Kierkegaard’s Mirrors


Book Description

What is it to see the world, other people, and imagined situations as making personal moral demands of us? What is it to experience stories as speaking to us personally and directly? Kierkegaard's Mirrors explores Kierkegaard's answers to these questions, with a new phenomenological interpretation of Kierkegaardian 'interest'.




Mirror's Fathom


Book Description

Mirror's Fathom is the story of Tycho Wilhelm Lund anarchist, pirate, and thief of a legendary mirror. Tycho is also a great-nephew of the Danish philosopher S ren Kierkegaard and is, when the novel begins, a mild-mannered antiques dealer who is asked to assess the value of some furniture at the home of Regine Schlegel, Kierkegaard's famously jilted former love. Upon his arrival, Tycho who has no interest in philosophy finds himself at a meeting of the Kierkegaard Circle, a group faithfully reading aloud Kierkegaard's works. There he meets, and falls for, Countess Juliana Sophie, herself a passionate follower of Kierkegaard's thinking and self-appointed mistress of the "School for Selves."




The Joy of Kierkegaard


Book Description

Kierkegaard has often been regarded as a gloomy thinker yet, as an evangelist, his aim was to discover the joy of the truth of Christianity. Both Kierkegaard's belief and his doubt in his own work were the result of his attempt to comprehend the exceptional experiences of biblical characters and to examine what he found most puzzling or offensive. 'The Joy of Kierkegaard' brings together the writings of one of the most influential of Kierkegaard scholars. These essays argue that Kierkegaard's most original thought arises from his struggle with biblical passages and that joy underpins his profound exploration of spiritual alienation.




Mirrors of Self


Book Description

Orthodox Christology maintains that Jesus Christ is both truly God and truly human. As such, he is the key to knowing both God and self. In a series of applications of christological anthropology, Mirrors of Self develops this epistemic premise in dialogue with a diversity of Christian and secular, historical and modern perspectives. Aspects of human personhood, including the ever-elusive self, gain greater clarity and significance in the light of Christ's person and work. At the center of individual human subjectivity, we encounter a broken, sin-blinded self in need of renewal and release. What healing we find comes to us as Christ's ecological presence works in and through others--the mirrors of self whose instrumental agency Christ employs in service to his own redemptive ends.




Contemporary with Christ


Book Description

The Christian life, concerned with both spirituality and doctrine, aims not at rationally defensible truth but at life-transforming love. Greater understanding of the truth will not settle the restlessness in a human spirit; only the redemptive power of relationship with God can calm the soul. The crux of Kierkegaard's presentation of Christianity is not that doctrine is unimportant, but that it is ultimately insufficient for a life lived in relationship with God. In Contemporary with Christ, Joshua Cockayne explores the Christian spiritual life with Søren Kierkegaard (in the guise of his various pseudonyms) as his guide and analytic theology as his key tool of engagement. Cockayne contends that the Christian life is second-personal: it seeks encounter with a personal God. As Kierkegaard describes, God invites us to live on the most intimate terms with God. Cockayne argues that this vision of Christian spirituality is deeply practical because it advocates for a certain way of acting and existing. This approach to the Christian life moves from first-reflection, whereby one acquires objective knowledge, to second-reflection, whereby one attains deeper self-understanding, which fortifies one's relationship with God. Individuals encounter Christ through traditional practices: prayer, the Eucharist, and the reading of Scripture. However, experiences of suffering and mortality that mirror Christ's own passion also enliven this life of encounter. Spiritual progress comes through a reorientation of one's will, desire, and self-knowledge. Such progress must ultimately serve the goal of drawing close to God through Christ's presence. Engaging philosophy, theology, and psychology, Cockayne invites us to join in a conversation with Kierkegaard and explore how the spiritual disciplines provide opportunities for relationship with God by becoming contemporary with Christ. --C. Stephen Evans, University Professor of Philosophy and Humanities, Baylor University




Kierkegaard's Writings, XXI, Volume 21


Book Description

For Self-Examination and its companion piece Judge for Yourself! are the culmination of Søren Kierkegaard's "second authorship," which followed his Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Among the simplest and most readily comprehended of Kierkegaard's books, the two works are part of the signed direct communications, as distinguished from his earlier pseudonymous writings. The lucidity and pithiness, and the earnestness and power, of For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself! are enhanced when, as Kierkegaard requested, they are read aloud. They contain the well-known passages on Socrates' defense speech, how to read, the lover's letter, the royal coachman and the carriage team, and the painter's relation to his painting. The aim of awakening and inward deepening is signaled by the opening section on Socrates in For Self-Examination and is pursued in the context of the relations of Christian ideality, grace, and response. The secondary aim, a critique of the established order, links the works to the final polemical writings that appear later after a four-year period of silence.




Kierkegaard


Book Description

An accessible, expert introduction to one of the greatest minds of nineteenth century. Whether you're completely new to him, or if you're already familiar with his work, Kierkegaard: A Single Life presents a fresh understanding of his life and thought. Kierkegaard was a brilliant and enigmatic loner whose ideas permeated culture, shaped modern Christianity, and influenced people as diverse as Franz Kafka and Martin Luther King Jr. Though few people today have read his work, that lack of familiarity with the real Kierkegaard is changing with this biography by scholar Stephen Backhouse, who clearly presents the man's mind as well as the acute sensitivity behind Kierkegaard's books. Drawing on biographical material that has newly come to light, Kierkegaard: A Single Life introduces his many guises—the thinker, the lover, the recluse, the writer, the controversialist—in prose as compelling and fluid as a novel and pursues clarity to long-standing questions about him: What made this Danish theologian so controversial and influential? Why were so many people drawn to his books, even if they didn't understand what they were reading? Can his complicated relationship with the Church and religion be untangled? Or, for that matter, what about his complicated—at times almost paradoxical—relationship with every sphere of life from politics to poetry? To be considered everything from a great intellect to a dandy, from a martyr to a "false messiah" is no mean feat, and this biography sheds light on Søren Kierkegaard as he was with empathy and humor. Included is an appendix presenting an overview of each of Kierkegaard's works, for the scholar and lay reader alike.




Kierkegaard and the Problem of Self-Love


Book Description

The problem of whether we should love ourselves - and if so how - has particular resonance within Christian thought and is an important yet underinvestigated theme in the writings of Søren Kierkegaard. In Works of Love, Kierkegaard argues that the friendships and romantic relationships which we typically treasure most are often merely disguised forms of 'selfish' self-love. Yet in this nuanced and subtle account, John Lippitt shows that Kierkegaard also provides valuable resources for responding to the challenge of how we can love ourselves, as well as others. Lippitt relates what it means to love oneself properly to such topics as love of God and neighbour, friendship, romantic love, self-denial and self-sacrifice, trust, hope and forgiveness. The book engages in detail with Works of Love, related Kierkegaard texts and important recent studies, and also addresses a wealth of wider literature in ethics, moral psychology and philosophy of religion.




Feminist Interpretations of S¿ren Kierkegaard


Book Description

Even though Kierkegaard insisted on the fundamental equality of the sexes before God, his entire production is highly problematic for feminism. To a great degree, this is due to his tendency to write under a pseudonym. In this collection of 14 articles, contributors take varying stands on the question of whether Kierkegaard's work was indicative of misogyny or misogamy. Topics of discussion include Kierkegaard's notion of the "double nature" of woman and of the "silent woman," his idea of masculine indifference, and his use of irony in his critique of the feminine. Paper edition (unseen), $17.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR




Clouds of the Cross in Luther and Kierkegaard


Book Description

What do Christians mean when they talk about revelation? What sort of truth do Jesus and the Bible disclose? Knowledge or doctrine, required beliefs or a moral code, the answers Christians give to these questions tend to be objective in form: something they “have” that others lack. In Clouds of the Cross in Luther and Kierkegaard: Revelation as Unknowing, Carl S. Hughes draws on Martin Luther and Søren Kierkegaard—two of the most Christocentric and biblically oriented theologians in history—to suggest a much-needed alternative. Hughes blends historical, philosophical, and constructive approaches to theology in lively and engaging prose. He spotlights the objectifying tendencies in Luther’s thought that become so influential in modernity, while also finding resources in Luther’s own theology for a very different approach. Then, Hughes turns to Søren Kierkegaard—one of Luther’s fiercest critics and, at the same time, most faithful inheritors. Hughes argues that Kierkegaard carries some of Luther’s most provocative themes further than Luther himself ever dares. The result is a “Kierkegaardian-Lutheran” theology of revelation that resonates with mystical and apophatic theology, resembles art more than information, and transforms lives to incarnate the love of Christ in diverse and ever-changing ways.