An Examination of the Use of Parables in the Works of Kierkegaard Russell Hamer Marquette University

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

An Examination of the Use of Parables in the Works of Kierkegaard Russell Hamer Marquette University Marquette University e-Publications@Marquette Dissertations (2009 -) Dissertations, Theses, and Professional Projects The aP rable As Mirror: An Examination of the Use of Parables in the Works of Kierkegaard Russell Hamer Marquette University Recommended Citation Hamer, Russell, "The aP rable As Mirror: An Examination of the Use of Parables in the Works of Kierkegaard" (2018). Dissertations (2009 -). 768. https://epublications.marquette.edu/dissertations_mu/768 THE PARABLE AS MIRROR: AN EXAMINATION OF THE USE OF PARABLES IN THE WORKS OF KIERKEGAARD by Russell Hamer A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School, Marquette University, in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Milwaukee, Wisconsin May 2018 ABSTRACT THE PARABLE AS MIRROR: AN EXAMINATION OF THE USE OF PARABLES IN THE WORKS OF KIERKEGAARD Russell Hamer Marquette University, 2018 This dissertation focuses on an exploration of the use of parables in the works of Soren Kierkegaard. While some work has been done on Kierkegaard’s poetic style, very little attention has been paid to his metaphors, despite their prevalent use in his works. Much of the scholarship instead treats his parables as mere examples of philosophical concepts. In this work, I argue that Kierkegaard’s parables function primarily to cause the reader to see him or herself truly. The parables work like mirrors, reflecting our true selves back onto ourself. In this way, the parables prompt Kierkegaard’s readers to overcome the illusion of Christendom and to instead recognize the requirements that authentic Christianity places upon them. My dissertation begins with an examination of the purpose that Kierkegaard saw for his authorship. By focusing on his later works, I argue that Kierkegaard primarily wanted to bring the religious forward in his readers. He thought that in order to accomplish this he needed to start with works describing the life that he thought most of his readers lived, a life of pleasure seeking, and to slowly move them towards the religious. I then present Kierkegaard’s view of what Christianity essentially consists of, subjectivity, and of the style of communication that is tied to subjectivity. Kierkegaard claims that when communicating subjective truths that we must employ an indirect style. I go on to argue that parables very much fit into this style and that they work to cause tension on the part of the reader. The reader of the parable must choose between various competing interpretations that the parable presents, and in choosing how to interpret the parable, the reader reveals and discloses him or herself. I follow this up with an examination of a number of parables from different works of Kierkegaard, showing how they function in this manner. I end by arguing that Kierkegaard’s parables are designed to function like mirrors, revealing ourselves to us. i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are many individuals who have helped and supported me in my endeavor to attain a Ph.D., and I’d like to thank a few of them. I’d first like to thank my parents and my grandparents for always encouraging me, both within and outside of my studies, to pursue my interests and try my hardest. Your collective support has helped to shape me into the person that I am today. Next, I’d like to thank Michael Futch for instilling in me a passion for philosophy and for always pushing me to improve as a thinker. I’d also like to thank Jacob Howland for introducing me to Kierkegaard and engendering my love of his works. I’d like to thank Noel Adams, my advisor, for his insight into Kierkegaard and his help in sharpening my ability to be a good reader of Kierkegaard. I’d also like to thank Javier Ibanez, Stanley Harrison, Theresa Tobin, James South, Susanne Foster, and all the other members of the Marquette Philosophy Department for the time and energy that they’ve invested in me. I’d like to thank Amelia Zurcher for her tireless work on this project. Her ability to transform my ill-formed words into clear, understandable statements has undoubtedly improved this work and has made a lasting impression on my writing. Without her help, this project would never have been completed. Last, I’d like to thank my wife, whose love, support, and ability to pay the bills has made this all possible. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………………..i ABBREVIATIONS………………………………………………………………………iv CHAPTER INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………...1 I. Kierkegaard the Religious Critic………………………………………………13 1.1 Everyone’s a Christian So No One’s a Christian……..………….16 1.2 With All Your Power, What Would You Do?…………………...34 1.3 Who Gets Saved From Tonight’s Elimination?………………….44 II. Kierkegaard the Illusionist……………………………………………………48 2.1 Is The Earth Not Round?……………………………….………..50 2.2 Speak if You Have Understanding………………………………61 2.3 To Believe or Not To Believe………………………...………….75 III. Kierkegaard the Poet…………………………………………………………92 3.1 Soothesaying Through Poetry………………………………...….94 3.2 Construct Additional Metaphors………………………..………105 3.3 The Power Level of Parables…………………………………...110 3.4 Come Now David, Where Has Uriah Gone?…………………...117 IV. Kierkegaard the Storyteller…………………………………………………124 4.1 Merman. MERMAN!....…………………………………….…..129 4.2 A Cinderella Story….……...……………………………..….....140 4.3 I Obey the Letter of the Law, if Not the Spirit………….…..….148 V. Kierkegaard the Metaphorical Mirror……………………………………….161 iii 5.1 Nobody Expects the Merman Parable!……………………..…..170 5.2 The Man in the Mirror……………………………….…………177 5.3 Through a Mirror, Darkly………………………………...…….186 5.4 Objects in Mirror are Closer Than They Appear………….……189 5.5 “I Deceived Her by Pretending I was a Deceiver”………..……196 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………....201 iv ABBREVIATIONS Throughout this dissertation, I use a number of abbreviations to refer to Kierkegaard’s works. Unless otherwise noted, the following abbreviations refer to the following works. Further information can be found in my bibliography. CD = Christian Discourses: The Crisis and a Crisis in the life of an Actress CUP = Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments E/O = Either/Or FT = Fear and Trembling ; Repetition FSE = For Self Examination ; Judge for Yourselves PF = Philosophical Fragments ; Johannes Climacus PIC = Practice in Christianity SUD = The Sickness Unto Death JP = Journals and Papers POV = The Point of View TD = Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions UDVS = Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits WOL = Works of Love 1 Introduction Kierkegaard is often praised for his poetic writing style. Throughout his works, especially his pseudonymous ones, Kierkegaard often breaks from philosophical prose and instead uses extended metaphors, fairy tales, parables, and allegories. This jarring change, which occurs quite often, is rarely explained by the pseudonyms. If these parables are supposed to teach something to the reader, one would expect the teaching to be outlined by the author. My project will examine the place of the parable in Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous works in order to uncover why Kierkegaard uses them in a broad sense, but I will also show how some of the individual parables function within their respective works. In examining this issue, I will put forth an argument explaining why Kierkegaard must remain secretive about the purpose of the parables and how this secrecy plays an important role in Kierkegaard’s authorship. It’s quite common for philosophers to use metaphors or analogies in their works. A good metaphor can help explain a complicated concept by referring the audience to a concept that is already understood. Aristotle’s classic example of Achilles describes him as “rushing like a lion”. This metaphor tells us much about the way that Achilles ran into battle. Though the description of his battle charge would not be complicated to describe without metaphor, the use of the lion metaphor explains the situation to the reader and thus simplifies the problem of understanding. The use of metaphor in this manner is quite commonplace, and indeed much of our language is inherently metaphorical. Yet, in these situations, the metaphor functions as an explanation that seeks to simplify the task of understanding. Metaphors also act as examples quite often. In order to explain a concept, one might refer to a metaphorical example as a way to elucidate the idea. 2 Despite the commonality of metaphors and analogies in philosophical works, parables are a little rarer.1 We see parables in the works of Plato quite a bit, but the parabolic form never quite caught on for philosophy as a discipline. However, Kierkegaard uses parables so prolifically that Oden was able to select the best ones and publish an entire book just consisting of Kierkegaard’s parables. This curiosity alone makes the question of Kierkegaard’s parables worth investigating, but the issue becomes much more pronounced when one examines the problem of indirect communication. Kierkegaard, in many of his writings, was concerned with the way in which certain truths could be communicated. He claimed that there were some things that could not be communicated directly, but instead required indirect communication. Given that he finds this important, and that there are a number of clues throughout his works that he is trying to indirectly communicate with his readers, it is of much importance to recognize the effect and purpose of the parables that Kierkegaard has strewn throughout his works. In order to see how these parables function in Kierkegaard’s corpus, we will also need to examine the purpose that he saw for his authorship. In The Point of View, we see Kierkegaard looking back on his works and describing his goals as an author. He claims that he was trying to turn people into Christians. He doesn’t do this by arguing for the truths of Christianity, but rather by trying to turn individuals inward and to cause each individual reader to seek redemption in Christ.
Recommended publications
  • Notes Definition: a Parable Is a Story Which Indirectly Points to a Truth (Earthly Story with a Heavenly (Kingdom of God) Meaning
    Notes Definition: A parable is a story which indirectly points to a truth (earthly story with a heavenly (Kingdom of God) meaning. With Jesus, he is teaching about a way of living, being in a kingdom, that can be chosen, that has no territory except where God’s sovereignty and will is honored. His stories provide insights, stimulate the conscience, and move one to action. They are concise and marked by simplicity (never more than two persons or groups in the same scene, like in Hebrew stories). Sometimes they reverse one’s expectations (just as God’s way is different from our way). They arise in a context so that they speak to the situation. Occasionally, they are grouped together for greater impact (e.g., the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost sons). They reflect the agenda of the gospel, and they are in the synoptic gospels and none in John. Interpretation: Hear them as stories from an oral culture, note their construction, consider the “gaps,” determine the function in the life and teachings of Jesus. Different parables: Parable of the sower (a parable about parables or the message of Jesus—importance in proclamation and the response) Three points: The kingdom is a kingdom of the word. The parable calls for attention and a reorientation of one’s life. The kingdom is presently at work—harvest is now and ahead. The unforgiving servant—the forgiveness of God must be replicated in the lives of the forgiven. (Similar to Luke 7—story told to Simon the Pharisee about the two who owed money, 1 one 500 pieces of silver and another 50.
    [Show full text]
  • Protect the State. Protect the Religion. an Analytical Approach to The
    Protect the State. Protect the Religion. An Analytical Approach to the Political Use of Religion in Denmark and The United States of America. Line Kristensen Master in English Torben Ditlevsen Aalborg University Master’s Thesis May 31st, 2018 . Kristensen 2 Table of Content 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................. 3 2. THEORY ............................................................................................................................................................... 5 2.1 MAX WEBER ...................................................................................................................................................... 5 2.2. PETER BERGER .................................................................................................................................................. 5 2.3. THREE LEVELS OF SECULARISATION .................................................................................................................. 8 2.4. LARRY SHINER’S SIX TYPES OF SECULARISATION ............................................................................................ 10 2.5. WOODHEAD AND DAVIE .................................................................................................................................. 12 2.6. STEVE BRUCE ................................................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia Religions : Ancient and Modern
    RELIGION OF ANCIENT SCANDINAVIA LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO RELIGIONS ANCIENT AND MODERN THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT SCANDINAVIA RELIGIONS : ANCIENT AND MODERN. ANIMISM. By EDWARD CLODD, Author of The Story of Creation. PANTHEISM. By JAMES ALLAN SON PICTON, Author of The Religion of the universe. THE RELIGIONS OF ANCIENT CHINA. By Professor GILES, LL.D., Professor of Chinese in the University of Cambridge. THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT GREECE. By JANE HARRISON, Lecturer at Newnham College, Cambridge, Author of Prolegomena to Study of Greek Religion. ISLAM. By AMEER An SYED, M.A., C.I.E., late of H.M.'s High Court of Judicature in Bengal, Author of The Spirit of Iflam and The Ethics of Islam. MAGIC AND FETISHISM. By Dr. A. C. H ADDON, F.R.S., Lecturer on Ethnology at Cam- bridge University. THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT EGYPT. By Professor W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE, F.R.S. THE RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. By THEOPHILUS G. PINCHES, late of the British Museum. EARLY BUDDHISM. By Professor RHYS DAVIDS, LL.D., late Secretary of The Royal Asiatic Society. HINDUISM. By Dr. L. D. BAR NEXT, of the Department of Oriental Printed Books and MSS. , British Museum. SCANDINAVIAN RELIGION. By WILLIAM A. CRAIGIE, Joint Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. CELTIC RELIGION. By Professor ANWYL, Professor of Welsh at University College, Aberystwyth. THE MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. By CHARLES SQUIRE, Author of The Mythology of the British Islands. JUDAISM By ISRAEL ABRAHAMS, Lecturer in Talmudic Literature in Cambridge University, Author of Jewish Life in the Middle Ages.
    [Show full text]
  • 10 Fallacies and Examples Pdf
    10 fallacies and examples pdf Continue A: It is imperative that we promote adequate means to prevent degradation that would jeopardize the project. Man B: Do you think that just because you use big words makes you sound smart? Shut up, loser; You don't know what you're talking about. #2: Ad Populum: Ad Populum tries to prove the argument as correct simply because many people believe it is. Example: 80% of people are in favor of the death penalty, so the death penalty is moral. #3. Appeal to the body: In this erroneous argument, the author argues that his argument is correct because someone known or powerful supports it. Example: We need to change the age of drinking because Einstein believed that 18 was the right age of drinking. #4. Begging question: This happens when the author's premise and conclusion say the same thing. Example: Fashion magazines do not harm women's self-esteem because women's trust is not damaged after reading the magazine. #5. False dichotomy: This misconception is based on the assumption that there are only two possible solutions, so refuting one decision means that another solution should be used. It ignores other alternative solutions. Example: If you want better public schools, you should raise taxes. If you don't want to raise taxes, you can't have the best schools #6. Hasty Generalization: Hasty Generalization occurs when the initiator uses too small a sample size to support a broad generalization. Example: Sally couldn't find any cute clothes in the boutique and couldn't Maura, so there are no cute clothes in the boutique.
    [Show full text]
  • Workers in the Vineyard
    Workers in the Vineyard This parable (Mt 20:1-16) is about several workers who are hired by a land owner, over different periods of time. In the evening, the workers who are hired first expect to be paid more than those hired later. But the owner pays all of the workers equally. Land Owner: Most of the productive land was held by large-scale elite owners. From the First Temple period through the Second, a pronounced shift in the patterns of land tenure took place, shifting from smallholders producing the Mediterranean triad of grain, grapes and olives for subsistence to large estates orientated to large-scale production and export crops. The owner in this parable is one of the wealthy sub-elites who owned large estates and converted the land to viticulture dedicated to the production of export crops. Laborers: The social order consisted of a patron-and-client society of unequal relationships with the estate owners assuming the role of patrons and those who have lost the land becoming their clients. In such a relationship the client’s wellbeing is determined by the closeness of rapport he maintains with the patron. The landless laborers in the parable did not belong to the ambit of such a relationship. They were outside of any assured protection and regular work opportunity and, hence, more vulnerable to be deprived of their basic wages even on rare occasions when they found a work to do. Early workers: The working hours of the Israelites were 12 and was counted from 6:00 A.M.
    [Show full text]
  • Eden, Just Not Ours Yet: on Parable of the Trickster and Utopia
    Marquette University e-Publications@Marquette English Faculty Research and Publications English, Department of 1-2019 Eden, Just Not Ours Yet: On Parable of the Trickster and Utopia Gerry Canavan Marquette University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://epublications.marquette.edu/english_fac Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Canavan, Gerry, "Eden, Just Not Ours Yet: On Parable of the Trickster and Utopia" (2019). English Faculty Research and Publications. 533. https://epublications.marquette.edu/english_fac/533 1 Gerry Canavan (Associate Professor, Marquette University) [email protected] // 414-899-7799 Eden, Just Not Ours Yet: On Parable of the Trickster and Utopia The last chapter of Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Talents (1998) sees an aged Lauren Olamina in 2090, surrounded by several of her most devoted disciples at the launch of the first Earthseed mission, the beginning of the extrasolar colonization project to which she has devoted her entire adult life. We are told very early on in Parable of the Sower (1993), when Olamina is still a young teenager, that “The Destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars” (Butler Sower 85)—and by the end of Talents that dream seems to have been achieved, though it has personally cost Olamina nearly everything else in her life, including her daughter, her husband, her brother, and her personal safety. She herself is now much too old to go on such a mission, a Moses permanently denied her own Promised Land—though she imagines her ashes someday being brought to one of the Earthseed colonies after her death.
    [Show full text]
  • Parable of the Sower Created by Toshi Reagon and Bernice Johnson Reagon
    Octavia E. Butler’s Parable Of The Sower Created By Toshi Reagon and Bernice Johnson Reagon WHAT TO KNOW BEFORE THE SHOW Design for Sharing Demonstration Performance UCLA Royce Hall March 6, 2020 ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE The company is a unique collective of artists whose Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower Created by Toshi Reagon and Bernice Johnson Reagon Based on the novels Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler, this genre-defying work of theater features a powerhouse ensemble of 20 singers, actors, and musicians. It harnesses 200 years of black musical tradition to bring Butler’s acclaimed science fiction books to life in song. Written by singer, composer and producer Toshi Reagon in collaboration with her mother, Bernice Johnson Rea- gon (song leader, composer, scholar, social activist, and founder of Sweet Honey in the Rock), Parable of the Sower is a mesmerizing theatrical work of rare power and beauty. At this special performance for youth audiences, Toshi and members of the cast will perform selected songs from the production, as well as other songs connected to the themes of community and social action. About the Creators Toshi Reagon is a versatile singer-songwriter and producer, drawing on the traditions of uniquely American mu- sic: rock, blues, R&B, country, folk, spirituals and funk. Toshi has been performing since she was 17 years old. Her career really launched when Lenny Kravitz chose her, straight out of college, to open for him on his first world tour. Some of Toshi’s proudest moments include playing for her godfather Pete Seeger’s 90th birthday cele- bration at Madison Square Garden, and performing with the Freedom Singers at the White House, in a tribute to the music of the civil rights movement.
    [Show full text]
  • Fallaciesposter16x24.Pdf
    Misrepresenting someone’s argument to make it easier Presuming that a real or perceived relationship between Manipulating an emotional response in place of a valid or Presuming a claim to be necessarily wrong because a to attack. things means that one is the cause of the other. compelling argument. fallacy has been committed. By exaggerating, misrepresenting, or just completely fabricating someone's Many people confuse correlation (things happening together or in sequence) Appeals to emotion include appeals to fear, envy, hatred, pity, guilt, and more. It is entirely possibly to make a claim that is false yet argue with logical argument, it's much easier to present your own position as being reasonable, for causation (that one thing actually causes the other to happen). Sometimes Though a valid, and reasoned, argument may sometimes have an emotional coherency for that claim, just as is possible to make a claim that is true and but this kind of dishonesty serves to undermine rational debate. correlation is coincidental, or it may be attributable to a common cause. aspect, one must be careful that emotion doesn’t obscure or replace reason. justify it with various fallacies and poor arguments. After Will said that we should put more money into health and education, Pointing to a fancy chart, Roger shows how temperatures have been rising over Luke didn’t want to eat his sheep’s brains with chopped liver and brussels Recognising that Amanda had committed a fallacy in arguing that we should Warren responded by saying that he was surprised that Will hates our country the past few centuries, whilst at the same time the numbers of pirates have sprouts, but his father told him to think about the poor, starving children in a eat healthy food because a nutritionist said it was popular, Alyse said we so much that he wants to leave it defenceless by cutting military spending.
    [Show full text]
  • KIERKEGAARD and HOW HE CAN CHALLENGE US TODAY March, 30, 2014 Andrés Roberto Albertsen
    1 KIERKEGAARD AND HOW HE CAN CHALLENGE US TODAY March, 30, 2014 Andrés Roberto Albertsen 1) Some biographical data Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was born May 5, 1813, Copenhagen, Denmark, as the youngest of seven children of the second marriage of his father. He died November 11, 1855, Copenhagen. The story of his life is a drama in four overlapping acts, each with its own distinctive crisis or “collision.” His father, Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard, was a prosperous but retired businessman who devoted the later years of his life to raising his children. He was a man of deep guilt-ridden piety who was tormented by the memory of having once cursed God as a boy and of having begun his family by getting his maid pregnant—and then marrying her— shortly after the death of his first wife. His domineering presence stimulated young Søren’s imaginative and intellectual gifts but, as his son would later bear witness, he made a normal childhood impossible. Kierkegaard enrolled at the University of Copenhagen in 1830 but did not complete his studies until 1841. He entered university in order to study theology but devoted himself to literature and philosophy instead. His thinking during this period is revealed in an 1835 journal entry (by the way, Kierkegaard was a prolific writer of personal journals and they have all been published), which is often cited as containing the germ and initial form of his later work: “The thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die.…What is truth but to live for an idea?” The first collision of Kierkegaard’s life occurred during his student days: he became estranged both from his father and from the faith in which he had 2 been brought up, and he moved out of the family home.
    [Show full text]
  • Ockham's Razor, Truth, and Information
    Ockham's Razor, Truth, and Information Kevin T. Kelly Department of Philosophy Carnegie Mellon University [email protected] March 11, 2008 Abstract In science, one faces the problem of selecting the true theory from a range of al- ternative theories. The typical response is to select the simplest theory compatible with available evidence, on the authority of \Ockham's Razor". But how can a ¯xed bias toward simplicity help one ¯nd possibly complex truths? A short survey of standard answers to this question reveals them to be either wishful, circular, or irrelevant. A new explanation is presented, based on minimizing the reversals of opinion prior to convergence to the truth. According to this alternative approach, Ockham's razor does not inform one which theory is true but is, nonetheless, the uniquely most e±cient strategy for arriving at the true theory, where e±ciency is a matter of minimizing reversals of opinion prior to ¯nding the true theory. 1 Introduction Suppose that several or even in¯nitely many theories are compatible with the infor- mation available. How ought one to choose among them, if at all? The traditional and intuitive answer is to choose the \simplest" and to cite Ockham's razor by way of justi¯cation. Simplicity, in turn, has something to do with minimization of entities, de- scription length, causes, free parameters, independent principlies, or ad hoc hypotheses, or maximization of unity, uniformity, symmetry, testability, or explanatory power. Insofar as Ockham's razor is widely regarded as a rule of scienti¯c inference, it should help one to select the true theory from among the alternatives.
    [Show full text]
  • The Irrational Atheist
    Praise for The Irrational Atheist “In a day when too few of the recently published ‘New Atheists’ get hoisted on their own petard, it is gratifying to see Vox Day undertake that assign- ment with warmth and enthusiasm.” —DOUGLAS WILSON , Christianity Today “Vox Day frags the New Atheism movement with the kind of logic and fact that Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, and Onfray only claim to use. The impor- tant factor is that Day makes his challenging assertions without faith-based cross-waving.” —DR. JOHNNY WILSON , Editor-in-Chief, Computer Gaming World “The Vox is in the henhouse, with the scent of Dawkins’s blood in his nos- trils and a mouthful of Hitchens’s feathers! Harris, alas, doesn’t make it out of the book alive and the emergency team is still waiting to see if Dawkins will pull through after receiving one of the most visceral literary lobotomies ever inflicted in publishing. In the culture wars between New Atheism and The Rest of the World, The Irrational Atheist is ‘must-read’ material.” —IAN WISHART , Investigate Magazine “Day’s work is a healthy kick in the head to the comfortably numb. Using their own claims against them, he uses logic, reason, and rhetoric to reveal that atheists are the new fanatics, and that we should all—religious or ir- religious—be very wary of their schemes. G. K. Chesterton once remarked that without God, there would be no atheists; Day updates this by showing how atheism itself is an evolutionary dead-end. A provocative, gutsy, and in-your-face book, but eminently enjoyable reading.” —REA D MERCER SCHUCHAR D T , Assistant Professor of Communication, Wheaton College “In The Irrational Atheist, Vox Day plays the card that the atheists consid- er their trump—reason—against them in a devastating and highly enter- taining manner.
    [Show full text]
  • Paul C. Warhurst Phd Thesis
    ARTFUL LIVING AND THE ERADICATION OF WORRY IN SØREN KIERKEGAARD’S INTERPRETATION OF MATTHEW 6:24-34 Paul C. Warhurst A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of St. Andrews 2011 Full metadata for this item is available in Research@StAndrews:FullText at: http://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/ Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3161 This item is protected by original copyright UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS ST MARY’S COLLEGE † ARTFUL LIVING AND THE ERADICATION OF WORRY IN SØREN KIERKEGAARD’S INTERPRETATION OF MATTHEW 6:24-34 A THESIS SUBMITTED BY PAUL C. WARHURST TO THE FACULTY OF DIVINITY IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY St Andrews, Scotland December, 2010 i DECLARATIONS 1. Candidate’s declarations: I, Paul Warhurst, hereby certify that this thesis, which is approximately 79,000 words in length, has been written by me, that it is the record of work carried out by me and that it has not been submitted in any previous application for a higher degree. I was admitted as a research student in September, 2006 and as a candidate for the degree of PhD Divinity in August, 2007; the higher study for which this is a record was carried out in the University of St Andrews between 2006 and 2010. Date _______ signature of candidate _______________ 2. Supervisor’s declaration: I hereby certify that the candidate has fulfilled the conditions of the Resolution and Regulations appropriate for the degree of PhD Divinity in the University of St Andrews and that the candidate is qualified to submit this thesis in application for that degree.
    [Show full text]