Skip to content

Coffee with Kierkegaard

“What we need is here.” — Wendell Berry

Home

Month: January 2026

A Sign of Contradiction: Reflections for Epiphany

In which this blog returns to its roots with a discussion of Søren Kierkegaard.

Julian CS Lewis, David Cayley, Incarnation, Søren Kierkegaard Leave a comment January 8, 2026January 9, 2026 15 Minutes

Search

Archived Posts

Categories

"The Gospel commands us to look, not at our own good deeds or perfection but at God Himself as He promises, and at Christ himself.... it snatches us away from ourselves and places us outside ourselves so that we do not depend on our own strength, conscience, experience, person or works, but depend on that which is outside ourselves, that is, on the promise and truth of God, which cannot deceive."
Martin Luther

“The whole object of ethics is not to attain an end (and we know very well that for a genuine Christian ethic there is no such a thing as a striving for holiness) but to manifest the gift which has been given us, the gift of grace and of peace, of love and of the Holy Spirit, that is, the very end pursued by God and miraculously present within us.”
Jacques Ellul

"If in the biblical imagination real life is life with God, then to live it truly means not living in stylized futures or pasts, nor in imagined pictures of an alternative life, but in coming to terms with being creatures."
Brian Brock

"I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life... You can, you must try to seek God in every human life. Although the life of a person is a land full of thorns and weeds, there is always a space in which the good seed can grow. You have to trust God.”
Pope Francis

"Love is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.”
Iris Murdoch

"When Jesus bumps into the brothers Peter and Andrew, fishing, he says only, "Follow me." They receive no other explanation or instruction as to why they should on the instant, turn their lives upside down. In the Bible, Illich says, a peremptory summons of this kind is "the primary form of 'causation." Things happen neither by chance nor by necessity but in response to a call-a call that is often heard only by the one to whom it is addressed. Everything depends on that disposition to listen and to respond, which Illich calls obedience."
David Cayley

"God’s Providence is his ability to respond to whatever the universe and human agency throw up. God is like a skilled tennis player, who can always return the serve. We can see this model, for instance, in the famous phrase of the Preface of Easter Vigil: “O felix culpa” (happy fault), applied to Adam’s sin; happy because it brought such a response from God to redeem it. This also seems the obvious reading of the parable of the Good Samaritan. The question it is supposed to answer is: who is my neighbour? The answer surprises, in part because it takes us out of the skein of social relations in which we’re embedded, and we’re told of a Samaritan who rescues a Jew. But it also takes us beyond any established relation into the domain of accident or contingency: my neighbour is someone I come across, bleeding in the road. It was sheer accident that I came along at just that time; but this accident can be the occasion for rebuilding a skein of human relations animated by agape. The Samaritan’s action is part of God’s response to the skewed serve the robbers have lobbed into history."
Charles Taylor

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy

Subscribe Subscribed
- Coffee with Kierkegaard
- Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.

Design a site like this with WordPress.com