Infinite reduplication

Kierkegaard's negative concept of God

Peter Kline

pp. 163-184

in: Nahum BROWN, Simmons (eds), Contemporary debates in negative theology and philosophy, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017

Abstract

This chapter offers an interpretation of Kierkegaard's conceptualization of God as "infinite reduplication." Kline locates this conceptualization in relation to the Hegelian notion of God as "absolute Spirit." What emerges is an apophatic articulation of divine subjectivity. For Kierkegaard, God is neither substance nor subject. God is the withdrawal of an eternal beginning that repeats or reduplicates itself in existence as love, freedom, and abandon.

Cited authors

Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich

Kierkegaard Søren