Socrates as a Religious Figure Within a Christian Framework: Socratic Irony and the Quest for Truth in Søren Kierkegaard and Hans Urs von Balthasar

Instead of examining Socrates and his philosophy within the realm of philosophy, this study engages with the works of two theologians—Søren Kierkegaard and Hans Urs von Balthasar—to explore the person of Socrates and his philosophical concerns. The article approaches this exploration through conceptual pairs: for example, Socratic irony is analysed in terms of whether it is a serious or unserious matter. Further, the study investigates whether Socrates’s death was a tragic event or meaningless regarding each theological framework. Then the study turns to the notion of salvation history, probing whether Socrates’s death is a prefiguration of Christ’s death, or whether it fails to have any symbolic or historical relation.