From despair to faith: the spirituality of Soren Kierkegaard

237 Pages·2014·3.586 MB·English

by  Barnett, Christopher B.;Kierkegaard, Søren;Kierkegaard, Sren

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Kierkegaard and the icons of faith—
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From Despair to Faith analyzes the spiritual insights and writings of Søren Kierkegaard.
Christopher B. Barnett orients readers to Kierkegaard’s grounding in the Christian spiritual
tradition and his authorial stress on themes like upbuilding, spiritual journey, and faith.
Barnett maintains that Kierkegaard’s spirituality is best understood through the various

“pictures” that populate his authorship. These “icons of faith” represent and communicate
what Kierkegaard sees as the fulfillment of Christian existence. Barnett shows how Kierke­
gaard’s writings serve to illuminate and to deepen one’s relationship with the divine.

Praise for From Despair to Faith
“Building on a strong historical and textual base and easily readable, Christopher Barnett’s
new book opens up an original reading of Kierkegaard as spiritual writer. This is a
Kierkegaard whose sense of the religious life as a progressive deepening ‘from despair to
faith’ not only draws on the theological and historical sources long familiar to scholars
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but also finds nourishment in contemplating clouds, oceans, birds, and flowers and in
meditating on biblical icons of faith, from Job to Anna, and from Paul to the sinful woman r
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who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears.” m
George Pattison | University of Glasgow
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“Viewing Kierkegaard as a spiritual author in the tradition of Christian pietism, Barnett
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identifies a dialectic between the aesthetic and the religious in his writings in the form s
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of an ‘aesthetics of the icon’—à la Jean­Luc Marion—that seeks to promote the reader’s
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spiritual journey from despair to faith via images or icons from nature and the Bible that ir
exemplify the life of faith in humility, suffering, and love. This is essential reading for to
anyone interested in Kierkegaard as a Christian poet and thinker.”
Sylvia Walsh | Stetson University

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“Barnett’s splendid book is one of the few scholarly efforts to read Kierkegaard in the way
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that Kierkegaard wanted to be read: as an edifying author who ‘builds up’ the individual. i
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With a compellingly close reading, Barnett shows how Kierkegaard’s authorship serves as h
a spiritual discipline, urging the pilgrim on her journey and shaping her heart. Barnett
demonstrates that Kierkegaard may best be understood by situating him not in the history
of philosophy or theology, but in the rich traditions of Christian spirituality that foster
‘the peace that passes all understanding.’”
Lee C. Barrett | Lancaster Theological Seminary
Christopher B. Barnett received his Doctor of Philosophy in Theology at the University
of Oxford. His first book, Kierkegaard, Pietism and Holiness, was released in 2011. In
addition to several book chapters and articles on Kierkegaard, he also has published the
essay “Spirit(uality) in the Films of Terrence Malick” (Journal of Religion & Film, 2013).
After teaching at Berry College in Rome, Georgia, he is now assistant professor in the
Department of Theology & Religious Studies at Villanova University.
Religion / Philosophical Theology
Additional Praise for From
Despair to Faith
“From Despair to Faith heralds a welcome development in the
scholarship exploring the depths of Kierkegaard’s relationship to the
Christian spiritual tradition. Historically and theologically sensitive,
Barnett’s study of Kierkegaard’s ‘icons of faith’ subtly serves as an
important corrective to the many incomplete but persistent
stereotypes of this challenging Christian thinker and equally shows
him to be a spiritual author on the order of such enduring guides as
John of the Cross and Johann Arndt.”
Joel D. S. Rasmussen
University of Oxford
“ThisbookmaychangenotonlyyourwayofreadingKierkegaard
but even how you shelve your books. That is to say, if you have
been parking your Kierkegaard collection right after the nineteenth-
century German Idealists or else intermingled with the twentieth-
century existentialists, Barnett’s argument will incline you instead
to set Kierkegaard’s religious discourses, at least, up on that special
shelf you reserve for books that get to the heart of the Christian life,
alongside similar writings by Augustine, Luther, and Bonhoeffer.”
Andrew J. Burgess, Professor of Philosophy Emeritus
University of New Mexico
“Christopher Barnett’s scholarship is operating at the forefront of
a deepening appreciation of Kierkegaard’s thought. In a beautiful
assimilation of word and image, Kierkegaard’s contribution to
devotional literature shines through in Barnett’s profound and fluent
exposition. Barnett’s book is essential reading for scholars and
students, and, perhaps above all, to those interested in the heights,
depths, and pathways of spirituality.”
Simon D. Podmore
Liverpool Hope University
“In this sophisticated and sensitive reading, Christopher Barnett
resists the common temptations to polemicize or fragment the
thought of Søren Kierkegaard. Rather, he carefully demonstrates
that there is a unifying focus in Kierkegaard’s thought, namely,
the conviction that the spiritual life is a homecoming, a return to
God. To this end, Barnett illuminates how Kierkegaard persistently
displays the intense human desire for that which brings fulfillment in
concert with the Christian claim that the triune God can best satisfy
that desire. In doing so, Barnett provides a much-needed theological
reading of Kierkegaard that firmly places him in the fecund tradition
of Christian spirituality and iconography.”
Paul Martens
Baylor University
From Despair to Faith

From Despair to Faith
The Spirituality of Søren Kierkegaard
Christopher B. Barnett
Fortress Press
Minneapolis
FROM DESPAIR TO FAITH
The Spirituality of Søren Kierkegaard
Copyright © 2014 Fortress Press. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in
critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner
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Fortress, Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN 55440.
Cover image:Copenhagen Harbour by Moonlight/Johan Christian Dahl/WikiArt
Cover design: Laurie Ingram
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Print ISBN: 978-1-4514-7469-5
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4514-8747-3
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of Paper for Printed
Library Materials, ANSI Z329.48-1984.
Manufactured in the U.S.A.
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For my wife, Stacy, with gratitude.
Amore,
acceso di virtù, sempre altro accese.
-Dante

Contents
Abbreviations for Kierkegaard’s Works xi
Preface xiii
1. Kierkegaard as Spiritual Writer 1
2. Kierkegaard on God, Self, and the Spiritual Journey 25
3. Kierkegaard and the Aesthetics of the Icon 63
4. Icons of Faith: The Natural World 87
5. Icons of Faith: The Bible 131
Works Cited 187
Index of Kierkegaard's Works 197
Index of Names and Subjects 201