Kierkegaard

Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) has been proposed as the 'father' of existentialism, as a forerunner of post-modernism and as the proponent of a purely humanistic religiosity. According to Julia Watkin all of these approaches suppress the reality of Kierkegaard as a Christian thinker, albeit one of a uniquely challenging cast who saw the need to treat Christianity as a personal existential adventure in which one is not afraid to risk oneself. In Kierkegaard, Watkin uses Danish critical sources to classify the legendary thinker as one of a radical Christian persuasion.Kierkegaard raised and addressed vital philosophical and ethical-religious questions about existence in a way that continues to be relevant across disciplines, generations, and cultures. This book distinctly and simply introduces Kierkegaard to new readers as a Christian religious thinker.

On 1 September 1855, Soren Kierkegaard wrote in the last number of The Instant that his task was the Socratic one of 'revising' the definition of what it is to be a Christian. Yet he made it clear that his project entailed reform of the individual's way of life, not correction of doctrine. Julia Watkin therefore presents Kierkegaard as a Christian thinker, but as one who, 'without authority', boldly challenged his contemporaries through an authorship that also Socratically forced them to take a position of choice between different life-styles and world-views. A key feature of the book is the presentation of Kierkegaard's two pictures of Christianity. On the one hand, Judge William's Christian ethics support and inspire culture, on the other, Christianity is shown as 'asocial' and counter-cultural. It is in this tension of Christian outlooks, both derived from the New Testament, that Kierkegaard's paradoxical attitude to Danish Lutheran Christianity, his polemic against the Church, is to be understood. Through discussion of Kierkegaard's place in the Christian tradition, Watkin also shows why Kierkegaard has been hailed internationally as a significant figure for theology, philosophy, psychology and literature. Kierkegaard's voice not only spoke to his own time, it also speaks to the many faiths and cultures of the modern world.

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Kierkegaard the Christian thinker is introduced, beginning with his cultural background, his basic assumptions about the structure of the Christian universe, and the development of his vocation as religious writer. The author shows why he is different from others in his treatment of Christianity, then follows his presentations of Christian ideality and the tension and opposition in his authorship between Christianity as godly enjoyment of the world and Christianity as renunciation and total self-denial. Distributed in the US by Books International. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Dr. Julia Watkin is based at the Soren Kierkegaard Research Centre, Department of Philosophy, University of Tasmania.