“Well, your suffering isn’t like Job’s…” Ever hear something along those lines? Frankly, I think it is largely an ignorant statement. Suffering is hard. What compounds the hardship is the difficulty by which we try to engage people when suffering occurs. It takes courage to admit struggle and suffering. If it is met with a …
Category Archives: Existentialism
Being “Ethical” & Ethical Knowledge
There is a short passage in Kierkegaard’s Judge For Yourself! that has recently garnered my attention. While my interest in Kierkegaard is many, the focus of my research is on Kierkegaard’s epistemology. Often, however, the epistemology of Kierkegaard’s authorship surrounds the ethical-religious spheres, thereby placing interest in the subjective. In every human being there is …
Freedom & Responsibility
I take the title of this post from a chapter of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Existentialism and Human Emotions. While Sartre is often drug over the steaming hot coals, I do find some meaning in his writings. Sartre purports that man is “condemned to be free” thereby endorsing ultimate human freedom. It must be noted that the …
Despair:Sin
Each individual is freedom essentially. Each person is free to chose oneself. This could lead to a flourishing life, or a life of continual bondage, which ultimately restricts one’s freedom. There comes a time (or, many times) in one’s life in which one finds oneself in a crux. The variables will change as much is …
Loving Your Neighbor
The biblical concept, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” has embedded within it a presupposition. Normally when preached, this statement is outwardly focused. You (subject) shall love your neighbor (object). Good. Now what? Stop. By whatever means you think you are loving your neighbor, cease temporarily. The hidden presupposition in the phrase is in …
How Søren Kierkegaard Changed My Life
Update 5/5/2013: I have removed the content of this original blog post as the article has been refined and published for the popular Christian magazine, Relevant Magazine. A link to the article can be found through the link below. It is out just in time for Kierkegaard’s 200th birthday (today). I much appreciate all the …
The Existential Cogito
Cogito Ergo Sum. Rene Descartes’ famous words translate into what is possibly the most well-know philosophical phrase, “I think, therefore I am.” It is the first indubitable truth of the Cartesian system. He arrived at this foundation via intuition and from it deduced both God and matter (the soundness of said deduction is up for …
God is Love
The titular line is no mere simple statement. It suggests the essence of reality. People use this phrase flippantly, yet it constitutes the most meaningful relationship in existence. I have been reading through Sylvia Walsh’s book, Kierkegaard: Thinking Christianly in an Existential Mode. She examines Kierkegaard’s enamor with the subjective interaction with God and theology …
“In These Times Politics is Everything”
In the preface to The Single Individual, Soren Kierkegaard utters a statement not only relevant to his immediate circumstances, but one that transcends the immediacy of 1800s Denmark: “In these times politics is everything.” Denmark was in a transition from absolute monarchy to parliamentary monarchy – a radical change of political system. Kierkegaard was not …
The Subjectivity of Objective Truth
Countless hours have been spent searching for, arguing for, and defending objective truth. I believe in objective truth, and in some capacity, objective truth can be known. I believe God to be an objective truth. He can be known by me, and by anyone else, not through mere objectivity, but a subjective search of this …
Former Aspiring Philosopher 