Arnold Come draws on Kierkegaard's major works, journals, and papers to reveal the humanist dimensions of his thought, highlighting the importance of the self as the central theme of all his writings.

Kierkegaard as Humanist is an extensive analysis of Kierkegaard's concepts of self, freedom, possibility, and necessity. Topics examined include the essential and continuing duality of the self, the process by which the self becomes self-consciousness, freedom as the dialectical tension between necessity and possibility and between temporality and eternity, the indeterminate/determinate leap as freedom's form, and love as freedom's content. Come finds in Kierkegaard's writings an anthropological ontology that is derived by a phenomenological method and distinct from those Kierkegaardian materials that are clearly theological in a Christian sense; he concludes that Kierkegaard's anthropological ontology is independent of his Christian theology.

Few philosophers have devoted such sustained, almost obsessive attention to the topic of death as Søren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard and Death brings together new work on Kierkegaard's multifaceted discussions of death and provides a thorough guide to the development, in various texts and contexts, of Kierkegaard's ideas concerning death. Essays by an international group of scholars take up essential topics such as dying to the world, living death, immortality, suicide, mortality and subjectivity, death and the meaning of life, remembrance of the dead, and the question of the afterlife. While bringing Kierkegaard's philosophy of death into focus, this volume connects Kierkegaard with important debates in contemporary philosophy.

The companion volume to Arnold Come's Kierkegaard as Humanist, Kierkegaard as Theologian is an exploration of Søren Kierkegaard's deliberately Christian writings, from Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits (1846) to For Self-Examination (1851). In his later writings Kierkegaard sought to "get further forward in the direction of discovering the Christianity of the New Testament" to resolve his own spiritual crisis. His struggle to understand how authentic theologizing relates to the spiritual struggles of personal faith led him to a discussion of the three basic foci of his theologizing: the self as gift, that is, a creation "out of nothing" from God; the self as failure, which brings on a state of despair; and the self redeemed by God's love and healing compassion. Come probes some of the problematic aspects of Kierkegaard's theology. He addresses the question of whether God's high intentions and demands for human achievement of selfhood and spirituality justify the unspeakable sufferings entailed in human failures to fulfil those demands. He also explores the puzzling relation between Kierkegaard's seeming assignment of exclusivity to the Christian understanding and experiences of both sin and salvation as well as his assumption of the capacity of humans to recognize the need to turn to the eternal that is immanent in every human consciousness - so-called Religiousness A.

In PHILOSOPHICAL FRAGMENTS, Søren Kierkegaard (writing under the pseudonym Johannes Climacus), seeks to explain the nature of Christianity in such as way as to bring out its demands on the individual, and to emphasize its incompatibility with the theology based on the work of Hegel that was becoming progressively more influential in Denmark. If one were to read only two or three of Kierkegaard's works, this is unquestionably one of the ones to read. One cannot understand Kierkegaard's thought without reading this book, and along with its sequel represents the heart of what he was trying to achieve in what he called his "Authorship." Through PHILOSOPHICAL FRAGMENTS, Kierkegaard purports to present the logic of Christianity.

Some philosophers we read to discover the nature of the universe. Others we read to discover the nature of ourselves. In the second group, Soren Kierkegaard stands alone as a towering figure, a man who revolutionized our concept of the human condition. His insights go to the core of the dilemmas that haunt the modern mind and spirit. This clear and enlightening study provides a fascinating analysis of Kierkegaard's thinking and its practical applications. The reader comes in contact with a vision of perils and potential of individual existence that is far more profound than the shallow questions and easy answers offered by the swarm of contemporary "self-help" panaceas. The book leaves one with a realization of the vast depths that lie within us, and of the daring and determination it takes to explore them in order to become all that a human being can and should be. This edition was published in 1981 by NAL Penguin Inc.

Kierkegaard himself hardly requires introduction, but his thought con tinues to require explication due to its inherent complexity and its unusual method of presentation. Kierkegaard is deliberately un-systematic, anti-systematic, in the very age of the System. He made his point then, and it is not lost upon us today. But that must not deter us from assembling the fragments and viewing the whole. Kierkegaard's religious psychology in particular may finally have its impact and generate the discussion it deserves when its outlines and inter-locking elements are viewed together. Many approaches to his thought are possible, as a survey of the literature about him will readily reveal. ! The present study proceeds with the simple ambition of looking at Kierkegaard on his own terms, of thus putting aside biographical fascination or one's own personal religi ous situation. I understand the temptation of both, and have seen the dangers realized in Kierkegaard scholarship. In English-language Kier kegaard scholarship, we are now in a new phase, in which the entire corpus of Kierkegaard's authorship is at last viewed as a whole. We have passed the stages of "fad" and of under-formed. Almost all the corpus is available in English, or soon will be. Perhaps now Kierkegaard can be viewed, understood, and criticized dispassionately and objectively, not withstanding author Kierkegaard's personal horror of those adverbs. The present study hopes to make its contribution toward this goal.

"Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing," by Sören Kierkegaard, is considered a devotional classic. Through irony, dialogue, and parable, Kierkegaard slices through the masks and fascades we construct that delude us into thinking that all is well with our soul. With the skill and precision of a surgeon's hand, Kierkegaard opens up the true condition of our motivations in life and faith. Kierkegaard is not afraid to stare in the face the dark side of our humanity. In "Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing" we see that only through this brutal honesty can we become our true selves and find healing. Kierkegaard boldly asserts that only by joining with providence and the Great Physician's hand can we "will one thing"--the good. The good is all that is true, eternal, and authentic. The good is all that comes from God. As with all of Kierkegaard's works, "Purity of Heart" makes for worthy reading which will provoke and challenge you.

As one of Soren Kierkegaard's most widely read works, Fear and Trembling presents careful arguments about important biblical topics. Most notably, Kierkegaard acts more-or-less as a defense attorney for Abraham for his even contemplating the murder of his son. In the book, Kierkegaard considers whether Abraham was not subject to the ethical laws of the everyday universe that the rest of us live by every day--when he was acting under the direction of God (e.g. when God asked him to kill his own son). For a complete explanation and polemics of Kierkegaard's views, this book is highly recommended. That the subject matter of Fear and Trembling greatly disturbed Kierkegaard becomes readily obvious in the first pages. If the arguments presented are examined carefully, it is a topic whose implications may very well shock the modern-day theologian as well.

This book is an original philosophic exploration of the meaning of Kierkegaard's life, his thought, and his works. It makes a bold case for Kierkegaard's recognition of the concrete existence of the individual, including Kierkegaard himself, as crucial to the spiritual life. Written with delicate insight, and beautifully translated from Hebrew, this work offers valuable new turns to understanding the puzzling life-work of a modern giant of spiritual reflection.