Customer Reviews

Purity of Heart: Is To Will One Thing (Harper Torchbooks)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Kierkegaard's Purity of Heart is one of his most accessible works. Like in Sickness Unto Death, Purity of Heart cuts to the heart. Through irony, dialogue, and parable, Soren slices through the masks and fascades we construct that delude us into thinking that all is well with our soul. With the skill and precision of a surgeon's hand, Kierkegaard opens up the true condition of our motivations in life and faith. Kierkegaard is not afraid to stare in the face the dark side of our humanity. In Purity of Heart we see that only through this brutal honesty can we become our true selves and find healing. Kierkegaard boldly asserts that only by joining with providence and the Great Physician's hand can we "will one thing"--the good. The good is all that is true, eternal, and authentic. The good is all that comes from God. Scant writers this day in age know the human condition more intimately than the great Danish theologian/philosopher. Come and join Kierkegaard and take the leap of faith!

Coming from a reformed Christian perspective with very little exposure to Kierkegaard, I was sometimes puzzled by this book but mostly challenged in my spiritual life, relentlessly so. This book made Puritan introspection seem comparatively shallow. If you are looking for extreme depth, you've got it here. He is exploring the idea of double-mindedness found in book of James to prepare the Christian for confession. This work asks questions you may have never thought to ask. Of course he is trying to get the individual to spiritually be laid bare before God in his double-mindedness. Is the work without hope since it should drive the honest person to despair in his own heart's purity? I don't believe the book is without hope. Christ is in there a few times in direct reference, but mostly assumed or implied..in the gaping hole created by our ties to the temporal and lack of eternal-mindedness and inability to truly will one thing. As spiritual shock-therapy, it works for me. It is my second read, the first being in college nearly 20 years ago. Had a similar effect then, but it is still the only Kierkegaard book I've ever read.

This work aims at preparing the reader to enter into the "office of confession," and probes deeply into the inner motivations for choosing to become an authentic self. Considered a classic of devotional literature, it sometimes reads obscurely (e.g., the "Good" is never really defined), yet at other times is radiantly clear (e.g., on the call to live self-consciously and with responsibility). As with all of SK's non-psuedonymous works, "Purity of Heart" makes for worthy reading which will provoke and challenge you.

I'm dumbfounded that "rob" compared Kierkegaard with Woody Allen. Purity of Heart is all about the purpose and MEANING of existence. It's about reconciliation to the eternal. Woody Allen has no knowledge of the eternal. He's a silly little pundit using philosophy as a means to distract him from utter boredom and complacency. In his films he may drop references and allude to Sartre, Heidegger, Camu and the rest of the existentialists--but that's all he does. He's a geek for philosophy. He doesn't expound upon what they have said. He doesn't challenge them. He just collects their ideas and spreads them out on a table to gaze at. Kierkegaard is much different.

This work aims at preparing the reader to enter into the "office of confession," and probes deeply into the inner motivations for choosing to become an authentic self. Considered a classic of devotional literature, it sometimes reads obscurely (e.g., the "Good" is never really defined), yet at other times is radiantly clear (e.g., on the call to live self-consciously and with responsibility). As with all of SK's non-psuedonymous works, "Purity of Heart" makes for worthy reading which will provoke and challenge you.

If I had to lose my entire library, the one volume I would fight to keep would be this little book (the complete works of Shakespeare was a close second). Be sure to read the Steere introductory material as it still seems to be the best starting point for Kierkegaard I have yet to find. _Purity of Heart_ is arguably the most accessible Kierkegaard there is out there, but it is so genuinely worth it to listen to this "solitary one." This book is utterly life-changing as it most assuredly lives up to its title.

In a world benighted by multi-tasking and information overload, Kierkegaard shows us the importance of single-mindedness. Christ was single-minded; his unswerving desire to do only the will of God the Father defined his life completely. If we wish to follow Jesus faithfully - if we wish to be holy - we must understand the necessity of willing only one thing. To will only one thing, which one thing is the good, is to be pure of heart. Kierkegaard shows that to will anything other than the good ( i.e., the very will of God ) is actually to will more than one thing, and to be double-minded. One of Kierkegaard's most convincing and accessible arguments in the philosophy of religion.

In an age of popular books on self improvement that concentrate on listing habits and prescribing do's and dont's, here is a work that brings matters upstream into the inner landscape of human motivation and will. The existentialist Soren Kierkegaard has left us a challenging, provoking and truthful examination of the heart and mind, from which ensue all of the popular habits and prescriptions. What is double mindedness? How is it formed, and what does it look like? What is the ultimate goal and purpose of the countless habits and traits we read about? How are our deepest motivations and ambitions conflicted, and what duplicitous damage is caused by those inner conflicts? Thousands of books are transactional; this one is transformational. Though not an easy read, Purity of Heart draws the complexity of modern behavioral science into its single common denominator. This book can help to renew one's mind and change one's outlook on life.

As with most of Kierkegaard's work, this book is written to be edifying. It has an ethical purpose, in this case to prepare the heart before the rite of confession, by orienting it toward God. Kierkegaard believed that if the heart of a person was to dwell on its task before God, then the disparate things in each one of us that cause us so much trouble, would find a unifying expression, away from the business and bustle of the crowd and the crowded life. It is with the understanding of the temptation of the crowd, of its number and its approval, that Kierkegaard was able to write such a rhythmic book when, after all, the subject is what one might have thought to be an unrhythmic thing. Kierkegaard shows his characteristic psychological insight in this book, not to say his profundity: he was not profound, because he did away with ambiguity, the ambiguity of the profound. Ambiguity is a quality that inheres purely in the aesthetic, and Kierkegaard, with his strong and refreshing ethical sense, was not at all an aesthetician. This is perhaps nowhere more obvious than in Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing.

I'd say that when one is reviewing a book, they should focus on the content of the book. However, since several versions of a particular book may be available, then the reviewer should also take into consideration the quality of the translation and the editing.

It is with much regret that I must rate a book written by Kierkegaard 3 stars. I'd give it a lower rating, but since content is more important, the lowest I could give it is a 3. Here's why: The editor, whoever he may be, did a horrible job! There averages around 3 spelling/errors per page. When I first was reading the book, these mistakes were easily ignored since these things are bound to happen. However, as I flipped through the pages and found spelling error upon spelling error, they became distractions. Nowhere is this worse than with Kierkegaard's content. The Danish philosopher requires so much care and patience when reading, and when these errors spring up more often than Justin Bieber fan's, then it becomes an annoyance. If I would have known that this particular edit was awful, I would have spent the extra 6-7$ for a book that was actually edited.

Spelling errors aren't the only issue with the physicalities of the book. The actual font and ink is cheap. If you look closely, you can see that there are several white dots in each letter. This tells me a few things: 1. The printer was old, and 2. it was designed to cut corners (costs). Furthermore, there was no index. There is also no words on the spine, ya know, where the name "Kierkegaard" and "The Purity of Heart..." ought to be. So when you have it on the shelf, it's a blue book, a mysterious book, an unnamed book!

I also take issue with the translator's comment about calling Kierkegaard the "Danish Pascal". I felt that this was silly, but I understand that it can be a debatable topic. On a more positive note, the cover art is nice!

Since Kierkegaard's style must be preserved without these silly distraction, I say that you should buy a better version of the book. The Hong editions are far superior, but I think they don't have this particular work by itself; I believe you have to buy the book that this "mini-work" appeared in.