Sickness Unto Death

The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening by Anti-Climacus (Soren Kierkegaard), edited and translated by Howard V Hong and Edna H Hong, 131 pages

The sickness which Kierkegaard is concerned with - the sickness which is unto death, but not deadly, because it is a spiritual sickness and the soul cannot die - is despair.  His analysis of despair is that it constitutes alienation - the alienation from one's own being and from absolute Being.  Despair, in this formulation, is identical with sin, or self-will in defiance of God.  Kierkegaard insists on this as the distinctive difference between the classical pagan idea of vice and the Christian concept of sin - just as the human person receives an exalted dignity from the recognition of the divine likeness, so too sin receives its essential character because it takes place apud Deum.

As might be expected in a seminal work by one of the most influential philosophers of the last two hundred years, The Sickness Unto Death is the kind of book that has doctoral dissertations lurking in every paragraph.  It is unsurprisingly difficult reading, despite its short length and the fact that Kierkegaard is a more personal and literary author than, say, Kant or Hegel.  The struggle is certainly worthwhile, especially if one begins with the knowledge that they are not going to fully understand the work.  The Hongs not only provide useful notes, but also relevant entries from Kierkegaard's journals to further explicate the text.