Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) was born in Copenhagen in the early nineteenth century. He graduated from the University of Copenhagen and then spent two years in Germany before returning to Copenhagen, where he would spend the rest of his life. In 1843 he wrote and published his first book, Either/Or, which startled the religious world with its denouncement of watered-down Christianity.

In fact, Kierkegaard’s life and works were a serious challenge to the institutional church that he believed had removed the necessary leap of faith and the individual’s (as opposed to the masses’) responsibility of commitment. All his writings served as a kind of judgment against a church that minimized the distance between the human and the divine. Kierkegaard believed that there was a great chasm between God and human beings and that the only bridge was Jesus Christ. In the period of history we call the Enlightenment (when reason seemed to triumph over faith and human potential over human weakness), Kierkegaard’s philosophy served as a corrective to a world and a church that had lost its identity.