Jason A. Mahn - Fortunate Fallibility. Kierkegaard and the Power of Sin [2011][A]

Book Description
Publication Date: July 6, 2011
For more than 1,500 years, the claim that Adam's Fall might be considered 'fortunate' has been Christianity's most controversial and difficult idea. While keepers of the Easter vigil in the fifth century (and later John Milton) praised sin only as a backhanded witness to the ineffability of redemption, modern speculative theodicy came to understand all evil as comprehensible, historically productive, and therefore fortunate, while the romantic poets credited transgression with bolstering individual creativity and spirit.
Jason Mahn's compelling study examines Kierkegaard's ''para/orthodixical'' language of human fallibility and Christian sin. Mahn breaks down and reconstructs the concept of the fortunate Fall in Western thought, in context of Kierkegaard's later writings, examining Kierkegaard's blunt critique of Idealism's justification of evil, as well as his playful deconstruction of romantic celebrations of sin. Mahn also argues, though, that Kierkegaard resists the moralization of evil, preferring to consider temptation and sin as determinative dimensions of religious existence. In relation to the assumed ''innocence'' of Christendom's cultured Christians, the self-conscious sinner might be the better religious witness.
Although Mahn shows how Kierkegaard finally replaces actual sin with human fragility, temptation, and the possibility of spiritual offense as that which ''happily'' shapes religious faith, he cogently argues that Kierkegaard's understanding of ''fortunate fallibility'' is at least as rhetorically compelling and theologically operative as talk of a fortunate Fall. Mahn's insights into Kierkegaard's playful maneuvers encourage Christian theologians to speak of sin more particularly and peculiarly than in the typical discourses of church and culture.

Reviews
"Mahn's reading of Kierkegaard is both fresh and challenging, and there is a lot
more material packed into 212 pages than one might expect. His arguments draw widely from Kierkegaard's writings, and while scholars might dispute various sub-points, Mahn excels at supporting his overall thesis regarding the paradoxical logic of the felix culpa. He convincingly shows how this logic informs Kierkegaard's writings, while also connecting this to larger questions regarding theodicy and the problem of evil. As such, this book should be of great interest to Kierkegaard scholars as well as philosophers of religion."--Brian Gregor, Philosophy in Review

"Mahn boldly uses Kierkegaard to rehabilitate the concept 'sin' for a postmodern audience sensitive to the fissures in human experience. Mahn's Kierkegaard situates the reader between confession and Eucharist, provoking her to experience blessedness through the anguished awareness of human fallibility. Mahn's own evocative and paradoxical discourse beautifully exhibits how the blessedness of rejoicing in the love of Christ is tensively related to the possibility of being offended by it."--Lee C. Barrett, author of Kierkegaard

"Jason Mahn takes on the daunting task of tracing the themes of fallibility, finitude, and fault through the Kierkegaardian corpus, showing how attention to human failings becomes a surer path to redemption than direct praise of virtue, God, or grace. He does a marvelous job of showing how 'anxiety,' 'leveling,' 'death,' 'paradox,' 'subjectivity,' 'chatter,' and 'self-choice' are less portals to modern existentialism than preliminaries to Christian salvation."--Edward F. Mooney, Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Syracuse University, and President of the North American Kierkegaard Society


"The great both/and of Kierkegaard's writings is, Mahn shows us, the both/and of the human situation--fated and free in our errant lives. Mahn's Kierkegaard, like Augustine, lays bare the reality of sin as 'a disease that infests us long before we choose it.' Only out of the sustained encounter with this reality, Mahn argues, does the 'human at full register' emerge. At last a writer whose sure-footed exegesis unveils the fine logic behind Kierkegaard's theoretical hesitations!"---Vanessa Rumble, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Boston College

"Mahn makes a careful, complex eploration of the notion of "fortunate fallibility" that reveals how danish philosopher Kierkegaard conceived of the relationship between human vulnerability and Christian faith."--CHOICE

About the Author
Jason A. Mahn is Assistant Professor of Religion at Augustana College, where he teaches courses in theology and contemporary religious life. He has published several scholarly articles about the role of sin and temptation in the life of Christian faith. He lives in Rock Island, Illinois with his wife and two sons.