DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
---------------------------------------------------------
Continental Philosophy Society
HTML https://continentalphilsociety.createaforum.com
---------------------------------------------------------
*****************************************************
DIR Return to: Soren Kierkegaard
*****************************************************
#Post#: 40--------------------------------------------------
An update on my thinking in regards to Sickness Unto Death
By: StircrazyReality Date: September 2, 2017, 11:10 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Ruell and I have gone through the preface, introduction and
first pages of the body of Sickness Unto Death. The aim has been
to find a starting point for examining Soren Kierkegaard's
thought as a whole, and not simply to examine the subject matter
of Sickness Unto Death.
On faith
[quote]he gained a courage that the natural
man does not know, and he gained this courage by learning
to fear something even more horrifying [/quote]
(Introduction, p8 )
I use this as evidence for seeing the phenomenon of faith as
being intrinsically related to (spiritual) endurance. Faith
allows one to 'bear'.
An example I came across recently is Desmond Doss, combat medic
in world war two, whose great faith enabled him to endure death
and despair on the battlefield in a way that his fellow soldiers
could not.
There is Miguel de Y Unamo, whose faith was a bulwark against
the winds of chaos. (There is more to say on Existentialism and
faith. I think what is key is that the Church failed, however
the Church does not have a monopoly on faith. The church is
subsumed under faith, not faith under the church.
What is Heidegger's relationship to faith? What does it mean
when he says 'only God can save us now'? I do not think this has
a simple answer. I do not feel qualified to explore this. Xavier
perhaps you can say more.)
I see faith as the ability to 'bear' even in people I have met.
Those who have faith as part of their self identity do not
suffer Nihilism to the same degree as those who build their self
identity on other grounds. I see this in myself; that is in
comparing when I did not build my self identity on faith, to
when I did build my self identity on faith.
I do not have extensive knowledge of Christianity, yet Ruell has
been able to help me get a hold on the Christian elements of
Soren Kierkegaard (Christianity is his core, or at the very
least is the core of the pseudonymous author of Sickness Unto
Death Anti-climacus). I found it valuable to unpack the story of
Lazarus, and what this means for the concept of death. I can
perhaps try and unpack some of my understanding of Death in
Sickness Unto Death below. After all, death is in the title of
the work.
*****************************************************