Post #5: Kierkegaard

Kierkegaard is considered the father of existentialism. What is it? Explain Kierkegaard’s existentialist ethics as presented in the readings and in his actual writing. How does his understanding of ethics relate to Christianity?

Existentialism is the position that looks at man in the world. It posits that man is alone in the world. There is no God that subjects you to trials and tribulations and sets ups obstacles for you to overcome. There is no savior to change your life miraculously. Man alone is responsible his choices, actions, and the life he lives.

Kierkegaard’s ethics concerned itself with “customary mores,” or social mores, and “teleological suspension of the ethical,” or religious mores. Kierkegaard’s “customary mores” were the laws that guided man in society. His “teleological suspension of the ethical” was a call to ignore the social mores for a higher calling. It was a calling to trust in faith and God over man’s laws. Kierkegaard’s was claiming that although the social mores are indeed ethical, “ultimately God’s definition of the distinction between good and evil outranks any human society’s definition.”

“Christian faith” was important to Kierkegaard but not in “a matter of regurgitating church dogma.” Living in faith was a choice, a “commitment” to God. Kierkegaard posits that to live according to faith, one is adhering a higher calling and has a better chance “to become a true self.” Kierkegaard continues that when one commits himself to God, he is taking on a “burden of responsibility.” It is a burden because when one makes choices, his is a choice that will echo in all eternity in that every choice will determine whether he is damned or saved. This is what Kierkegaard referred to as “Anxiety or dread.” The anxiety is knowing that whatever you decide, it resonates in eternity juxtaposed with the freedom to make that decision. This brings man closer to God in that man must constantly renew his vow of faith as a reminder to him that God is the charge of his life. “This repetition of faith is the way the self relates itself to itself and to the power which constituted it, i.e. the repetition of faith is the self.” What is ultimately required when living in faith is suspension of reason “in order to believe in something higher than reason. In fact, we must believe by virtue of the absurd.”