The Sickness unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening

by Soren Kierkegaard

Publisher:

Princeton University Press

, 1980

Overview

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.

Contents

Top Highlights

“A human being is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation that relates itself to itself or is the relation’s relating itself to itself in the relation; the self is not the relation but is the relation’s relating itself to itself. A human being is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity, in short, a synthesis.² A synthesis is a relation between two. Considered in this way, a human being is still not a self.” (Page 13)

“The opposite to being in despair is to have faith. Therefore, the formula set forth above, which describes a state in which there is no despair at all, is entirely correct, and this formula is also the formula for faith: in relating itself to itself and in willing to be itself, the self rests transparently in the power that established it (cf. A, a).” (Page 49)

“In his lostness, he is blind to the fact that his life has the continuity of sin instead of the essential continuity of the eternal through being before God in faith.” (Page 105)

“But in this infinite love of his merciful grace he nevertheless makes one condition: he cannot do otherwise.” (Page 126)

“as a fruit of sinful love under your heart, or in such a way that you, a terror to others, raged in despair” (Pages 27–28)

Product Details

• Title: The Sickness unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening
• Author: Soren Kierkegaard
• Series: Kierkegaard’s Writings
• Volume: XIX
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Print Publication Date: 1980
• Logos Release Date: 2018
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subjects: Sin › Christianity; Despair › Religious aspects--Christianity
• ISBNs: 9781400847020, 0691020280, 9780691020280, 9780691072470, 0691072477, 1400847028
• Resource ID: LLS:KKGWRTGS19
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2024-03-05T00:03:30Z

About Soren Kierkegaard

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855) was a Danish Christian philosopher, theologian and religious author. He was a critic of idealist intellectuals and philosophers of his time, such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel; he was also critical of the state and practice of Christianity in his lifetime, primarily that of The Church of Denmark. He is widely considered to be the first existentialist.