How faith secures the morality of love

This chapter examines how Kierkegaard’s conception of faith substantiates a conception of love as a moral phenomenon. Analyzing faith as an existential position—namely, as a way of existence that fully accommodates the implications of existing in time—I demonstrate the significance of faith for love. I claim that faith, existentially understood, addresses successfully the threats to morality that love might entail—that is, selfishness and partiality—and that it does so by serving either as a model for love or, more strongly, as a condition for it.