Richard McCombs teaches at St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

• List of AbbreviationsIntroductionChapter One: The Poetry of Faith in Fear and TremblingChapter Two: Love’s Art of UpbuildingChapter Three: The Arts of Forgiveness, Reconciliation, and Peace-MakingChapter Four: The Art of Praising LoveChapter Five: Two Examples of Praising LoveChapter Six: Love’s Equality ConclusionAppendix: The Wisdom of LoveBibliographyAbout the Author

This outstanding work focuses the spotlight on an often-neglected aspect of Kierkegaard’s authorship, arguing that much of it can be read doxologically, as an encomium to such Christian virtues as faith and love. Richard McCombs aptly observes that Kierkegaard was convinced that praising love was an essential strategy for building up love in the neighbor. For Kierkegaard this praise must employ Socratic pedagogy and aesthetic devices, even devious art, because love is offensive to merely human values. McCombs intriguingly suggests that the need for artful strategies is reinforced by the fact that loving properly is also an art, for love requires wisdom and practical know-how. This book emphasizes Kierkegaard’s central contention that all people can become virtuosos of the art of love, artfully expressing essential human equality despite inessential worldly inequalities.

Richard McCombs teaches at St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

• List of AbbreviationsIntroductionChapter One: The Poetry of Faith in Fear and TremblingChapter Two: Love’s Art of UpbuildingChapter Three: The Arts of Forgiveness, Reconciliation, and Peace-MakingChapter Four: The Art of Praising LoveChapter Five: Two Examples of Praising LoveChapter Six: Love’s Equality ConclusionAppendix: The Wisdom of LoveBibliographyAbout the Author

This outstanding work focuses the spotlight on an often-neglected aspect of Kierkegaard’s authorship, arguing that much of it can be read doxologically, as an encomium to such Christian virtues as faith and love. Richard McCombs aptly observes that Kierkegaard was convinced that praising love was an essential strategy for building up love in the neighbor. For Kierkegaard this praise must employ Socratic pedagogy and aesthetic devices, even devious art, because love is offensive to merely human values. McCombs intriguingly suggests that the need for artful strategies is reinforced by the fact that loving properly is also an art, for love requires wisdom and practical know-how. This book emphasizes Kierkegaard’s central contention that all people can become virtuosos of the art of love, artfully expressing essential human equality despite inessential worldly inequalities.

Richard McCombs teaches at St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

• List of AbbreviationsIntroductionChapter One: The Poetry of Faith in Fear and TremblingChapter Two: Love’s Art of UpbuildingChapter Three: The Arts of Forgiveness, Reconciliation, and Peace-MakingChapter Four: The Art of Praising LoveChapter Five: Two Examples of Praising LoveChapter Six: Love’s Equality ConclusionAppendix: The Wisdom of LoveBibliographyAbout the Author

This outstanding work focuses the spotlight on an often-neglected aspect of Kierkegaard’s authorship, arguing that much of it can be read doxologically, as an encomium to such Christian virtues as faith and love. Richard McCombs aptly observes that Kierkegaard was convinced that praising love was an essential strategy for building up love in the neighbor. For Kierkegaard this praise must employ Socratic pedagogy and aesthetic devices, even devious art, because love is offensive to merely human values. McCombs intriguingly suggests that the need for artful strategies is reinforced by the fact that loving properly is also an art, for love requires wisdom and practical know-how. This book emphasizes Kierkegaard’s central contention that all people can become virtuosos of the art of love, artfully expressing essential human equality despite inessential worldly inequalities.