The two essays reprinted in this volume show Kierkegaard pondering fundamental questions about the relationship between God and man. In Fear and Trembling – ‘A Dialectical Lyric’ – he explores the absolute nature of religious commitment through an analysis of the story of Abraham and Isaac. In The Book on Adler, Kierkegaard focuses on the experience of revelation with the question: how can we know when and if we are being summoned by God? The resulting discussion is what George Steiner has called ‘one of the dark jewels in the history of philosophic psychology’.