Analysis Of Sickness Unto Death By Soren Kierkegaard

Sickness Unto Death is a book by Soren Kierkegaard and in this book he focuses mainly around the idea that humans are in a sickness called despair. In this book he gives reasons for why humans are in despair and how we can go about getting out of it. In this exposition I will use Kierkegaards ideas to explain to you, the reader, the same ideas he is trying to explain but in a simpler manner. Without further ado let’s get into the first section of Kierkegaards work. We start at the first section and first subsection of Sickness Unto Death is titled “Despair Is The Sickness Unto Death.” This section starts off with Kierkegaard giving us a definition of despair. Essentially, despair is the sickness of the human spirit and this sickness can come in three different styles. These three styles can be separated …show more content…
He explains that synthesis is not the misrelation but rather humans are a synthesis, or vehicle rather, that connects our spirit with the creator, God. Our spirit is not originally in despair but because of human sin it causes all humans to be in despair. Kierkegaard says that there is a certain way that me must understand “sickness unto death”, which is to understand it as “fatal sickness”, also known as sickness that ends in death. He then states that Christians do not believe in an end but rather when your body dies your soul travels to heaven. With this logic, a Christian cannot die and is an infinite being. Therefore, despair is the worst thing that can happen to a person because it is the sickness of the spirit. If the spirit is sick and we are using Christian logic, if a person is in despair they will forever be in despair, even after their human form dies. He takes a dark turn to prove his point and explains that when death is the only way to get rid of despair, despair becomes the hopelessness as you can never truly die, therefore despair is the sickness unto death. He gives two examples to help explain his ideas, and