Works of Love
by Soren Kierkegaard
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Book Summary Information
Author: Soren KierkegaardEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-03-10
ISBN: 0061713279
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Book Reviews of Works of Love
Book Review: Can loving be reduced to works?
Summary: 5 Stars
I became drawn to Kierkegaard as a college junior, beginning with "Fear and Trembling," then proceeding to the other major works, continuing through "Sickness Unto Death" and "Concluding Unscientific Discourse" in one of the few college courses in which I did any real work. The passion served me well for life, equipping me to read the Greek philosophers as well as Nietzsche and most of the major structuralist and post-structuralist thinkers of the last century. Perhaps more importantly, it gave me the conceptual framework, or "aesthetic sensibilities," to make sense of challenging modern literature--from Flannery O'Connor's epiphanic short stories to a recent film like "This Is No Country for Old Men" (which could just as easily have been based on an O'Connor short story).
The meaning of the title of the latter work, a Coen Brothers' movie, could be paraphrased roughly as: "this mortal existence is no unproblematic, easy life as you get older, finding it increasingly difficult to evade the fact of your own mortality and aloneness along with the ever diminishing amount of time you will have to make sense of your existence in this finite world." The major characters in the film all intuit this disturbing reality at some level, but only the retiring sheriff, Tommy Lee Jones, can began to grasp the truth by the end of the story. The other characters proudly assume they can beat death (youthful pride) or that if they simply do and think nothing, "something" will happen--maybe they'll get lucky and score a jackpot, or have one last turn with an attractive body in bed, or who knows, maybe they'll be one of the chosen ones who receive a pass when God makes an appearance in their lives before mortality runs its inevitable course. (Or, as so many are wont to say nowadays, "Whatever.")
Kierkegaard, like O'Connor and the Coens, is requiring that his readers "wake up" (the last words of the movie, recited by Tommy Lee Jones). Suppose instead of among the last words on the cross, Jesus had not said "Father, forgive those who sin against me because they know not what they do." Instead, what if Jesus had said "Father, forgive those who know not what they think." That's what Kierkegaard is confronting us with in this text. The meaning of life--and/or love--and the meaningless of either when not supported by thought and genuine self-knowledge.
There has been no shortage of Christ-like martyrs past and present--righteous types who jump at the chance of being some sort of Divine saint by bearing a cross that they can chalk up as one more star in their crown. But the Creator endowed human beings with the capacity--distinct from all mortal creatures--for contemplating their own mortality. And along with that capability, for thinking, growing, learning, and "knowing." Yet so many seem determined to waste that gift, preferring to go through life thoughtlessly, purposelessly, guided by nothing more than social conventions, superstition and traditions, habit and instinct. Some become doctors and lawyers, technicians and even scientists, partnered couples and married spouses. But assuming a role or being a magnet of "information" is far from actual "knowing." And the knowledge gap could not be more conspicuous than when it comes to the one question that concerns all human beings: faith, or the question of belief.
All Kierkegaard, along with his many influences and successors, is saying is that Socrates was right--not necessarily in his conclusions but certainly in his method: "The unexamined life is unfit to be lived." But Socrates imagined that reason of itself is sufficient to arrive at "truth." Kierkegaard rejects that premise. The best we can do is to continue to inquire, to remain "focused" on the "ultimate" questions that concern all of us as mortal beings, to admit our limitations, and to become aware of the boundaries that separate us from each other (e.g., none of us can "share" the death of our dearest beloved one), between what can and can't be known--and only then to express our humanity through the "act" that aligns our inner life with the purposes of the inscrutable Almighty plan.
It is not a question to be postponed or evaded, or to be replaced by religious dogma and sanctimonious words and actions. We have the capacity to ask it and to examine it every day of our lives. How counterproductive are our religions if they divide us more than they join us, and if they prohibit rather than encourage open inquiry and conversation. Best of all, Kierkegaard's thought, like the plots of storytellers from Sophocles to O'Connor to the Coen Brothers, comes directly out of human experience. In no way is it "abstract," "hypothetical," mere "ratiocination." Far from it, he's concrete, passionate, a spiritual fleshly soul resisting and frequently breaking the chains that bind him.
After reading Kierkegaard, it's difficult to believe that Jesus would have ever extended his redemptive plea on the cross to those who refuse the pursuit of knowledge. It's also easy to regret that this "hanging god" placed so much emphasis on forgiving misguided human actions. "Forgiving" itself is an action, and when it results in a form of "religious pride" (the essence of the "oxymoronic"), it's an action requiring forgiveness before all others. Ultimately, we become saved by action, but not by action that leads to presumption about our individual importance or privileged access to the Almighty. What's more important is to trace the lineage that links us all as "children" of the One Heavenly Father. Doing so the only valid way will necessitate the abrogation of all pride, or like the grandmother who reaches her hand out, proclaiming "Why, you're one of my children..." to the serial killer in O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," we'll just as certainly have our heads handed back to us (I'll leave it to readers to discover exactly how that occurs in the climax of O'Connor's powerful, unforgettable dark comedy about love and faith).
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