ABSTRACT
What do Kierkegaard and Spinoza have to do with one another? Spinoza is a systematic philosopher who emphasizes reason, objective knowledge, necessity, eternity, and immanence; Kierkegaard is a resolutely unsystematic philosopher concerned with faith, subjectivity, freedom, temporality, and transcendence. Furthermore, as a Jewish thinker regarded by some as an atheist, Spinoza is excluded from Kierkegaard’s critique of misguided interpretations of what it truly means to be-or, more precisely, to become-a Christian. Admittedly, both philosophers focus on God, but their perspectives could not be more different, and whereas Spinoza’s God is absolutely intelligible, Kierkegaard’s remains an absolute paradox.
