A Trinitarian Approach to Kierkegaard’s Works of Love

Commentators on Kierkegaard’s Works of Love have typically taken spiritual love to mean the same as neighborly love, an unconditional moral duty owed by all humans to all humans. Ostensibly, this contrasts with the preferential love typical of a friend or spouse. We, however, take spiritual love to refer to the Trinitarian love that, when emulated by human beings, is called Christian love. This type of love either transcends or engenders both neighborly and preferential love. First, we show how the economy of salvation expresses the Father’s love in both neighborly and preferential ways, corresponding to the Son’s mediation of the Father’s love through the Incarnation and the Spirit’s mediation of the Father’s love through Pentecost. Second, we use the Trinitarian approach to elucidate Kierkegaard’s claim that God is love’s “middle term.” Third, we use this approach to resolve the apparent conflict between self-interest and self-denial in Works of Love.