Lee C. Barrett – författare

T&T Clark Reader in Kierkegaard as Theologian presents an anthology of Kierkegaard’s most influential works. Lee Barrett examines Kierkegaard’s explicit reflections on the appropriate passionately engaged way to engage in the theological task, by discussing such key themes as the nature and purpose of human life, sin both as a disease and as a culpable act, faith, and the perception of Christ as the enactment in time of God’s eternal self-giving compassion.Never before gathered together in one place, the texts featured in this reader include The Concept of Anxiety, Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, Philosophical Crumbs and Works of Love. Additional links to further critical Kierkegaardian texts are provided by the Kierkegaard Research Center of the University of Copenhagen, the Howard and Edna Hong Kierkegaard Library of St Olaf College, and the resources of the Søren Kierkegaard Society. With each chapter featuring an introduction, explanatory notes, discussion questions and recommendation for further reading in both the primary and secondary literature, students will be able to fully discern and understand the theological dimensions of Kierkegaard’s works.

Lee Barrett discusses the uniqueness and challenges of Kierkegaard’s approach to theology. He examines Kierkegaard’s explicit reflections on the appropriate way to engage in the theological task, as well as shows how the theme of God’s “otherness” is held in dialectical tension with the theme of God’s intimate love. Barrett discusses Kierkegaard’s key reflections of the nature and purpose of human life as a paradoxical journey toward self-fulfilment through a self-emptying in which the self more intensively reflects God’s self-giving love. He examines the works that describe sin as both a condition in which the individual is trapped and as a culpable act for which the individual must assume responsibility. Barrett explores Kierkegaard’s thoughts on sin, his descriptions of Jesus Christ as the enactment in time of God’s eternal self-giving compassion, his view of faith and his critique of culturally established Christianity as a form of fatal religious anaesthesia. This volume includes the following pedagogical features:- Each chapter contains its own introduction, explanatory notes, discussion questions and recommendation for further reading in both the primary and secondary literature- Includes links to Kierkegaardian texts provided by the Kierkegaard Research Center of the University of Copenhagen, the Howard and Edna Hong Kierkegaard Library of St Olaf College, as well as the resources of the Søren Kierkegaard Society

This Element explores Kierkegaard's Two Ages, his literary review of a contemporary novella, situating it in the context of his other writings from the same period of his life and his cultural/political context. It investigates his review's analysis of the vices and virtues of romance and political associations, which he treats in parallel fashion. It traces a theme that certain types of both romance and political association can foster virtues that are necessary for the religious life, although the political ethos of his contemporary age mostly encouraged vices.

This Element explores Kierkegaard's Two Ages, his literary review of a contemporary novella, situating it in the context of his other writings from the same period of his life and his cultural/political context. It investigates his review's analysis of the vices and virtues of romance and political associations, which he treats in parallel fashion. It traces a theme that certain types of both romance and political association can foster virtues that are necessary for the religious life, although the political ethos of his contemporary age mostly encouraged vices.

Exploring Kierkegaard's complex use of the Bible, the essays in this volume use source-critical research and tools ranging from literary criticism to theology and biblical studies, to situate Kierkegaard's appropriation of the biblical material in his cultural and intellectual context. The contributors seek to identify the possible sources that may have influenced Kierkegaard's understanding and employment of Scripture, and to describe the debates about the Bible that may have shaped, perhaps indirectly, his attitudes toward Scripture. They also pay close attention to Kierkegaard's actual hermeneutic practice, analyzing the implicit interpretive moves that he makes as well as his more explicit statements about the significance of various biblical passages. This close reading of Kierkegaard's texts elucidates the unique and sometimes odd features of his frequent appeals to Scripture. This volume in the series devotes one tome to the Old Testament and a second tome to the New Testament. As with the Old Testament, Kierkegaard was aware of new developments in New Testament scholarship, and troubled by them. Because these scholarly projects generated alternative understandings of the significance of Jesus, they impinged directly on his own work. It was crucial for Kierkegaard that Jesus is presented as both the enactment of God's reconciliation with humanity and as the prototype for humanity to emulate. Consequently, Kierkegaard had to struggle with the proper way to explicate persuasively the significance of Jesus in a situation of decreasing academic consensus about Jesus. He also had to contend with contested interpretations of James and Paul, two biblical authors vital for his work. As a result, Kierkegaard ruminated about the proper way to appropriate the New Testament and used material from it carefully and deliberately. The authors in the present New Testament tome seek to clarify different dimensions of Kierkegaard's interpretive theory and practice as he sought to avoid the twin pitfalls of academic skepticism and passionless biblical traditionalism.

Exploring Kierkegaard's complex use of the Bible, the essays in this volume use source-critical research and tools ranging from literary criticism to theology and biblical studies, to situate Kierkegaard's appropriation of the biblical material in his cultural and intellectual context. The contributors seek to identify the possible sources that may have influenced Kierkegaard's understanding and employment of Scripture, and to describe the debates about the Bible that may have shaped, perhaps indirectly, his attitudes toward Scripture. They also pay close attention to Kierkegaard's actual hermeneutic practice, analyzing the implicit interpretive moves that he makes as well as his more explicit statements about the significance of various biblical passages. This close reading of Kierkegaard's texts elucidates the unique and sometimes odd features of his frequent appeals to Scripture. This volume in the series devotes one tome to the Old Testament and a second tome to the New Testament. Tome I considers the canonically disputed literature of the Apocrypha. Although Kierkegaard certainly cited the Old Testament much less frequently than he did the New, passages and themes from the Old Testament do occupy a position of startling importance in his writings. Old Testament characters such as Abraham and Job often play crucial and even decisive roles in his texts. Snatches of Old Testament wisdom figure prominently in his edifying literature. The vocabulary and cadences of the Psalms saturate his expression of the range of human passions from joy to despair. The essays in this first tome seek to elucidate the crucial rhetorical uses to which he put key passages from the Old Testament, the sources that influenced him to do this, and his reasons for doing so.

Exploring Kierkegaard's complex use of the Bible, the essays in this volume use source-critical research and tools ranging from literary criticism to theology and biblical studies, to situate Kierkegaard's appropriation of the biblical material in his cultural and intellectual context. The contributors seek to identify the possible sources that may have influenced Kierkegaard's understanding and employment of Scripture, and to describe the debates about the Bible that may have shaped, perhaps indirectly, his attitudes toward Scripture. They also pay close attention to Kierkegaard's actual hermeneutic practice, analyzing the implicit interpretive moves that he makes as well as his more explicit statements about the significance of various biblical passages. This close reading of Kierkegaard's texts elucidates the unique and sometimes odd features of his frequent appeals to Scripture. This volume in the series devotes one tome to the Old Testament and a second tome to the New Testament. Tome I considers the canonically disputed literature of the Apocrypha. Although Kierkegaard certainly cited the Old Testament much less frequently than he did the New, passages and themes from the Old Testament do occupy a position of startling importance in his writings. Old Testament characters such as Abraham and Job often play crucial and even decisive roles in his texts. Snatches of Old Testament wisdom figure prominently in his edifying literature. The vocabulary and cadences of the Psalms saturate his expression of the range of human passions from joy to despair. The essays in this first tome seek to elucidate the crucial rhetorical uses to which he put key passages from the Old Testament, the sources that influenced him to do this, and his reasons for doing so.

Exploring Kierkegaard's complex use of the Bible, the essays in this volume use source-critical research and tools ranging from literary criticism to theology and biblical studies, to situate Kierkegaard's appropriation of the biblical material in his cultural and intellectual context. The contributors seek to identify the possible sources that may have influenced Kierkegaard's understanding and employment of Scripture, and to describe the debates about the Bible that may have shaped, perhaps indirectly, his attitudes toward Scripture. They also pay close attention to Kierkegaard's actual hermeneutic practice, analyzing the implicit interpretive moves that he makes as well as his more explicit statements about the significance of various biblical passages. This close reading of Kierkegaard's texts elucidates the unique and sometimes odd features of his frequent appeals to Scripture. This volume in the series devotes one tome to the Old Testament and a second tome to the New Testament. As with the Old Testament, Kierkegaard was aware of new developments in New Testament scholarship, and troubled by them. Because these scholarly projects generated alternative understandings of the significance of Jesus, they impinged directly on his own work. It was crucial for Kierkegaard that Jesus is presented as both the enactment of God's reconciliation with humanity and as the prototype for humanity to emulate. Consequently, Kierkegaard had to struggle with the proper way to explicate persuasively the significance of Jesus in a situation of decreasing academic consensus about Jesus. He also had to contend with contested interpretations of James and Paul, two biblical authors vital for his work. As a result, Kierkegaard ruminated about the proper way to appropriate the New Testament and used material from it carefully and deliberately. The authors in the present New Testament tome seek to clarify different dimensions of Kierkegaard's interpretive theory and practice as he sought to avoid the twin pitfalls of academic skepticism and passionless biblical traditionalism.

Søren Kierkegaard’s authorship exhibits two different trajectories concerning the relation of responsible human agency to sovereign divine agency: one trajectory stresses free human striving, while the other trajectory emphasizes the dominance of divine agency. The first theme led to the view of Kierkegaard as the champion of autonomous existential “leaps,” while the second led to the construal of Kierkegaard as a devout Lutheran who trusted absolutely in God’s gracious governance. Lee C. Barrett argues that Kierkegaard, influenced by Kant’s critique of metaphysics, did not attempt to integrate human and divine agencies in any speculative theory. Instead, Kierkegaard deploys them to encourage different passions and dispositions that can be integrated in a coherent human life, making use of literary strategies to foster the different passions and dispositions that are associated with the themes of human responsibility and divine governance. Kierkegaard on God’s Will and Human Freedom: An Upbuilding Antinomy offers an incisive account of what makes Kierkegaard’s conception of theology as a matter of edification rather than speculation so distinctive and enduringly worthwhile.