The Sickness Unto Death According to Kierkegaard

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1. Kierkegaard believes that truth is only a subjective process. Truth only exists from the subjective existing of the individual and cannot be found in a complete system. Objective truth to Kierkegaard is a simply an idea created by the illusion of subjective existence that one can have complete and true objective knowledge of something that exists out in the world. This is evident when he states, “In the objective sense, thought is understood as being a pure thought; this corresponds in an equally abstract-objective sense to its object, which object is therefore the thought itself, and truth becomes correspondence of thought with itself. This objective thought has no relation to the existing subject” (31).

When Kierkegaard states that “truth is subjectivity” and the “truth of subjectivity is faith” he is arguing that since there can never be objective truth, all one can do is turn inward and focus on existential being. Once one turns their focus inward they can they find the real truth of their existence, and that existence is the action relational happening of relating of oneself to oneself, and to God.

2. The knight of infinite resignation to Kierkegaard is one who has realized the loss of all meaning in life. They have accepted the world as something that is beyond their objective understanding and have infinitely resigned themselves of any search for meaning and have achieved a sort of peace which can only come from the loss of all hope for escape. Kierkegaard argues that road to the knight of faith only goes through the knight of infinite resignation. Only by infinitely resigning oneself to the loss of all meaning can one take the next action of taking the leap of faith. The knight of faith takes focuses internally on...

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...le are given the freedom to find meaning, and in freedom there is great despair and suffering as people search for existential meaning. In the story the Grand Inquisitor is angry at Jesus for his choice to grant freedom and despair to everyone and argues that his new church is more godlike because he is taking away freedoms. By doing so he will make them slaves, but grant them peace, and in so doing give them meaning so they will not live in the despair of knowing freedom.

The claim that, “man does not live by bread alone… but only the one who works gets it [bread]”, would synthesize the idea that people cannot find existential-meaning through the fulfillment of only temporal desires. However, if one works at continually making the leap of faith and understands the proper mode of be-ing, one will find the metaphoric/spiritual bread which satisfies their despair.

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