he took away the burdens of the Christian. Kierkegaard wrote much about the consciousness of sin and wrote about the difference Christianity makes. James Collins, from Saint Louis University, wrote the following about Kierkegaard's Gospel of Suffering in 1953. "Find a point which is under fire by an atheist of the nineteenth century and which is also defended by a seventeenth century man of faith and you have found an incontrovertibly religious belief. Such is the case with suffering, which is a scandal to a Feuerbach and a matter of glory to a Pascal, but to both a distinguishing note of the Christian mode of existence. In the degree that it promotes a meditative inwardness, Christianity makes us aware of God's supreme goodness and our own distance from, and hostility towards, His holiness. A religious sense of one's own sinfulness leads neither to morbid despair nor to rationalization. It issues in a voluntary acceptance of suffering as a way of atoning for sin to God, the just judge, and a way of approaching closer to God the redeemer. In a series of discourses entitled The Gospel of Suffering, Kierkegaard establishes the relation between guilt, suffering, and the triumph of faith, much after the manner of Luther's dialectical treatment of the theme of the sinner as a believer." Notes References Sources Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits translated by Howard V & Edna H Hong. Princeton University Press, 1993. Hong, Howard V. & Edna H. The Essential Kierkegaard. Princeton University Press, 2000. D. Anthony Storm's Commentary on Discourses External links Purity of Heart Steere translation – whole text in English Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing by Sören Kierkegaard Translator's Introduction by Douglas V. Steere 1938 The Glory of Our Common Humanity David F Swenson's translation of How Glorious It Is to Be a Human Being from What We Learn From the Lilies in the Field and From the Birds of the Air The Joy in the Thought That it is not the Way Which is Narrow, but the Narrowness Which is the Way David F Swenson's translation of The Joy of it That it Is Not the Road That Is Hard but That Hardship Is the Road published 1958 from The Gospel of Sufferings, Christian Discourses The Road is the How Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits published in 1847, Hong's p. 289 Audio Reading Clifford Williams The Divided Soul: