Works of Love (Kierkegaard's Writings, Volume 16)

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Works of Love (Kierkegaard's Writings, Volume 16)

by Søren Kierkegaard, Howard Vincent Hong (Editor), Edna Hatlestad Hong ((Editor))

4.38 of 5 stars 4.38 · rating details · 670 ratings · 57 reviews

The various kinds and conditions of love are a common theme for Kierkegaard, beginning with his early "Either/Or," through "The Diary of the Seducer" and Judge William's eulogy on married love, to his last work, on the changelessness of God's love. "Works of Love," the midpoint in the series, is also the monumental high point, because of its penetrating, illuminating analy...more

Paperback, 576 pages

Published March 23rd 1998 by Princeton University Press (first published 1946)

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Apr 26, 2013 David Lentz rated it 5 of 5 stars

In his genius Kierkegaard wants us to know that by “works of love” he is describing the rigor of being a loving Christian. Kierkegaard advises that God wants us to love our neighbors, which Kierkegaard considers God’s “royal law.” Kierkegaard stresses this point three times with the emphasis on three different points: YOU shall love your neighbor. You SHALL LOVE your neighbor. You shall love YOUR NEIGHBOR. But who is your neighbor? Your neighbor is anyone whom you see. Your neighbor lives next t...more In his genius Kierkegaard wants us to know that by “works of love” he is describing the rigor of being a loving Christian. Kierkegaard advises that God wants us to love our neighbors, which Kierkegaard considers God’s “royal law.” Kierkegaard stresses this point three times with the emphasis on three different points: YOU shall love your neighbor. You SHALL LOVE your neighbor. You shall love YOUR NEIGHBOR. But who is your neighbor? Your neighbor is anyone whom you see. Your neighbor lives next to you. He is a homeless man in the street. Your neighbor collectively is humanity. So how shall we love our neighbor? Kierkegaard believes that in his words: “Love builds up.” By this he means that love is a constructive spiritual force working for humanity in our universe. The opposite of love tears down, deconstructs and destroys. So a loving person builds up his neighbor and in doing so strengthens both himself and his neighbor, as well as their community. This continuous method of conducting yourself every day in the best interests of your neighbor may be considered “eccentric” by many of your neighbors. You are expected by your neighbors always to act of out of self-interest. But it is by conducting yourself as a loving person by acting in the best interest of others that you achieve integrity and integrity has a positive power of its own. Through self-renunciation one gives up oneself to gain one’s own soul -- very gnostic. K. says that we should, however, not conduct ourselves with love with the expectation that it will be reciprocated because then this act of love simply becomes another expression of self-interest. “Love seeks not its own,” he advises us. Kierkegaard says that love believes all things and yet is never deceived. We are not deceived by our works of love because an omniscient God sees them and expects them no matter what other people may think. This is the height of understanding and can never be perceived as leaving you a victim of deception because God is love and God knows what you’re doing when you love your neighbor: an omniscient God cannot be deceived. Love hides the multiplicity of sin. This recognizes that sin has a natural tendency to have a multiplying effect on other people, including you. But you do not need to add to the effects of a sin. You often have an opportunity to prevent its damage from multiplying and spreading to create more damage. When a loving person sees an opportunity to keep sin from multiplying he or she can seek to prevent its multiplicity. How? You can through your own love offer forgiveness. Kierkegaard writes: “Christianity’s view is: forgiveness is forgiveness; your forgiveness is your forgiveness; your forgiveness of another is your own forgiveness: the forgiveness that you give you also receive… If honestly before God you wholeheartedly forgive your enemy, then you dare to hope for your own forgiveness.” You can also prevent the multiplicity of sin through your own love when you offer mercy. You can act through love not to make matters worse. If you are a victor over an adversary, then you can build up your adversary. When you love your adversary in this way, then you construct a bridge for both of you to build up an enduring relationship based upon love. Is there a neighbor whom you cannot love or forgive or offer mercy? If so, why is that so? Perhaps, you harbor illusions about why you consider that neighbor unworthy of your love, forgiveness and mercy. Kierkegaard writes:” You can expect good from even the lowest fellow, for it is still possible that his baseness is an illusion.” As a homeless man, Kierkegaard knew this truth from his own experience. "Christianly understood, loving is loving the very person one sees." “Christian love teaches love of all men, unconditionally all.” You can offer love, forgiveness and mercy to your neighbor because God is your omniscient partner, your co-worker, and God is love. Mercy and forgiveness are works of love. "They are the ways that love conducts itself." Rather than argue to God for self-interest “the lover who forgets himself is remembered by love. There is One who thinks of him in God and in this way it comes about that the lover gets what he gives.” So is hope, which is to pray for the best possible result for your neighbor -- whose future is unseen and in jeopardy: this is the divine use of hope and it is a work of love. God knows what to do: leave God's business to God. Only a loving person hopes because hope is "a faith in the possibility of the good... Blessed is the man of faith: he believes what he cannot see. Blessed is the lover: he believes away what he can see.” Kierkegaard advises that the work of love of remembering one who is dead is a work of the most unselfish love. A proof of human love is that it abides. When loves abides within you, then you know that you are experiencing love within the context of God’s view of time. God’s view of time is one that looks toward eternity: infinitising the moment. And “love is the flower of eternity.” Love is the most powerful force on earth and "it is God who put love in man." Kierkegaard also wrote “Fear and Trembling” about the miraculous faith of Abraham when he understood that God wanted him to sacrifice his beloved son as a proof of faith. In his faith Abraham became father of three of the world’s great religions. Kierkegaard quotes Paul on love in 1st Corinthians: 13 – “Love is patient…Love does not insist on its own way… Love does not rejoice at wrong… Love bears all things. Love believes all things… Love hopes all things… Love endures all things.” God is love. “Beloved, let us love one another.” Because to love human beings is still the only thing worth living for.(less)

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Feb 15, 2013 Daniel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I finished Kierkegaard's text yesterday (Valentine's Day), the forwards today . . . if you care to know.

Though only about 350 pages, Works of Love is not easy reading. Well, I suppose it's easy in a way. There aren't many difficult concepts to grasp and in that way it's certainly not like The Concept of Anxiety. But the work seems long because Kierkegaard belabours certain points, points he no doubt believes essential, such as the neighbour, the difference between Christian and pagan love, and G...more I finished Kierkegaard's text yesterday (Valentine's Day), the forwards today . . . if you care to know.

Though only about 350 pages, Works of Love is not easy reading. Well, I suppose it's easy in a way. There aren't many difficult concepts to grasp and in that way it's certainly not like The Concept of Anxiety. But the work seems long because Kierkegaard belabours certain points, points he no doubt believes essential, such as the neighbour, the difference between Christian and pagan love, and God as the third in every relationship.

Since I don't feel like summarizing the entire work, here are a few points I found interesting:

(1) The Christian's obligation to love the neighbour s/he sees: "When it is a duty in loving to love the men we see, there is no limit to love. If the duty is to be fullfilled, love must be limitless. It is unchanged, no matter how the object becomes changed" (164). And again, "Christianly understood, loving is loving the very person one sees [along with whatever defects one sees] . . . . If this were not so, Christ would never have loved, for where could he have found the perfect man!" (169). Finally, "we men talk about finding the perfect person in order to love him. Christianity speaks about being the perfect person who limitlessly loves the person he sees" (170).

(2) We are, in this life, only really living as souls dressed up in costumes. Our external differences - race, intelligence, class - are not necessarily eternal distinctions. The rich man is only acting as a rich man while the poor woman is only acting as a poor woman: "It seems to be forgotten that the distinctions of earthly existence are only like an actor's costume or like a travelling cloak and that every individual should watchfully and carefully keep the fastening cords of this outer garment loosely tied, never in obstinate knots, so that in the moment of transformation the garment can easily be cast off . . . . [I]n actual life one laces the outer garment of distinction so tightly that it completely conceals the external character of this garment of distinction, and the inner glory of equality never, or very rarely, shines through, something it should do and ought to do constantly" (95-96).

(3) God must be the middle term in every loving relationship: "Worldly wisdom thinks that love is a relationship between man and man. Christianity teaches that love is a relationship between: man-God-man, that is, that God is the middle term" (112-113).

(4) Love that ends is not love: "if one ceases to love, he has never been loving at all. What is so mild as love and yet so rigorous, so strict with itself, so disciplining as love!" (282). Again, "Let us never forget that to remain faithful in one's love is a noble womanly deed, a great and glorious act" (288).

I confess that I began reading this book as an aesthete, hoping to become more familiar with Kierkegaard's thought! But after reading a few chapters I realized that I had to continue not as someone merely interested in Kierkegaard but as a Christian who knows little about love.(less)

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Jul 17, 2012 Xandri Fiori rated it 5 of 5 stars

Always with philosophy, it's so easy to become contracted into the box of what the individual is capable of and to ignore the social aspect. What with everybody being in deep erotic love with Nietzsche, Christianity gets a bad rap. Granted, I only read this because Kierkegaard was an existentialist. But I honestly have grown to love him more than any other philosopher because he answers the question of other people. In my experience, all other philosophers are too scared to ask this question, ma...more Always with philosophy, it's so easy to become contracted into the box of what the individual is capable of and to ignore the social aspect. What with everybody being in deep erotic love with Nietzsche, Christianity gets a bad rap. Granted, I only read this because Kierkegaard was an existentialist. But I honestly have grown to love him more than any other philosopher because he answers the question of other people. In my experience, all other philosophers are too scared to ask this question, mainly because they seem to hate pretty much everyone because they "haven't seen the truth". There's Descartes shutting himself away in a room until he outsmarts the evil demon creating the artificial illusions of his senses...and the question is, did he ever come out? There's Spinoza, a lens grinder till the end of his days, there's Nietzsche hating most everybody anyway. However Kierkegaard is obviously an intelligent man and delves into each question to the point where any self-proclaimed intellectual would be satiated. He asks us to see our intelligence, looks, thoughts, etc. as simple contingencies...(which is many ways, through physics and neuroscience we see they are) and therefore should not hate other people for these things because they have as little control over them as you do over the shape of your nose. Instead, he states at one point that all people are like actors, and it is the folly of the actor to see themselves AS their character. Instead, we should learn to love this "metaphysical actor" within all people, one he says is equivalent in all ways to the things we like about ourselves. I guess you could easily translate that to subjectivity/consciousness. At the end of the day, I guess I'm just glad to see a philosophy book that answers to kindness. Being raised by a Christian mother, I guess it was more or less inevitable. But unable as I am to transcend my own context, this book for all its worth is written by an exceptionally brilliant man and I suggest everyone interested submerge themselves in his philosophy.(less)

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Jan 04, 2011 Trilok rated it 3 of 5 stars

It's a convoluted and slow read, but considering that the whole book is written on the idea of Love as Kierkegaard intreprets Love in "Love thy neighbor as thyself", what else would you expect? Granted it's a non classical interpretation, but a lot of it could be summed up in a few pages, but as with any books on Philosophy, the point needs to be belabored.
While I do not agree with Kierkegaard, his religious ideals are based on being a better human being (as ordered by "God"), rather than focu...more

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May 28, 2011 Dana rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

This book is certainly a long laborious read. However, I was able to push my way through it fairly quickly because all the ideas were so novel to me. I have not ventured very far into the theological realm, but this book breathes some seriously fresh and insightful life into the idea of "Loving thy neighbour as thyself." It also explores many different consequences and viewpoints of this idea.

I would recommend this book highly to anyone wishing to improve themselves and their relationships with...more

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Mar 28, 2013 Beatrice rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: precious

A book so soft and delicate and tolerant and close to my heart, that I find it difficult to externalize any sort of detail about it. A book that has confirmed and reinforced my most ardent belief, the element that I appreciate the most when it comes to human relationships/interaction: the most important and the most beautiful thing that a human being can have/give is their heart ('the highest good is to love, then that of being loved').

Kierkegaard encourages us gently ('gently' being of high imp...more

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May 14, 2013 Jacki rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: spiritual-religious

It has been 10 long months digging through this book. I didn't want to rush through it (even if I could), but I never expected it to take this long.

I don't know if I should blame Kierkegaard or the translators for how difficult the reading was. Nothing was worded simply, and I'm not referring to how complex the philosophical ideas were behind the words. The philosophical complexities were a whole different matter. But the sentence structure and wording were never plain or simple, which made eve...more It has been 10 long months digging through this book. I didn't want to rush through it (even if I could), but I never expected it to take this long.

I don't know if I should blame Kierkegaard or the translators for how difficult the reading was. Nothing was worded simply, and I'm not referring to how complex the philosophical ideas were behind the words. The philosophical complexities were a whole different matter. But the sentence structure and wording were never plain or simple, which made every sentence a puzzle. I found myself having to read and reread passages on a regular basis just to find a foothold in it. For example:

"The present, the moment, is so quickly past, that it really is not present; it is only the boundary and is therefore transitional; whereas the past is what was present. Consequently if the eternal is in the temporal, it is in the future (for the present can not get hold of it, and the past is indeed past) or in possibility. The past is actuality; the future is possibility. Eternally the eternal is the eternal; in time the eternal is possibility, the future."

That passage is already difficult because of the complex philosophical thought he's trying to share. But to make it worse, he's created a word game out of his sentences!

To add to the difficulties, Kierkegaard keeps his writing almost exclusively in the removed, philosophical musings. This might be fine, if they weren't speaking about things that require action. He's written an entire book about how we should act, but leaves it completely up the the reader to figure out how to apply the high-thinking wonders to everyday action.

I'm so glad we don't write like this anymore.

As for the content of the book, let's put it this way: I have 22 tabs and countless underlined passages (many of them with little signifying stars or hearts), notes scrawled in the margins and on my bookmark, and I've been posting quotes from this on facebook for the last 10 months. To say I agree with him is an understatement. This book has affected how I view love and relationships. Every Biblical passage he quoted to support his thesis of love was one that I was very familiar with, but he brought it to life by examining every single little word. Which sounds like it'd be monotonous, and sometimes it was, but it made God's command to love everyone crystal clear and impressed the importance of this law as the foundation of Christianity.

There are too many important, thought-provoking quotes that I love from this book. I cannot possibly list them all without transcribing the whole book. But these 3 were what I wrote on my bookmark:

"The emotion is not your possession but the other's. The expression of it is his due, since in the emotion you belong to him who moves you and makes you conscious of belonging to him."

"There was no moment, not a single one in his [Jesus'] life, when love in him was merely the inactivity of feeling, which hunts for words while it lets time slip by, or a mood, which is self-satisfying, dwelling on itself with no task to perform--no, his love was pure action."

"For to love God is to love oneself in truth; to help another human being to love God is to love another man; to be helped by another human being to love God is to be loved"(less)

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Feb 07, 2013 Harry rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: philosophy

Wow. Where to begin? Heavy stuff here, mostly on what it means to love from a Christian perspective.

I'll admit that it took me something like three years to read this book. I would start, get busy with something else, put it down, and start over again, fearful that I would miss something that was predicated on something discussed beforehand. The payoff is worth it though; by the end of the book I was ready to live my life differently than I had before. I'm not saying this book has made me perfec...more

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Jun 11, 2012 Todd rated it 5 of 5 stars

From a Christian point of view, one can hardly think of a topic more important than agape. Yet we too often heap poetic notions onto it instead of seeing how radically different it is to our common understanding. This a profoundly dangerous book to shallow faith and charity. I stand before the command " thou shall"... With fear and trembling. Lord, draw me to Your love and send me out with Your love.

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Apr 25, 2013 Chase Nottingham rated it 5 of 5 stars

If you truly love yourself in the most immense and intimate understanding of your being, loving your neighbor will be inherent in your actions. This read was the only thing that ever put Christianity in a way I could grasp. If you have a hang-up about religion, this book will make you realize how deep and related the ideas and methods are to your seemingly profound understanding of the world.

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Oct 17, 2010 Sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy, theology

I am usually an avid highlighter but the first essay from this collection had me so stunned with its relevancy to all of the things that had been knocking about in my head and heart for the past year or so*** that I didn't bother having a highlighter in my hand at any point in time that I was reading this book. Had I done so, I would have ended up with more text highlighted than not highlighted.

***I am admittedly all of these things: already a fan of Kierkegaard, already religious, and OK with...more

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Feb 06, 2012 Edward Nudelman rated it 5 of 5 stars

This was one of the most influential books I've read, shaping my early ideas and notions of the metaphysical, but moreso, the moral imperative. It's quite easy reading and a good place to start with Kierkegaard if you're interested in understanding a rationale and apologetic for the value and signifcance of love.

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Feb 24, 2012 Bradley rated it 4 of 5 stars

Need to re-read this when I'm older. "Deep within every man there lies the dread of being alone in the world, forgotten by God, overlooked among the tremendous household of millions upon millions." But the book is not about lonely reflections simply.

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Dec 11, 2010 Bill rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-and-philosophy, favorites

Christian theology at its best. It is written philosophically, so anyone who is interested in philosophy, particularly existentialism, will enjoy it. I think anyone can find inspiration in the book, including people who aren't Christians.

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Apr 01, 2013 Stephen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It has taken me nearly five years to finish this masterful work - five years of progress that has been at times painstaking or halting, with several resolutions part-way through to just start over again at the beginning to build up momentum. Now, looking back on it as a whole, I can say confidently that this is a book to which I will be returning over and over again in my life, to draw inspiration and encouragement from Kierkegaard's meditations on this most important topic. I do not agree with...more

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Jul 30, 2011 BHodges added it · review of another edition

"...the task is not: to find the lovable object; but the task is: to find the object already given or chosen--lovable, and to be able to continue finding him lovable, no matter how he becomes changed" (158).

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Jun 12, 2007 Dan Dark rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Humanists, idealistic Christians, philosophy majors

A lengthy collection of works by Soren Kierkegaard on one topic, love. However in true philosophic fashion the tangential discussions uncover a deeper meaning behind the love humans are capable of the the love received from a loving God. It was particularly difficult for me to wrap my head around and I often had to re-read chapters and take notes in the margins. But I have always felt that reading something in the limits of your comprehension gives you an intimate relationship with the work as y...more

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Jun 18, 2013 Jamie Clegg rated it 4 of 5 stars

If you're an average-minded human being like me, you'll want to get a nice pocket dictionary for this gem. It reads opaquely at times, but for the most part is enlightening.

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Dec 11, 2012 Reading_faith rated it 5 of 5 stars

A great explanation on the theology of love in all it's forms. The wording can be a bit dense and require re-reading for comprehension at times, but it is well worth it.

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Jan 16, 2013 Russel rated it 1 of 5 stars

Absolutely mind numbing and brain washing Christianity bs. Completely pushes any other religions field of thought ie atheism, etc. Constantly describes paganism as a loveless overlooked polytheistic religion, even though Christianity is basically a monotheistic carbon copy of paganism.

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Oct 12, 2008 Ellen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: catholicism

Kierkegaard expounds on the Christian idea of love, explaining exactly why love, in the Christian sense, has always been, and will remain, a grave offense to the world. Kierkegaard does not have an idea of love that is caressing or coddling; it contains "a sadness which broods over life and is tempered by the eternal." I found the chapters "Love is a Fulfilling of the Law" and "Love is a Matter of Conscience" to be especially enlightening. There was even some humor, though never snide or sarcast...more

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Aug 09, 2012 Shanna rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: canon

Tough, and overlooked, I think, because Christian theory has become rather passe. But the call to love one another should not be discarded along with it, regardless of one's belief system.

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Feb 03, 2009 Patrick marked it as to-read

Shelves: books-i-own

I started to read this years ago, but it was way over my head at the time. I should try reading it again some time in the future.

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Dec 04, 2012 Henry rated it 5 of 5 stars

If you read any Kierkegaard, read this.

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Aug 05, 2007 Phil rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In this book, Soren Kierkegaard very beautifully expounds upon Christian love, what it is and the various things that fall short of it. Its not an easy book to read because it sets a high standard for what it really means to live as Jesus commanded, and this constantly reminds the reader of how far short he falls (lots of Kierkegaard's books are like this). The first part focuses on "love your neighbor as yourself," while the second part explores the "love" chapter of Paul's first letter to the...more

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Jun 16, 2013 Joe Tedesco marked it as to-read

Shelves: spiritual

To be read aloud

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May 01, 2013 Travis Armes added it

Shelves: duke-thm

34-99, 344-353

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Jun 04, 2011 Andrew Boyle rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Fascinating meditations on love.

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Jan 11, 2011 Dallin Bruun rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: will-never-finish

If you grew up in any religion, you might have been taught so many things that you lose touch with the core. Kierkegaard explores the Christian commandment "love thy neighbor" (in 600 pages!). I read the first chapter and——I feel like you are allotted a certain amount of times you can say this——it changed my life. Essentially, I felt I was given a definition and framework wherein I now understand love's role and potential in helping me be a better person. Thanks S.K!

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Apr 20, 2011 Madison rated it 5 of 5 stars

New favorite. What a powerful way to look at the New Testament. And he's quite a fabulous writer. Brought a lot of truths to light. I'll be using this book the rest of my life, it's amazing.

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About Søren Kierkegaard

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was a prolific 19th century Danish philosopher and theologian. Kierkegaard strongly criticised both the Hegelianism of his time and what he saw as the empty formalities of the Church of Denmark. Much of his work deals with religious themes such as faith in God, the institution of the Christian Church, Christian ethics and theology, and the emotions and feelings of individua...more

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Books by Søren Kierkegaard

The Sickness Unto Death (Kierkegaard's Writings, Volume 19)

Fear and Trembling/Repetition (Kierkegaard's Writings, Volume 6)

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Quotes from Works of Love

“With respect to love we speak continually about perfection and the perfect person. With respect to love Christianity also speaks continually about perfection and the perfect person. Alas, but we men talk about finding the perfect person in order to love him. Christianity speaks about being the perfect person who limitlessly loves the person he sees.” — 7 people liked it

“To grumble about the world and its unhappiness is always easier than to beat one's breast and groan over oneself.” — 3 people liked it

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Works of Love (Kierkegaard's Writings, Volume 16)

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