Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was a 19th century Danish philosopher and theologian who has been called the “Father of Existentialism”. He was a prolific writer who explored themes of individuality, subjectivity, authenticity, and Christian faith in his philosophical and theological writings.
Kierkegaard was born on May 5, 1813 in Copenhagen, Denmark. His father, Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard, was a wealthy hosier and self-made man. His mother, Ane Sørensdatter Lund Kierkegaard, was a former household servant and had grown up in a poor family. Kierkegaard was the youngest of seven children, but only he and his elder brother Peter survived childhood. The early deaths of his siblings marked Kierkegaard deeply and influenced his later philosophical work.
Kierkegaard had a difficult relationship with his father, who was deeply religious with a melancholic and guilt-ridden view of Christianity. His father believed that God had cursed him for his youthful sins by taking away his children, and so he passed on his melancholia and sense of guilt to Kierkegaard. This contributed to Kierkegaard’s lifelong preoccupation with themes such as guilt, sin, sacrifice, and God’s wrath.
As a child, Kierkegaard attended a private school where he learned Latin and history. He went on to study theology at the University of Copenhagen, completing his degree in 1840. During his studies, Kierkegaard immersed himself in the philosophies of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, Georg Hegel, and others. He was deeply interested in philosophy and Christian theology, but he also studied literature, physics, mathematics and psychology.
After completing his degree, Kierkegaard worked briefly as a teacher before deciding to devote himself entirely to writing. His earliest works included From the Papers of One Still Living (1838) and Of the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates (1841). In 1841, he also completed his doctoral thesis On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates, which examined Socrates’ use of irony. This work established Kierkegaard as an intelligent critic with a gift for literary expression.
The 1840s marked Kierkegaard’s “aesthetic period” where he wrote about aesthetic and literary matters in books like Either/Or (1843) and Stages on Life’s Way (1845). During this time, Kierkegaard also experienced an unhappy engagement with Regine Olsen, breaking it off to isolate himself and focus on his writing. This relationship heightened Kierkegaard’s interest in questions about the individual, choice, responsibility, and marriage.
In the early to mid-1840s, Kierkegaard underwent a period of profound inner change. He increasingly focused on religious questions and became highly critical of the Christianity of his day and the Danish National Church. In works like Fear and Trembling (1843) and Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1846), Kierkegaard expressed critiques of philosophical systems like Hegel’s and established himself as an existentialist thinker.
From 1846 onward, Kierkegaard intensified his attack on Christendom, criticizing the established Danish Church for reducing Christianity to mere conventional morality and tradition bereft of passion and commitment to imitation of Christ’s life. Works from this period include Works of Love (1847), Christian Discourses (1848), The Sickness Unto Death (1849), and Practice in Christianity (1850). Through “indirect communication” and use of pseudonyms, Kierkegaard tried to empower readers to confront Christianity authentically and individually.
In 1854 and 1855, Kierkegaard mounted a polemical attack on the Church in a series of 21 publications released concurrently. These writings expressed in the harshest of terms Kierkegaard’s conviction that Christianity had been completely falsified by the established order of Christendom. They caused great controversy and offense in Danish society. The “Corsair Affair” followed later in 1855, a literary controversy involving the satirical magazine The Corsair, which relentlessly mocked and criticized Kierkegaard. He responded with a few articles of his own before retiring from polemical writing for good.
Politically, Kierkegaard was conservative and critical of calls for democratic reform in Denmark. He was also suspicious of the rising tide of nationalism in Denmark. He believed politics should ultimately serve ethical and religious goals focused on the individual rather than political or national ideologies.
Throughout his later years, Kierkegaard continued writing prolifically even while suffering from declining health. He died in Copenhagen on November 11, 1855 at the age of 42. Though little known outside scholarly circles during his lifetime, Kierkegaard would later be recognized as one of the most important religious thinkers of the 19th century.
Major Themes in Kierkegaard’s Writings
Kierkegaard’s writings explore a number of important themes that continue to inspire philosophers, theologians, and ordinary readers today. Some of the major themes in Kierkegaard’s work include:
- Subjectivity – Kierkegaard believed Christian faith called for passionate inwardness and personal commitment. This focus on the existing individual contrasted sharply with Hegel’s philosophical system which focused on abstract thought and sought an objective understanding of reality and history.
- Existence – Influenced by existentialist themes, Kierkegaard was interested in concrete human existence and experience in all its complexity. He explored the depths of human emotion and the inward life.
- Choice and responsibility – Kierkegaard saw selfhood as something that must be realized through chosen actions and acceptance of responsibility. Individuals must choose their own path and accept responsibility for their choices and way of life.
- Authenticity – Kierkegaard criticized self-deception, hypocrisy, and conformity. He advocated sincerity, transparency, and discovering meaning and purpose through a passionate inward search for authentic faith.
- Despair – Kierkegaard examined states of despair, anxiety, and anguish in works like The Concept of Anxiety and The Sickness Unto Death. True selfhood requires confronting and moving through despair.
- Faith – Kierkegaard advocated for passionate, inward faith rooted in individual conviction rather than reason or empirical proof. He highlighted the importance of embracing faith beyond reason and fully committing oneself to Christianity with sincerity.
By combining insights into human psychology with an intense focus on Christian belief, Kierkegaard established a profoundly influential perspective that remains relevant in theological and philosophical debates today.
Philosophical and Literary Style
Kierkegaard’s philosophical and literary style was just as influential as the ideas he expressed. Some key elements of his style include:
- Indirect communication – Kierkegaard often wrote pseudonymously and in an indirect, satirical fashion to engage readers and make them actively think for themselves.
- Irony – Building on Socrates’ example, Kierkegaard used irony extensively to provoke deeper reflection from his readers about hypocrisy and conventional assumptions.
- Literary flair – He skillfully blended philosophy and literature, writing lyrically and incorporating fictional interludes, parables, and other creative techniques in his works.
- Dialectics – Kierkegaard explored his themes dialectically, viewing issues from multiple perspectives, contradictions, and paradoxes to capture truth’s complexity.
- Fragmented authorship – Rather than writing academic treatises, Kierkegaard published multiple pseudonymous works taking different perspectives to resist easy synthesis of his ideas into a unified system.
Through these stylistic choices, Kierkegaard distinguished his work from traditional academic philosophy and helped establish an existential mode of doing philosophy focused on individual existence and passion.
Critique of Hegel
An important element of Kierkegaard’s work was his forceful critique of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, the highly influential German philosopher who developed a comprehensive philosophical system intended to unify reason and being. Kierkegaard took issue with fundamental aspects of Hegel’s philosophy:
- He rejected Hegel’s claim to have achieved a final and absolute philosophical system.
- He questioned Hegel’s focus on abstract reason and thought rather than lived, subjective experience.
- He reacted against Hegel’s identification of the real and the rational, suggesting that reality and human life necessarily exceed reason’s grasp.
- He challenged the idea that history unfolds in a dialectically necessary way according to logical rules.
- He criticized Hegel’s conception of God as immanent and impersonal rather than radically transcendent.
In place of Hegel’s philosophical system and abstract logic, Kierkegaard advocated for faith rooted in subjective inwardness, passion, and paradox. Reason alone could never grasp Christian truths like the Incarnation or God’s transcendence. This critique was profoundly influential on later religious existentialists and helped overturn Hegel’s dominant position in philosophy and theology.
Critique of the Danish National Church
In addition to his critique of Hegel’s philosophy, Kierkegaard also harshly criticized the Danish National Church throughout his later writings. Though he never left it, Kierkegaard condemned the Danish Church for:
- Becoming complacent, self-satisfied, and inwardly spiritless
- Reducing Christianity to mere routine, convention, and lip service
- Failing to evoke genuine devotion or properly understand Christian ideas like grace, sin, redemption
- Allowing secular influences to compromise Christianity and conforming Christianity to secular goals
- Obscuring the radical demands of Christianity and Christ’s example
- Emphasizing status, wealth, and power rather than humility and service
Kierkegaard argued forcefully that Christianity had been abolished in Christendom despite keeping up outward forms and rituals. He called Christians to reclaim their faith with inward passion and radical commitment to imitation of Christ’s life. This critique sparked controversy but also influenced later 20th century theologians who similarly called for religious revival and renewal.
Influence and Legacy
Although largely ignored during his lifetime, Kierkegaard’s ideas would profoundly shape 20th century philosophy, theology, and Western culture more broadly. His influence expanded with translations of his work in the early 20th century. Some key ways Kierkegaard influenced later thought include:
- His conception of subjective, passionate faith and existential inquiry became foundational for existential philosophy.
- His exploration of anxiety, despair, and authenticity deeply shaped secular existentialist thinkers like Sartre and Camus.
- His focus on individual subjectivity and responsibility helped differentiate existentialism from more systematic philosophies.
- His cohort of pseudonymous writings denied the possibility of an absolute philosophical system.
- His critique of reason’s limits helped overturn Enlightenment rationalism’s dominance.
- His call for authentic religious inwardness influenced major 20th century theologians and helped revive interest in theology.
- His literary style inspired later experimental and dialectical philosophies.
Today, Kierkegaard is regarded as a founding father of existentialism and his works continue to attract interest. He helped shape fundamental existential concepts like anxiety, despair, authentic living, and self-choice that remain philosophically and culturally significant. Through his penetrating insights into the human condition under modernity, Kierkegaard articulated timeless themes that still speak to the dilemmas and possibilities of human existence today.
Key Works by Kierkegaard
Some of Kierkegaard’s most important and influential works include:
- Either/Or (1843) – Presents ethical and aesthetic modes of existence in a fictional framework.
- Fear and Trembling (1843) – Explores anxiety, sacrifice, and faith through a retelling of the Binding of Isaac story.
- Philosophical Fragments (1844) – Discusses truth, paradox, and Christianity’s relationship to Greek philosophy.
- The Concept of Anxiety (1844) – Psychological treatise seeing anxiety as freedom’s possibility.
- Stages on Life’s Way (1845) – Sequel to Either/Or contrasting religious morality and aesthetic existence.
- Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1846) – Critique of philosophical systems and advocacy for subjective truth.
- The Sickness Unto Death (1849) – Seminal analysis of despair, with Christian faith presented as solution.
- Practice in Christianity (1850) – Contrasts proper religious existence with lip service and hypocrisy.
- For Self-Examination (1851) – Short work urging philosophical and ethical self-reflection.
These works comprehensively survey the themes of Kierkegaard’s writing and give readers an introduction to his influential ideas on existence, subjectivity, ethics, and Christian faith.
Quotes from Kierkegaard
Kierkegaard’s work is filled with insightful aphorisms, vivid turns of phrase, and thought-provoking observations. Some notable quotes include:
- “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
- “Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.”
- “Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.”
- “The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.”
- “People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”
- “To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.”
- “Do it or don’t do it – you will regret both.”
- “Once you label me you negate me.”
- “Don’t forget to love yourself.”
- “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”
These quotes exemplify Kierkegaard’s capacity to express profound ideas memorably while stimulating continuous reflection. They remain thought-provoking entry points into his influential body of work.
Conclusion
Søren Kierkegaard was a remarkably creative and profound thinker whose ideas challenged 19th century European thought and helped shape the existentialist movement of the 20th century. Through his focus on subjectivity, inwardness, authenticity, and the existential facets of Christian faith, he articulated timeless themes that still resonate strongly today. Kierkegaard’s writings express a sensitive understanding of the anxieties, despairs, and possibilities of the human condition that make him a prescient guide for our times just as when he first put pen to paper over a century ago. By daring to think passionately and independently about life’s deepest questions, Kierkegaard modeled a form of philosophical and religious inquiry that remains bracingly relevant in contemporary society.