ABSTRACT
Because of the anti-systematic nature of Kierkegaard’s corpus, deliberately designed to thwart philosophical assimilation, it is difficult to extract a particular theme-such as power-which is diffused throughout the authorship. Based on Kierkegaard’s theological convictions, the Christian’s relationship to power stems from her identification with Christ, the paradigm for all human experience. However, the Incarnation is inextricably embedded within the all-encompassing goodness of divine Providence. Thus, in order to comprehend his concept of power on an individual level, it is necessary to examine the over-arching principles of cosmology, divine and human identity, and authority which permeate his writings. The following two chapters will adopt the same three-tier approach taken in the analysis of Nietzsche’s thought. However, Kierkegaard’s model contains the added dimension of a supernatural or eternal reality in addition to “created” reality. Subsequently, each tier incorporates a dichotomy: the cosmological tier explicates the relationship between the temporal and the eternal; the anthropological tier examines the relation between the crowd and the individual; the tier of authority explores the relation between the sensate and the spiritual.
