Abstract
This is a book that has needed to be written by someone for a long time. It is an immense privilege that the certain ‘someone’ who has stepped in to fill this scholarly lacuna is Lee C. Barrett. Barrett has established himself as one of the most theologically astute, attentive, and perceptive interpreters of Kierkegaard. In this work, as in others, he demonstrates himself to be the sort of reader, and thinker, of whom Kierkegaard was in search. The resonances between Augustine and Kierkegaard have been discerned, suspected, and speculated upon by many readers of Kierkegaard, but Barrett’s incisive book is the most authoritative, and, at over four hundred pages, sustained, monographic study of their relationship.
Following a lucid and reflective Introduction on the perceptions of Kierkegaard’s relation to Augustine, Barrett’s book proceeds in two parts. Part One, ‘Setting the Stage: Two Pilgrims on the Way Home’ is comprised of three substantial chapters which explore the historical question of Kierkegaard’s sources and reception of Augustine’s thought. Even more extensive, ‘Part Two Signposts in the Journey: Specific Theological Intersections of Augustine and Kierkegaard’ involves six chapters and a conclusion which examine the thematic relationship between these thinkers. This brilliant exposition is articulated under the conditions of part one: that the view of Augustine, which Kierkegaard inherited was bifurcated between the impassioned confessional individual (whom he embraced) and the speculative metaphysician (whom, like the Hegelians, he reproached). Had his Augustine been closer to the rhetorical Augustine of contemporary scholarship, might Kierkegaard have embraced him more completely?
Ultimately, Barrett contends that while the juxtapositions between Kierkegaard and Augustine are pertinent, there is a far stronger, though under-appreciated, consistency and parallelism between their thought. Barrett skilfully elaborates this parallelism while also attending to the important divergences between two thinkers, whom he appositely describes as stationed at the dawn and twilight of Christendom (p. 25). As the title suggests, the notions of Eros and Kenosis epitomise the synchronicity Barrett discerns between Augustine and Kierkegaard’s theology. This is especially borne out in the pilgrimage of longing for a God who has already gifted Godself: a pilgrim’s way which is also the journey towards transparency of selfhood. In its erudition and lucidity, Barrett’s exceptional book casts brilliant light on two companions on this road.