That Søren Kierkegaard's thinking can be related to Augustine of Hippo would seem to be almost self-evident. After all, Augustine's influence pervades Christian theology, particularly in the West, and Kierkegaard's status as one of modern Christianity's seminal voices implies a connection to Augustine. Indeed, over the years, scholars have linked the two in a variety of contexts, from compendia on the reception of Augustine to evaluations of the historical unfolding of Christianity. And yet, with this in mind, it is more than a little surprising that the relation between Augustine and Kierkegaard has failed to garner focused scholarly attention over the years. Commentators have tended to prefer impressions to intimacy, and, as a result, the relation between Augustine and Kierkegaard remains fuzzy. Are the two thinkers effectively cut from the same cloth, tendering existential, rhetorically adept writings for the sake of spiritual growth? Or is Kierkegaard's ostensible individualism ultimately opposed to the bishop of Hippo's defense of Catholic doctrinal and ecclesial authority?

Into the breach steps Lee C. Barrett, whose Eros and Self-Emptying: The Intersections of Augustine and Kierkegaard not only stands as the most fully realized piece of scholarship on Augustine and Kierkegaard yet to appear, but also promises to set the standard for future research. Barrett's book is divided into two overarching parts: the first is broadly historical, examining Kierkegaard's study of and reflection on Augustine, whereas the second locates “particular substantive parallels and divergences between the two thinkers” (22). The former strategy, according to Barrett, is essential for the latter. It is easier to comprehend the similarities and differences between Augustine and Kierkegaard when one sees Kierkegaard's perspective on his patristic forerunner.

Though rendering Eros and Self-Emptying rather lengthy, this two-pronged approach ensures that Barrett's contribution is formidable. On the one hand, he demonstrates that Kierkegaard, despite being hampered by tendentious (and now dated) sources, had a fairly strong grasp of Augustinian theology. Even more significantly, he shows that, while critical of Augustine's affinity for metaphysical speculation, Kierkegaard found himself agreeing with Augustine more often than not, especially over “the strenuous principles of the ideal Christian life” (58).

These findings, in turn, lead to Barrett's investigation of the points of intersection between the two thinkers. A variety of topics are surveyed here, from God to the problem of sin to the status of the church. In each case, Barrett provides a careful, balanced assessment, wanting neither to conflate Augustine and Kierkegaard nor to hastily pull them apart. What he ends up with are a pair of figures who have noticeably different ecclesiologies, even as they agree that God is the ultimate object of human desire (eros) and that human beings must continually strive to refine this passion in cooperation with the divine nature (self-emptying). As Barrett puts it, “Perhaps the most striking and startling parallelism of Augustine and Kierkegaard is their common conviction that the ultimate object of desire is the self-giving love of God” (392).

This is a provocative conclusion, for it moves Kierkegaard away from “the dominant Lutheran nonteleological understanding of faith” (22) and puts him into further conversation with Catholic theologians such as Hans Urs von Balthasar. In this sense, Barrett's work might be considered part of a recent upsurge in interest in Kierkegaard's relation to the Catholic tradition. Whether or not this shift will become central to the reception of Kierkegaard is yet to be determined. Nevertheless, in so skillfully linking Augustine and Kierkegaard, Barrett has by no means impeded the growth in Catholic scholarship on Kierkegaard.