In this booklet, we present a chapter from Works of Love by the Danish philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard, first published in 1847. It is an English translation based on a modernised Danish revision of the original text. The text is divided into twenty independent pieces, and each piece is presented along with Kierkegaard’s original text on the facing page. 

What is exceptionally strong and moving in Kierkegaard’s teaching on the duty to love is that to love is not a commandment to love and exalt the ideal, the sublime, the ethereal, but instead, it is a commandment, in simple and tangible ways, to love the given person you see, the person you meet in your way of life. We should not search for the people in which we see features worthy of love, but on the contrary, we must find the person we see, whoever that is, as worthy of our love. 

If we only love what we consider worthy, then we are in love with a dream—a mirage—and not with what we really see. But seeing an illusion is the same as not seeing, Kierkegaard says. Christian love is thus a steadfast love, a love that does not love the dream. If I am to love in a Christian sense, I must not be picky and only love perfection. 

It’s an enormous task, but a good and blessed task, because the duty to love, as demanding as it is, is ultimately rooted in and motivated by the redemptive love of God. The act of love may very well be about the way we see or do not see our fellow human beings. But ultimately, it is also about the way we ourselves have been seen by Christ.