Kierkegaard, Søren Aabye

(1813–55)

   Philosopher.

   Kierkegaard was born into a Lutheran family in Copenhagen, Denmark. By normal standards, he did not have a successful life. He was twentyseven before he finished his university course; he broke off his engagement and never married; he was lampooned in the Copenhagen comic papers and he was of an exceptionally uncheerful disposition. None the less, today he is regarded as one of the most important of the modern philosophers. His books include (in their English translation) Either – Or, Fear and Trembling, The Concept of Dread, Philosophical Fragments and Sickness unto Death. He insisted that there was a great gulf between the transcendental realm of God and the immanent world of humanity, and that therefore God must remain hidden from man. Even in the incarnation, the divinity of Jesus Christ was hidden so man can only commit himself unequivocally and existentially in faith. Because Kierkegaard wrote in Danish, his work was unknown outside Denmark for many years. Once it was translated, it was profoundly in- fluential both on the Crisis Theologians who followed Karl barth and on the existentialists such as Martin heidegger.

   J.A. Bain, Søren Kierkegaard: His Life and Religious Teaching (1971);

   R. Bretall (ed.), A Kierkegaard Anthology (1947);

   L. Dupré, Kierkegaard as Theologian, (1963);

   A. Hannay, Kierkegaard (1982).