Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling: A Solution to Kierkegaard’s Despair Over Christianity

Preacher Jonathan Edwards, in his sermon, “Sinners in the hands of an Angry God,” frightens the audience with vivid depictions of Hell and God’s wrath. Through the use of polysyndeton, asyndeton, and constant repetition, Edwards persuades the sinners in his congregation to turn towards God.

Take a minute to relax. Enjoy the lightness, or surprising heaviness, of the paper, the crispness of the ink, and the regularity of the type. There are over four pages in this stack, brimming with the answer to some question, proposed about subjects that are necessarily personal in nature. All of philosophy is personal, but some philosophers may deny this. Discussed here are philosophers that would not be that silly. Two proto-existentialists, Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, were keen observers of humanity, and yet their conclusions were different enough to seem contradictory. Discussed here will be Nietzsche’s “preparatory human being” and Kierkegaard’s “knight of faith”. Both are archetypal human beings that exist in

The Christ figure is a recurring symbol in American literature. Throughout Ken Kesey’s novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, various interactions and events portray McMurphy as a Christ figure. There are frequent visual and concrete references to Christ throughout the novel. Also, the reader discovers that the other patients view McMurphy as an inspiration and someone they wish to emulate. This cooperation enables him to oppose Nurse Ratched and do what he thinks is best for the patients.

In the novel Knight written by Eliezer Wiesel, many themes may be found when he is displaying his life story. In Wiesel’s time through the Holocaust, he had to face what seemed to be never-ending hardships. Hundreds of thousands of people were broken due to these course of events. Among these broken people, they all had one characteristic that was very much the same; they all lost faith in one way or another.

     For thousands of years the Bible has represented the foundation for one of the largest religions in existence, Christianity. “The Book” affects millions of people’s lives. The creation of morals makes the biggest impacts on individuals and society. Morals are hinted at throughout “The Book”, but are clearly stated in Matthew’s gospel. These morals are written in a series called the Beatitudes. Through morals, laws are created and society is given guidelines, most people see this in a positive manner. Friederich Nietzsche, a philosopher from the late 1800’s, views religion as a cult made for weak minded simpletons who need something to carry them through life. Nietzsche is often viewed as

Kierkegaard explains that a tragic hero is one who sacrifices a loved one in order to save other people. Since this tragic hero is choosing what is best for society over what is best for themselves, this is deemed an ethical act regardless of the fact that it is a sacrifice. Kierkegaard reasons that Abraham is not a tragic hero because he does not fit the standards of benefiting society with his sacrifice. When he sacrifices his son Isaac, it is for his own sake as well as God’s. Kierkegaard explains that if the ethical is universal (based on Hegel’s explanation), then Abraham would be considered a murderer because of his underlying intention and non-existent value of the act to society.

The final example I have here for you is when Eliezer prayed to God in a time of need when there was no one else to go to. “My God, Lord of the Universe, give me strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahou's’ son has done”(Night, pg 87). This example shows that the Holocaust has impacted the Jewish people’s faith to such a degree that many will only pray in extreme times of need, and also shows how faith can be important to fall back on for comfort and familiarity.

The role of chivalry is a complicated concept for solitary heroes within Beowulf and Albrecht Dürer’s Knight, Death, and the Devil. In Beowulf, the concept of chivalry is explained through the eyes of the hero, Beowulf, which is the idea of performing chivalrous actions in the face of death for glory; however, Beowulf does not realize that his actions will not keep his people safe in the end. In Knight, Death and the Devil, the idea of chivalry is the motivation of the knight on religious grounds to be chivalrous in the face of death. The Knight gives the impression that he understood that his actions would ultimately be meaningless, and he appears resigned to the idea. The argument can be made that chivalry is unsustainable in both texts, given that while it inspires these heroes to pursue these tasks, the result is that they believe that mild sacrifices, such as their own life, must be made to ensure victory; however, these two texts differ with their heroes’ anticipated outcomes of their sacrifices, which turns out to be for nothing. Despite having different outcomes of operating within a system of chivalry, these two texts similarly critique the outcomes of chivalry as being unsustainable based on the demands it places on heroes to sacrifice themselves. To defend this claim, I will begin by similarly critiquing how chivalry is unsustainable within both texts. I will then express how both texts show the unsustainability results from the demands of sacrifice. I will then

door to death”(Wiesel 77).His faith in god’s plans for him kept him going initially , it kept many of the Jews going, when he lost it he gave up his life. With all the brutality around him, his faith remained pure and deflected his pain, but he couldn’t hold on to it above all, like the polish commander said. Faith was more impactful than family and fear, it gave people hope, and abated unnecessary fear.

Johannes argues that the knight of faith acts in total isolation from everyone else. His relation to God is a private one, and cannot be justified by an appeal to the universal. Though it is noble for the single individual to aspire to the universal, God may call for actions that cannot be justified in the

Theme in “Defender of the Faith” can be interpreted in many varying ways, some of which are life-long lessons and others to the relation between faith and the individual.

This parable is one of the strangest of the strange. Commentators are all over the map in their opinions of what we should

In his famous work Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard declares that “no person has a right to delude others into the belief that faith is something of no great significance, or that it is an easy matter, whereas it is the greatest and most difficult of all things.” The difficulty of faith lies in the requirement of sacrifice. The story of Abraham’s near sacrifice of his beloved son, Isaac, is what Kierkegaard utilizes to demonstrate how costly faith in God is. Here is a man, who after seventy years of waiting for God’s promise of offspring finally received his son, is commanded by God to slay his promised son with no stated reason for doing so. Kierkegaard, in attempting to experience what Abraham might have experienced in those moments, cries, “Now all is lost, God demands Isaac, I shall sacrifice him, and with him all my joy – but for all that, God is love and will remain so for me.” What bold words! The cost

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.”My goal is to obtain my undergraduate degree in Communication Digital Cinema and Television from the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama where I am currently a junior, attend graduate school and eventually live out my dream to become a producer or director of documentaries.

Jesus then goes from speaking to His disciples specifically, to calling out to the whole crowd, in which He goes from speaking plainly to once again speaking in metaphors and riddles. Within this passage Mark uses the words of Jesus to reveal the true cost of discipleship. He tells the crowd that if anyone chooses to come after Him then the condition of that decision is that they must take up their cross and follow Him. So one must ask: What does it mean to deny yourself? What does it mean to take up your cross? And when you follow Him where are you going? So then one must put this into context by looking at what has not yet happened in Mark. When Jesus denies Himself, He is essentially denying the human instinct to self preserve through a fight or flight response. When Jesus picked up His cross, He was deciding to be rejected, tortured, mocked and falsely accused on His way to Calvary where He died for the sins of all. Therefore, if you want to go after Jesus, you must be willing to commit to sharing the gospel with others at all costs, you must be willing to tortured, mocked, and falsely accused and you must also be willing to die, not necessarily for anything that you have done, but so that others can reach salvation. Historically, during this time period, the cross was a well known style of execution in Rome, and so although one reading this might see this as simply a metaphor, it is actually a foreshadowing of reality, which can be seen in the fact that all the