Furnal, Joshua (2024) Being before God: Fabro’s Thomistic approach to Kierkegaard’s Theological Anthropology. Irish Theological Quarterly, 89 (3). pp. 259-279. ISSN 0021-1400

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Abstract

In this article, I uncover a point of contact between Cornelio Fabro’s philosophical theology and Søren Kierkegaard’s theological anthropology. I survey how Fabro’s metaphysical account of the human person as a created ‘synthesis’ between the infinite and finite, also invites a soteriological account of the call of Christian discipleship. My wider argument is that Fabro unearthed a structural feature in Kierkegaard’s theological approach to free creation from nothing, human subjectivity, suffering, and freedom that mapped on to Fabro’s philosophical theology of participation. In doing so, Fabro recovered the missing metaphysical and soteriological elements of Kierkegaard’s theological emphasis on the task and goal of selfhood beyond the atheistic existentialist stereotypes of God-denial, acosmic individualism, and self-annihilation. Often construed as polar opposites, I claim that Thomistic philosophy and Kierkegaard’s existential approach can be juxtaposed fruitfully as sharing an important point of departure with free creation from nothing. In short, Fabro’s creative link between Kierkegaard and Thomas Aquinas affords a unique theological development in post-Kantian approaches to the topic of existential freedom.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	creation; cornelio fabro; freedom; soren kieregaard; theological anthropology;
Academic Unit:	St Patrick's College, Maynooth > Faculty of Theology
Item ID:	18745
Depositing User:	Joshua Furnal
Date Deposited:	21 Aug 2024 15:06
Journal or Publication Title:	Irish Theological Quarterly
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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