This engaging and insightful book joins a chorus of recent theological studies of Kierkegaard that bring his idiosyncratic authorship in dialogue with mystical and apophatic traditions, on the one hand, and recent Continental philosophy of religion, on the other. Meister Eckhart serves as the primary representative of the first camp (with Marguerite Porete playing a secondary role), and Jean-Luc Nancy as the primary representative of the second. Kline's comparative analysis focuses not on historical questions of influence but on the new possibilities for reading it creates. The book succeeds in opening fresh vistas onto Kierkegaard as a unique and enduringly provocative modern theological voice.
Kline's chapters move from the perennial subject of Kierkegaard's indirect communication to the less conventional topic of his concept of God, to existential analysis of how Kierkegaardian apophasis becomes embodied in faith, hope and love. Kline builds his case on a wide variety of Kierkegaardian texts – pseudonymous and signed, published and unpublished, early and late. Approaching Kierkegaard this way carries risks, inasmuch as it does not permit extensive consideration of the rhetoric of individual texts and implies a unity to Kierkegaard's thought that he is often at pains to undermine. Nonetheless, as Kline knows well, satisfying exposition of Kierkegaard is a chimerical goal no matter how one approaches him, and Kline's particular point of view bears considerable fruit.
The book's sustained comparison of Kierkegaard and Eckhart is valuable because it complexifies conventional accounts of Kierkegaard's relation to Neoplatonic mysticism and apophatic theology. It also offers a fresh lens through which to interpret Kierkegaard's critique of Hegel. In my view, Kline's analysis of the theme of mystical union in Kierkegaard is particularly helpful. One limitation of Kline's study is that, because he focuses so extensively on Kierkegaard's apophatic concept of God, he says very little about his pronounced christological orientation. In most theologians, particularly those in the Lutheran tradition, Christocentrism works at cross-purposes to apophasis, yet this is not necessarily the case with Kierkegaard. More attention to this topic would thus have enriched the book's analysis.
Jean-Luc Nancy's deconstructive philosophy furnishes a contemporary philosophical vocabulary for Kline's reading of Kierkegaard, which enables him to speak directly to contemporary concerns. Nancy's orientation to the interface between theology and art, to notions of the divine as passage and gift, and to the ethical task created by shared singularity are all helpful in this context.
An accomplished painter, Kline breaks the usual scholarly mould by presenting a series of prints of his own abstract paintings at the end of the book, with one intended to accompany each chapter. This is a gesture that both Kierkegaard and Nancy would surely love. That said, the body of the book still reads like a conventional academic monograph and, when it is considered in this light, I believe it would benefit from more substantial engagement with the (admittedly vast and sometimes unhelpful) Kierkegaardian secondary literature, which could bring greater depth and nuance to some points. Such quibbles aside, however, the quality of Kline's engagement with primary sources ensures that the book will become a point of reference for future scholars interested in Kierkegaard's relation to apophatic traditions as well as recent Continental thought.
