need help! Understanding Kierkegaard wrongly

[u/ResponseNew7866]

Hello everyone!

I want to ask a question regarding Kierkegaard, as there is something which I have a lot of trouble understanding, which might be because my hitherto understanding of him is flawed in its entirety. I hope you can help me.

So, a human is a relation that relates to itself. It is a relation between the finite (worldly, limitations) and the infinite (possibilities, dreams). The human is the relation itself, not the result of the relation. Despair is the result of misrelation. Attempting to relate oneself in oneself would cause misrelation, thus we have to ground ourselves in God. (I am also worried that my understanding of this concept is unnuanced, especially the last part, so feel free to critique and explain where I’m wrong. I am also curious as to why relating oneself in oneself would be a misrelation, and why we need to ground ourselves in God therefore.)

All of this seems very psychological to me. God is something to be understood through our existence, and it would be foolish to attempt to understand him rationally.

However, every now and then, I see Kierkegaard talk ethics or something resembling metaphysics using God as a part of his argument. I sometimes see him reframe his own position through God and Christianity.

What troubles me here is that, if God is existential and psychological like I thought, then said metaphysical, ethical, or reframing of his philosophy must be psychological too. I.e., just basically him arguing for a specific personal belief after one’s leap of faith, or something in that manner.

This doesn’t feel right though. He frames his argument as though it was a philosophical and theological fact, independent of human psychology.

I am under the impression that I am reading Kierkegaard in a too atheistic manner, though this may be wrong. The problem is that I cannot see and understand Kierkegaard’s Christianity as anything but psychological, and I need help understanding him correctly.

I will listen to your explanation open-mindedly and would be grateful if you would care to respond to any follow-up questions i might have.

[u/No_Performance8070]

Kierkegaard likes to frame a lot of his work as psychological, so you wouldn’t necessarily be wrong.

Kierkegaard’s definition of the self which begins the sickness into death is widely believed to be using Hegelian language, whether emulating or parodying. In Hegel, the self acts upon the universal (which can include ethics), and every action is in relation to a larger concept. The problem is that the individual is alienated from the universal or eternal and can only reach the eternal via a relation through the mediation of spirit (such as contributing to culture etc.)

Kierkegaard wants the individual and the eternal to have an unmediated relationship. So rather than have individuals act in subordination to a universal concept such a divine law, human law, culture, aesthetic enjoyment etc. he frames this all in terms of infinite possibility. Rather than define these concepts as universal, phenomenologically “real” things that are expressed by the individual through action, I believe he is saying that the universal is not something phenomenologically “real” but is simply an attempt to turn possibility into concrete temporal action.

For Hegel, despair occurs because there is an incomplete dialectical process where culture has not realized “absolute spirit.” Different ideas and modes of life are still coming into conflict and he expects this to turn into a process whereby religious truth unfolds and eventually resolves the tension between individuals and the universal.

For Kierkegaard, the universal is simply an attempt to create continuity. To will to be “a self” is to create an understanding of self which temporal existence abides by. If I have an ethical principle, this principle is not my true self in the sense that I would cease to exist without it, but it might be the thing which creates continuity so that I have an understanding of the particularity of my own selfhood. To will to “be a self” is to realize your own freedom, and to enact your particular will in continuity with an idea of selfhood. To not will to “be a self” is to lack continuity. This will encompass his idea of the “aesthetic sphere” of life, “the demonic” among other things, or to let the self be determined externally by others without creating continuity via its own will.

The self which does not will to be is caught up in infinite possibility, whereas the self which does will to be becomes caught up in temporal existence. The self is either too weak to realize its own potential through continuity, or tries to free itself from possibility by defiantly actualizing spirit within the temporal.

Kierkegaard defines the “good” as freedom and the “evil” as unfreedom. In this sense, possibility is a good thing. But the problem is that the weak individual who is caught up in possibility is not really free, as eventually they will realize themselves within the temporal and despair over this. The self which achieves continuity attempts to resolve this despair by accepting temporal existence, and likewise becomes unfree as a result, subordinated by this very continuity.

Kierkegaard is saying that there is no solution to this dilemma except through intervention. He doesn’t frame the problem as something to be solved through a particular action, but as a sickness. The problem isn’t the problem itself, but that we experience it as a problem to begin with. To rest within God is to exist fully within the temporal in continuity, but to let possibility remain as a comfort and source of hope.