Imagination and Faith in Kierkegaard

Abstract

According to Kierkegaard, it is the work of imagination that makes us transform ourselves. This paper attempts to reconstruct Kierkegaard's understanding of the human being by looking at his concept of imagination.

The former part provides an overview of Kierkegaard's understanding of imagination with reference to Arne Grøn's research. The latter part examines the relationship between the human being and the image of Christ, which appears in the imagination, and the fact that it was Kierkegaard's main task in his literary works to draw the “image” of the ideal Christian.

Finally, after confirming that while Kierkegaard understood the human being with reference to the image of God, he nevertheless realized the limitations of the theological human nature theory, I will make a few observations on the relationship between imagination and faith in Kierkegaard's thought.