WRITING TO OFFEND

From Kierkegaard's conclusion to Works of Love, this passage reveals a salient feature of the text as a whole. Throughout the book Kierkegaard pushes the reader, in direct and subtle ways, to perceive Christianity as that which should cause precisely the “self-concern” that a falsely “soft” presentation of love seeks to palliate. He intends the text to evoke earnest self-examination. The sections incrementally build toward a confession of sin, and one reader at whom he aims his rhetorical power is the previously blithe Christian. In contrast to the “soft form of love,” Kierkegaard's text is like a “strength-testing machine,” a strenuous device whereby one discovers one's utter weakness (WL, 245). His complex prescriptions for and descriptions of faithful love place us before love's exacting test, revealing our inability to meet what faith requires.