The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition For Upbuilding And Awakening (Kierkegaard's Writings, Vol 19) (v. 19)
Soren Kierkegaard
Language: English
Pages: 201
ISBN: 0691020280
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
A companion piece to The Concept of Anxiety, this work continues Søren Kierkegaard's radical and comprehensive analysis of human nature in a spectrum of possibilities of existence. Present here is a remarkable combination of the insight of the poet and the contemplation of the philosopher.
In The Sickness unto Death, Kierkegaard moves beyond anxiety on the mental-emotional level to the spiritual level, where--in contact with the eternal--anxiety becomes despair. Both anxiety and despair reflect the misrelation that arises in the self when the elements of the synthesis--the infinite and the finite--do not come into proper relation to each other. Despair is a deeper expression for anxiety and is a mark of the eternal, which is intended to penetrate temporal existence.
harmony and joy—is nevertheless despair. To be sure, it is happiness, but happiness is not a qualification of spirit, and deep, deep within the most secret hiding place of happiness there dwells also anxiety, which is despair; it very much wishes to be allowed to remain there, because for despair the most cherished and desirable place to live is in the heart of happiness. Despite its illusory security and tranquillity, all immediacy is anxiety and thus, quite consistently, is most anxious about
definition, for Scripture always defines sin as disobedience), is not this definition too spiritual? The first and foremost answer to that must be: A definition of sin can never be too spiritual (unless it becomes so spiritual that it abolishes sin), for sin is specifically a qualification of spirit. Furthermore, why is it assumed to be too spiritual? Because it does not mention murder, stealing, fornication, etc.? But does it not speak of these things? Are not they also self-willfulness against
upon charge; it is the suit that the divine as the prosecutor ventures to bring against man. But can any human being comprehend this Christian teaching? By no means, for it is indeed Christianity and therefore involves offense. It must be believed. To comprehend is the range of man’s relation to the human, but to believe is man’s relation to the divine. How then does Christianity explain this incomprehensibility? Very consistently, in a way just as incomprehensible: by revealing it. Therefore,
himself excluded or think that it is human status and popularity with men that bring a person closer to God. No, he is the insignificant man. Look this way, he says, and know for certain what it is to be a human being, but take care, for I am also God—blessed is he who takes no offense at me. Or the reverse: The Father and I are one;80 yet I am this simple, insignificant man, poor, forsaken, surrendered to man’s violence81—blessed is he who takes no offense at me. I, this insignificant man, I am
Anti-Climacus, Practice in Christianity, KW XX (SV XII 173–78), where Indbildingskraft also “imagination” in English) is used to stress the relation of the ethical and imagination, “the capacity for perfecting (idealizing)” (p. 178). 29. Each of the sixty members had a horn fashioned for a particular note, which was played only at appropriate times. 30. With reference to the remainder of the paragraph, see Supplement, p. 149 (Pap. VIII2 B 150:6). 31. See Luke 10:42. 32. See Matthew 16:26.