SOURCE: "Kierkegaard and the Logic of Insanity," in Kierkegaard's Critique of Reason and Society, Mercer University Press, 1987, pp. 85-103.

In the following essay, Westphal explores the relationship between faith and insanity (or "divine madness ") in Kierkegaard's writings, observing that faith appears to be opposed to reason, not merely beyond reason.

Feigned madness can be a valuable asset. King David once used it to escape from the Philistines (1 Sam. 21), and a twentieth-century king, Pirandello's Henry IV, used the same trick on a modern philistine culture. Thrown from his horse and struck on the head while on his way to a masquerade party dressed as the Henry of Canossa's chill repentance, he had for twenty years insanely identified himself with the eleventh-century monarch. At least this is what his family, and the court they provided for his humor, thought. As the play opens they are unaware that he has regained...