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The Choice of Being:

Soren Kierkegaard and the Essence of Existence

“So many live out their lives in quiet lostness [. . .] and

vanish like shadows.” –Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or II

Introduction

The Western world is engaged in a furious debate over what

it means to be human. Even a short exposure to the news will

illustrate the myriad opinions over the nature of personhood,

gender, sexuality, and identity. In the wake of the current

polarizing controversy over Planned Parenthood’s sale of the body

parts of aborted fetuses, now more than ever the significance and

essence of what it means to exist as a human being needs to be

addressed. Yet there are deeper ramifications for the meaning of

humanness.

While many, perhaps rightly so, want to emphasize the

objective nature of personhood as a foundation for defending the

rights of unborn children or maintaining traditional gender

identity, this same objectivity may cause many to overlook a far

greater societal problem: even those properly living their lives

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according to the objective standards of what a human should be,

may not be truly living at all.

Many definitions for what it means to be human have been

espoused over the years. Aristotle claimed that man was a

rational animal, noting his rational faculty as the greatest

difference between man and the beast. Others emphasize the nature

of the soul, the powerful force of relationship, or even the

pursuit and appreciation of beauty as significant features of the

nature of man that make him who he is. The Christian tradition

highlights the imago dei and man’s immortality as essential

qualifications for humanness. Yet all of these definitions are

unsatisfactory because they ignore what it means to live as a

human. They ignore the problem of existence for the sake of

defining ontology, and it is in this staunch commitment to

objective propositions of ontology that many men have lost their

souls, unable to truly exist as a human at all.

Soren Kierkegaard recognized this fatal flaw in how many

regarded the nature of man, and he dedicated his life’s work to

reframing philosophical discussion to address the problem of

existence. He saw that many “live out their lives in quiet

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lostness,”1 not knowing what it means to live purposefully as a

human being, and he sought in his writing to help people wrestle

with problem of existence and determine to live as a true self.

For Kierkegaard, human existence was not merely a matter what

being what one is, but also about becoming what one ought to be.

And through his discussion of the stages of human existence which

culminates in a life of love and self-sacrifice, Kierkegaard

provides a vision and a hope for people in every century and

every culture who seek not only to be a human being, but to

become truly human.

Hegel and the Intellectual Background of Kierkegaard’s World

For Kierkegaard, one of the major causes of this

dehumanization of the person was the Western Tradition’s

overemphasis on rationalism. He thought that Greek rationalism

(which was the foundation for all of Western thought) was too

based in mathematics and abstract theories, which ignored the

problem of living. Kierkegaard regarded the primary purpose of

philosophy to be helping people understand and confront the

problems of existence. Philosophy should help a person recognize

1 Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or II, in The Essential Kierkegaard, ed. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton, 2000), 74-75.

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that he is a unique self and a unique subject, and this should

redefine how he views the world and regards the nature of

existence.2

Kierkegaard saw Hegel as a prime example of the Western

emphasis on rationalism. Hegel called men to think and attain

unto the Absolute Thought, whereas Kierkegaard was concerned with

calling men to be, to make decisions and commitments.3 Kierkegaard

balked at Hegel’s inherent determinism and semi-monism—which

regarded all things as being an organic whole and part of the

Absolute—and instead stressed free-will and individual human

experience as the defining characteristic of existence. And thus,

by his redefining the nature of human existence, he strove to

respond to Hegel and what he saw as the disintegration of

existence inherent within Hegel’s system.4 Hegel tried to define

life according to abstract categories or systems, and, as such,

was merely “an observer” rather than a participant.5 He was a

2 Samuel Enoch Stumpf, Philosophy: History and Problems (New York: McGraw-Hill,1971),456-57. 3 Ibid, 456. 4 Ibid, 455. 5 Charles E. Moore, ed. Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard (Farmington, PA: Plough, 1999), xxii. Hegel and most of western philosophy emphasizes objectivity in philosophical discourse and exploration. But Kierkegaard objected because he believed that to be a human being meant being rooted in history and to be finite, seeking, above all to be a true human, a whole

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speculative thinker, equating thinking with existing. In

response, Kierkegaard posited that only those engaged in reality

through making conscious moral choices truly exist—the thinker or

passive observer does not.6

Kierkegaard believed that not only was Hegel’s rationalism

affecting Western society, but that it had totally poisoned the

church, reducing Denmark’s Lutheranism to a set of propositional

beliefs, rather than a life-commitment to following Jesus through

hardship and persecution.7 Kierkegaard saw that the church was

being stripped of its lifeblood, and was replaced by a shallow

faith which made religion a matter of the head and external

form.8 He believed that true Christianity was being lost and was

person. This was opposed to Hegel’s notion that “philosophy must beware of the wish to be edifying.” Evans, Kierkegaard: An Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge,2010), 3. 6 Stumpf, Philosophy, 456. The brilliance in Hegel’s approach to reality was that he could include any philosophical objections to his philosophy into his system as part of the movement and synthesis of truth. In order to respond to this without being just a “paragraph in the system” (CUP, 250-51), Kierkegaard, through the figure of Johannes Climacus, points out the humor in the whole system. Evans states, “Kierkegaard thinks the problem is not that Hegel’s system is the wrong system, and thus needs to be corrected with a better one. The problem is that such a system is impossible, and it is even more impossible for such an intellectual system to produce existential wisdom.” The whole endeavor to fit existence and reality into a complete system is comedic at best. Evans, Kierkegaard, 40.7 Evans, Kierkegaard, 9. 8Moore, Provocations, xviii-xix. This was made very plain to him when Bishop Mynster was, upon his death, named among the apostles and witnesses to the truth through the centuries. He disagreed, stating “It is absolutely essentialto suffer for the teaching of Christianity. The truth is that Mynster was

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being replaced by an easy faith without suffering or the

sacrifice that marks true faith.9 Society was full of

dispassionate “spectators” but there was no one willing to act,

to move for the sake of Christ. Everyone lived a mediocre

existence, full of activities, but devoid of passion or

conscience, of choices and willful suffering, of what is

difficult.10 They observed an easy religion centered on belief

rather than faithful practice.11 The state of the church and the

state of society were one for Kierkegaard. Few were truly living,

worldly-wise—weak, pleasure-seeking, and was great only as a disclaimer.” Kierkegaard, qtd. in Moore, Provocations, xix. 9 Ibid, xix. 10 Ibid, xxviii-xxix. 11 In perhaps one of the most powerful expressions of Kierkegaard’s perspective on the common man, he states, “So many live out their lives in quiet lostness; they outlive themselves, not in the sense that life’s content successively unfolds and is now possessed in this unfolding, but they live, asit were, away from themselves and vanish like shadows. Their immortal souls are blown away, and they are not disquieted by the question of its immortality, because they are already disintegrated before they die.” Kierkegaard, Either/Or II, 74-75. It must be noted that this quote comes from Kierkegaard’s character of the Judge in Either/Or II, which adds complexities as to how much of this we can take as Kierkegaard’s own perspective, and how muchwe can regard as merely the character of the Judge. This complexity will be addressed later, but I am convinced that this perspective, as espoused by the Judge, is reflective of Kierkegaard’s own view of the lives of many who he sawaround him. This statement refers to those who haven’t chosen a path of life that will define them, whether that be the aesthetic, the ethical, or the religious life. While in one sense everyone is born an aesthete (as will be discussed momentarily), in another sense, many don’t even take on this responsibility. Rather, they merely live out their lives without any goal or recognition that there is a goal to be had.

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content with being a walking shadow, without substance or

passion.

What It Means to Be a Self

Challenged with the burden of seeing this failure in Western

philosophy and the Western Church to address the real problems of

existence, Kierkegaard set out to challenge his contemporaries

with what it means to live humanly, as an authentic human self.

He could not do this, however, by using the same medium as the

rational philosopher—for in that form of communication lies one

of the chief problems, for philosophical treatises are concerned

more with objective propositional statements and less about what

it means to live these out truths in subjective experience.

Kierkegaard chose the path of indirect discourse instead,

presenting philosophy through the words and actions of characters

that he many times disagreed with.

These characters represent a multiplicity of worldviews and

forms of existence, and thus through his medium, Kierkegaard

embodies what he thought philosophy was for: to challenge the

reader with ideas that he must decide to believe or reject, and

then live out these truths in subjective experience. While most

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readers of philosophy read as passive observers trying to discern

one philosopher’s perspective on the world, Kierkegaard forced

his readers to be active participants in the content of his

philosophy, caring less about what Kierkegaard thinks and more

about how they should practically and intellectually engage the

ideas presented in each discourse. His goal was to force his

readers into an awareness of the choices of existence so that

they chose consciously and not “mindlessly.”12 For to

Kierkegaard, unless one lives the truth, one doesn’t have it at

all.

Truth as Subjectivity

While Kierkegaard didn’t discard the importance of knowing

the truth, he was far more concerned with whether one lived out

the truth. He wasn’t concerned with abstract truth or

philosophical theory as much as what it might mean for a person

to possess the truth and through this possession, attain unto

true life.13 So when the character of Johannes Climacus makes his

12 Evans, Kierkegaard, 20. 13 As Evans states, “Having the truth meant having the key to human life, possessing that which make it possible to live life as it was intended to be lived Evans, Kierkegaard, 59.

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famous statement, “truth is subjectivity,”14 Kierkegaard is not

rejecting the notion of objective truth.15 Rather, he presupposes

that there is such a thing as objective truth, but is more

concerned with whether one can say that he is “in the truth”

simply because he knows the truth, or whether the possession of

truth produces a life transformation and a life trajectory.16 He

recognized that one can assent to true propositions and still not

really possess the truth, for “truth involves the whole

person.”17 To truly possess the truth means one must live the

truth, and live it with conviction and passion.18

Being as Becoming

14 Soren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, in The Essential Kierkegaard, ed. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton, 2000), 198. 15 He did not assert, as William James, that truth is made. Rather, he asserted that “truth is an objective uncertainty” that should be held fast to with passion. Stumpf, Philosophy, 457. 16 Evans, Kierkegaard, 60-61. He isn’t saying that subjective truth is always better or more “true” than objective truth. Rather, when one is living by faith, one is also pursuing objective truth. Objective and subjective truth are both equally important, but if one needed to choose between the two, one should choose subjectivity, passion. As Evans states, “the person who chooses pure objectivity loses truth both in life and in belief; the person who chooses subjectivity has a chance at truth in both areas.” Ibid, 65. 17Craig G. Bartholomew, and Michael W. Goheen, Christian Philosophy (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2013), 159. 18 As Evans states, “Whatever the ultimate ethical and religious truth may be,human persons may be better—or worse—that their theories. The Kierkegaardian view is that it is subjectivity, the inward emotions and passions that give shape to human lives and motivate human actions, that makes the difference.” Evans, Kierkegaard, 61.

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In his discussion of the nature of man, Kierkegaard places

much of his emphasis not on what man is, as much as what it means

to become a true self. In other words, being is becoming. Self is

something one is by nature, but also something one becomes by

choice.19 As Kierkegaard states in Postscript, “Every human being

must be assumed in essential possession of what essentially

belongs to being a man [. . .] the case of the subjective thinker

is to transform himself into an instrument that clearly and

definitely expresses in existence whatever is essentially

human.”20 Thus, when one is born, one does not fully exist—for

existence is incomplete and requires the individual to become a

participant and shaper of his own self.

Human existence is different from the existence of other

physical things: “Human beings exist (existere) in the sense that

they form themselves through a process in which their own choices

play an important role.”21 As Kierkegaard says in Philosophical

Fragments, human existence is a “coming into existence within its

own coming into existence.”22 In other words, humans, like all

19 Bartholomew, Christian Philosophy, 159. 20 Soren Kierkegaard, qtd. in Stumpf, 461. 21 Evans, Kierkegaard, 32. 22 Soren Kierkegaard, qtd. in Evans, 32.

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physical things, bear the nature of existence, but they go beyond

all other things in that they also engage in a second existence

that includes “possibilities” of choice “in which some of these

possibilities come into existence.”23

Kierkegaard didn’t merely define choice as any kind of

decisive action, however. People make decisions all the time, yet

most allow circumstances or impulses to make these decisions for

them. Man must first become reflective, aware that true existence

means authentic personal choice. Yet, the true self isn’t merely

reflective, for one can spend an eternity weighing the options of

choice. The true self must have a passion and a care that pushes

it to a choice beyond reflection—a leap of faith.24 As Strumpf

states, “To exist [. . .] implies being a certain kind of

individual, an individual who strives, who considers

alternatives, who chooses, who decides, and who, above all,

commits himself.”25 This commitment is what Kierkegaard called

“passion.”

23 Ibid, 32. Human possibilities differ from potentialities of other things because humans have both a recognition of the possibilities and the freedom tochoose. Ibid, 32. 24 Ibid, 21. 25 Strumpf, Philosophy, 455.

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The authentic, true life is one guided by “a sustained,

enduring emotion [. . .] that gives shape and direction to a

person’s life.”26 This passion is directed toward a certain God-

given telos, an end that promises fullness of life, the attainment

of true selfhood.27 While we have all been thrust into existence,

most simply drift along. Kierkegaard challenges his readers to

take the responsibility of existence and strive to become fully

human—to become “selves in truth” through passionate choice

toward one’s God-given telos.28

Man’s Condition

The choices that are presented before man are not in a

vacuum, however. Rather, for Kierkegaard, the essence of man is

defined in relationship—relationship with the self, with other

26 Evans, Kierkegaard, 21-22. 27 Ibid, 51. God has designed human beings with a certain telos, a certain kind of person to become, and thus, to be a person is to possess a task to accomplish. As Kierkegaard states in Postscript: “But what is existence? It is that child who is begotten by the infinite and the finite, the eternal and thetemporal, and therefore is continually striving.” Kierkegaard, qtd. in Evans, 51.28 Evans, Kierkegaard, 52.

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people, and with God. In the famous passage from The Sickness unto

Death, Anti-Climacus29 stresses this:

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

[. . .] Such a relation that relates itself to itself, a

self, must either have established itself or have been

established by another [. . .] The human self is such a

derived, established relation, a relation that relates

itself to itself and in relating itself to itself relates

itself to another.30

In this difficult passage, two primary things can be discerned.

Man is first a self-relating being: a self who engages with his

29 Anti-Climacus is the greater expression of his counterpart, Johannes Climacus. While Climacus represents the religious person who doesn’t consider himself a Christian, Anti-Climacus represents the highest expression of the Christian life. More than any other character, he represents Kierkegaard’s ownconception of the ideal existence, but since Kierkegaard wasn’t able to fully embody these ideals in his own life, out of humility, he discusses these ideals through the character of a man greater than he. Hong and Hong, The Essential Kierkegaard, 350. From now on, I refer to Anti-Climacus’ perspective as synonymous with Kierkegaard’s own. 30 Soren Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death, in The Essential Kierkegaard, ed. Howard V.Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton, 2000), 351.

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personhood as he is, but also one who seeks to become his ideal

self, a fullness of himself that he has yet to become.31 Man is

also a self in relation to God, the ultimate Other who has

established the self and whose relation to the self is both the

cause and solution to man’s despair, his “sickness unto death.”32

Man is also, in Kierkegaard’s words, a “synthesis.” He

states, “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. A synthesis is a relation

between two. Considered in this way, a human being is still not a

self.”33 It is in this struggle to be at equilibrium between

opposite poles that the self realizes it has no grounding in and

31 Evans, Kierkegaard, 47-48. Evans gets a little sloppy with his interpretationof this passage, in my opinion. He interprets this passage as adding a third category of man, asserting that Man is also a self that becomes his ideal selfthrough relationship with another; for as the self relates with others, his ideals and goals are formed and redefined. While I do agree that Kierkegaard does see man’s ideal being shaped and in some sense “grounded” in man’s relation to others, as illustrated in other of Kierkegaard’s work, it is more likely that Kierkegaard’s chief concern in this passage is with man’s relationto God as the ultimate Other. This is consistent with the whole purpose of thework—to discuss the despair man feels in his relation to God as he understandshis inability to attain to true selfhood (despair in self-relation leads to despair in relation to the Almighty who grounds and shapes his being). Nonetheless, the importance of relationship with others is stressed in other works. Ibid, 48. 32 Louis P. Pojman, The Logic of Subjectivity: Kierkegaard’s Philosophy of Religion (Alabama: University of Alabama, 1984), 14. 33 Kierkegaard, Sickness, 351.

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of itself, but must seek equilibrium and grounding in the

Other.34

Once man recognizes that he cannot attain synthesis and

equilibrium by himself, he falls into despair, what Kierkegaard

calls the “sickness unto death.” He states, “In despairing over

something, he really despaired over himself, and now he wants to be

rid of himself.”35 Once he realizes that he cannot become who he

ought to be, he despairs, and through this despair is confronted

with the presence of the Almighty: “Man, then, has an essence, a

telos, and authentic selfhood is found in realizing that telos.

Despair, anxiety over the self, and guilt are negative indicators

which remind us of our origins and cause a holy homesickness,

until we finally journey back to our Father’s home.”36 It is only

through this process and sense of “holy homesickness” that hope

can be attained and this sickness be cured. Kierkegaard states, 34 Ibid, 351. As Kierkegaard states, “This second formulation is specifically the expression for the complete dependence of the relation (of the self), the expression for the inability of the self to arrive at or to be in equilibrium and rest by itself, but only, in relating itself to itself, by relating itselfto that which has established the entire relation.” Ibid, 351. 35 Ibid, 355. Speaking of this sickness, Kierkegaard states, ““The torment of despair is precisely this inability to die [. . .] Thus to be sick unto death is to be unable to die, yet not as if there were hope of life; no, the hopelessness is that there is not even the ultimate hope, death [. . .] When the danger is so great that death becomes the hope, then despair is the hopelessness of not even being able to die” Ibid, 354.36 Pojman, Logic of Subjectivity, 16.

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“The possibility of this sickness is man’s superiority over the

animal; to be aware of this sickness is the Christian’s

superiority over the natural man; to be cured of this sickness is

the Christian’s blessedness.”37

Yet to become aware of his despair is not the same thing as

to be cured. Rather, once the self recognizes his place before

God, he is, in fact, in a worse state—for now he has the

possibility to consciously choose to not attain to true selfhood,

or, in defiance, to consciously choose to define himself by his

own criterion. Kierkegaard states,

Sin is: before God, or with the conception of God, in despair not to will to be

oneself, or in despair to will to be oneself. Thus sin is intensified

weakness or intensified defiance: sin is the intensification

of despair [. . .] it is the conception of God that makes

sin dialectically, ethically, and religiously what lawyers

call ‘aggravated’ despair.38

Thus, it is only with a right understanding of the self and of

God that man can truly sin.39

37 Kierkegaard, Sickness, 352.38 Ibid, 361.39 This redefinition of sin might be one of Kierkegaard’s most obscure propositions. While it bears some resemblance to Romans 1:18-20, Kierkegaard does not apply this knowledge to everyone like Paul does. In this sense,

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But while man now has the possibility to sin before the

Almighty, by being presented with a choice, he has still attained

a level of selfhood above the ordinary. He states,

“But this self takes on a new quality and qualification by

being a self directly before God. [. . .] In fact, the

greater conception of God, the more self there is; the more

self, the greater conception of God. Not until a self as

this specific single individual is conscious of existing

before God, not until then is it the infinite self, and this

self sins before God.”40

Thus, the man is presented with a choice before God to despair,

to defy God in self-actualization, or to have faith.41 Health is

found in faith, which is “an affirmation of the self of itself

(that is, a positive self-relation), in which the components of

the self as synthesis are in right relation, and the self is Kierkegaard seems to have two different conceptions of sin. An exploration of this extends beyond the scope of this essay, however. 40 Ibid, 363-64. He calls this self the theological self, stating, “This self is no longer the merely human self but is what I, hoping not to be misinterpreted, would call the theological self, the self directly before God.And what infinity reality [Realitet] the self gains by being conscious of existing before God, by becoming a human self whose criterion is God!” Ibid, 363-64. 41 Ibid, 365. As Kierkegaard states, “Very often, however, it is overlooked that the opposite of sin is by no means virtue [. . .] all sin is before God. No, the opposite of sin is faith, as it says in Romans 14:23: ‘whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.’” Ibid, 365.

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properly relating to its divine foundation.”42 Kierkegaard

explores this understanding of the self in greater detail in his

various works on the stages of existence as man becomes a true

self through synthesis (the aesthetic stage), self-relation (the

ethical stage), and, finally, faith (the religious stage).

The Stages of Existence43

While some people live as walking shadows, absent from any

semblance of self or true existence, most, in Kierkegaard’s mind,

come to various points of existential despair, and thus, live out

some form of existence in one of three stages:44 In summarizing

42 John D. Glenn, “The Definition of the Self and the Structure of Kierkegaard’s Work,” in International Kierkegaard Commentary: The Sickness unto Death, ed. Robert L. Perkins (Macon, GA: Mercer, 1987), 5-21.43 Given the complexity and extent that Kierkegaard explores in his discussionof the stages of existence, ample space cannot be given to adequately explore each stage. However, even a brief overview will reveal the primary essence of each stage and help the reader understand what it means to exist as different levels of self, culminating in the religious self who has peace with God. 44 He states, “There are three existence-spheres: the esthetic, the ethical, the religious. The metaphysical is abstraction, and there is no human being who exists metaphysically. The metaphysical, the ontological, is, but it does not exist, for when it exists it does so in the esthetic, in the ethical, in the religious.” It can be difficult to fully synthesize Kierkegaard’s discussion of the three stages with his discussion of despair in Sickness unto Death, for in one sense, he seems to indicate in Either/Or II and Sickness unto Death that there are some who do not truly exist at all, and never comes to a point of realization that they live before God. Yet in another sense, he seems to indicate in Either/Or I that all are born as functional aesthetes, and thus everyone participates in at least one of the three stages of existence. This is one example of how difficult Kierkegaard can be to interpret, given his indirect discourse. Soren Kierkegaard, Stages on Life’s Way, in The Essential Kierkegaard, ed. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton, 2000), 182.

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the essence of these three stages, Kierkegaard states, “The

ethical sphere is only a transition sphere, and therefore its

highest expression is repentance as a negative action. The

esthetic sphere is the sphere of immediacy, the ethical the

sphere of requirement [. . .], the religious the sphere of

fulfillment.”45 Thus, for Kierkegaard, each of these stages

builds on the other as one becomes a full, authentic self in

one’s fulfillment in the religious life of faith and self-

sacrifice. Thus, Christianity is not merely a set of beliefs one

can espouse in any stage of life, but is itself the highest form

of existence.46

The Aesthetic

The aesthete is the person who lives completely within the

immediate—“the natural, spontaneous sensations that live at the

heart of conscious human existence.”47 He is driven by insatiable

desires, for it is only by his desires that he defines his own

existence. These desires aren’t necessarily hedonistic, however.

The key principle isn’t that the aesthete wants immediate

45 Ibid, VI. 443; 182.46 Evans, Kierkegaard, 139. 47 Ibid, 70.

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pleasure as much as he wants to have what he desires—whatever

that is—immediately. It’s about getting one’s own way.48 Neither

views life not as a “task”—in contrast to the ethicist or

religious person—but rather as a shallow pursuit of desire and

imagination.49

The aesthetic life inevitably leads to boredom and

dissatisfaction. This is reflected most powerfully in A’s

discussion of his own life as a “reflective aesthete” in Either/Or

I. He states at the beginning of his discourse, “My life

achievement amounts to nothing at all, a mood, a single color

[. . .] How empty and meaningless life is.”50 Not only is it

meaningless for A, but it is fundamentally boring: “How dreadful

boredom is—how dreadfully boring [. . .] I lie prostrate, inert;

the only thing I see is emptiness. I do not even suffer pain.”51

48 Ibid, 71. There are two different types of aesthetes: the immediate aesthete (like Don Juan) and the reflective aesthete (like Faust). While he contrasts immediate and reflective in terms of how they approach getting what they want, they both live within the same sphere of seeking satisfaction through acquisition of external things.49 Ibid, 72-73. 50 Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or I, in The Essential Kierkegaard, ed. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton, 2000), 40-41. In another powerful passage,a states, “My life is utterly meaningless. When I consider its various epochs,my life is like the word Schnur in the dictionary, which first of all means a string, and second a daughter-in-law. All that is lacking is that in the thirdplace the word Schnur means a camel, in the fourth a whisk broom.” Ibid, 43.51 Ibid, I. 21; 43.

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In order to escape this boredom and meaninglessness, A attempts

to fashion his life into a series of interesting episodes as he

explores the unlimited capacity of the imagination to vary his

incidents and the manner in which he experiences these incidents

in order to live with great “intensity” and intentionality—

seeking to create memories in the immediate experience by

experiencing himself experiencing it.52 His whole pursuit is

fashioned after the principle of crop rotation,53 always seeking

to vary his experiences (and the way he experiences them) to

escape boredom and through recollection try to avoid the

necessary feeling of meaninglessness after these experiences are

finished.54 He tries to run away from his actuality to live a

life of imagination and recollection.55

Thus, A’s orientation toward life corresponds to

Kierkegaard’s discussion of one level of despair in Sickness unto

52 Evans, Kierkegaard, 78-79. 53 “My deviation from popular opinion is adequately expressed by the phrase ‘rotation of crops.’ [. . .] I would have to say that rotation of crops consists in continually changing the soil [. . .] the boundless infinity of change, its extensive dimension.” Kierkegaard, Either/Or I, 55.54 Ibid, 56. As he states, “The more resourceful one can be in changing the method of cultivation, the better, but every particular change still falls under the universal rule of the relation between recollecting and forgetting.” 55 Harry S. Broudy, “Kierkegaard’s Levels of Existence,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 1, No. 3 (March, 1941), 297.

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Death: the failure at self-synthesis. A exists in the tension of

the infinite and finite, but he stops at self-observation and

fails to will to resolve this into a synthesis. Similarly, he

fails to will to create a synthesis between possibility and

necessity, favoring possibility over actuality: “Pleasure

disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling,

what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!”56 But

because he doesn’t choose to actualize his life in any positive

trajectory, he cannot help but come to the end of himself. As

Glenn adeptly notes, “his refusal to will to transform his

existence into actuality, leaves him ultimately prey to necessity

(envisioned as fate): ‘And so I am not the master of my life, I

am only one thread among many . . .’”57

56 Soren Kierkegaard, qtd. in Glenn, “Self and Structure,” 10. 57 Glenn, “Self and Structure,” 10. Ultimately, the reflective aesthete cannothelp but fall into despair as he realizes that no matter how intentional he isabout trying to make his pleasure last, it will eventually come to an end, andhe will have nothing. This is powerfully exemplified in the episode in “The Seducer’s Diary.” Here, we see that after an ingenious escapade in which the Seducer tries to seduce a woman by getting her to seduce him, he still falls into despair after he succeeds in accomplishing his plan: “Why cannot such a night last longer? If Alectryon could forget himself, why cannot the sun be sympathetic enough to do so? But now it is finished, and I never want to see her again. When a girl has given away everything, she is weak, she has lost everything [. . .] I do not want to be reminded of my relationship with her; she has lost her fragrance [. . .] Yet it would really be worth knowing whether or not one could poetize oneself out of a girl in such a way as to make her so proud that she imagined it was she who was bored with the

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Recognizes his despair, the aesthete cries out for something

that lasts, for something that will define his life beyond

diversion and temporary fulfillment: “I am dying death. And what

could divert me? Well, if I managed to see faithfulness that

withstood every ordeal, an enthusiasm that endured everything, a

faith that moved mountains; if I were to become aware of an idea

that joined the finite with the infinite.”58 He seeks a

continuity and resonance that only choice and faithfulness can

provide. This is exactly what one finds within the ethical

sphere.

The Ethical

The aesthete fails to actualize his own existence because he

fails to choose a direction for his life. Thus, for the aesthete

to move beyond basic existence into a more fully-formed

actuality, he must confront the possibilities of the “either/or.”

Through the character of the Judge, Kierkegaard explores this

dimension of choice, what he calls the sphere of the ethical. Therelationship. It could be a very interesting epilogue, which in and by itself could have psychological interest and besides that furnish one with many erotic observations” Kierkegaard, Either/Or I, 65. Here we see his despair that the pleasure cannot last, but his only hope is to grasp the quest for the interesting once more and turn even his boredom and disillusionment into another quest for the interesting. 58 Kierkegaard, Either/Or I, I. 21; 43.

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Judge goes beyond A by asserting that one can synthesize the

disparate parts of the self through taking responsibility “for

the development of the self as synthesis.”59 The ethical, then, is a

fulfillment of the disparate parts and desires found in the

aesthetic sphere, marriage being a prime example. While the

aesthete pursues the pleasure of “first love,” it fails because

it is not rooted in the responsibility of choice and commitment.

Marriage, on the other hand, is built on choice and commitment

that goes beyond circumstance or climate.

Thus, the ethical sphere is based on the recognition that

one must choose a trajectory for one’s life, and then seek to

attain it. As the Judge states, “the esthetic in a person is that

by which he spontaneously and immediately is what he is; the

ethical is that by which he becomes what he becomes.”60 It is the

choice that truly matters, for in choice, a person becomes truly

59 Glenn, “Self and Structure,” 13. The Judge states: “I choose the absolute. And what is the absolute? It is I myself in my eternal validity. Anything elsebut myself I can never choose as the absolute. But what, then, is this self ofmine? . . . It is the most abstract of all things, and yet at the same time itis the most concrete—it is freedom.” Kierkegaard, qtd. in Glenn, 12-13. 60 Kierkegaard, Either/Or II, 77.

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human.61 The ethical person is tasked with living every act for

the sake of the greatest good, to reach his telos.

Yet, the most important thing in the ethicist’s worldview is

not that the choice is right or true, but that it is made with

“passion.”62 This choice can only be made, however, once the

aesthete has despaired of who he is, and, by choosing to despair,

takes responsibility for being who he is as an eternal self.63 61 “The choice itself is crucial for the content of the personality: through the choice the personality submerges itself in that which is being chosen, andwhen it does not choose, it withers away in atrophy.” Ibid, 72. The Judge continues, stating, “You discern the ludicrous very well [. . .] you become erect and more jocular than ever and make yourself and others happy with the gospel vanitas vanitatum vanitas, hurrah! But this is no choice; it is what we say in Danish: Lad gaae [Let it pass]! [ . . .] but you have not actually chosen atall, or you have chosen in a figurative sense. Your choice is an esthetic choice, but an esthetic choice is no choice. On the whole, to choose is an intrinsic and stringent term for the ethical. Wherever in the stricter sense there is a question of the Either/Or, one can always be sure that the ethical has something to do with it. The only absolute Either/Or is the choice betweengood and evil, but this is also absolutely ethical. The esthetic choice is either altogether immediate, and thus no choice, or it loses itself in a greatmultiplicity.” Ibid. II. 151; 73.62 Ibid, II. 152; 73-74. “I may very well say that what is important in choosing is not so much to choose the right thing as the energy, the earnestness, and the pathos with which one chooses. [. . .] In other words, since the choice has been made with all the inwardness of personality, his inner being is purified and he himself is brought into an immediate relationship with the eternal power that omnipresently pervades all existence.” 63 Evans, Kierkegaard, 100. As the Judge states, “Despair is an expression of the total personality, doubt only of thought [. . .] thus doubt is based on differences among people, despair on the absolute. It takes a natural aptitudeto doubt, but it does not at all take a natural aptitude to despair [. . .] When a person has truly chosen despair, he has truly chosen what despair chooses: himself in his eternal validity. The personality is first set at easein despair, not by way of necessity, for I never despair necessarily, but in freedom, and only therein is the absolute attained.” Kierkegaard, Either/Or II, 79.

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Yet, the ethicist fails to fully actualize himself, because he

ultimately merely chooses himself. As the Judge states,

“Despair’s choice, then, is ‘myself,’ for it certainly is true

that when I despair, I despair over myself just as over

everything else. But the self over which I despair is something

finite like everything else finite, whereas the self I choose is

the absolute self or my self according to its absolute

validity.”64 While it is commendable that the ethicist chooses to

live a life of principle, commitment, and consistency, he fails

to transcend his existential despair because he regards himself

as his own savior. Being self-reliant, the ethical self is in

defiance toward God.65 But in his greatest state, the ethicist

recognizes that he cannot, indeed, save himself, and he repents

of his powerlessness.66 Yet he cannot go beyond this, but instead

64 Kierkegaard, Either/Or II, 80. 65 As Glenn states, “He undertakes an unconditional self-affirmation, whereas Kierkegaard thought that affirmation of our true selves is ultimately dependent on a “condition” that can be given only by God. Judge William’s confidence that through ethical existence one can ‘succeed in saving his soul and gaining the whole world’ underestimates both the reality of sin in the self and the difficulty of shaping the world according to ethical purposes—andthus in effect ignores human dependence on God.” Glenn, “Self and Structure,” 14-15. 66 Kierkegaard, Stages on Life’s Way, 182.

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suffers despair in the weight of the ethical to which he can

never fully satisfy.

Religiousness A

The religious stage is the final stage and fullest stage of

selfhood, for it is in this stage of life that man attains a

right relation before God. The initial religious stage is set

forth by the figure of Johannes Climacus in Concluding Unscientific

Postscript to Philosophical Fragments. The ethicist comes to the end of

his capabilities when he realizes that in order to become a

complete self, to fulfill his telos, he must go beyond his own

human ability of forming himself and instead find his true human

identity and the ultimate fulfillment of his telos in relationship

to God.67 In essence, the religious person recognizes that he

stands naked before the Absolute and cannot give a proper account

of his own existence.

The person who experiences the life Climacus terms

“Religiousness A” is one who, for the sake of fulfilling his

ethical task to reach his telos, finds hope and aid in his

relation to God.68 Yet, when forced with choosing between a

67 Evans, Kierkegaard, 122. . 68 Ibid, 123.

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relative good, or immediate telos, and an absolute good that is

assigned by God, the true religious person gives up the relative

good for the sake of the absolute—and, in this act of

“resignation,” moves beyond the ethical.69 As the religious

person experiences resignation for the sake of the absolute, he

soon begins to experience the deeper sense of suffering inherent

within the religious stage, for self-sacrifice is the defining

characteristic of the religious life.70 And through this painful

tearing away from one’s personal desires for the sake of the

Absolute, the religious person recognizes the key distinction

that the ethicist never did: I am not God.71

This important realization that God is God and I am not

brings the religious person to “the decisive expression of the

religious life”: guilt before God.72 Equipped with the knowledge

that he is not God, the religious person soon recognizes his

inability, because of his finitude, to reach his telos, and thus,

in this failure, despairs. It is in this guilt that the person in

the phase of “Religiousness A” is ready to embrace the Christian

69 Ibid, 125. 70 Ibid, 128.71 Ibid, 129. 72 Ibid, 135.

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life of faith and forgiveness, and fulfill his telos and essential

personhood.73

The Life of Faith, Love, and Self-Sacrifice74

Religiousness A is a religion of “immanence” whereas

Religiousness B is a religion of “transcendence.” The former

relies on man and his natural rational capabilities and his own

experience. The latter relies on God’s revelation that cannot be

attained through merely human means, but is experienced in the

life of faith.75 The Christian life of faith, which Kierkegaard

defines as the highest stage of human existence, is defined by

utter dependence upon the forgiveness and salvation of the

Almighty with regards to the guilt and despair felt by the

natural man, and by deep love for God and others as the overflow

73 In a sense, the person in the sphere of Religiousness A is still someone inthe same position as the ethicist because he is still relying on his own powers to reconcile himself with God. It is only when he recognizes that he needs to transcend himself that he is ready for the Christian Life (“Religiousness B”). Ibid, 139. 74 While most of Kierkegaard’s discussion of this final stage of life is foundin his more devotional, rather than philosophical works, mention nonetheless needs to be made of it. The blending of philosophy and theology is here warranted, because it is in this stage of life that Kierkegaard believes one reaches his highest selfhood. However, not too much detail will be given to the intricacies of the life of faith, for once a person moves into the life offaith, a whole range of theological ideas are given to him to explore and apply for the rest of his life—the important thing is for the person to reach this stage at all. 75 Evans, Kierkegaard, 139.

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of the life of faith. Thus, in the most powerful sense, the

Christian life is defined by faith, hope, and love.

In order for a person to move from the ethical and

Religiousness A stage to Religiousness B, he must take a “leap of

faith,” discarding any notion of dependence upon the ethical for

self-attainment and instead resting upon the paradoxical

revelation of God to address the problems of failure to reach

one’s telos.76 This is exemplified in the choice of Abraham to

sacrifice Isaac, as discussed by Johannes Climacus in Fear and

Trembling. Speaking of the difference between Religiousness A and

Religiousness B, Climacus states,

“The act of resignation does not require faith, for what I

gain in resignation is my eternal consciousness [. . .] but

to get the least little bit more than my eternal

consciousness requires faith, for this is the paradox

[. . .] by faith I do not renounce anything [. . .] It takes

a purely human courage to renounce the whole temporal realm

in order to gain eternity [. . .] But it takes a paradoxical76 Johannes Climacus discusses this difference between Religiousness A and Religiousness B in Fear and Trembling, stating, “he who loves God without faith reflects upon himself; but he who loves God in faith reflects upon God” Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, in The Essential Kierkegaard, ed. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton, 2000), 94.

31

and humble courage to grasp the whole temporal realm now by

virtue of the absurd, and this is the courage of faith. By

faith Abraham did not renounce Isaac, but by faith Abraham

received Isaac.”77

Natural man can give up the world once he realizes that he

doesn’t really possess it—but it is the man of faith who can

regain in from the hand of God, now that he is in right relation

to God through faith.

Abraham takes a leap of faith into the gracious hands of the

Almighty in his decision to obey God’s command to murder his son,

even though by doing so, he would be breaking the ethical law. In

this act, Abraham undertakes what Kierkegaard calls “the

teleological suspension of the ethical,” and by giving up his

duty to the ethical, he undertakes a greater duty to the

Absolute, one mediated solely by faith.78 He states, “By

[Abraham’s] act he transgressed the ethical altogether and had a

higher telos outside it, in relation to which he suspended it.”79

Thus, Abraham transcends himself and through his synthesis with

77 Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, III. 98-99; 98.78 Ibid, 101. 79 Ibid, 100.

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the will of the Almighty through faith, he is synthesized with

himself.80

The leap of faith that Abraham undergoes provides the

archetype for the leap of faith that everyone must undergo if he

is to attain selfhood. This faith is given by God in an act of

love as He seeks to help us transcend ourselves in union with

Him, and through this transcendence become unified with our true

selves. 81 Of course, the object of this faith is also the

exemplar of our faith: the incarnation of the God-man, Jesus

Christ. As Broudy powerfully states,

“That an infinite, eternal God should insert Himself into a

temporal world is indeed a paradox—the greatest paradox of

all—yet the individual’s eternal salvation seems to depend

on this paradox [. . .] here we are asked to stake

everything on a belief in a union of pure being and

existence which is incomprehensible to reason. To do this in

the face of all the manifest difficulties, requires absolute

80 “The story of Abraham contains, then, the teleological suspension of the ethical. As the single individual he became higher than the universal. This isthe paradox, which cannot be mediated [. . .] Faith is a marvel, and yet no human being is excluded from it; for that which unites all human life is passion, and faith is a passion.” Ibid, 101.81 Evans, Kierkegaard, 148.

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faith, and the moment in which we achieve this faith is of

infinite importance, for it marks the emergence of a new

person, whose existence henceforth takes a new direction. To

live in this faith expresses the highest tension of human

existence.”82

This new man of faith is the truest man of all who lives by faith

in the paradox of Christ and, thus, is himself a living paradox,

a synthesis in union with the Almighty.

Once man has taken his this leap of faith, he then continues

to live by faith for the rest of his life. This faith is

primarily lived out through a life of love for all people. While

it is natural, in our own self-love, to love those who love us,

Kierkegaard sees love of neighbor, no matter who this neighbor

is, as the true test of selfless love.83 This neighbor love is

grounded in duty according to the command of God, but as the

Christian embraces this duty of love in faith, he paradoxically

attains true happiness, and thus finds the fulfillment of love of

self and love of God through his duty to love neighbor.84 This,

82 Browdy, “Kierkegaard’s Levels of Existence,” 310. 83 Evans, Kierkegaard, 185. 84 Ibid, 188.

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then, is true existence, as man, through faith, has attained his

true self.

Conclusion: Kierkegaard for the Post-Human World

Given how difficult Kierkegaard can be to interpret, he can

be as equally difficult to critique. His work doesn’t fit within

typical philosophical dimensions, and so one is forced to engage

with him on a different intellectual plane than any other

philosopher. He doesn’t provide systematic arguments for a

certain metaphysic, epistemology, or ethic. He doesn’t try to

give a comprehensive alternative to other philosophical systems.

Rather, he redirects the discussion entirely in order to force

intellectual and ignorant plebian alike to wrestle with the

nature of his own existence. Because of this, many may easily

discard him as an obscure theologian or a fringe philosopher. His

obtuse discussion of the nature of the self in relation to itself

and to God also prove, at times, to be more trouble than it’s

worth, causing many honest readers to go elsewhere to answers to

the question of what it means to be human. And by this, he

undermines some of what he may have been trying to accomplish.

35

Nonetheless, Kierkegaard’s perspective on the plight of

man’s existence and the necessity of choice inherent within the

essence of the self is precisely the type of philosophy the

Modern Western world needs to engage with. Kierkegaard’s esoteric

approach to philosophical discourse resonates especially with our

Postmodern sensibilities, with an emphasis on story and

individualism. He provides a challenge to everyone, in every

stage of life, to consider the state of their existence, the

purpose of their life, and the decision whether to take the leap

of faith into a life of love and commitment to the Almighty or to

remain in fruitless despair or meaningless immediacy. In short,

Kierkegaard shows us who we are and who we ought to be. The

choice is now ours to listen or to continue to live as walking

shadows until the brief candle of this life goes out and we are

thrust as human shells into the eternity of existential despair

where the darkness never dies.

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36

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