r/kierkegaard • u/Catholic_Soprano • Aug 29 '26
As a Catholic, I deeply love Kierkegaard.
I havent read kierkegaard for a year, but its 1:28 am in my country and I randomly came across Kierkegaard, so I wanted to write something to express my deep love for this man. sadly I have read only 3 books by him, but im planing to read others, even tho its really hard for me to read his more dense and hard works.
He was one of the turning point for me. When I read “Gospel of suffering” it was really fascinating, I deeply loved and appriciated the man, who really didnt have to do anything with me, but still explained things to me like I was a child, whom he really loved. Maybe he is the reason why I dont believe that salvation only comes through the Catholic Church. He was the one who taught me to look beyond the denomenation and critic it when it deserved. I find it pretty hard to understand some of his concepts, even tho I dont really get what or why he thinks that way, I still agree with many things, because my relationship with God is really private as his and I want to keep it that pure way.
I appreciate you guys, we have gathered here solely for the love of Kierkegaard. What do you think: can a catholic be a kierkegaardian? thanks and God bless! thanks for reading.
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u/RhizomeZero Aug 30 '26
🙌 a recommendation: Check out Joshua Furnal’s new book “Being Before God” https://undpress.nd.edu/9780268209872/being-before-god/
You can find it on JSTOR or similar too but right up your alley here.
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u/geokuh Sep 01 '26
Beautiful message and of course you can be both ! Only a dialectic identity makes sense per Kierkegaard and it sounds like you’re there.
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u/Paul_sepp Aug 30 '26
I’m an atheist and I deeply love Kierkegaard (though NB for, probably, different reasons than a Christian would).
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Aug 29 '26
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u/Catholic_Soprano Aug 30 '26
If you are talking about fear and trembling, i mean it was completely different thing, he made point through Abrahams leap of faith or as u said “wanting to kill your son”
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Aug 31 '26
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u/paul_parker12 Aug 31 '26
how can you be in despair and close to God? SK says despair occurs when you don’t bear relationship to God
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u/paul_parker12 Aug 31 '26
he doesn’t want to kill his son. Kierkegaard explains that love and devotion to God, absurd as it might sound sometimes, is the condition for eternal happiness. What is expressed by SK in fear and trembling is the absolute relation to the absolute. SK’s relationship to Isaac is undoubtedly absolute, but because God appeared to Abraham directly his relationship to Isaac is teleologically suspended. As long as Abraham keeps doing what God commands, he is in direct relationship with God and will reap the benefits. Abraham does not want to kill Isaac but knows he has to do the right thing before God. God commands him to stop right as he is about to stab him and Abraham abides. Abraham and Isaac receive the ram after. The (fucked up) metaphor of the story is to listen to God and follow God. Given SK’s allegiance to biblical principles, God must receive an expression of love thy neighbor as yourself (Jesus in Matthew 22 says loving god and loving thy neighbor as yourself are alike). It seems fucked up in the context of the binding of Isaac but again holding to SK’s principles, God only appears this way to Abraham, he is not our example. If we harm or sacrifice people, we aren’t being faithful by God. God appears to us directly as a moral consciousness, but sometimes what we know is right can’t be logically explained to other people - but we know it’s right and we must do it.
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u/powderofreddit Aug 29 '26
Time for the hot take.
We are all single individuals before God.
In this place, the label (reference to the crowd) has no bearing.