Kierkegaard’s Religious Thought in Relation to Current Religious Discourse

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