Recovering Christian Character: The Psychological Wisdom of Søren Kierkegaard (Kierkegaard as a Christian Thinker

by Robert C. Roberts

Discipleship guidance from the writings of Kierkegaard 

Genuine Christian character often runs counter to prevailing notions of Christianity—as much in today’s era of nationalistic religiosity as in the staid Christendom of Søren Kierkegaard’s time. Kierkegaard responded to the hypocrisy around him by becoming a missionary of sorts in the Western world. Through his writing he exposed the illusions of conventional wisdom while advancing a compelling vision of the true Christian life that would give rise to essential virtues like faith, hope, love, patience, gratitude, and humility. What might Kierkegaard say to us today about recovering a genuine Christian character amid manifold corruptions of the gospel? 

Robert C. Roberts guides the reader through Kierkegaard’s thought about character—clarifying while never unduly simplifying—to show how Kierkegaard’s prescient psychological insights can be applied in the lives of twenty-first-century Christians interested in personal formation. Taking on a Kierkegaardian voice of his own, Roberts powerfully illustrates how virtue arises not from the mastery of individual ethical principles but from the continuity of one’s soul with the heart of God.

526 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 17, 2022

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kierkegaard is complicated. Really complicated. Like so complicated that he made a bunch of pseudonymous authors up to argue with each other who all wrote their own books complicated. Even if you know that Kierkegaard made a statement, this may not be his actual view because he may have been writing mainly as a character, and not his actual opinion. Schaeffer's view of Kierkegaard being a Christian existentialist under the definition that existentialism is nihilism plus the appearance of meaning sprinkled on top seem exaggerated when this information is factored into the view of Kierkegaard. R. C. Sproul's emphasis on Kierkegaard being an exalted author on moral issues such as how to read the Bible existentially seems more relevant. This does not invalidate Schaeffer's view on Kierkegaard's impact on popular collective consciousness in the idea of the "leap of faith." Sproul emphasizes that reading the Bible existentially means placing oneself in the place of the characters of the Bible and asking oneself how one would feel if he were placed in that situation, such as being told by God to sacrifice one's son. This is not to devalue the exegetical work of considering the original context of the text. In fact, considering how one would feel given a task given to one of the characters in the Bible may highlight the difference in viewpoint between the original persons recorded and the modern-day reader.

Any imbalance pushed too far will necessarily lead to heresy, or rather, heresy will lead to an imbalance in either direction. Analogical nominalism which emphasizes God's transcendence can lead to a coldness which proceeds from viewing God solely in his role as judge. Conversely, antinomianism results from viewing God solely as a Father without distributing justice to those who refuse to have God's justice for the sins of humans legally transferred to Christ. Any misunderstanding between the hypostases of the trinity will necessarily lead to imbalance that may have marked attributes of the church decades or even centuries after the misunderstanding has occurred. One notable incident is the heretic Tullian, whose language patterns from his antinomian tract have been widely accepted throughout the greater church despite his being defrocked for serial marital infidelity from the Presbyterian Church in America years ago.