The Intersections of Augustine and Kierkegaard Revisited

The essayists included here are in agreement that Augustine and Kierkegaard were primarily rhetorical theologians, and that they shared much in common concerning the role of desire for God in the Christian life. Most of the authors stress certain aspects of Augustine’s and Kierkegaard’s theological vision, and they are right to do so. However, both Augustine and Kierkegaard were dialectical thinkers, and often contrapuntal themes, different from those emphasized by our essayists, can be discerned in their works. Augustine and Kierkegaard were both capable of asserting different things in different contexts in order to pursue different edifying purposes.