While Kierkegaard creates characters who represent various ways of existing as lovers in the aesthetic and the ethical spheres, namely, Johannes the Seducer and Judge William, he does not have a corresponding character for love in the religious sphere. Is there truly only marginal space for romantic love in Kierkegaard’s religious sphere, or did his own personal history prevent him from being able to imagine what that might look like? This paper examines a commonly overlooked discourse, “On the Occasion of (...) a Wedding,” for Kierkegaardian insights on erotic love in the religious sphere. Against understanding erotic love as a moment (in the aesthetic sphere), or a duty (in the ethical sphere), this paper explores how “On the Occasion of a Wedding” recasts erotic love as gift. Kierkegaard stages the “imagined occasion” of a wedding as a phenomenological reduction through which love presents itself with gift‐like characteristics. Respecting the gift‐status of love transforms the lover into a grateful recipient rather than a seducer or a conqueror. This paper concludes that the proper response to love as gift would be neither to refuse it in favor of nihilistic uncertainty nor to possess it through triumphalistic objectivity, but to humbly embrace both its “already” and its “not yet” dimensions. (shrink)

This article examines the significance of patience in Søren Kierkegaard’s 1843–1844 discourses on patience as a needed corrective for the “common sense” perception of time as an adversary rather than a friend. Kierkegaard stresses the biblical idea of the goodness of time especially in connection to the formation of the self. According to his authorship, the self is not a static being, but one that develops, expands, and becomes its most mature expression through God’s transformative work in time. This perspective (...) on the self and its relationship to time illuminates the crucial role of patience as an essential formative virtue. While there are many insights to be garnered from Kierkegaard’s idea of patience for philosophical discussions on the nature of the self, this article focuses on how they are especially salient and applicable for spiritual formation and discipleship. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThroughout his published work, Michel Henry expresses a deep appreciation for the writings of Kierkegaard, using them as an inspirational foundation for much of his own thought. However, Henry claims to be far more Kierkegaardian than he really is. Henry’s peers have identified several philosophical and theological deficiencies in Henry’s thought. These places of weakness also happen to be his most obvious points of departure from Kierkegaard. A Kierkegaardian confrontation with Henry demands a retrieval of the Infinite Qualitative Difference between (...) God and man as key to exploring the structure of the self. Kierkegaard’s texts correct Henry’s assumption that the ontological difference established in the act of creation would separate the self from God. They suggest instead that the IQD provides the necessary conditions for the truly theological self to emerge. (shrink)

In this essay, we analyze the Black Mirror episode "Arkangel" alongside Nietzsche’s critique of religion. After providing an overview of his critique, we argue that the episode demonstrates how a world enframed by technology itself ends up being just as decadent, or just as pathological, repressive, corrupt, anti-life, and unredemptive as Nietzsche accuses Christianity of being. Nietzsche thought, at one point, that science and technology might provide a non-metaphysical or non-theological solution to what he calls our “metaphysical need.” However, Arkangel (...) shows how technology does not overcome problems of idolatrous forms of religion and can be just another tool for manipulation that produces the same kinds of pathologies. Nietzsche insists that the only way to overcome religion as an oppressive system is to “philosophize with a hammer,” or to deconstruct its idolatrous strictures and the “all too human” forces behind it. Ultimately, this deconstruction requires declaring “the death of God.”. (shrink)