Kierkegaard Essays

Kierkegaards View on Faith Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher in the mid 1800s. He is known to be the father of existentialism and was at least 70 years ahead of his time. Kierkegaard set out to attack Kant’s rational ethics and make attacks on the Christianity of our day. He poses the question, how do we understand faith? He states that faith equals the absurd. In “Fear and Trembling”, he uses the story of Abraham and his son Isaac to show an example of faith as the absurd. The story of

When Kierkegaard made this statement he was saying people had to take a blind leap of faith by believing in their own thoughts and convictions and make decisions that God would approve of. He also believed this was the only way to become an “authentic human being”

actions? This is a question asked by philosophers for years. To understand why people, do the things they do, you have to dig deeper into their belief systems. Thomas More and Soren Kierkegaard differ in many of their views. The major differing opinion is their views on human nature: why people do the things they do. Kierkegaard believes that humans act because of faith in God. Thomas More says that humans do what they do for the community as a whole. Their views on moral and divine law, individualism

therefore, reason alone is not adequate enough to validate religious truths. In this paper, I will demonstrate how reason and faith aren’t separate entities and how both are needed in order to explain all religious truths by examining the ideas of Kierkegaard and Pascal. I will also give a detailed explanation of fideism, show examples of irresponsible fideism and responsible fideism and then argue in favor of responsible fideism; faith fills in the gaps that are left void by reason. A truly authentic

Jiajun Zhang PHIL-256-01 2/20/2016 First Paper Question #1 Kierkegaard explain all three stages, aesthete stage, ethical stage and religious stage in the selections from Either/Or and Fear and Trembling and he also explained how to have a self throughout these stages. Each stage is higher that the previous stage. In the selection from Either/Or, there are two characters exchanging their thoughts throughout the passage. The Aesthete said that the devil in out life is boredom and the boredom is the

Kierkegaard believes that true faith can only be attained through a double movement of giving up rationality or logic, while at the same time believing one can understand logically. In “Fear and Trembling” Kierkegaard relates true faith to the Knight of infinite resignation and the Knight of faith; in this paper, I will examine this claim and show why Kierkegaard’s analogy is an excellent metaphor for the double movement which is required in one’s quest to attain faith and why. Kierkegaard’s position

Kierkegaard suggests it is easy to understand when things are quiet to the point of hearing “a grain of sand fall”, it is entirely different “to sit in the kettle the coppersmith is hammering on and then to understand the same thing.” Why does Kierkegaard use an image of a coppersmith hammering a kettle? On the one hand, the image is somewhat comical. The two scenarios Kierkegaard presents are completely opposite. The first is a scene of total tranquility (quietly hearing a grain of sand fall)

Soren Kierkegaard is a Danish philosopher and theologian who attempted to deliver his existentialist point of views. Specifically, Kierkegaard emphasizes the need for humans to take responsibility for their actions and go beyond their “socially imposed identities” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). According to his earliest major work “Either/Or,” he suggests humans are reluctantly stuck between two spheres of life that they must choose between: aesthetic or ethical. He delves into what constitutes

individual if there is no leap towards word of mouth. Kierkegaard exemplifies such mocking rhapsodies in his piece “Fear and Trembling”. Scattered within are multiple insults shot at individuals whom he wills deserving of it. Breezily crucifying ill-mannered beliefs, and rendering hopeless their application, Kierkegaard makes his first deprecatory stop at the gate of objective and speculative philosophy. Objective thinkers are swerved by Kierkegaard as he states “ When a cellar-dweller plays this game

A summary, analysis and discussion of Søren Kierkegaard, Training in Christianity[1] I. Introduction In this essay, I will try to summarize, analyze and discuss several pages of Søren Kierkegaard’s Training in Christianity. I will try to focus on his approach to sacred history, a general Christian history and Christianity, which he discusses in this work in relation to faith in God. In other parts of this essay I will attempt also to relate these pages of his work to some key ideas of