A Summary, Analysis and Discussion of Søren Kierkegaard, Training in Christianity

The book Integrative approaches to psychology and Christianity second edition by David Entwistle introduces the text by explaining how psychology can go in a direction, and Christian theology approach can lead in a different direction. He continued by stating the need for understanding and studying human behavior because people come from different walks of life and different expectations. It leads us to form unique perspectives to help give us an understanding of the individuals you encounter. The Entwistle 's book addresses the relationship between Christianity and culture, Christianity and science, and Christianity and psychology.

In regards to Christology from above, I agree that Faith in Christ is not contingent on rational proof. It seems absurd to me that theologians have tried to isolate and separate the proclamation of Christ from the historical account of His life as well as regarding the Book of John over the Synoptic Gospels for study. (Erickson, 608) Christology from below asserts the need to study the kerygma with the historical record and to approach them in the same way as ordinary history and Wolfhart Pannenberg’s conclusion of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ had enough proof to be considered historical fact. Erickson’s Augustinian approach purports this model begins with faith, but it does not remain autonomous of reason. He proposes that faith and reason can work in conjunction on the concept that the more understanding the researcher receives toward the kerygmatic Christ, the more he will appreciate and incorporate additional historical research. (Erickson 614-615)

Jeffery L. Sheler talks about Jesus in the article, Who was Jesus, “Today, as in his own time, Jesus of Nazareth remains one of history's most intriguing and enigmatic figures”(7). Even today Jesus is known greatly, still influencing religion in a positive way. God is a very popular figure and he used that to influence what Jesus was preaching to us. An example that Jeffery L. Sheler has in the article, Who was Jesus, says, “His death, and the testimony of his followers that he arose from the dead, would change the course of history”(4). Jesus and his followers would change our history, which is our time period and that he did. Jesus changed the future of religion, but it also changed how people saw their own religion. Jeffery L. Sheler in the article, Who was Jesus says, ”Unembellished by nearly 2,000 years of church devotional tradition”(2). Some are still practicing the teachings that Jesus sent to us even if it was sent a long time ago. The devotional tradition means the tradition of the church with Jesus. Overall, the era that Jesus was born in and the time period right now was greatly affected by him because of all the people that Jesus influenced to learn the right way of

It is not good enough for Christian thought to teach about religious things or even to prescribe them; theology could do all this and still be thinking about them with a mind that has not yet been changed by Christ’s dying and rising. It is not so much thinking about theological topics that really constitutes theology, for distinguishable from this is the means by which the theological mind reflects.

Within the given extract Schleiermacher’s account of Christianity is outlined as well as discussions on why exactly he believes it to be the most successful form of religion. While the following essay will

Religion is a time old method used universally to express beliefs and help us understand some mysteries of life before time, in the present, and the future life, or afterlife. Although, it is not that simple to comprehend. Over time, it has morphed and evolved into ideas and traditions completely different from what was previously known and taught. One of the biggest changes of all time in religious history was brought about when Jesus Christ, Son of God, became flesh here on Earth. Not only did this bring change, but it also caused many conflicts and doubts. In the book On The Incarnation Saint Athanasius resolves some of these issues and heresies by providing counter arguments to prove Jesus’ full humanity and divinity. He discusses

Known as the father of modern liberal theology, Friedrich Schleiermacher was a German theologian, philosopher and biblical scholar who focused his attention on the nature of religious experience from the viewpoint of the individual and human nature itself (Mariña 3). Influenced by German Romanticism, Schleiermacher attempted to reconcile the criticisms of the Enlightenment with traditional Protestant Christianity (Crouter 261). By doing so, he abandoned the pietistic Moravian theology that had failed to satisfy his increasing doubts and he adopted the rational spirit of Christian Wolff and Johann Salomo Semler. He then became acquainted with the techniques of historical criticism of the New Testament and of Johann Augustus Eberhard, from whom he acquired a love of the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. As a result, he began applying ideas from the Greek philosophers to a reconstruction of Immanuel Kant’s system (Mariña 3). On this basis, this essay articulate Friedrich Schleiermacher’s understanding of religion and its relationship to Christianity as described in Speech I: Defense and Speech II: The Nature of Religion of his work On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers. The essay will explore Schleiermacher’s rejection of various views of religion held by the despisers, explain his identification of the true religion with feeling and describe his view of the relationship between religion and Christianity.

He published many ardent attacks on the State Church and its pastors. As a philosopher, Kierkegaard emphasized individually experiencing reality over abstract thinking and not blindly accepting public sentiments. His religious writings often dealt with the hypocrisy he felt existed in the Denmark’s religious system. In 1854, Kierkegaard published a political journal titled The Fatherland, so he “might attain an approximation to preaching in the street.” Through his publication he asserted that “the Christianity of the New Testament simply does not exist.” He continued that “under the guise of perfecting Christianity” reformers throughout the ages have “cheat[ed] God out of Christianity” and made “Christianity exactly the opposite of what it is in the New Testament.” His writings and books were well known, although Kierkegaard himself was not a popular person. He spent a considerable amount of his own money printing tracts he had written. Kierkegaard spent several years at universities but never was an ordained

Kierkegaard personal life started with his father, his father was a poor boy and made his way to into a businessman and retired early. Kierkegaard learned the christen religion. He was a sad and his favorite play, written by Mozart, "Don Juan." His father death and his love for a woman will change him. He believes that with his father death god has given him hope. He believes that we should look for a higher power but follow our religion and believe. He believed that we must reflect and then find the higher power.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, the meaning of subjectivity of truth was another point of contention. Hegel derived his opinion from history, noting that each successive generation changed where their knowledge came from thus making it’s origin fluid and unabsolute. Kierkegaard derived his opinion from within, another point of existentialism, and thought that truth was something an individual must discuss from within and be wholly passionate with the decision. Nevertheless, both resulted in the conclusion that truth is not absolute, but Hegel regarded the Truths of humanity with prominence, while Kierkegaard conversely regarded the truths of an individual as much more

I hold this research topic to be not just of great scholarly interest as it comes to the study of these two authors: my opinion, is that such a dissertation could shed a different light on how we understand the Theo-Philosophical enterprise, underlying its necessary connection to life's broader context. Nietzsche and Kierkegaard can help us see the pursuit of a better rational understanding of religion, as well as of religious life and practices, not just as a curiosity but as a part of the exploration, crticism, strengthening of our existential commitments and

In Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, the concept of the Knight of Faith is an exalted one, a unique title awarded to those whose devotion to God goes far beyond what is even comprehensible or expected for the average man, who has an aesthetic or ethical life. We are told by Kierkegaard that this Knight of Faith, when in a situation where resignation appears to be the only solution to a problem, puts his faith in what appears to be the absurd, and believes that the solution that he desires lies in God. This fuels his faith, and makes him better than the aesthetic man, who simply abandons or ignores the problem, or the ethical man, the Knight of Infinite Resignation, who accepts the problem and resigns himself to a life of despair. The

Kierkegaard gives great insight into the story of Abraham and the absolute absurdness of the impossible relationship with God. “For in the temporal world God and I cannot talk together, we have no language in common” (Kierkegaard 30) and therefore the relationship with the eternal being is completely based on faith of the mortal. The recorded paradox that the eternal God would willingly become human to suffer, die and rise from the dead is illogical and absurd according to Kierkegaard stated in Dr. Ambrosio lecture. Furthermore the growing science of analytical thought and empirical method continue to drive a wedge between the divine being and the mortal being. The Greco-Roman worldview of senses and the scientific community of observation guides and directs the saint toward a more neutral and impersonal relationship, a complacent saint.

What makes Schelling set Christianity apart from other traditions is precisely its character of being a revealed religion. Mythology is a natural process like healing, and thus, argues Schelling, “[mythology] is a religion where no productive role is given to the deity as such.” Christianity, however, is another story. Thanks to God’s special act of revelation, Christianity is based on the full awareness of God according to his spirituality, and bears what mythologies lack. In other words, all the traditional symbols of Christianity and their dogmatic expositions stand as representations of an image of God where the three potencies are reconciled as One. Hence, while the birth of Christianity is not the last development of the relationship between God and humanity, in Christianity the theogonical process comes to an end in that after it there is no further progression in the development of our images of God. Christian representations of God are ‘perfect’, insofar as they do not lack anything in terms of opening a way for us to be conscious of God’s nature.

Kierkegaard Truth is indifferent because he describes three types of existence. Aesthetic, ethical, and the religious. Aesthetic is a person who is interested in pleasure and enjoyment as this is highest stages of existence. Ethical stage is a highest stage an individual can pledge to, and the religious stage is the highest stage of personal pledge. Inwardness involves the ethical, ethical-religious, and religious stages of being one major difference I noticed in the reading, between the objective and subjective realms, is in regards to 'being' versus 'becoming'. Kierkegaard stated the objective world is as it is: