The Political Theology of Kierkegaard

Saitya Brata Das argues that in Kierkegaard’s work we find a radical eschatological critique of the liberal-humanist pathos of modernity that seeks to legitimise the sovereign power of the state by an appeal to a divine or theological foundation.Relating Kierkegaard’s notion of ‘Christianity without Christendom’ to the Schellingian eschatological critique of sovereignty, he shows how Schelling’s insistence on the eschatological difference between religion and politics is transformed and further intensified in Kierkegaard’s critique of historical Reason. Das argues that such an exception without sovereignty is the crucial task of our age.