Friday, April 01, 2005

Kierkegaard on Systematic Theology

It seems that the Danish writer/philospher Soren Kierkegaard and I are on the same page when it comes to that insidious evil known only as "systematic theology." Here's a quote from the introduction of the book Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard:
Kierkegaard stands against every form of thinking that bypasses the individual or enables the individual to escape his responsibility before God. He also made an absolute demand that "idea" should be translated into existence (being and doing), which is exactly what his contemporaries, in his opinion, failed to do: "Most systematizers stand in the same relation to their systems as the man who builds a great castle and lives in an adjoining shack; they do not live in their great systematic structure. But in spiritual matters this will always be a crucial objection. Metaphorically speaking, a person's ideas must be the building he lives in--otherwise there is something terribly wrong."

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