Bergren, Erik Paul

Erik Paul Bergren is an independent scholar and a former fellow of the Howard and Edna Hong Kierkegaard Library in Northfield, Minnesota.

Kierkegaard’s ethics of love (Fall/Winter 2025-26)

Though often overlooked and ridiculed during his time, Søren Kierkegaard’s unconventional attitude on duty, faith, and love have important applications for us today. Kierkegaard’s life (1813–1855) was marked by a series of combative writings critiquing the trivial culture he saw his contemporaries embracing. One such book central to this article is his treatise “Works of Love” (1847), wherein he grounds love in the Christian faith through unwavering moral obligation; in other words, he understood love to be a divine duty toward another individual, not something one can “fall” into.