Category: Kierkegaard

the existing individual

I am down the rabbit hole of existentialism. So, I just wanted to share this quote (because someone out there agrees with me):

In his reflection, Søren Kierkegaard deliberately focused on his own life, making it the subject of philosophical contemplation. He believed that the only true philosophy stems from life – a view that Friedrich Nietzsche later shared and expanded upon. Kierkegaard maintained that the only life we truly know is our own experience. … Operating with general concepts and categories, thoughts inevitably simplify and schematize everything. Therefore, no philosophy, reasoning, or language can fully express the truth of human existence, which is something unique and unrepeatable. So, the truth about existence can only be accessible through inner experience.

Exploring Søren Kierkegaard: Pursuing Authenticity and Existential Freedom

And, I would add, everything else is a leap of faith.

Day 6 – recovery?

Day 6, and I think I am back to normal – whatever that may mean. I am unsure what I did yesterday – did I read or dance? Anyway, here is a thought for the day.

During this version of a COVID lockdown, I learned that I have an issue with “the church” as a whole and not individuals. Yes, that sounds like Kierkegaard and maybe he is the driving force in my thinking. And the problem is not the institution but rather the emphasis people place on the institution. The modern church has replaced the individual before God with a collection of congregational members called to follow a faceless organisation. There is no accountability to God for my actions but rather an urging to conform. In more philosophical terms, I wonder if the modern world, post-scientific revolution, is stuck in actuality. And the institution of the “church” is living without hope.

Anyway! Maybe a fever-induced hallucination?

Day 3

Another day! Nearly halfway through this period of isolation. And, to be honest, if I was not sick, this would be heaven.

Yesterday, I did manage to read. I read parts of Kafka’s The Castle, which I had not read before, some of Kierkegaard’s Two Ages and Sickness unto Death, and a little of I am Dynamite. Kafka is always interesting, as he is just so weird, and the two Kierkegaard books pick up the same themes. But I know how K. feels!

And I slept. I tried to listen to the cricket and slept through most of the play. (I was awake for the rain delay!)

Tomorrow is Ember Wednesday in Advent, so I hope to return to praying liturgically. My food order should arrive today, and I have started some beans in the slow cooker – my staple for most days. I did eat a little yesterday. What is it with me and food? Also, today is not as hot as yesterday.

I do not have a title for this post. No insights yesterday. Well, there were but they are private at the moment. Have a super blessed day!

the community is not Christ

Christianity is no doctrine; all talk of offense with regard to it as doctrine is a misunderstanding, is an enervation of the thrust of the collision of offense, as when one speaks of offense with respect to the doctrine of the God-man, the doctrine of Atonement. No, offense is related either to Christ or to being a Christian oneself…. No, Christ’s life here on earth is the paradigm; I and every Christian are to strive to model our lives in likeness to it, and this is the primary subject of preaching, since it is to serve this—to keep me up to the mark when I want to dawdle, to fortify when one becomes disheartened. — … But Christendom has abolished Christ; yet, on the other hand, it wants—to inherit him, his great name, to make use of the enormous consequences of his life. Indeed, Christendom is not far from wanting to appropriate them as its own merits and to delude us into thinking that Christendom is Christ.

Christianly, struggling is always done by single individuals, because spirit is precisely this, that everyone is an individual before God, that “fellowship” is a lower category than “the single individual,” which everyone can and should be. And even if the individuals were in the thousands and as such struggled jointly, Christianly understood each individual is struggling, besides jointly with the others, also within himself, and must as a single individual give an accounting on judgment day, when his life as an individual will be examined.

Practice in Christianity

leap

In describing the leap, Kierkegaard agreed with Gotthold Ephraim Lessing Kierkegaard’s use of the term “leap” was in response to “Lessing’s Ditch” which was discussed by Lessing in his theological writings. Both Lessing and Kierkegaard discuss the agency one might use to base one’s faith upon. Lessing tried to battle rational Christianity directly and, when that failed, he battled it indirectly through what Kierkegaard called “imaginary constructions”. Both were influenced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In 1950, philosopher Vincent Edward Smith wrote that “Lessing and Kierkegaard declare in typical fashion that there is no bridge between historical, finite knowledge and God’s existence and nature.“

Leap of Faith

maybe?!

Sometimes, I wonder if the modern church could make me a follower of Jesus. Some of the things I hear from “church people” are completely disconnected from everyday life. (That includes my everyday life! And, honestly, I get more push-back from church people to living as an enclosed solitary.) Maybe the best way is to say that the church is very good at answering questions that no one asks.

I am just a voter, a consumer, or a “parishioner,” and I should behave accordingly. Sometimes, I am told that I am very privileged to be a voter, a consumer, or a parishioner. The message is that I am called to surrender me for the community.

Maybe the following quote makes the point much better:

It is frequently said that a reformation has to begin with each person’s reformation of himself, but it has not happened that way, for the idea of reformation has given rise to a hero, who very likely bought his license to be a hero very dearly from God.

A little further, Kierkegaard writes:

… the abstraction of leveling is a principle that forms no personal, intimate relation to any particular individual, but only the relation of abstraction, which is the same for all. No hero, then, suffers for others or helps others; leveling itself becomes the severe taskmaster who takes on the task of educating.

Two Ages

In the end, I am stuck. Forward or backward? Prophesy or escape? Should I risk all (including me) for a community with little interest in me?

Anyway …

who is Jesus for me?

It is a question of understanding my own destiny, of seeing what the Deity really wants me to do; the thing is to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die. … I still accept an imperative of knowledge, and that through it one can also influence people, but then it must be taken up alive in me, and this is what I now see as the main point. 

1 August 1835

Is there a difference between “Jesus died for sin” and “Jesus died for my sin”?

joke?

Have you ever thought that all of this is a cosmic joke? It’s a mistake, and the joke is on me. That feeling that I am completely out of place, out of time, out of sync with the world around me. There is an inside joke called “life”, of which I am simply not part.

I have felt that more in the last couple of months, and I censor myself to fit in, making myself small to fit into other people’s views of me. I have not spoken up and allowed my silence to be consent. It is a learned stress response. It is a way to escape and internalise everything until the balloon is full and “pops” with much noise. And I want to run, perhaps to see if people will miss me.

When is “enough” enough? Where do you draw the line? I fool myself into thinking that I am open-minded, yet even I have my limit. But where is that invisible line? I think I am on the threshold. I feel like I am drowning. Or being fed a diet of air. Why do I hide my thoughts and ideas for “peace”? Is that life with other people?

Being alone is great. Refreshing. Upbuilding. Perhaps the context has to change?

One of my favourite Kierkegaard quotes is from Sickness Unto Death:

The formula that describes the state of the self when despair is completely rooted out is this: in relating itself to itself and in willing to be itself, the self rests transparently in the power that established it.

So, I pray for what I fear most: having my “self” transparent in Jesus.

truth and facts, and all that

Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

1 Corinthians 8:1

“Truth? What is that?” Pilate asked Jesus, The Truth (John 14:6). There is a lot of talk about facts and truth. Perhaps, there should be?! Yet, some of this talk comes from a “scientific worldview” that has simply been baptised.

So, the above verse came to mind. And, to be a Kierkegaard fanboy, there is a difference between something being “true” (whatever that may mean) and something being “upbuilding”.

Maybe I spend too much time alone. I do not understand the idea of “truth moving people to action.” Simply knowing the truth does not make my life any different. And there are a plethora of words that are used as synonyms.

It is an ugly ditch – history and knowledge.

So, anyway …

duty

Duty becomes duty by being referred to God, but in the duty itself I do not enter into relation to God. For instance, it is a duty to love one’s neighbor. It is a duty by its being referred to God, but in the duty I do not enter into a relation to God but to the neighbor I love.

Kierkegaard: Fear and Trembling

Jesus calls me to love my neighbour, but that love of neighbour is not my relationship with Jesus. It is my relationship with my neighbour. If I love my neighbour (who, like me, is a sinner in need of Jesus) only because Jesus says so, what does that say about my understanding of my neighbour? Anyway …