Religious realm, ethical and aesthetic realm
In the Danish golden age, Kierkegaard was a philosophical and productive writer of intellectual and artistic activity. His work crosses the limits of philosophy, theology, psychology, literary censure, devotional works, and creative writing. Social evaluation and renewal of the Christian faith with Christendom are brought about by mixing these discourses. He is usually regarded as the father of existentialism by avid efforts to examine and invigorate Christian faith. This paper will discuss the Religious Realm and the paradox of Faith and give a response to the theory.
Religious realm, ethical and aesthetic realm
Kierkegaard explains the Religious realm by focusing on the three major ills, which are the major problems to the human psyche and they include boredom, anxiety, and despair. Physical and mental involvement enables people not to become bored. Although a great play, passion, an inspiring conversation is essential in the relief of boredom, the respite doesn’t last for long. Ennui is not just a nuisance, and therefore a psychologically healthy human need to discover various techniques to avoid ennui. Anxiety is built when there is a conflict between ethical obligation and one’s religious obligation. Choices are made as a result of some of the ethical, social systems, and they are harmful to one’s spiritual health. Anxiety is therefore created as a result of a tension that is created by the conflicting duties, and for a person to be happy, the anxiety must be eliminated. The tensions between finite and infinite causes despair in that humans are scared of dying, and also they are usually scared of surviving forever. Kierkegaard held that despite that, everybody would decease; each person had an immortal self or soul that would last forever. Several ways can be used to escape ennui and disquiet, but the only way that despair can escape is through having total faith in God. Attending Church and being Obedient didn’t mean that one has complete faith in God; absolute faith in God is further than that. Intense personal commitment and the devotion to endless contemplation is what complete Faith in God requires. Having complete faith in God and the escape of despair is hard as Kierkegaard thought, but it’s essential. Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
The Aesthetic realm focuses on sensory experience and pleasures. The pleasures must be maximized to live the aesthetic life. Boredom is eradicated by increasing the aesthetic pleasures, and there are various methods of doing so as described by Kierkegaard. The expectancy of an incident frequently surpasses the pleasure of the event itself as he proposed, and therefore he proposes various means of getting the expectancy. Pleasures as great as expectancy can be brought about by unplanned events but the pleasure of the intentional events is nearly completely in the expectancy; since the pleasures of the aesthetic wear thin, seeking ethical pleasures is essential.
The ethical realm describes how a person should act governed by ethics, which are not continually opposing to aesthetics, but they should take priority when the two skirmish where the aesthetic life should be subordinated to the ethical life. The ethical life is grounded on a reliable, comprehensible set of guidelines established for the good of society. The purpose of permitting different people to exist in harmony is served by ethical life and causes people to perform for the good of society. Therefore, the difference between the three realms is that in aesthetic life, individual is governed by passion, in ethical life individual is governed by societal guidelines and in religious life, individual is governed by complete Faith in God.
Kierkegaard’s description of the religious life, he is certain that no one really lives a religious life, and his main disquiet is how to live a realistically religious life when bounded by many people who are falsely religious. There is a distraction of the personal relationship that exists between God and an individual due to the huge scale religion of the Church known as Christendom, and therefore, the Church is greatly criticized by Kierkegaard for the interference with the relationship. Despite that freedom is not granted by True Faith, it gets rid of the psychological effects of the human being. When Faith is embraced in God, then, life becomes worthwhile and more so embracing the irrational. One has faith in God; however, one cannot believe in God. Things that can be proven are what results in believing, but things that are beyond people’s understanding results in Faith. Uncertainty is what is required by Faith, and therefore Faith in God is further than lucidity, further than evidence and further than motive. People have Faith in God because there is no coherent proof for God. The fearing and trembling of Abraham epitomized the passion of inwardness since he was alone with God. Abraham held in the reality of God, and he couldn’t say anything artistically or ethically about it. Kierkegaard uses the example of a young man to represent the intellectual side of a human being. In his conclusion, he remarks that neither Abraham nor the fledgling man is an exemplar for the Christian since Christian means to follow Christ as an example.
In response to Kierkegaard’s theory, Kierkegaard represents himself as a religious writer and a moralist in the demonstration of Faith. According to him, truth is practical, always unfinished, and essentially paradoxical. The main concern of the truth is the individual human existent and the self-development rather than the general laws and natures. Subjective reflection is ordained to the practical operation of the cultivation of the self in its free relations with God. Because human existence and its potentialities are regarded in relation to the infinite God, they can never be treated as being in a state of equilibrium and rounded-off completion. Because an individual is related to an infinite God, his existence and his continual striving will never be complete, and in this context, Kierkegaard excludes the possibility of existential system.