Kierkegaard - Sickness Unto Death PPT

THE SICKNESS UNTO DEATH

The PowerPoint!

KIERKEGAARD: GROUND RULES

• Rejected Hegelianism then in vogue– didn’t like Hegel’s synthesis conception of God / Spirit– Focused instead on individuality & “subjective truth”

• Used irony & indirect communication in writings– Wrote using psuedonyms that represented points of view– Sometimes just one, sometimes several in one book

• Particularly fond of Socrates & Socratic method – That is, forcing you to question your own assumptions– Magister (PhD) dissertation: The Concept of Irony– He attempts to draw you toward his point indirectly– He finds this approach more persuasive

• Think Stephen Colbert– Plays a conservative commentator but ironically– SC’s point is usually the opposite of what he literally says– Yet everyone gets the joke & the point

TSUD: GROUND RULES

• The psuedonymous “author” of The Sickness Unto Death is Anti-Climacus– AC is an uncomprimising Christian figure– Advocating a position of redemption of self through faith alone

• Kierkegaard used the character Johannes Climacus in earlier works– A more “liberal” Christian character– But St. John (Johannes) of the Ladder (Climacus) was a 7th C.

saint• Wrote The Ladder of Divine Ascent• Each chapter was a “step” toward salvation

• “Anti-Climacus,” then, was K’s ultra-Christian vision of Johannes Climacus– TSUD does advocate an elevation/redemption of the self– But not via steps or a process – rather a radical (impossible?)

move to faith– K.’s journals indicate that K. himself could not meet Anti-

Climacus’ own standards

TSUD: GROUND RULES

“Anti-Climacus” is a kind of pun– “Anti-” in the sense of “opposite”– Also archaic variant of “Ante-”, meaning ‘prior’

• Metaphysically• In stature, rank, prestige, priority

– Also used here as “anticipate”

• TSUD is a challenge to Christians to re-examine their faith

– Philosophically, it is also a response to Hegel– K. referred to Hegel as “Johannes Climacus”

• “Hegel is a Johannes Climacus who does not storm the heavens as do the giants…but climbs up to them by means of his syllogisms.”

– Anti-Climacus is “higher” than Johannes Climacus

Johannes Climacus built a metaphorical ladder to heavenHegel built a metaphorical ladder to SpiritIn TSUD K. is going to bring God directly to the self

SUMMARY OF THE BOOK

The self is a relation of extreme opposites, e.g the infinite & finite, temporal & eternal, necessity & possibility– The relation (self) is only possible via grounding in God– A misrelation in this synthesis will lead to despair– Despair can be overcome through faith

There are essentially 3 different kinds of despair– ignorance of having an eternal self – wishing to be another self (weakness)– asserting the self without relation to God (defiance)

He concludes that despair is sin• one can despair over one's sins in weakness• one can despair over forgiveness of one's sins by refusing

forgiveness (defiance)• the worst is to reject God outright as a fiction

The opposite of sin is not virtue but faith

TSUD in Exposition

• What you just read is the super-reader’s digest condensed version of the book

• What follows is a very detailed exposition of the entirety of the book, section by section

• “Abandon all hope and despair, ye who enter here…”

PREFACE TO TSUD

• A Christian book should edify (“uplift”)

• It should not simply be scientific

• This stems from Christianity’s unique mission– Methodological rigor is secondary

• Notice this provides an easy defense to attacks on K’s argument

• But also reflects K’s distaste of system-building & methodology

• Kierkegaard preferred (Socratic) deconstruction, interrogation & irony

PREFACE

• K sees himself as a physician at the sickbed– the patient doesn’t understand

medical terms– so the physician need only

convey that information which cures the patient

– So, even if the physician adopts an informal style for patient’s sake,

• don’t take the physician any less seriously

PREFACE

• Science is aloof & indifferent to human needs– Aloofness renders science mere “jest & vanity”

• vain despite its intellectual rigor

• Christianity’s goal to “edify” grants it seriousness– Therefore, A-C need not be rigorous to be serious

• Anti-Climacus acts as “physician” who will cure your “sickness unto death”

– Note: the “sickness” is not death itself, but the despair that precedes death

• and yet dying - to depart this world - is in fact the only cure for despair

INTRODUCTION

• Phrase “sickness unto death” refers to John 11:4

• Jesus Christ stated before reviving Lazarus that L’s sickness “was not unto death”

• Thus, JC “cured” Lazarus’ death

• But, wait a minute…

INTRODUCTION

• Lazarus’ death could never be a “true” death!– After all, JC believed Lazarus’ soul to be immortal

• So saying that L’s sickness “was not unto death” would be true even if JC had not revived Lazarus from death

• And after L’s resurrection, what next?– L would eventually die anyway– so raising him from the dead was not much of a “cure”

INTRODUCTION

• So was the “sickness” to which JC referred the physical ailment that killed Lazarus?

• Or was JC referring to some other sickness?– Are there sicknesses that won’t kill you?– Yes, psychological, or spiritual sicknesses– Such sickness can cause misery, but is not itself fatal

INTRODUCTION

• Christians do not fear what most non-Christians fear; to wit, mortality

• Pagans fear what doesn’t scare Christians: death

• But Christians face a larger fear – the ramifications of immortality

• This fear, that of an eternal despair that won’t end with death, is the “sickness unto death”

INTRODUCTION

• This is an interesting argument even if you don’t believe in an immortal soul

• After all, even most Christians are unsure about what immortality could mean

• Secular interpretation? – Even if your despair finally ends with your death

• the structure of your very Self ensures you always suffer the pain of despair while alive

– unless you re-balance your Self to something other than yourself• But if not God, what? Society? Some other project?

• Might a relationship to something else also provide the “equilibrium” and/or “rest” to which he refers?

PART ONE

The Sickness Unto Death is Despair

PART 1.A.A

• Despair is a sickness of the spirit– of the self

• Despair takes 1 of 3 forms

– Being unaware that you even have a self (unawareness of God or a soul)

– Not wanting to be oneself(not facing up to God through self-delusion & weakness)

– Wanting to be oneself (rejecting God through defiance)

PART 1.A.A: DEFINITIONS

• Human being is spirit• But a human being is

not necessarily a Self– Self =

• relation between temporal & infinite aspects of human existence

• which has been established by another

– This relation between thesis & antithesis creates a synthesis

– But this synthesis alone is not the Self

– You can be a human being & yet not have a Self

temporal

necessity

(ANTITHESIS)

temporal

necessity

(ANTITHESIS)

Infinite

Possibility

(THESIS)

Infinite

Possibility

(THESIS)

SYNTHESIS

imbalanced

• To become a Self you must relate to your own relation

• Thus, Selfhood is an ongoing process

– it’s a verb – not a noun

• In other words, the Self is the process of reflecting upon the various parameters of your body & soul

temporal

necessity

(ANTITHESIS)

temporal

necessity

(ANTITHESIS)

Infinite

Possibility

(THESIS)

Infinite

Possibility

(THESIS)

SYNTHESIS

• This is not yet a Self

• It is simply a negative unity

• “Negative unity” is a Hegelian term

• Presumably, N.U. means a static combination of elements– but not a dynamic

self-relation

temporal

necessity

(ANTITHESIS)

temporal

necessity

(ANTITHESIS)

Infinite

Possibility

(THESIS)

Infinite

Possibility

(THESIS)

SYNTHESIS

• This is the Self• Its dynamic

relation to itself forms a positive unity

• Note K’s use of Hegelian terms– K was opposed to

many of H’s conclusions

– but not H’s logic

Remember, all this is going on as a thought-process inside the psyche

temporal

necessity

(ANTITHESIS)

temporal

necessity

(ANTITHESIS)

SoulInfinite

Possibility(THESIS)

SoulInfinite

Possibility(THESIS)

SYNTHESIS

PART 1.A.A: SELF AS SYNTHESIS

• K’s wordplay toys with concepts of the self-conscious first described by Hegel – See “Lordship & Bondage”

chapter from Phenomenology of Spirit (1807).

• Per Hegel, Spirit cannot come into existence without one self-consciousness relating to another self-consciousness– E.g., Lord & bondsman– Each defines the other’s

identity

PART 1.A.A: INHERENT FLAW IN SELF-ESTABLISHED SELF

• This introspective reflection upon your relation to yourself creates the “self-established self” (SES)

• SES can lead to only one form of despair: Not wanting to be yourself

• Why would that be?

PART 1.A.A: INHERENT FLAW IN THE SELF

• The self-relating body/soul synthesis that makes up the SES is unbalanced if its sole reference is itself

• This imbalance results in a kind of vertigo

• This self-established self is like an imbalanced spinning top that cannot attain equilibrium

• “Equilibrium” implies a constant oscillation or rotation– This is your self-relating psyche– which can be in or out of balance

PART 1.A.A: THE GOD-ESTABLISHED SELF

• But what happens if your self (soul/body) relates itself to that which created the relation (i.e., God)?

• Because the third element of your self-relation is now external to you– it has a referent (see Hegel), so– your Self can now become balanced

• If you recognize God’s role in your creation, then means you will no longer necessarily want to be rid of yourself– but the possibility

will always remain– because you are

always tempted to escape (or deny) your grounding

GOD(as grounding)

Your self

PART 1.A.A: GOD-ESTABLISHED SELF

• In other words, you can still despair even after recognizing the presence of God. How?

• By “wanting to be yourself”– i.e., desiring independence

of your dependence upon God

• Yes, this frees you from your grounding

• but resisting your dependence upon God always places your Self out of balance

• This is the 2nd kind of despair– wanting to take sole control

of yourself & your fate– & therefore not yielding to

your grounding in God

PART 1.A.B: POSSIBILITY & ACTUALITY OF DESPAIR

• Despair both merit & defect

• The possibility of the sickness separates us from beasts

• The recognition of the sickness separates Christians from pagans

• To be cured is the Christian’s blessedness

• And yet, despair is misery & ruin – Why?– Despair is an infinite descent– Hegel would characterize the relationship

between possibility & actuality as ascent

• But if the possibility to be something is good– then actually being that thing is better

• in other words, accomplishing something gets better as you activate your possibility to do it

• But not being in despair is a negation of despair, not an activation of the possibility of avoiding it

• Curing despair is not like curing blindness, lameness, etc.

– You can’t be partially cured or helped– You either negate despair or you don’t– It only gets better once you’ve

annihilated even the possibility of despair

• But despair results not simply from the imbalance residing in the synthesis that comprises the self– (body/soul and its aspects)

• Rather, despair comes from the imbalanced spirit relating to itself – So despair always risks recurring during the process of

self-relation

• K. returns to the metaphor of vertigo– Vertigo results from the combination of imbalance &

motion– Despair is the combination of an imbalanced spirit

engaged in never-ending self-reflection

• So, unless you apply a constant effort to fight despair, it will always recur, – it cannot be cured like an illness, because this imbalance is

hard-wired into the aspects of your psyche– You cannot have a self without your eternal spirit relating to

itself, & the spirit contains the imbalance

• Physical sicknesses occurs through no fault of the patient

• But despair is a sickness you bring upon yourself

PART 1.A.C: DESPAIR IS THE SICKNESS UNTO DEATH

• Someone in despair thinks he is in despair over something

• But he’s really in despair over himself being something he doesn’t want to be– or of not being something he wants to be

• If someone despairs over failing to become Caesar, he is not despairing over the fact of the failure– but over himself for not becoming Caesar

– Of course, had he become Caesar, he would still have been in despair• but despair of a different kind – that of wanting to be oneself

– He suffers from the despair of being stuck as someone he doesn’t want to be

• Or take a woman who lost her lover through death or infidelity

• She may think she is upset over the loss– but she is really upset over having to live

with herself in a state of loss &/or shame

• She wants to be free of herself, but she can’t

• Forms of conscious despair are as follows:

– Not wanting to be yourself at all (weakness)

– Wanting be yourself without God (defiance)

• Socrates proved soul’s immortality, how?– Sickness of the soul does not kill a

person– But bodily sickness can

• One can similarly prove the eternal in man by showing that despair does not consume the self

• The sickness unto death is not the kind of sickness that could end with death

• The torment of this sickness is that will not end with death

• The sickness means you eternally experience the feeling of dying, without actually dying

PART 1.B: THE GENERALITY OF THIS SICKNESS

• Just as no one has perfect physical health, everyone has at least some level of despair within them

• This may seem like gloomy news, but in fact is uplifting for confirming that all men have spirit within them

• But people misunderstand the nature of despair, & therefore think it is rare when in fact it is common

• Usually, people are considered healthy unless they feel ill

• But a physician knows there can be merely imagined health, just a there can be merely imagined illness

• Passing dejection can be an affectation of despair, but it is not despair itself

• Despair has different dialectical character from physical illness

• Physical health is an immediate characteristic which becomes dialectical only in a state of sickness

• But there is no immediate state of spiritual health

• Despair is the unconsciousness of being spirit

• Even underneath the greatest physical fortune lies dread underneath

• All immediacy is dread, & it is most in dread of nothing

• Despair is most common in those who don’t realize they have it.– But those who realize they do have it

are at least a bit closer to being cured• People likely to realize their despair

are those who have:– a more profound nature– had painful experiences– had to make difficult decisions

• Much is spoken of wasting one’s life

• But the only life wasted is the one that is deceived by life’s earthly pleasures – or by its sorrows

• Earthly distractions keep you from under-standing your spiritual aspect

• But the true horror of this spiritual sickness is its hiddenness

PART 1.C: THE FORMS OF THIS SICKNESS

• Despair is an intrinsic possibility arising from the process of self-consciousness

• Different levels of self-consciousness distinguish the different types of despair

• But different levels of consciousness also mean different levels of self

• Note the implication:– Less consciousness means less will & less

“self”!

PART 1.C.A: THREE ASPECTS OF DESPAIR

• The self is made up of finitude & infinitude, – but that self is freedom

• Freedom, in turn, is the dialectical element in the categories of possibility & necessity

• Later, we’ll get to the aspect of consciousness & unconsciousness

• So, three polarities make up despair’s aspects1. Finitude vs. infinitude2. Possibility vs. necessity3. Consciousness vs. unconsciousness

PART 1.C.A: SOLELY WITH REGARD TO SYNTHESIS

(a)Under the aspect of finitude/infinitude

• Self is conscious synthesis of finitude / infinitude

– Whose task is to become itself– Which is only possible via relationship

to God

PART 1.C.A(a): FINITUDE VS. INFINITUDE

• But the self never finishes synthesizing its finite & infinite aspects

• The self develops only through an endless state of Becoming

• But to never stop becoming is precisely to despair

PART 1.C.A(a)α: FINITUDE VS. INFINITUDE

• Humans who want to become infinite will succumb to despair

• Infinitude’s despair is the imagination

• Imagination is endless self-reflection

• The fantastic carries someone away into the infinite, making an abstract sensitivity

• A person whose imagination roams too freely becomes too abstract

• You lose yourself to eternity

• If greater understanding does not lead to greater self-understanding, then it becomes a kind of inhuman knowledge– in which the Self is squandered

• By dwelling solely on the infinite, & not on its relation to the Self,– one may get lost in abstraction– and thus despair

• This is true even if you’re contemplating religion or God– If you simply marvel at God’s infinitude,

• without recognizing the role you play in the relationship,

• you may miss the whole point!

• One can make this mistake & still lead an apparently happy religious life

• While dwelling on the infinite, you ignore your lack of a deeper Self

• Mastering the objective knowledge is so distracting that you risk losing your Self

PART 1.C.A(a)α: INFINITUDE LACKING FINITUDE

• “The biggest danger– that of losing oneself– can pass off in the world as quietly as if

it were nothing;

• Every other loss– an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc.,– is bound to be noticed.”

PART 1.C.A(a)β: FINITUDE LACKING INFINITUDE

• The world is only interested in – ethical or – aesthetic limitations, or – in the indifferent (e.g., science, Hegelian systems)

• Worldliness ascribes infinite value to objective knowledge

• The worldly point of view always focuses on the differences between men, by objectifying them

• Becoming finitized, you become not a Self, but simply a person, – “merely one more repetition of this perpetual Einerlei

(one-&-the-same / all-the-same)”

PART 1.C.A(a)β: FINITUDE LACKING INFINITUDE

• This kind of self is cheated of itself by “the others”

• This kind of self finds it easier to “be like the others, to be a copy, a number, along with the crowd.”

• Society would consider this person to be just what a human being ought to be

• This kind of despair makes life convenient & comfortable

• Such people despair by “pawning themselves to the world”

PART 1.C.A(b): POSSIBILITY VS. NECESSITY

• For the purpose of becoming a self, possibility & necessity are just as essential as finitude & infinitude

• So the self is made up of finitude & infinitude, but that self is freedom

• Freedom, in turn, is the dialectical element in the categories of possibility & necessity

• Later, we’ll get to the aspect of consciousness

PART 1.C.A(b)α: POSSIBILITY VS. NECESSITY

• Possibility’s despair is to lack necessity

• To the extent that the self is itself, it is necessary

• To the extent the self must become itself, it is possibility

• Possibility is like offering a child a treat– The child says “yes” straightaway

• But then there’s the question of whether the child’s parents will consent– So it is with necessity

PART 1.C.A(b)α: POSSIBILITY VS. NECESSITY

• Everything is possible in possibility

– One form is the wishful, the hankering (hope)

– The other is the melancholic-fantastic (dread)

• But if you simply spend your time hoping for good things, or worrying about bad things, you won’t focus on the present

PART 1.C.A(b)β: POSSIBILITY VS. NECESSITY

• Necessity’s despair is to lack possibility

• If possibility is like having nothing but vowels, necessity is like having nothing but consonants– That is, you are struck speechless

• To lack possibility means that everything becomes either necessary or trivial

– Like King Midas starving to death because all his food turned to gold

• The fatalist has no God but necessity– He loses God & therefore himself

• But the petit bourgeois lose possibility in a different way

• They worship God, but only in a vulgar & trivial way– This is because he perceived the possible only

through the probable– This misses the majesty of God

• To be aware of yourself & God, you need to whirl up higher than the dank air of the probable

• But the petit bourgeois mentality lacks the imagination to comprehend hope & fear

• Only if life helps now & then – with terrors that transcend the parrot-wisdom of banal

experience– will the comfortable petit bourgeois mentality ever

despair

• At least fatalists & determinists have the imagination to despair of possibility

• The person lost in possibility soars with the boldness with despair

• The person lost in necessity is bent down carrying the weight of despair

• But the petit bourgeois mentality spiritlessly triumphs

PART 1.C.A.B: ASPECT OF CONSCIOUSNESS

• Rising consciousness intensifies despair

• Decreasing consciousness reduces despair

• In fact, it might be a dialectical question whether true unconsciousness even constitutes despair

• But then, it also implies a lack of spirit as well!

PART 1.C.A.B(a): IGNORANCE OF DESPAIR

• Ignorance of even having a self is a kind of despair

• Totally dominated by sensuous & psycho-sensuous reactions

• Lives in categories of the sensate

• Most people prefer to live in the basement of their own house, which is to say, the sensate world

• They lack the courage to imagine themselves as spirit

• People are least afraid of being in error

• Hegel erected a huge building (his System) that encompassed all of life & world-history

• But turning to his own personal life, he sees that he has been living in – a store-house– a kennel, – a janitor’s quarters

• If despair is a distraction– then being unaware of this fact is also a delusion

• The relation between ignorance & despair is like that of ignorance & dread (see K.’s Concept of Anxiety)

• The dread in a spiritless person is recognizable precisely because of his sense of spiritless security

• As soon as illusion is broken– then it is clear that despair was lying underneath the whole

• If despair is a negativity– then ignorance of despair is an new negativity– but you have to pass through both to cure the despair

• Thus, you must first lose your ignorance– and then move on to the real battle: fighting despair itself

• However, ethico-dialectically, the person cured of ignorance may stray even further from deliverance– Because the despair now becomes more intense

• Thus, living an ethical life does not necessarily bring you closer to deliverance– but in fact simply more deeply in despair!

• that is, you come to realize just how hard it is to live ethically• which makes you want to fight against the demands it places

upon you

• Ignorance of despair is the most common form– in fact, it typifies Christendom

• In this sense, Christendom is really no different from pre-Christian pagans

• Aesthetic individuals, & even whole pagan societies, are capable of great aesthetic achievement, but…

• Aesthetes & pagans do not ground their existence in God– but rather they self-ground themselves

• or in some abstract (e.g., the State)– they are therefore capable of only aesthetic virtues– which are really ethical vices!

• This is why, for example, pagans had no real problem with suicide, a mortal sin in Christianity

• Thus, there is a difference between Greek pagans & Christian pagans

• Greek pagans lack spirit– but are at least directed toward spirit

• Christian paganism lacks spirit– but by being less ignorant, they in fact run away from

spirit

• Christian pagan spiritlessness is worse in this sense

PART 1.C.A.B(b): CONSCIOUS DESPAIR

• Some may perceive they are in despair without really understanding what despair is

• In other words, they misunderstand what despair is & how it works

• So conscious despair requires an understanding of what real despair is

• Thus, someone can feel symptoms of a sickness– without understanding the nature of that sickness

• Without understanding the nature of his sickness, he may misdiagnose the cause

• Alternatively, he may distract himself from such worries – by thinking about work or other business

• However, it may not occur to him that he is doing this to keep himself in the dark about his despair– Or he may understand he is doing this to district

himself from despair• but doesn’t understand the consequences of such

behavior

• The opposite of being in despair is to have faith

• The formula for faith is this: in relating to yourself, you want to be yourself, but while grounded with your establishing power

• Thus, faith is the sum of 3 factors:

– Self-reflection + – acceptance + – relating your self-relation to God

PART 1.C.A.B(b)α: DESPAIR OF WEAKNESS

• This is the conscious despair of not wanting to be yourself

• This is more of a feminine, i.e., weak, form of despair

• There is no purely masculine or feminine form of despair, however, just general trends

• Two versions: despair over the earthly or the eternal

• Despairing over the earthly is to live in total immediacy

• Its dialectic is material good or its absence: – pleasantness vs unpleasantness, or – good fortune vs misfortune

• If you lose some material or earthly possession, you may first encounter despair– but then you misunderstand what you are

despairing over

• This can lead to not wanting to be yourself, or worse, wanting to be someone else entirely

• This treats the self like clothing that can be taken off, or switched with another item

• To wish for a new self is comic, by misunderstanding the nature of the self

• This foreshadows existentialism:– Because essence follows existence, it is impossible

to trade out one “essence” for another. Why?– Your existence builds your essence, i.e., your self!

PART 1.C.A.B(b)α(1): DESPAIR OF WEAKNESS

• Essentially, these individuals despair because they focus on earthly success– & become disappointed with their failure to

succeed in material matters

• They feel despair for having failed to meet their earthly goals– but choose the wrong solution by wanting to fix

this problem by simply • wishing for better luck, or • obtaining a new identity, etc.

• This is the despair of not wanting to be yourself

• He simply doesn’t have the capacity for self-reflection that will allow him to break with immediacy

• He misunderstands his self as a kind of house that he inhabits

• You can’t move away from your self & into a new self, simply because you’re dissatisfied with yourself!

• Alternatively, he may try to succeed in this world

• He gets a wife, a family, a respectable position in society, etc.

• But he’s simply a Christian pagan

• He may ask a priest about immortality, & query whether he’ll see his self in the next life– Which is a pressing question, seeing as he in fact

has no self!

• Despair over the earthly is the most common form of despair

• Because it’s so thin, it’s rarely seen, but this doesn’t mean it isn’t despair

• Very few people live spiritual lives, & in fact to neglect the earthly in favor of spirit would strike modern society as – an inexcusable waste of time &– a treason against humanity

• And the moment anyone tries to attempt a spiritual life– they are immediately scared off by the

prospect

• They are told by their priests that they needn’t bother– because they are already assured of salvation

• Most people have a false conception of despair as something that afflicts the young & inexperienced

• But the reality is that most people are no wiser in old age than they were as youth– Youth despair by hoping for the future– The elderly despair by living with cherry-picked

happy memories

• In spiritual terms, no human being attains any wisdom or faith simply as a matter of course– It takes work & honest self-reflection

• In a sense, to despair over earthly matters is also to despair over the eternal

– You can’t get upset over earthly failures unless you assign undue value to the earthly

• But to elevate the earthly as worthy of concern is necessarily to devalue the eternal– & thus despair over the eternal

• But at least despair over the eternal is a progression forward in understanding

• Focusing on the eternal, people may feel self-pity & chagrin at worrying only about earthly matters– As a result, they feel unworthy of the eternal,– and thus despair over the eternal

• That creates even greater despair– because you have become cognizant of the eternal

• But if you dwell on hating yourself for your weakness, you lose faith in God’s forgiveness– and therefore commit a more defiant form of despair

• Once you despair over the eternal, you’ve progressed to a higher stage– & there’s no going back

• You can’t forget what you’ve come to realize– therefore you can no longer retreat to unconscious

despair

• You can try to become more reserved (pent-up)– In order to close off thoughts of this despair– but that is still despair, because you’re in denial

• You can even live an outwardly happy & pious life– but you’ll still have that little locked door in the back of

your mind…

• Any self with the slightest drop of reflection soon learns restraint

• Outwardly, he’ll attempt to be a real person

• He’ll live a normal, Christian life

• But he thinks most priests are full of nonsense– those who he finds persuasive worry him, & he soon

learns to tune them out– because by paying attention to closely

• he’ll be forced to confront that little locked door… (“reserve”)

• Of course, being somewhat reflective, he may long for solitude– but not for too long

• He will spend time alone, away from the distractions of trivial social culture– but will return soon enough

• If he’s honest with himself, he would realize that he’s really engaging in a form of pride

– Pride because he’s unwilling to continue the constant self-reflection necessary to break down the self

– He thus lives hour-to-hour & soon returns to his family

• As a result, this person has 2 choices:

– Constantly distracting himself from reflection,

– Despairing over his weakness in being unwilling to come to terms with the eternal

• This kind of pent-up reserve is rare– because most people can’t sustain it

• But the point is that the despair is really defiance– because saying you’re “too weak” is just you’re

unwilling to apply yourself to change

• Further, continuing in this pent-up state runs the risk of suicide

• He may instead confess his weakness to a friend

• But, embarrassed by such a display, the despairer is likely to return to pent-up reserve

• But that itself is pride, & therefore defiance

• This unwillingness to accept one’s own weakness may ultimately lead to a demonic defiance

PART 1.C.A.B(b)β: DESPAIR OF DEFIANCE

• The other form of conscious despair is that of defiance

• Defiance is a more masculine form of assertive despair

• It results from people wanting to be themselves, without having to accept their dependence upon a higher power

• The person has self-consciousness of an infinite self, & is aware of his despairing nature, but can’t accept it

• People want an infinite, abstract self, but they are unwilling to ground their existence

• There can be an active & passive despairs of defiance

• Despairing actively is to want to become an experimental god– he assumes a godlike seriousness– but ultimately becoming no self

• because his self is grounded upon nothing• like a king without a country

• In passive despair, one simply loses hope that God can make anything possible– & simply mopes over the futility of existence

• Much of the world glories in this kind of passive despair– resigning itself to hopelessness– declaring life a tragedy

• That’s because they won’t accept the humiliation that comes with submission – to a God that would otherwise offer them assistance

• They’d rather reject hope than lose their ego – They simply won’t submit to God’s authority

• Ultimately the despair becomes demonic– That is demonic in the Greek sense– In other words, they become like tragic

demigods or heroes, such as poets write about– The doors of inwardness just keep going ever

inward for such people– They reject God outright through sheer

resentment

• Most people will not get stuck in this stage• They either stay ignorant• or remain reserved• or they break through to faith

PART TWO

Despair is Sin

PART 2.A: DESPAIR IS SIN

• To despair is to reject God– & is therefore sin– Some say this is akin to the old “deadly sin” of

acedia, a kind of “spiritual sloth”– Sloth because the sinner is unwilling to do the

work necessary to cognize God or engage in the self-reflection necessary to contemplate God

• Thus, the opposite of sin is faith, not virtue

PART 2.A.1: SUCCESSIVE STAGES OF SIN

• Successive stages of the self (before God)

• Part One dealt with successive stages of self-consciousness

• The self before God is now seen in a whole new light– it becomes a theological self

• A herdsman before cattle is a very low self• A master before slaves is no self at all. Why?

– Because there is no standard of measurement provided– A ruler must be longer than that which it measures

• A child is raised by parents to see the State as the ultimate standard to define the self– Most of us can meet society’s expectations of us

• But what if God is the standard by which the self is measured?– Can you measure up?– Can anyone?

• People think of crimes as being sinful– Murder, theft, etc.

• But perhaps these are really just products of a sinful outlook on life

• Sin is a shameless unwillingness or inability to admit to the kind of obligation one owes to God

• Again, think of acedia, or sloth

• Sin is not the unruliness of flesh & blood– but the spirit’s consent to it

• As a definition, sin is an algebraic formula

• Describing individual sins is a mistake

• Sin is a net which embraces all forms

PART 2.A ADD’M: DESPAIR IS SIN: OFFENSE

• The definition of sin includes the possibility of offense

• “Speculative thought” (i.e., Hegelian Christianity) never considers the individual person before God

• Such an idea offends the sensibilities

• People are offended by Christianity’s message because they find it too elevated, dark, severe

• How would your sensibilities be offended?

• Imagine a day laborer invited by the king to enter his palace and marry his daughter

• The laborer’s first instinct is to think he’s being punked!

• But in fact K. says all of us are individuals before God

• The sum total of human wisdom seems to make everything fit into a Golden (or gold-plated) Mean

• But Christianity isn’t like that– there is no middle ground, no moderation– it’s hyper-polarizing and goes off to the absurd

• This is why Christianity gives offence– More on this in a subsequent K. book, Practice in

Christianity, also authored by “Anti-Climacus”

• Those who try to “defend” Christianity using reason “betray it with a kiss” like Judas– To defend something always to discredit it– Because its defense implies its weakness

• Doing so connives with offense – by making Christianity out to be some “miserable object”

• that in the end must be rescued by a defense

• Let a rich man give away all of his gold to the poor– But if he tries to first give 3 good reasons to justify it,– people will doubt whether it was a good idea in the 1ST

• The person who defends Christianity never believed in it

• Pagans & Christians alike are willing to acknowledge the existence of sin

• But it’s the idea of sin against God they can’t handle

• Asking Christians to measure themselves against God’s standard is to ask too much of most of them– they are mere mortals

PART 2.A.2: SOCRATIC DEFINITION OF SIN

• The Socratic definition of sin cannot apply to Christianity– Because it is defined by ignorance

• But Christian sin cannot be defined by ignorance, but by willful denial

• It is a matter of doing the wrong thing while knowing the right thing

• Far too many people profess to understand what sin is, & its gravity

• But leap aside like a faint-hearted coward as soon as they might be inconvenienced by avoiding sin

• They are too absorbed in worldliness & comfort & seeking social approval

• People think the world needs – a republic– a new social order– a new religion

• But what it really needs is a new Socrates– If only this occurred to people

• the need would be less

• Such is the nature of self-delusion– it thinks of least what it needs the most

• Per Socrates, if someone does not do the right thing, that must mean he has not understood it

• Per K., failure to do the right thing is a function of people not wanting to understand it– They don’t make a sincere attempt to understand

the right thing– They simply put off the decision about what must be

right until “tomorrow”– But delaying the hard choices removes the urgency

of the question• and allows the will to simply do what it wants

• One problem with the Greeks is that they assume people fail to do the right thing because they don’t understand what the right thing is

• In fact, Socrates’ flaw is that he fails to account for why people refuse to do the right thing, even though they know what it is.

• Christianity understand that sin is a failure of the will, not the intellect

• The possibility of offense lies in that God must reveal to man what sin is & how far deep it goes

• In Christian eyes, sin lies in the will, not the knowing

• Christianity can’t be comprehended so much as believed

PART 2.A.3: AFFIRMATIVE SIN

• Orthodoxy has always rejected as pantheistic the idea that sin is simply ignorance

• The secret of all comprehension is that comprehending must be greater than that which is comprehended

• But that can’t apply to Christianity– it is simply to be believed– not understood

• What we need is a bit more Socratic ignorance

• Christendom needs fewer people “comprehending” Christianity– it simply can’t be reached through reason

• Socrates’ ignorance (i.e., wisdom) was based on fear of God & worship of the divine– He did not presume to know what mortals cannot

• “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”

• This is why Socrates was the wisest– He understood that he knew nothing

• Socrates understands, contra Hegel, that the difference between man & God is best approached through paradox & faith

• It is not a matter of trying to merge man & God into one – as Hegel’s System proposes

APPENDIX TO 2.A: IS SIN RARE?

• If sin is this intensively qualified despair– & if such despair is rare, as described in Part One

(because most people are simply unconscious)– then it won’t exist in paganism, & only rarely in

Judaism & Christianity

• But people who are unconscious of despair are still in a state of despair, simply in a lesser state

• In fact, most people are more spiritless than sinful

• But a life so immersed in triviality & chattering mimcry of “the others”– can hardly be called sin – it’s just lukewarm nothingness, to be spit out

by God

• But even if they are not sinful as such, the spiritless are still to blame– because they were not born spiritless

• This is in fact the state of millions of people throughout Christendom

• In every generation, there are only 3 poets

• But priests are plentiful– more than even get jobs as priests

• Becoming a priest no longer has any sense of mystery– It has become a mere profession– Like a merchant, attorney, bookbinder,

veterinarian, etc.

• Priests are supposed to be believers– but now they absurdly give 3 rational grounds to

conclude • that prayer is a blessing that surpasses all

understanding

• Reasons, after all, lie within the scope of understanding

• Would someone in love give reasons for why they are in love?– Someone who is in love can’t prove why that’s the case– & someone who gives reasons only proves that he isn’t

• But Christianity is now “defended” or translated into reasons

PART 2.B: CONTINUATION OF SIN

• People can occasionally maintain some self-consciousness some of the time

• But they can’t do it all of the time

• Most people can be spirit only once a week for about an hour

• Sinners can only register individual sins

• But they can’t understand that they live in a constant state of sin

• People only take note of each new sin– but not the sins that lie between each

• Sinning is like the puffing of a locomotive– One should not be paying attention to the

individual “puffs” that propel the locomotive

– Rather, pay attention to the propulsion that follows

• People can perhaps be good for a while, before they forget themselves,

• But inevitably they fall into despair, do something wrong again, etc.

• They join in life’s game– but they never connect all the pieces together– because they have no conception of an infinite

consistency in themselves

PART 2.B.A: DESPAIRING OF ONE’S SIN

• People who despair over their sin spend too much time in self-pity to consider that grace might save them

• People who despair over sin may think they are being morally serious, but they aren’t

• They are simply feeling sorry for themselves– and resent God for setting rules that are too difficult to follow– without understanding that God’s forgiveness means it’s

never impossible to try to follow the rules sincerely

• Whether you can forgive yourself for your sins isn’t the point– You must look to God for forgiveness

PART 2.B.A: DESPAIRING OF ONE’S SIN

• Contrite people are most vulnerable to this– They are most likely to “never forgive

themselves”– And there is always some “idiot minister”

around who will enable such despair– By congratulating the sinner for his moral

seriousness

• Such sorrow is sinful– because it is prideful self-love

PART 2.B.B: DESPAIRING OF FORGIVENESS

• There are some who believe in sin– but don’t believe in the forgiveness of sins– that itself is the sin of offense– they don’t consider the concept of forgiveness, only duty

• Some sinners think it’s now a sign of genius & deep nature to reject the idea of forgiveness– but in fact it’s just a sign of insubordination– Naughtiness is not a sign of deep nature in a child

• Despairing of the forgiveness of sins is itself the sin of offense

• The Jews were justified to take offense at the idea of Jesus forgiving ones sins

• Frankly, it takes a great deal of spiritlessness to believe a sin can be forgiven at all

• Pagans don’t have this kind of sin– because theirs was not a religion that brought God &

man together as closely as Christianity– In fact, one would have to commend the pagan who

actually despaired over his sin

• The Jews were justified to take offense at the idea of Jesus forgiving ones sins

• It takes a great deal of spiritlessness to believe a sin can be forgiven at all

• But who is K. targeting with this section?– After all, what Christians out there believe in God but not

forgiveness?– Kant, with his emphasis on ethics (which precludes

forgiveness)?– Or Hegel, for whom forgiveness seems to derive from

the State?

• What has gone wrong with Christendom is that by being preached daily, the name of God is taken in vain– First with an air of superiority in speculative philosophy– Then vulgarly in the streets and alley-ways

• If order is to be maintained in existence– then the first consideration must be that every human being is

an individual human being

• But Hegel’s concepts of reconciling God & man contradicts this

• Once people are allowed to be treated as a crowd or herd – i.e., described simply as “humanity”– then it’s easy to then make God an abstraction

• Understandably, many of the philosophers involved in propagating this doctrine of the superiority of the generation over the individual turn away in disgust when their teaching has sunk to the level where the mob is the God-man.”

• “But these philosophers forget that this nevertheless is their teaching, that it was not more true when accepted in the best circles, when the elite of the best circles, or a select circle of philosophers, was the incarnation.”

• It is God who discovered the doctrine of the God-man, and now Christendom has cheekily turned it around and foists the kinship on God

– so that God’s concession amounts more or less to what it means in these times for a king to grant a more liberal constitution –

• and we know well enough what that means: – ‘He pretty well had to.’

• This is a slam on how Hegel’s original notion of “God-as-world-spirit” has degenerated into 19th C. popular culture

• The point is that these conceptions of “speculative philosophy” try to merge God & mankind into the same thing– Doing so negates God’s superiority, and his

ability alone to forgive individual sins

• It is frivolous and a new sin to pretend that being an individual sinner is nothing

• The doctrine of sin unconditionally splits up ‘the crowd,” and confirms the qualitative difference between God and man most radically

• That’s because sins are only before God, and only God can forgive them

• Thinking of offence without thinking of someone who is offended is as much an impossibility as flute-playing without a flautist

• Offence thus relates to the individual making every human being into an individual sinner– So if Christianity says “thou shalt believe,” either you shall

be offended, or you shall believe; there is no mediation

• Judgment cannot be passed on crowds, it can’t be passed en masse– With mutiny on a ship, you have to let everyone go,

because there’s no way to punish everyone– But God is not subject to such limits– He can judge each and every one of us

• Mass movements may have been able to make kings and emperors bow down– But no mass movement is going to be able to make God

bow down too– Because we are all constantly individuals before God

PART 2.B.C: ABANDONING CHRISTIANITY

• Declaring Christianity to be untruth is a sin against the Holy Spirit

• Despairing of the forgiveness of one’s sins is a defensive sin, a retreat from the implications of Christianity

• But abandoning Christianity is offensive warfare

• All previous forms of despair conceded the superior strength to God, but now sin is the agressor

• To best illustrate the nature of this offense, let’s review the various forms of offense:

• 1st, there are those who take no position on the issue of Christianity– they are undecided– they ignore the Christian demand “thou shalt”

• 2nd, there is the negative, but passive, form of offense– They accept God, but get hung up on the paradox of how

they can ever meet God’s standard of conduct– They are like those who believe in love, but don’t know

how to love happily

• 3rd, there is the positive form of offense, declaring Christianity a lie and a myth, this in turn is a denial of everything Christian

• This kind of sin usually goes unnoticed– because people do not consider the opposite of sin to be

faith– and not that the opposite of sin is virtue

• But that opposition has been in effect throughout the book– The formula to cure despair is faith– Faith = Relating itself to itself, and in wanting to be

itself, the self is grounded transparently in the power which established it

– Simply put, faith is not merely belief• but an unending, self-reflecting belief

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