Spiritual Writings: A New Translation and Selection

by Soren Kierkegaard, George Pattison

Overview

“By far the most profound thinker of the 19th century” —Ludwig Wittgenstein

 

“Kierkegaard’s great contribution to Western philosophy was to assert, or to reassert with Romantic urgency, that, subjectively speaking, each existence is the center of the universe.” —John Updike, The New Yorker

 

Harper Perennial Modern Classics presents the rediscovered spiritual writings of Søren Kierkegaard, edited and translated by Oxford theologian George Pattison. Called “the first modernist” by The Guardian and “the father of existentialism” by the New York Times, Kierkegaard left an indelible imprint on existential writers from Sartre and Camus to Kafka and Derrida. In works like Fear and Trembling, Sickness unto Death, and Either/Or, he by famously articulated that all meaning is rooted in subjective experience—but the devotional essays that Patterson reveals in Spiritual Writings will forever change our understanding of the great philosopher, uncovering the spiritual foundations beneath his secularist philosophy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061875991
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	11/09/2010
Series:	Harper Perennial Modern Thought
Pages:	298
Sales rank:	1,079,526
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) lived in Copenhagen, Denmark. His books include Works of Love and Spiritual Writings (translated and edited by George Pattison).

George Pattison is a professor of theology at Oxford University.

Table of Contents

Foreword George Pattison xi

A Note on the Translation xxix

Part I The Gift: ?Every Good and Every Perfect Gift is From Above?

1 Understanding the Gift 3

2 Evil and the Gift 23

3 Giving and Receiving 41

4 ?The Lord gave, the Lord took away, blessed be the name of the Lord? 63

Part II Creation: What We Learn From the Lilies and the Birds

5 Be Satisfied with Being Human 85

6 The Glory of Being Human 113

7 The Blessedness Promised to Being Human 135

8 The Anxieties We Invent Ourselves 151

9 The Anxiety Caused by Being in Two Minds 165

10 Silence, Obedience, and Joy 179

Part III Love: At the Feet of the Savior

11 The Look of Love 227

12 Love and Sin 243

13 Learn from a Woman 255

14 A Parable of Love 269

15 Luke 7:47 279

16 1 Peter 4:8 289

What People are Saying About This

Rowan Williams

“George Pattison offers us a deeply valuable introduction to a great philosopher.”

Editorial Reviews

Fascinating and perplexing in equal measure, these exegeses on gospel and biblical sayings display a side of the great 19th-century philosopher Kierkegaard (1813–1855) that is considerably less familiar to modern readers than his status as a protoexistentialist. Editor Pattison (The Philosophy of Kierkegaard) offers 16 texts organized loosely around three themes--"Gift," "Creation," and "Love"--that show the philosopher at his most passionate and poetic, but also, a surprise in light of his radical theology, at his closest to the views of religious orthodoxy. Throughout, the author focuses on short pieces of scripture, interrogating their meaning psychologically. This allows for examination of a variety of everyday experiences from a Christian perspective, particularly doubt, difference, desire, anxiety, and silence. While the editor provides a useful introduction, his thematic style of selection and organization makes for a large degree of repetition. Despite such occasional tedium, Kierkegaard's lyricism, insight, and passionate insistence on the enduring value of scripture are frequently a wonder to behold. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

George Pattison offers us a deeply valuable introduction to a great philosopher.” — Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury

From the Publisher

George Pattison offers us a deeply valuable introduction to a great philosopher.

Rowan Williams