Going beyond Faith: Kierkegaard’s Critical Contribution to Public Theology

Abstract

In this article, I argue that Kierkegaard’s distinction between a genius and an apostle sheds light on the role of public theology in society. For Kierkegaard, the act and content of faith are rooted in testimonial knowledge which can be shared, and yet also bear witness to divine authority in word and deed. In the first section, I suggest that the contemporary conflict of approaches in public theology is rooted in a basic question in theology regarding the primacy of faith or reason when justifying a concrete, non-theological definition of the common good. In the second section, I rehearse Kierkegaard’s famous distinction between a genius and an apostle to draw attention to how the role of the public theologian in society is regulated by the theological negotiation of faith and reason for the common good in the form of testimony. The upshot of my argument is to uncover the unjustified neglect of the rich resources in Kierkegaard’s writings for current debates about public theology.