Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-t27h7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-20T06:03:03.650Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

15 - The Individual’s Relationship with God

An Existentialist Understanding

from Part IV - Forms and Functions of Worship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2025

By
Sharon Krishek
Edited by
Aaron Segal  and
Samuel Lebens
Aaron Segal
Affiliation:
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Samuel Lebens
Affiliation:
University of Haifa, Israel
Get access

Summary

Does the conception of worship – in expressing, as it does, a direct relationship with God – prevent an understanding of love for God as mediated by love for humans? Taking the latter to be an existential model of one’s relationship with God, in this chapter I answer in the negative to the above question by demonstrating the role that worship plays in such a model. To do so, I turn to Kierkegaard’s image of “resting transparently” in God. For Kierkegaard, this image represents what he perceives as the highest possible state of the believer’s relationship with God; a state that is achieved, according to Kierkegaard, when one becomes the self – the individual – that God intends one to be. And how does one become this self? By loving properly the neighbour (that is, another individual). The suggestion I develop in this chapter is that it is the worshipping of God – that is, by being in a state of respect and attendance to God’s will – that directs one in loving properly the neighbour. Hence, it is worship of God that paves the way to fully loving the neighbour and thus to fully loving God.

Keywords

essenceindividualKierkegaardlovepotentialself
Type
Chapter
Information
The Philosophy of Worship
Divine and Human Aspects
 , pp. 278 - 295
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, R. M. (1999). Finite and Infinite Goods: A Framework for Ethics, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bayne, T., and Nagasawa, Y. (2006). The Grounds of Worship. Religious Studies, 42, 299–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kierkegaard, S. (1980). The Sickness unto Death, trans. Hong, Howard V. and Hong, Edna H., Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Kierkegaard, S. (1995). Works of Love, trans. Hong, Howard V. and Hong, Edna H., Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Krishek, S. (2022). Lovers in Essence: A Kierkegaardian Defense of Romantic Love, New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
May, S. (2019). Love: A New Understanding of an Ancient Emotion, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Smuts, A. (2012). The Power to Make Others Worship. Religious Studies, 48, 221–237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swinburne, R. (2016). The Coherence of Theism, Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×