The Passion of Possibility : : Studies on Kierkegaard's Post-metaphysical Theology / / Ingolf U. Dalferth.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DG Plus DeG Package 2023 Part 1
• VerfasserIn: Dalferth, Ingolf U.,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin ;, Boston : : De Gruyter, , [2023]; ©2023
• Year of Publication: 2023
• Language: English
• Series: Kierkegaard Studies. Monograph Series , 48
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (XIV, 269 p.)

For Kierkegaard the most important thing in life is to become a single individual or a true self. We are all born as human beings, but this makes us only members of a crowd, not true selves. To become a true self, we must transcend what we are at any given time and orient ourselves to the possible and to the actuality of the possible, to which all that is possible owes itself. True selves exist only in becoming, they are fragile, and that is their strength. They are not grounded by their own activities, but in a reality extra se, the flip side of which is a deep passivity that underlies all their activity and allows them to continually leave themselves and move beyond their respective actualities toward the new and the possible. Therefore, without the passion of possibility, there is no truly single individual. This study of Kierkegaard's post-metaphysical theology outlines his existential phenomenology of the self by exploring in three parts what Kierkegaard has to say about the sense of self (finitude, uniqueness, self-interpretation, and alienation), about selfless passion (anxiety, trust, hope, and true love), and about how to become a true self (a Christian in Christendom and a neighbor of God's neighbors).

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Preface -- Contents -- Abbreviations -- Part I: The sense of self -- 1 From the anthropological to the existential turn -- 2 A synthesis of the finite and the infinite -- 3 The single individual -- 4 Situated selves in “webs of interlocution” -- 5 Self, finitude and estrangement -- Part II: Selfless passion -- 1 Anxiety and the possibility of being able -- 2 Trust and trust in God -- 3 Hope for the possibility of the good -- 4 True love -- Part III: The true self -- 1 Becoming a Christian -- 2 Becoming a Christian in Christendom -- 3 Kierkegaard’s ethics of distinction -- Bibliography -- Internet-links -- Index of names -- Index of subjects