The Kierkegaardian Moment: Dialectical Theology and Its Aftermath

Abstract

It is common knowledge that Kierkegaard was widely and eagerly read by European theologians of different stripes when in the early 20th century his works became gradually available in translation (into German, French, and then also English). An extensive body of schol- arship has been devoted to that reception and to the difficulties that (often inadequate) translations posed for a general readership that was not very familiar with his intellectual background or literary style, much less with the philosophical and theological message he seemed to communicate, if indirectly, by way of numerous pseudonyms and no small amount of posturing, with the help of striking paradox and a near endless variety of Biblical and dramatic parables. Add to this the protracted dialogues and sharp diatribes, portraits and vignettes, intimate journals, actual and fictional letters and what emerges is a singular oeuvre that required extensive interpretative, indeed, dialecti- cal skills and, hence, baffled most audiences. Not so theologians who, rightly or wrongly, almost immediately recognized in Kierkegaard—the very master of the incognito—a fellow Christian apologist, a witness, martyr, and, perhaps, knight of faith; a modern genius of what we would now (no doubt, well beyond Kierkeg- aard's own, far from ecumenical, much less inclusivist outlook) call Abrahamic religion (cf. Stroumsa). A significant position in the German reception history and early twentieth-century renaissance or reveille of Kierkegaard's writings is