Christopher B. BARNETT trans. Soren Kierkegaard: Discourses and Writings on Spirituality. New York: Paulist Press, 2019. pp. 345. $49.95 hc. ISBN 978-0-8091-0648-6. Reviewed by Michael J. TKACIK, Saint Leo University, Saint Leo, Florida 33574.

Christopher Barnett’s contribution to the Paulist Classics of Western Spirituality series marks yet another valuable volume added to the library of great spiritual masters for which the collection is known. Combining his expertise in the thought of Kierkegaard via introductory material with his conscientious translations of Kierkegaard’s own works, Barnett proffers select seminal selections of Kierkegaard’s writings on spirituality which can serve both new and seasoned scholars of Kierkegaard alike. Readers are introduced to and immersed in the spirituality of Kierkegaard through the lenses of God, Creation, Jesus and the Church. For anyone interested in growing in holiness and discovering rest in God, the selections offered are illuminating and compelling.

The general introduction to the volume provides one with helpful insights into the personal life events and influences which colored Kierkegaard’s spiritual struggle and shaped his theological imagination and world view. The paradox of Kierkegaard’s sense of the innate immanence of religiousness and accent upon the absolute otherness and unintelligibility of God is presented in a manner so as to highlight the existential spiritual imperative of making Christ contemporary to oneself and the ethical implications which flow forth from such a subjective encounter with Jesus. Such an encounter results in a way of life marked by dogmatic humility, the struggle to put faith into action, and a counter-cultural/counter-institutional witness to and exemplification of Christ, all of which may entail opposition, persecution and suffering. Additionally, an overview of the literary style and methods employed by Kierkegaard is provided which enables one to see how Kierkegaard employed a literary strategy unto a theological crescendo.

Selections drawn from part one, “God,” accentuate the radical infinite and qualitative differences between God and human beings, differences which nonetheless animate the spiritual dialectic as the innate human capacity for religion strives to relate oneself to God who is wholly other and transcendent. Ultimately it is the growth that is born out of contemplating the differences between God and oneself, and struggling to accept the graces which stem from said differences, that births hope as one finds security and rest in The Unchangeableness of God and discovers that Every Good and Every Perfect Gift Is from Above. Part two, “Creation,” focuses on how human beings are to relate to God and one another. As one finds the gratifications afforded by temporal goods to be impermanent, one is moved to rely on God and what God teaches one through creation, i.e., the freedom to receive and share God’s glory. As one comes to discover that To Need God Is The Human Being’s Highest Perfection, as one learns what one cannot do for oneself, What We Learn from the Lilies in the Field and from the Birds of the Air is to be content with being who we are, i.e., loved and sustained by God and endowed with a dignity beyond compare.

Part three, “Jesus Christ,” accentuates the imitation of Jesus as the hallmark of the Christian faith. Such imitation involves embracing that Christ Is The Way and a willingness to share the experience of rejection and suffering of Jesus via living a life of service and humble self-denial. Paradoxically, such a life yields joy (What the Thought of Following Christ Means and What Joy Lies Therein) for Jesus bids one, Come unto Me, All You That Labor and Are Heavy Laden, and I Will Give You Rest, i.e., Jesus seeks those who have need of help, making no conditions at all. The concluding sections of the work give voice to Kierkegaard’s convictions regarding What Christ Judges Of Official Christianity, i.e., teachings and worship which obscure true Christianity which requires the imitation of Jesus. Part four, “The Church,” conveys Kierkegaard’s concerns that Christendom has desensitized one to the existential urgency of choosing to follow Christ. Hence one needs to Watch Your Step When You Go to the House of the Lord for it is therein that one encounters the One who knows you better than you know yourself, the One who you are to serve and obey, the One who will help as He wills. Furthermore, within the house of the Lord one is confronted with the most serious of dangers—sin—and the most horrific thing to ever had happened—humanity’s responsibility for the crucifixion. Additionally, one is presented with truth as a way of life which involves a perennial struggle vis-à-vis the world.

Barnett’s compendium of select discourses and writings is an invaluable resource in these contemporary times as it gives voice to Kierkegaard’s timeless call for one to be authentically true to oneself and to the call to relationship with God, calls which are all too frequently muted by false and non-satiating secular promises and ecclesial triumphalism and hubris. When confronted with the choice between the temporal and God, choose God and allow love to “upbuild” (I Corinthians 8:1).