Mooney (philosophy, Sonoma State U.) explores Kierkegaard's creative invention, the contemporary relevance of his contrasts between resignation and faith, and his conceptual analysis of aesthetic, moral, and religious psychology and life ...

A compelling account of Kierkegaard's ethical views, seeing him against the backdrop of nineteenth-century European society but showing the relevance of his thought for the twenty-first century. Kierkegaard's view of morality as grounded in God's command to love our neighbours as ourselves has clear advantages over contemporary secular rivals.

The author provides explicit philosophical terminology to clarify Kierkegaard's notion of a "teleological suspension of the ethical." He claims that the feature of Abraham's act that placed it beyond the sphere of the ethical was the impossibility of describing it as part of a way of life that one is prepared to commend to others. Thus, the only appropriate response to Abraham is silence.