Alexander, the hero of Tarkovsky’s film Sacrifice, picks up a dry tree branch from the ground, st... more Alexander, the hero of Tarkovsky’s film Sacrifice, picks up a dry tree branch from the ground, sticks it in a cliff and starts narrating the following story to his son:
This paper aims to explore Kierkegaard's account of human nature through the study of the intrica... more This paper aims to explore Kierkegaard's account of human nature through the study of the intricate relationship between love and suffering in Kierkegaard's Upbuilding discourses of 1847. More specifically, focusing mainly on the Works of Love and on The Gospel of Sufferings, I intend to discern the way in which Kierkegaard delineates the path leading from suffering and despair to redemption and reconciliation, both between God and the human being and between humans. In Kierkegaard's thought love is pivotal in forcefully destroying pseudo-conceptions (idols) of the self, of God and of the human being, whilst setting free a form of inner existence that allows for the living God and the actual other-neighbor to burst on the scene. Faith, suffering, self-denial and sacrifice are therefore all important presuppositions of this miraculous and silent transformation of the self-Kierkegaard describes love as "infinite debt", a definition that might strike the reader as paradoxical. He provides us with an account of love as a debt that nurtures all that is dearest and highest in life, a debt which the person who has experienced true love would never wish to abolish. Love presents itself as a duty that liberates humanity from all deliberation, calculation and retribution, in short from the main features of its hitherto historical existence. Love is the unending 'moment' that leads us in the realm of true religiosity, where human and divine kenosis meet up so as to secretly and silently fulfill ever anew the messianic promise.
Alexander, the hero of Tarkovsky’s film Sacrifice, picks up a dry tree branch from the ground, st... more Alexander, the hero of Tarkovsky’s film Sacrifice, picks up a dry tree branch from the ground, sticks it in a cliff and starts narrating the following story to his son:
This paper aims to explore Kierkegaard's account of human nature through the study of the intrica... more This paper aims to explore Kierkegaard's account of human nature through the study of the intricate relationship between love and suffering in Kierkegaard's Upbuilding discourses of 1847. More specifically, focusing mainly on the Works of Love and on The Gospel of Sufferings, I intend to discern the way in which Kierkegaard delineates the path leading from suffering and despair to redemption and reconciliation, both between God and the human being and between humans. In Kierkegaard's thought love is pivotal in forcefully destroying pseudo-conceptions (idols) of the self, of God and of the human being, whilst setting free a form of inner existence that allows for the living God and the actual other-neighbor to burst on the scene. Faith, suffering, self-denial and sacrifice are therefore all important presuppositions of this miraculous and silent transformation of the self-Kierkegaard describes love as "infinite debt", a definition that might strike the reader as paradoxical. He provides us with an account of love as a debt that nurtures all that is dearest and highest in life, a debt which the person who has experienced true love would never wish to abolish. Love presents itself as a duty that liberates humanity from all deliberation, calculation and retribution, in short from the main features of its hitherto historical existence. Love is the unending 'moment' that leads us in the realm of true religiosity, where human and divine kenosis meet up so as to secretly and silently fulfill ever anew the messianic promise.
Uploads
Papers by Vasia Tsakiri