures. To confront the God-man, Kierkegaard insists, is not to arrive at a “solution” but a decision: one must respond to Christ with either “faith” (Tro) or “offense” (Forargelse). As with any crisis, anxiety and discomfort are sure to follow. Already in the pseudonymous Fear and Trembling (1843), Kierkegaard had argued that the person of faith makes herself an exception to conventional mores and ways of thinking, resulting in the inscrutability of the believer to the social and political order, even and perhaps especially if that order seeks to assimilate Christianity to the world. In this way, the paradox serves as a spanner in the works of mainstream wisdom—a barb to those who would subordinate all of human existence to a rationally comprehensible system.
Nowhere in the New Testament is the paradoxicalness of Christian faith clearer than in the story of Christmas, the annual festival commemorating the nativity of Christ. That this holiday is paradoxical is evident in established doctrinal sources. Indeed, over against early Christian Gnostics such as Valentinus (ca. 100-180 CE), who insisted that Christ’s divinity merely appeared to unite with a human nature, the Church’s principal creeds or “symbols” emphasize that Jesus Christ, though God, was born of the Virgin Mary (natus ex Maria Virgine). For Church Fathers such as Ignatius of Antioch (died ca. 108 CE), this line of interpretation is in keeping with Scripture, since the Old Testament proclaims that the Messiah will belong to the royal line of David, “according to the flesh.” The New Testament, too, seems to make this point incontrovertible:
And the angel came in unto [Mary], and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS (Luke 1:28-31).
The Apostle Paul forcefully reiterates this claim in his letter to the Galatians, stating that “God sent forth his Son, made of a woman (ἐκ γυναικός).” Thus Christ was generated and born of a female human being, thereby making salvation possible, insofar as Christ bears a true and complete humanity.
Still, one might wonder, doesn’t Kierkegaard exaggerate the incongruity of Christ’s Incarnation? The short answer is: not really. It is true that Kierkegaard makes absolut Paradoxet central to his theology, often in a manner that is meant to incite his audience. Still, he does so in continuity with the Christian tradition writ large. The Apostle Paul calls the Incarnation “the mystery (μυστηρίου), which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God” (Eph. 3:9). This language of “mystery,” of a reality “beyond understanding,” is repeated in 1 Timothy 3:16: “Great is the mystery (μυστήριον) of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh.” Subsequent theologians have upheld these Pauline assertions. St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 CE) described the Incarnation as “wonderful” or “astonishing” (mirabilis), and Pope Leo I (ca. 400-461 CE) insisted that “no speech can explain [it] if Faith does not hold fast to it (Sermo 29:1). Indeed, even the greatest of Christian philosophers St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274 CE) has insisted on this point. As he writes in the Summa contra Gentiles (ca. 1260 CE).
Of all the works of God, the mystery of the Incarnation most transcends reason. Nothing more astonishing could be imagined as done by God than that the true God and Son of God should become true man. To this chief of wonders all other wonders are subordinate (IV: 27).
Ultimately, then, Christianity’s proclamation of the Incarnation, which is brought to the fore during Christmastide, honors what systematic theologians call a “mystery strictly speaking” (mysterium stricte dictum). This designation entails three key corollaries: (i) that human reason could neither anticipate nor explicate the reality of “God become flesh,” (ii) that, in the wake of Christ’s Incarnation, human reason cannot positively demonstrate its veracity, and (iii) that there are no analogies in creation by which human beings can comprehend the paradox of the God-man. In short, for the bulk of the Christian tradition, the mystery of Christmas is utterly singular and thus elevated beyond what human reason can attain—supra rationem rather than contra rationem.
This is a brief excursus on Christology, but it should be sufficient to help frame the ultimate interest of this post—to highlight Christmas movies that bring out the paradoxicalness of Christmas. After all, insofar as “good news beyond reason” characterizes the season, Christmas movies should, in some sense, underline this meaning. But most do not. Since the advent (pun intended) of cinema, filmmakers have turned to Christmas for inspiration…and revenue. The oldest Christmas film dates back to George Albert Smith’s Santa Claus, which appeared in 1898:
In this short film, a pair of ambrosial children are tucked into bed by their nanny. While they sleep, the title figure appears and proceeds to fill their stockings with presents. The children soon awake, overjoyed to find that Santa has paid them a visit.
Though barely over a minute in length, Santa Claus thus sets the template for most Christmas films. Yes, there is “cinemagic,” but it’s used to reify our basic expectations. Goodness is rewarded, evil punished. The theological virtues of faith, hope, and love do not run counter to secular culture; they are mythical symbols of its inner meaning and truth. In short, to return to the language mentioned earlier, Christmas is not a mystery that reason can neither anticipate nor explicate. It is a holiday both rooted in and circumscribed by human logic.
There are a plethora of examples of this tendency in subsequent Christmas movies, but I’ll limit myself to a pair of examples. Famously, in Miracle on 34th Street (1947), a Manhattan lawyer named Fred Gailey (John Payne) proves that local senior citizen Kris Kringle (Edmund Glenn, in an Oscar-winning performance) is the actual Santa Claus. Gailey’s evidence: the United States Post Office Department is willing to deliver letters postmarked to Santa Claus to Kringle himself.
Kringle’s claim, then, is not true in a paradoxical sense. Rather, it is true because it is verified by what German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) called Sittlichkeit—a moral order rooted in the laws and traditions of society.
Similarly, in the 1964 TV special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Christmas is essentially a business endeavor. Santa Claus (voiced by Stan Francis) is the CEO of a global corporation whose mission is to deliver presents on Christmas Eve. Under him are various departments: reindeer are in charge of transport, while elves run manufacturing. It’s a competitive environment, which Santa runs in cutthroat fashion. Reindeer put in hours of grueling training in order to drive Santa’s sleigh, and only the best of the best are chosen. Elves labor under rigid deadlines and exacting production standards. Those who do not conform are derided as “misfits.” One such deviant is Rudolph (voiced by Billie Mae Richards), who was born with a red nose that regularly emanates bright light—a defect that humiliates his parents and annoys the hell out of Santa. It would appear that Rudolph is destined to spend his life among other “misfits,” whose eccentricities do not serve Santa’s business model. Yet, when an epochal blizzard blows up, Santa realizes that Rudolph’s apparent deformity will prove useful after all:
Whereas Miracle on 34th Street uses the state to authorize the figure of Santa Claus, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer grafts the meaning of Christmas onto the logic of capitalism. Christmas is indeed about surprises, but these surprises are hardly supra rationem. No, when properly understood and utilized, they can lead to worldly success. Hence, like any good CEO, Santa adapts his corporate structure to changing conditions both inside and outside the workplace. Rudolph’s nose is an untapped resource, not a paradox.
To be fair, most Christmas films, including The Santa Clause (1994), Elf (2003), and Love Actually (2013), reiterate the rationale of these holiday classics. In and of itself, this standpoint does not make them objectionable. (I like both Miracle on 34th Street and Elf, for what it’s worth.) The problem, I think, is that such movies fail to evoke, much less invoke, the paradoxical ethos of Christmas; they are as syrupy-sweet as Buddy the Elf’s breakfast spaghetti. By way of contrast, the Gospels consistently reiterate that there is something mysterious, even terrifying about the Christmas message. In the Gospel of Luke, when the angel Gabriel appears to Mary and declares that she is “highly favoured” among women, Mary’s immediate response is to be “troubled at his saying” (Luke 1:28-29). Around this same time, a priest named Zacharias was also visited by Gabriel: “And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him” (Luke 1:12).
These responses are peculiar, because Gabriel’s message is one of “joy and gladness” (Luke 1:14). In Zacharias’ case, the angel is announcing the upcoming birth of the prophet John, who will “make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:17). In Mary’s case, he is proclaiming the birth of Jesus, the Messiah, who “shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:34). And yet, even after hearing such tidings, a sense of unease remains. At John’s bris, during which the child’s name is declared to his extended family, a great “fear came on all that dwelt round about them” (Luke 1:65). For “John” is not a family name, and thus it indicates the child’s singularity, his contradistinction from the status quo—a point that is reinforced when Zacharias, previously dumbstruck by the angel, suddenly finds “his tongue loosed” (Luke 1:64) and capable of exhortation:
And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest:
for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways;
to give knowledge of salvation unto his people
by the remission of their sins,
through the tender mercy of our God;
whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us,
to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace (Luke 1:76-79)
Here we see the juxtaposition of light and darkness, of life and death, that is so characteristic of the Gospel. And it’s not just typical of those intimately connected to Christ’s nativity. After Jesus is born, an angel appears to shepherds in a nearby field, and their first reaction is to be “sore afraid” (Luke 2:9). Of course, they’re also assured that this “sign” is one of “great joy, which shall be to all people” (Luke 2:10). And yet, later in the chapter, this comment is qualified. According to Simeon, a “just and devout” (Luke 2:25) man at the Temple of Jerusalem, Christ’s “light” is so bright that it can cast a rending shadow: “This child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; (yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:32, 34-35). As the so-called “sign of contradiction,” Christ demands (to circle back to Kierkegaard’s language) either faith or offense. There is no warm, cushy center.
Which films, then, elicit this paradoxical essence of Christmas? This post has already gone on longer than I expected, so I’ll limit myself to a few examples. The first, and most obvious, is Charles Dickens’ classic novella A Christmas Carol (1843), which has been adapted for the screen nearly two dozen times. Here I’ll use Scrooge (1951), often considered the best cinematic translation of Dickens’ story.1 The star here is the great Scottish comic actor Alastair Sim (1900-76), who imbues the conversion of Ebenezer Scrooge with an appropriate degree of absurdity. Formerly a man of shrewd initiative, who viewed Christmas as a time of improvident frivolity, Scrooge has been transformed overnight—an outcome of his encounter with three mysterious “spirits,” each of whom, in different ways, shows him that the meaning of life (and of Christmas) transcends calculating reason. Yet, this newfound knowledge does not make Scrooge more transparent. If anything, he seems to have gone mad:
Of course, as Scrooge reintroduces himself to those whom he formerly oppressed, many are happy for the change. But there is a sense that, while he remains in the world, he is no longer of it—an oddball, a holy fool. As Dickens writes:
Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.
Similarly, Frank Capra’s classic film It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) centers on a Christmas miracle. Unlike Scrooge, George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) is a fundamentally decent man—smart, dutiful, self-effacing. But he does not practice these virtues with joy. He is nagged by a sense that he is not living his best life: he dreams of traveling, of making big money, of becoming “important.” On Christmas Eve, when a financial indiscretion threatens to land him in jail and to ruin his family, George becomes suicidal. In his despair, he fears that his entire life has been a waste, that all of his sacrifices have been for nothing. Yet, when an angel (Henry Travers) shows George what his local community would have been like if he’d never been born, George rushes home, despite the scandal awaiting him:
As with Scrooge’s transformation, George has now abandoned all worldly sagacity. In his exuberant “yes” to life, which puts him at a considerable personal risk, George is saying “no” to all that had tempted him before. Moreover, in the movie’s final, Job-like paradox, this choice sees George’s newfound faith rewarded tenfold.
While Scrooge and It’s a Wonderful Life are two prime examples of paradoxical Christmas films, they’re not alone. In the 1966 television special How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, adapted from the eponymous 1957 children’s book by Dr. Seuss, the cynical, spiteful character known as the Grinch assumes that yuletide joy is a mere byproduct of gluttonous consumerism. With this in mind, he reasons that he can end the infernal merrymaking of Christmastide by eliminating the season’s bounty. On a quiet Christmas Eve night, he slips into “Whoville” and makes away with the town’s gifts, leaving nothing more than a crumb that “was too small for a mouse.” And yet, rather than destroy Christmas, the Grinch’s plan reveals that his thinking is situated in the wrong paradigm. He has failed, in other words, to account for the fact that Christmas operates according to a different, paradoxical form of logic:
In darkness there is light; in less there is more: the sly, pawky Grinch has long recoiled from such pieties. But the faith of the “Whos down in Whoville” has finally made him a believer.
Doubtless other Christmas movies and shows could be added to this list. The 1969 animated special Frosty the Snowman would seem to be a prime candidate. I also toyed with adding Die Hard (1988), if only to stir up controversy. Still, in the end, far more Christmas movies misunderstand the season than do—a fact that Kierkegaard would find unsurprising. For just as the child in Practice in Christianity cannot grasp why the “most loving man in the world” would be executed like a criminal, so must the meaning of Christmas remain perplexing, even fearful. Perhaps the best we can do is imitate Mary, who “kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).
I always enjoy the Sim adaptation, but, for what it’s worth, my favorite cinematic version of A Christmas Carol is Scrooged (1988), starring Bill Murray.
Well written as always, covering a vast array of movies, AND you got “asymptotic behavior” in there - you are truly amazing! 😊
Wow. This took a while to process. Beautifully written. I would love to audit one of your classes. Audit, not take. I’m well beyond wanting to take tests.
We desperately need Whoville, Narnia, Middle-Earth, fairy tales, and worlds where dragons roam and can be slain. We need the miraculous, the fantastical, and the absurd in our lives. I love this quote from W.H. Auden’s, I believe, Christmas Oratorio: “The Real is what will strike you as really absurd.”