Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard

Søren Kierkegaard is an irate, spiritual philosopher who had some issues with the way the Christian community was doing their thing in his day. So basically a more prominent, more vocal version of me. And from Denmark.

Provocations is a collection of his spiritual writings put together some time back. I somehow came across the book as a free PDF and, knowing what I did of Kierkegaard’s work, decided it’d be good to at least be aware of what he was saying.

The book covers a lot of territory, so it was helpful to get an idea from the start what he was standing for. His main arguing points are for a very subjective faith. That is, he believes faith to be a very personal thing, that no expansion of knowledge about one’s set of beliefs helps save them, that faith is the foundation and everything else is secondary.

He takes these ideas to extreme ends, but they are ends that should be explored. He does so with a fair amount of attitude and calling-out of bad Christian habits. He also comes to conclude that the “Christianization” of our world creates an environment where “everyone is a Christian, so no one is a Christian.”

Today’s martyrs will not bleed, as formerly, because they are Christians – yes, it is almost insane! They will be put to death because they are not “Christians.” Frightful drama! And how alone the martyr will stand!

I recommend Provocations for anyone who enjoys philosophical discussions on faith and wants to take faith to its necessary ends in order to see what the Christian life might look like without a need for arguments over doctrine and theology or a “Christian elite,” as he might call it were he to see the state of modern church life.

To be clear, though: I do not entirely agree with everything Kierkegaard has to say, but enough of it that this was an encouraging and growth-inducing read. I firmly believe that we should have no fear of any question, and Kierkegaard challenges those ideas of where the ends of the earth lie. I respect his life’s work much for that alone.