The Sickness Unto Death | Book PDF
Under the alias Anti-Climacus, Danish thinker Søren Kierkegaard produced a philosophical and theological work titled The Sickness Unto Death. Kierkegaard defines despair, which he terms the “sickness unto death—as the misrelation of the self to itself—a spiritual and psychological condition that results from a person failing to live in line with their true self and with God.”
🧠 Fundamental Ideas
The Self: 1.
Kierkegaard characterizes the self as a relationship between itself—a synthesis of the finite and infinite, temporal and eternal, freedom and need.
A healthy self is one that deliberately connects to God, appreciating dependability and goal orientation.
2. Depression as the “Sickness Unto Death”
Unlike physical disease, this “sickness” causes spiritual death rather than bodily death.
A disconnection from God and one’s actual nature, despair is the misalignment or denial of the self.
3. Forms of Despondency
Unconscious despair is the state of living a shallow or ignorant life without realizing one is in despair.
Despondency of Weakness: When someone lacks the will or strength needed to be themselves.
Defiant Despair: When someone recognizes their actual self but objects to rely on God.
4. Faith as the Medication
The only potion to cure hopelessness is true faith.
Faith is living truly and accepting oneself as produced by God with all limitations.
Your real self before God should be your ultimate self, humble and trustworthy.
✍️ Kierkegaard’s Method
thick and profoundly philosophical with Christian theological roots.
Makes layered arguments and uses paradoxes.
Designed to elicit reflection, not only intellectual knowledge.
The greatest hazard of all—losing one’s self—can happen so subtly that it seems as though it were nothing at all.
Kierkegaard exhorts readers to wake from spiritual sloth and live truly through faith; else, they stay caught in the hopelessness of being less than they were meant to be.