Passionate Reason

<p>Johannes Climacus Søren Kierkegaard's pseudonymous author of <i>Philosophical Fragments</i> invents a religion suspiciously resembling Christianity as an alternative to the assumption that humans possess the Truth within themselves. Through this literary device Climacus raises in a fresh and audacious way age-old questions about the relation of Christian faith to human reason. Is the idea of a human incarnation of God logically coherent? Is religious faith the product of a voluntary choice? In a comprehensive discussion of one of Kierkegaard's most important books C. Stephen Evans elucidates Kierkegaard's novel explanation that the tension between faith and reason must be understood as a consequence of the passionate character of reason itself. <i>Passionate Reason</i> situates Kierkegaard's philosophy in the context of postmodern religious thought providing a contemporary reading of <i>Fragments </i>as a challenge to both the modern Enlightenment critique of reason and the postmodern abandonment of truth. </p>