The Essential Supernatural - A Dialogical Study in Kierkegaard and Blondel

Søren Kirkegaard and Maurice Blondel discuss the vision of the supernatural, with Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai drawing a sharper image of the preeminent place religious experience possesses in human life and thought. He concludes that a dominant leveling of society robs religion of its particularity, devastating the individual. Agbaw-Ebai exhorts us to never allow the sense of our relation to the supernatural to be a settled matter, and to confront our own subjectivity with autonomy.

Format: Hardback
Length: 400 pages
Publication date: 04 March 2022
Publisher: St Augustine's Press

Søren Kirkegaard and Maurice Blondel engage in a captivating dialogue about the vision of the supernatural. Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai extracts a more vivid portrayal of the central significance of religious experience in human life and thought from this exchange. Kirkegaard's lament about the lack of fervor in Christianity and Blondel's concern that religion and philosophy no longer engage in meaningful interaction are both explored. Agbaw-Ebai concludes that these concerns point towards a common outcome: a dominant leveling of society that strips religion of its distinctiveness. This devastating consequence affects the individual as he is no longer compelled to seek a relationship with God and immerse himself in the supernatural realm. The boundlessness of man must be acknowledged, or else his actions will remain misunderstood. Furthermore, Agbaw-Ebai asserts that religious experience and philosophy must coexist with mutual reference or self-knowledge will never attain the discovery of supernatural destiny. This shared urgency resonates both in Kirkegaard's writings and Blondel's philosophical pursuits.

Agbaw-Ebai, like his predecessors, implores us to never treat our relationship with the supernatural as a settled matter. The inherited philosophy of religion does not shield us from the responsibility of confronting our own subjectivity with autonomy: to be God without God and against God, or to be God with and through God. This profound call challenges us to expand our understanding and embrace the fullness of our existence, transcending the limitations imposed by traditional frameworks.

Weight: 694g
Dimension: 158 x 236 x 27 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781587312403