This new book provides an in-depth commentary on Kierkegaard’s Concept of Anxiety, often considered Kierkegaard’s most difficult work, and one that has few secondary resources published on it. It provides a critical analysis of the meaning of eternity as it relates to the human being in The Concept of Anxiety. First, the eternal signifies the divine image implanted in human beings from the beginning of creation, making us spiritual, embodied beings with the capacity for self-consciousness, a God relationship, freedom, everlasting life, and communal fellowship with other persons. Second, the eternal is present both ontologically and normatively in human beings, providing an unchanging criterion and telos of human existence, a task we are responsible to fulfill. Third, eternity signifies perfection; it is the ideal for which we were created. By failing to fulfill this task, we can be said to “lose” the eternal through sin and “gain” it again through redemption. As sinners who are guilty of refusing to fulfill this task, eternity’s criterion can only be fulfilled through faith in Christ’s atonement. This decision in time paradoxically has eternal consequences, and in this sense the eternal signifies transcendence beyond our spatiotemporal world. However, the believer’s eternal decision in time not only determines whether life after death entails eternal happiness instead of eternal damnation; it also has redemptive consequences that begin in temporality, bringing a spiritual continuity and sanctified vision of oneself, others, and the temporal world here and now. The majority of studies on The Concept of Anxiety have focused on the relationship between the self and time; this book explores the relation between the self and eternity.
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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9781804419694
Publisert
2025
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Ethics Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok

Forfatter