The Key to Heaven: Edifying Tales from Holy Scripture to Serve as Teaching and Warning / Conversation with the Devil

by Leszek Kołakowski, Celina Wieniewska (Translator), Salvator Attanasio (Translator)

Genres: Philosophy

168 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1972

About the author

Distinguished Polish philosopher and historian of ideas. He is best known for his critical analysis of Marxist thought, especially his acclaimed three-volume history, Main Currents of Marxism. In his later work, Kolakowski increasingly focused on religious questions. In his 1986 Jefferson Lecture, he asserted that "We learn history not in order to know how to behave or how to succeed, but to know who we are.”

In Poland, Kołakowski is not only revered as a philosopher and historian of ideas, but also as an icon for opponents of communism. Adam Michnik has called Kołakowski "one of the most prominent creators of contemporary Polish culture".

Kołakowski died on 17 July 2009, aged 81, in Oxford, England. In his obituary, philosopher Roger Scruton said Kolakowski was a "thinker for our time" and that regarding Kolakowski's debates with intellectual opponents, "even if ... nothing remained of the subversive orthodoxies, nobody felt damaged in their ego or defeated in their life's project, by arguments which from any other source would have inspired the greatest indignation."

Reviews

[Alex Strohschein · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've long-wanted to read Leszek Kolakowski. Here two of his books are combined in one, both of which feature fictional dialogues of biblical and historical figures. I found Kolakowski's imaginative rendering of these characters interesting and made me appreciate a different perspective, particularly since from what I can tell, Kolakowski wasn't a confessional Christian himself despite the fact that he dabbled heavily in religious philosophy and even theology (see his work on Jansenism).

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE POLISH PHILOSOPHER LOOKS SARDONICALLY AT THE BIBLE AND CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE

Leszek Kolakowski (1927-2009) was a Polish philosopher and historian of ideas, best known for his critical analyses of Marxist thought.

`The Key to Heaven' consists of seventeen Old Testament stories, which Kolakowski interprets sardonically, pretending to draw a "moral" from them.

For example, in "God, or the Relativism of Mercy," he wrote, "This story... offers only a point of departure, a question, and a moral. The point of departure. Of God the Psalmist (Ps. 136:10-15) says: `To him that smote Egypt in their first-born: for his mercy endureth forever... overthrew Pharoah and his host in the Red Sea: for his mercy endureth forever.' The question: What do Egypt and the Pharaoh think about God's mercy? Moral: Mercy and beneficence cannot exist for everybody at the same time. Whenever we pronounce these words, we must also add: For whom? And when we bestow beneficence upon nations, we should first ask ourselves what thoughts they may be having on this theme. Example: Egypt." (Pg. 25)

`Conversations with the Devil' is a series of eight chapters, where a cunning and seductive Satan argues his own case. Example: "My beloved, whoever expects holiness, whoever wants salvation, prepares worse torments for himself than if he had been committing the vilest crimes from the cradle to the grave, because there is no worse sin than that of pride and the angels in revolt were thrown into the abyss for that very sin... You must wish for eternal damnation... If you count on salvation... you expect to receive the reward of eternal life, God's righteous hand will repel you without fail..." (Pg. 94-95)

Later, Satan observes, "Thou art the God of envy, oh God, but Thy might is not boundless. Thou threatened Adam that he would die on the day that he would ear the forbidden fruit, yet the serpent said Adam would not die. And Adam did not die. So who told the truth?" (Pg. 112)

Kolakowski's book will be of interest to skeptics about religion---particularly those looking for humorous takes on the subject.