In Kierkegaard’s writings, as in Augustine’s, the paths to faith are multiple and idiosyncratic. Their particularity cannot be circumscribed by any single pattern. The twists and turns of all the ways that human lives can spiritually develop cannot be predicted in advance. The human odysseys that emerge in Kierkegaard’s pages are too messy and variegated to be categorized so neatly. Similarly, the ways in which people can lose their paths on life’s journey are legion and often unprecedented. No Hegel-like structural dynamic of the human spirit propels an advance through a neat, uniform
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