Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T22:11:20.138Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 11 - Despair the Disease and Faith the Therapeutic Cure

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 August 2022

Jeffrey Hanson
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Massachusetts
Sharon Krishek
Affiliation:
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Get access

Summary

One of the nagging uncertainties that besets the interpretation of The Sickness unto Death is the vagueness that attaches to the promised cure for the disease of despair – faith. Presented in algebraic form at the beginning, middle, and end of the book, it is otherwise left without much expatiation. This chapter reconstructs from the text what we might be able to claim confidently about faith as the cure for despair according to Anti-Climacus. Faith has a therapeutic function: It is meant to extirpate from the self the only genuine danger, which is persistence in unforgiven sin, while maturing the self to cope with the ordinary hazards of human life and to avoid its false consolations. This twofold function of faith – positively warning the self against its only real threat and negatively clearing away false consolations and imagined dangers – is grounded in the definition of faith Anti-Climacus supplies, which involves two distinct elements: willing to be yourself and resting transparently in God. This chapter explores the precise sense in which the faithful self relates to God and the therapeutic benefits that come from the faithful person’s ability to genuinely will to be themselves.

Type
Chapter
Information
Kierkegaard's The Sickness Unto Death
A Critical Guide
, pp. 182 - 199
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×