Fazio, Mariano. Kierkegaard. Una introducción. Madrid: Ediciones Rialp, 2023, 196 pp. ISBN: 978-84-321-6511-5

Abstract

A review is expected to have at least two tenses: a descriptive one and a pondering one (this will not be the exception), only that we will present the latter in two moments, opening and closing; this is due to the characteristics of the author in question, Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), which leads Mariano Fazio (hereinafter, the A.) to pose, from the beginning, the challenge that every reader of the Socrates of the North must face. So, the basic question: why should we read this Introduction? Fundamentally, because it is a claim to the Christian condition, in the midst of the paradoxes and challenges of the present; the questions and reflections made in 19th century Denmark continue to seriously challenge us and the A. places one of them, the most important, immediately and also in a challenging way: “Is there anyone who lives his Christian faith with coherence?” (p. 12).  The question strikes at the heart of the believer, because it brings into play the connection between our words, our habits and the way we relate to one another. For this reason, the coherence of the Christian is not something already given, with the exception of the saints, but a continuous becoming, that is, a maturing, which entails the idea of process, but not necessarily of progress, because, in fact, we ordinary believers come and go in the midst of our contradictions, in our journey of encounter with Christ or life of faith. This is, for me, the core of the invitation of this book. And it invites us through a Lutheran theologian, Kierkegaard, who raises the complex nature of faith and life; and he does so with such depth that it is not necessary to agree with him on everything, because only depth allows us to dissent and to encounter the clarity of our own ideas. In the words of A.: “We think that an examination of conscience about our times is worthwhile, as Kierkegaard would undoubtedly have recommended to us if he lived at the dawn of the third millennium” (p. 12).