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Kierkegaard’s Religious Thought in Relation to Current Religious Discourse
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Kierkegaard’s Religious Thought in Relation to Current Religious Discourse

A special issue of Philosophies (ISSN 2409-9287).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 January 2024) | Viewed by 7192

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Lee C. Barrett

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Theology, Lancaster Theological Seminary, Lancaster, PA 17603, USA
Interests: reformed theology; nineteenth century Protestant theology; Søren Kierkegaard; theology and aesthetics; philosophical theology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Andrzej Słowikowski

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Philosophy, Uniwersytet Warminsko-Mazurski w Olsztynie, 10-725 Olsztyn, Poland
Interests: philosophy of existence "with constant reference" to Søren Kierkegaard; philosophical anthropology; philosophy of religion; philosophy of culture; philosophy of the 19th and 20th centuries

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Kierkegaard described himself as a religious author whose entire work revolves around becoming a Christian in Christendom (The Point of View, Princeton 1998, p. 90). A significant part of his writings is devoted to this task, and he created an original, impressive, multi-threaded and multi-dimensional discourse from the intersection of philosophy, theology, literature and critical theory to accomplish his aim.

Kierkegaard addressed many crucial modern issues concerning faith and religion (especially Christianity) in his work, and his existential reflections on the place, role and meaning of religion in the life of an individual and society proved to be very inspiring for all of 20th century Western religious thought. All the following issues (and many other, more specific, ones) remain a vivid legacy of Kierkegaard’s religious thought, with new analyses of them being constantly undertaken:

  • The inward, passionate and paradoxical nature of faith;
  • The infinite qualitative difference between God and man;
  • The indirect nature of religious communication and Christianity as an existence-communication;
  • The subjective and existential dimension of religious truth;
  • Anxiety and despair as religious categories connected with the concept of sin and freedom;
  • The dialectical dimension of the human self before God;
  • The universal-human (first) ethics of common good versus the Christian (second) ethics of love;
  • The relation of the self to religious communities.

Of course, one should take care when talking about Kierkegaard’s religious thought as some kind of entirety. On the one hand, he did not create any closed system of knowledge, and even more, he was a fierce enemy of purely speculative thinking distanced from the life of an individual—the kind that resolves in a purely theoretical way the most important questions concerning the human relationship with God. On the other hand, his thinking in respect of the abovementioned issues, despite the partly pseudonymous, fragmentary and digressive character of his work, seems to be remarkably consistent, and allows scholars to develop a certain coherent viewpoint related to the most important questions being addressed today within both continental and analytic religious discourse—for example:

  • The relation between ethics, religion, the state and the law in the life of an individual and society;
  • Religious diversity, religious tolerance, religious attitudes and religious fundamentalism;
  • The return of religion and the end of religion;
  • Nature and the phenomena of religious and spiritual life;
  • The problem of the existence of God and evil—the problem of theodicy;
  • Apophatic theology and the question of the hiddenness of God;
  • Postmodern theology and philosophy of religion; the theological turn in French phenomenology;
  • Scientific truth versus religious truth;
  • The meaningfulness of religious language.

Although Kierkegaard’s religious thought has been the subject of much interesting research in the existing literature on his work, the issues he raised still demand new readings in a changing historical and socio-cultural perspective. Therefore, we would encourage potential contributors to this Special Issue to take up and rethink the most important questions related to Kierkegaard’s religious thought. It would be especially valuable if there were essays considering his theses with regard to the problems undertaken in current religious discourse in philosophy, theology and other human sciences, with the hope of finding in his thought interesting arguments and solutions to ongoing discussions and debates. Nevertheless, any text analyzing Kierkegaard’s religious thought is of course welcome for submission.

Prof. Dr. Lee C. Barrett
Dr. Andrzej Słowikowski
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • Kierkegaard
  • religion
  • faith
  • Christianity
  • religious discourse
  • philosophy of religion
  • contemporary philosophy
  • contemporary theology

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Published Papers (8 papers)

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19 pages, 300 KiB  
Article
The Gift of a Penny as “Counter-Experience” in Kierkegaard’s Discourses: Humility, Detachment, and the Hidden Significance of Things
by Myka S. H. Lahaie
Philosophies 2024, 9(4), 124; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9040124 - 13 Aug 2024
Viewed by 271
Abstract
This essay assesses the relevance of Søren Kierkegaard’s non-pseudonymous, edifying writings for considering themes of desire, detachment, and humility within the religious context of Christian spiritual formation. Building on the argument of recent scholars who identify in Kierkegaard’s writings an account of a [...] Read more.
This essay assesses the relevance of Søren Kierkegaard’s non-pseudonymous, edifying writings for considering themes of desire, detachment, and humility within the religious context of Christian spiritual formation. Building on the argument of recent scholars who identify in Kierkegaard’s writings an account of a fundamental desire for God “implanted” in the human being, I explore the influence of this vision on Kierkegaard’s depiction of desire and detachment in his “Discourses on the Lilies and the Birds”. I then turn to how this relates to the perspective of humility that emerges from Kierkegaard’s reflections on the biblical story of “the widow’s mite”. In each case, these edifying writings aim to stir the reader into a process of interrogating faulty self-perceptions based on arbitrary measures of value. I read this mode of communication as able to initiate a “counter-experience”, provoking the reader to reorient her horizon of prior self-valuations so she might come to recognize the hidden significance of things and, ultimately, achieve a more accurate sense of oneself in relation to the authentic source of the self’s desire. Insofar as this reorientation of the self informs the practice of detachment or the development of humility, people might experience this same process in diverse ways. In this respect, the relevance of Kierkegaard’s edifying writings for reflecting on Christian spirituality is not that they provide a thoroughgoing account of detachment or humility that should replace the insights of various spiritual traditions. Rather, I argue that his discourses—when read alongside these traditions—offer a supplemental resource for reflecting on how our positionalities, dispositions, and proximate contexts will inform the divergent ways we might experience the practice of detachment or the manifestation of humility in each new life circumstance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Kierkegaard’s Religious Thought in Relation to Current Religious Discourse)
11 pages, 936 KiB  
Article
Was Kierkegaard a Universalist?
by M. G. Piety
Philosophies 2024, 9(4), 116; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9040116 - 1 Aug 2024
Viewed by 483
Abstract
Christian universalism, or the theory of universal salvation, is increasingly popular among religious thinkers. A small group of scholars has put forward the contentious claim that Kierkegaard was a universalist, despite that he refers in places to the idea of eternal damnation as [...] Read more.
Christian universalism, or the theory of universal salvation, is increasingly popular among religious thinkers. A small group of scholars has put forward the contentious claim that Kierkegaard was a universalist, despite that he refers in places to the idea of eternal damnation as essential to Christianity. This paper examines the evidence both for and against the view that Kierkegaard was a universalist and concludes that despite Kierkegaard’s occasional references to the importance of the idea of eternal damnation to Christianity, there is reason to believe that Kierkegaard may have been a universalist, both in terms of the substance of his thought, including two unequivocal statements in his journals that he believed everyone would eventually be saved and in terms of his rhetorical style which prioritizes the effect his writings would have on the reader over the literal truth of the views they present. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Kierkegaard’s Religious Thought in Relation to Current Religious Discourse)
15 pages, 235 KiB  
Article
The Humanity of Faith: Kierkegaard’s Secularization of Christianity
by René Rosfort
Philosophies 2024, 9(4), 106; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9040106 - 16 Jul 2024
Viewed by 395
Abstract
The nature and practice of Christianity is a major, if not the primary, topic in Kierkegaard’s authorship. What it means to live a Christian life is a persistent topic in many of his major works, and yet, he spends most of his authorship [...] Read more.
The nature and practice of Christianity is a major, if not the primary, topic in Kierkegaard’s authorship. What it means to live a Christian life is a persistent topic in many of his major works, and yet, he spends most of his authorship criticizing traditional ways of practicing Christianity. While his critique of institutionalized Christianity and merciless unmasking of the hypocrisy of self-proclaimed Christians is rather clear, namely that they are not actually Christian, it is more difficult to get a clear idea of Kierkegaard’s alternative. What is a true and sincere Christian life for Kierkegaard? The argument of this article is that Kierkegaard’s famous existential approach to Christianity amounts to a secularization of Christianity and as such can be seen as a critical development of and not a rejection of the Enlightenment critique of religion. The article uses Kant as an advocate of the Enlightenment critique of religion that Kierkegaard inherits and develops critically, and after having examined Kierkegaard’s existential dialectics, an outline of Kant’s transcendental approach is, presented against which Kierkegaard’s existential alternative is examined in more detail. Kierkegaard’s existential approach is radical with its insistence on “that single individual” and on the existential challenges of human freedom that Kant banned from his analysis of both morality and faith. While Kant presents us with the transcendental possibility of faith, Kierkegaard is concerned with the existential reality of faith. It is argued that Kierkegaard’s existential analysis of faith helps us to find the connection between radical individual choice and the rational morality that is not always evident in Enlightenment—and especially Kantian—accounts of morality. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Kierkegaard’s Religious Thought in Relation to Current Religious Discourse)
19 pages, 259 KiB  
Article
Kierkegaard’s Descriptive Philosophy of Religion: The Imagination Poised between Possibility and Actuality
by David J. Gouwens
Philosophies 2024, 9(3), 84; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9030084 - 11 Jun 2024
Viewed by 628
Abstract
Rethinking the powers of the imagination, Søren Kierkegaard both anticipates and challenges contemporary approaches to a descriptive philosophy of religion. In contrast to the reigning approaches to religion in his day, Kierkegaard reconceives philosophy as, first of all, descriptive of human, including specifically [...] Read more.
Rethinking the powers of the imagination, Søren Kierkegaard both anticipates and challenges contemporary approaches to a descriptive philosophy of religion. In contrast to the reigning approaches to religion in his day, Kierkegaard reconceives philosophy as, first of all, descriptive of human, including specifically ethical and religious, existence. To this end, he develops conceptual tools, including a descriptive ontology of human existence, a “pluralist epistemology” exploring both cognitive and passional dimensions of religion, and a role for the poetic in philosophy, strikingly expressed in his observer figures who “imaginatively construct” “thought projects” to explore human existence. While this new descriptive account anticipates subsequent approaches to the philosophy of religion, it could be interpreted as another “objectivist” endeavor, yet Kierkegaard attempts more in this descriptive philosophy. He imaginatively deploys conceptual and rhetorical strategies maieutically to both describe and elicit self-reflection aimed at transformation, thus expanding the imagination’s uses for his readers. Comparing Kierkegaard to Pierre Hadot’s recovery of ancient Greek philosophy as “a way of life” will show how Kierkegaard also engages the particularity of “the Christian principle”, with implications for how philosophy can both describe and elicit the pathos of other religious traditions as well. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Kierkegaard’s Religious Thought in Relation to Current Religious Discourse)
18 pages, 276 KiB  
Article
Abraham’s Faith: Both the Aesthetic and the Ethical in Fear and Trembling
by Joseph Westfall
Philosophies 2024, 9(3), 75; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9030075 - 24 May 2024
Viewed by 560
Abstract
In this paper, I examine Johannes de Silentio’s presentation of the faith of Abraham, deriving therefrom a new way of conceiving his notion of faith as a paradoxical co-inhabiting of both the aesthetic and the ethical stages, rather than as a rejection, synthesis, [...] Read more.
In this paper, I examine Johannes de Silentio’s presentation of the faith of Abraham, deriving therefrom a new way of conceiving his notion of faith as a paradoxical co-inhabiting of both the aesthetic and the ethical stages, rather than as a rejection, synthesis, or overcoming of them. Relying largely upon Silentio’s account of Abraham’s faith as anxious but not doubting, I argue that the interpretations of Fear and Trembling by Alastair Hannay and Mark C. Taylor fail to account for some essential aspects of Silentio’s depiction. I conclude that faith, as it is described in Fear and Trembling, cannot be philosophically understood as it is not an object for thought but an existential perspective one lives. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Kierkegaard’s Religious Thought in Relation to Current Religious Discourse)
18 pages, 301 KiB  
Article
Kierkegaard’s Theories of the Stages of Existence and Subjective Truth as a Model for Further Research into the Phenomenology of Religious Attitudes
by Andrzej Słowikowski
Philosophies 2024, 9(2), 35; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9020035 - 8 Mar 2024
Viewed by 1650
Abstract
There are many religions in the human world, and people manifest their religiousness in many different ways. The main problem this paper addresses concerns the possibility of sorting out this complex world of human religiousness by showing that it can be phenomenologically reduced [...] Read more.
There are many religions in the human world, and people manifest their religiousness in many different ways. The main problem this paper addresses concerns the possibility of sorting out this complex world of human religiousness by showing that it can be phenomenologically reduced to a few very basic existential attitudes. These attitudes express the main types of ways in which a human being relates to his or herself and the world, independently of the worldview or religion professed by the individual. I use Kierkegaard’s theories of the stages of existence and subjective truth as a model. The theory of the stages of existence provides five basic existential attitudes on the basis of which religious attitudes can develop: spiritlessness, the aesthetic, the ethical, religiousness A, and religiousness B. The theory of subjective truth shows how the concept of truth functions in an ethical and existential sense as the personal truth of an individual engaged in building their religious identity. In turn, I discuss the problem of the relation of Kierkegaard’s philosophy to phenomenology, briefly introduce his concept of subjective truth and the stages of existence, and show how existential attitudes can be transformed into religious ones. I also consider the problem of the demonic as the inverted order of this anthropological and existential model. Finally, I argue that the model developed herein may be useful for further research into the phenomenology of religious attitudes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Kierkegaard’s Religious Thought in Relation to Current Religious Discourse)
19 pages, 296 KiB  
Article
Thankfulness: Kierkegaard’s First-Person Approach to the Problem of Evil
by Heiko Schulz
Philosophies 2024, 9(2), 32; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9020032 - 1 Mar 2024
Viewed by 1634
Abstract
The present paper argues that, despite appearance to the contrary, Kierkegaard’s writings offer promising argumentational resources for addressing the problem of evil. According to Kierkegaard, however, in order to make use of these resources at all, one must necessarily be willing to shift [...] Read more.
The present paper argues that, despite appearance to the contrary, Kierkegaard’s writings offer promising argumentational resources for addressing the problem of evil. According to Kierkegaard, however, in order to make use of these resources at all, one must necessarily be willing to shift the battleground, so to speak: from a third- to a genuine first-person perspective, namely the perspective of what Climacus dubs Religiousness A. All (yet also only) those who seek deliberate self-annihilation before God—a God in relation to whom they perceive themselves always in the wrong—shall discover the ideal that an unwavering and in fact unconditional thankfulness (namely, for being forgiven) is to be considered the only appropriate attitude towards God and as such both necessary and sufficient for coming to terms with evil and suffering, at least in the life of someone making that discovery. I will argue that Kierkegaard’s (non-)pseudonymous writings provide reasons, at times unwittingly, for adopting the perspective of Religiousness A; however, I will also and ultimately argue that the principle of infinite thankfulness as a corollary of that perspective flounders when it comes to making sense of (the eschatological implications of) the suffering of others. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Kierkegaard’s Religious Thought in Relation to Current Religious Discourse)

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30 pages, 308 KiB  
Essay
Dancing in God in an Accelerating Secular World: Resonating with Kierkegaard’s Critical Philosophical Theology
by Curtis L. Thompson
Philosophies 2024, 9(3), 88; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9030088 - 18 Jun 2024
Viewed by 595
Abstract
This essay seeks to scrutinize Kierkegaard’s critical philosophical theology. The intent is to demonstrate how his religious thought, especially on God’s relation to the world and to the human being, can contribute to generating a cogent response to the challenges presented by our [...] Read more.
This essay seeks to scrutinize Kierkegaard’s critical philosophical theology. The intent is to demonstrate how his religious thought, especially on God’s relation to the world and to the human being, can contribute to generating a cogent response to the challenges presented by our accelerating secular world. Apart from the narrative on the Dane’s passionate reflections, I employ two other narratives to facilitate this inquiry into Kierkegaard. The first of these facilitating narratives comes from highlighting the work on the concept of resonance by the social theorist Hartmut Rosa. Rosa’s rich analysis of our contemporary situation provides a persuasive case for the accelerating pace of our secular world, the complex dynamics of alienation that are at play within it, and the need for social transformation that creates space for increasing resonance within personal and social relationships and structures. The second facilitating narrative centers on the notion of dancing in God, which I believe holds promise for effectively communicating moving, bodily, rhythmic, passionate, and responsive thoughts and actions concerning God’s engagement in our contemporary world. I hope to show that these three complementary discourses together provide a provocative religious discourse and vision that can prove helpful in addressing many of the challenges of our time. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Kierkegaard’s Religious Thought in Relation to Current Religious Discourse)
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