Soren Says

"He gives men a holy book which contains his will but contains no middle terms in relation to the..."

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:02:56 -0400

“He gives men a holy book which contains his will but contains no middle terms in relation to the ideal — and then he leaves it up to each one how he is going to understand it. He is not to be heard from, keeps perfectly quiet, testing the single individual, for it actually seems to be left completely up to us how we are to understand Scripture. But it goes without saying — judgement is coming.”

- Soren Kierkegaard Journals and Papers

"Every human being is by nature designated to become a thinker (all honor and praise to the God who..."

Sun, 19 May 2013 12:02:52 -0400

“Every human being is by nature designated to become a thinker (all honor and praise to the God who created man in his image!). God is not to be faulted if habit and routine and lack of passion and affectation and chatter with neighbors right and left gradually corrupt most people, so that they become thoughtless — and their eternal happiness on one thing and another and a third something — and do not notice the secret that their talk about their eternal happiness is an affectation because it is devoid of passion, and there it might as well be built on matchstick arguments.”

- Johannes Climacus Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments

"The reliability of the eighteen centuries, the fact that Christianity has permeated all relations of..."

Sat, 18 May 2013 12:03:03 -0400

“The reliability of the eighteen centuries, the fact that Christianity has permeated all relations of life, reshaped the world, etc., this reliability is just an illusion by which the resolving and choosing subject is trapped and he enters the perdition of parenthesis.”

- Johannes Climacus Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments

"But let a person have passion enough to grasp the meaning of his own eternal happiness, and then let..."

Fri, 17 May 2013 12:02:41 -0400

“But let a person have passion enough to grasp the meaning of his own eternal happiness, and then let him try to tie it to his having been baptized — he will despair.”

- Johannes Climacus Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments

"It is just too bad that where one should be objective, in strict scholarship, objectivity is rare,..."

Thu, 16 May 2013 12:03:00 -0400

“It is just too bad that where one should be objective, in strict scholarship, objectivity is rare, because a savant equipped with expert autopsy is a great rarity. In relation to Christianity, however, objectivity is an extremely unfortunate category, and the one who has objective Christianity and nothing else is eo ipso a pagan, because Christianity is precisely a matter of spirit and of inwardness.”

- Johannes Climacus Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments

"Christianity is spirit; spirit is inwardness; inwardness is subjectivity; subjectivity is..."

Wed, 15 May 2013 17:45:56 -0400

“Christianity is spirit; spirit is inwardness; inwardness is subjectivity; subjectivity is essentially passion, and at its maximum an infinite, personally interested passion for one’s eternal passion.”

- Johannes Climacus Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments

"Thus everything is assumed to be in order with regard to the Holy Scriptures — what then? Has..."

Wed, 15 May 2013 12:02:39 -0400

“Thus everything is assumed to be in order with regard to the Holy Scriptures — what then? Has the person who did not believe come a single step closer to faith? No, not a single step.”

- Johannes Climacus Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments

"One has become too objective to have an eternal happiness…."

Tue, 14 May 2013 12:02:51 -0400

“One has become too objective to have an eternal happiness….”

- Johannes Climacus Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments

"Anyone who as a believer posits inspiration must consistently regard every critical deliberation..."

Tue, 14 May 2013 09:59:50 -0400

“Anyone who as a believer posits inspiration must consistently regard every critical deliberation — whether for of against — as something dubious, a kind of temptation. And anyone who, without having faith, ventures out into critical deliberations cannot possibly want to have inspiration result from them. To whom, then, is it all really of interest?”

- Johannes Climacus Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments

"But, in truth, because one makes charitable contributions, because he visits the widow and clothes..."

Tue, 07 May 2013 12:02:55 -0400

“But, in truth, because one makes charitable contributions, because he visits the widow and clothes the naked — his love is not necessarily demonstrated or made recognizable by such deeds, for one can perform works of love in an unloving, yes, even in a self-loving way, and when this is so, the works of love are nevertheless not the works of love.”

- Soren Kierkegaard Works of Love

"For the divine authority of the Gospel speaks not to one man about another man, not to you, the..."

Mon, 06 May 2013 12:02:46 -0400

“For the divine authority of the Gospel speaks not to one man about another man, not to you, the reader, about me, or to me about you — no, when the gospel speaks it speaks to the single individual. It does not speak about us men, you and me, but it speaks to us men, you and me, and it speaks about the requirement that love shall be known by its fruits.”

- Soren Kierkegaard Works of Love

"How beautiful it is — what what betokens the deepest poverty likewise signifies the greatest..."

Sun, 05 May 2013 16:26:10 -0400

“How beautiful it is — what what betokens the deepest poverty likewise signifies the greatest riches! Need, to have need, and to be needy — how reluctantly a man wishes this to be said of him! And yet we pay the highest compliment when we say of a poet —“It is a need for him to write,” of a girl —“It is a need for her to love.” Alas, even the most needy person who has ever lived — if he still has love, how rich his life has been in comparison with him, the only really poor person, who lived out his life and never felt the need of anything.”

- Soren Kierkegaard Works of Love

Passed 200 followers today! Thanks everyone.

Sun, 05 May 2013 11:31:28 -0400

Passed 200 followers today! Thanks everyone.

Sun, 05 May 2013 11:03:53 -0400

Passed 200 followers today! Thanks everyone.

Today is Soren Kierkegaard’s birthday. He was born on May 5th in 1813, it’s his...

Sun, 05 May 2013 08:23:03 -0400

Today is Soren Kierkegaard’s birthday. He was born on May 5th in 1813, it’s his bicentennial!

"For what the poet shall celebrate must have in it the anguish which is the riddle of his own life:..."

Fri, 03 May 2013 12:02:41 -0400

“For what the poet shall celebrate must have in it the anguish which is the riddle of his own life: it must blossom and, alas, must perish. But Christian love abides and for that very reason is Christian love. For what perishes blossoms and what blossoms perishes, but that which has being cannot be sung about — it must be believed and lived.”

- Soren Kierkegaard Works of Love

"Which deception is more dangerous? Whose recover more doubtful, that of him who does not see or of..."

Thu, 02 May 2013 12:02:44 -0400

“Which deception is more dangerous? Whose recover more doubtful, that of him who does not see or of him who sees and still does not see?”

- Soren Kierkegaard Works of Love

"The majority of men are subjective towards themselves and objective towards all others, terribly..."

Wed, 01 May 2013 18:35:40 -0400

“The majority of men are subjective towards themselves and objective towards all others, terribly objective sometimes — but the real task is in fact to be objective towards oneself and subjective towards all others.””

- Soren Kierkegaard

"With the invitation to all “who labor and are burdened,” Christianity did not come into..."

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 12:02:51 -0400

“With the invitation to all “who labor and are burdened,” Christianity did not come into the world as a showpiece of gentle comfort, as the preacher so blubberingly and falsely introduces it — but as the absolute. It is out of love that God so wills it, but it is also God who wills it, and he wills as he wills. He wills not to be transformed by human beings into a cozy — a human god; he wills to transform human beings, and he wills it out of love.”

- Anti-Climacus Practice in Christianity

"But where this humble consciousness of personally being a sinner (this single individual) is lacking..."

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 12:03:02 -0400

“But where this humble consciousness of personally being a sinner (this single individual) is lacking — well, if a person such as that otherwise possessed all human wisdom and sagacity and all human gifts, it will be of only little benefit to him. To the same extent Christianity, terrifying, will rise up against him and transform him itself into madness or horror until he either learns to give up Christianity or — by means of what is anything but scholarly propaedeutics, apologetics, etc., by means of the anguish of a contrite conscience, all in proportion to his need — learns to enter into Christianity by the narrow way, through the consciousness of sin.”

- Anti-Climacus Practice in Christianity