Eros and Self-Emptying: The Intersections of Augustine and Kierkegaard (Kierkegaard as a Christian Thinker)

by Lee C. Barrett III

having conceived such an overwhelming love for God that he sacrificed vocational success and familial contentment for the sake of that devotion. Sometimes Kierkegaard admiringly refers to Augustine’s candid and unsparing self-criticism, which also testified to his spiritual earnestness. For example, Kierkegaard noted approvingly in 1851 that Augustine recognized that his pleasure in empathizing with victims of tragedy in the theater was superficial, for he was not obligated to relieve their suffering in any way, nor did he have to undergo the actual pain himself (JP 4, 4470; Böhringer, 1, pt. 3: 110). Kierkegaard expresses admiration for the early church fathers in general, among whom he always placed Augustine, because their lives expressed the earnestness and pathos that contemporary Christendom so often lacked (JP 1, 830). As is evident, Kierkegaard had been attracted to the depictions of Augustine as an earnest disciple of Christ with a passionate piety that had been developed by such scholars as Böhringer, Neander, de Wette, and others.