Anxiety in Kierkegaard

That anxiety makes its appearance is the pivot upon which everything turns.[1] In 1844 Sren Kierkegaard, under the pseudonym Vigilius Haufniensis, published a work entitled The Concept of Anxiety. In the work, a definition of anxiety is developed which in large part marks out the very meaning of what it is to be human. Anxiety is fundamental to the development of the overarching themes of Kierkegaards works and while The Concept of Anxiety might deal with the subject explicitly, his lifes work as a whole resounds (at times more subtly than others) with the idea: without anxiety, we are not human. It is no uncommon thing for philosophers to employ a term that we believed we understood until we heard them use it. Certainly we believe we understand anxiety. Do we not feel anxious every day? Are we not commanded against having anxiety when our Lord instructs us, Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself?[2] We would probably come to the conclusion that anxiety is an essential human experience even without Kierkegaards philosophical definition! However, if we were to stop at this elementary understanding of anxiety as being synonymous with worry then we would be deprived of a profound concept in the philosophy of human nature. The pseudonymous Haufniensis gives us anxiety as the psychological result of human beings having freedom in the world anxiety emerges from freedom. In innocence, anxiety is not so much the jaded sense of worry but instead the restless sense of desiring the adventurous. There is a sense in which the man who sins because of anxiety is not guilty because it was not him but anxiety that brought him to it. At the same time, the man is found guilty because he sank in anxiety, which he nevertheless loved[3] (One finds that Kierkegaard is often comfortable with such paradoxes.) Gods prohibition in the garden did not, as some hold, awaken desire in Adam and therefore sin, it actually awakened anxiety. Adam did not know what it meant to acquire knowledge of good and evil and was therefore not tempted to desire it. By the prohibition Adam was simply shown that there was the possibility of disobeying, and this brought anxiety; anxiety is freedoms possibility.[4] Adam was innocent because it was in his very being to have this anxiety, but he is eternally guilty because he loved his anxiety more than he loved God. Following the specific discussion of Adam, Haufniensis gives the most concise definition of anxiety that he comes to. Anxiety is neither a category of necessity nor a category of freedom; it is entangled freedom, where freedom is not free in itself but entangled, not by necessity, but in itself.[5] It is the dizziness that freedom brings. Ironically, after the definition we are invited to understand more intuitively than intellectually. The question of how sin entered the world is not something that one can answer in a discourse, and yet it is something that we each understand as we each sin. Only as an individual who has sinned can one begin to comprehend how sin came into the world. We cannot be taught such things.[6] It would follow that anxiety is understood in the same way. Only as an individual who

has experienced anxiety can one understand the concept. We have all experienced it because it is so essentially human and we all therefore have the ability to understand. Anxiety is so important that being human is both defined by it and in some way finds its end in it. Because anxiety is freedoms possibility it is by nature a concept having everything to do with the infinite. Freedoms possibility is not the question of whether freedom is possible; it is the possibility that is posited by having freedom. It is this possibility that is infinite. As such, anxiety defines the depth of humanitys potential to engage the infinite. But it also gives humanity a goal. We set off into adventure to discover what anxiety is. This is an adventure that every human being must go through to learn to be anxious in order that he may not perish either by never having been in anxiety or by succumbing in anxiety. Whoever has learned to be anxious in the right way has learned the ultimate.[7] With a (sometimes only intuitive) understanding of Haufniensiss Concept of Anxiety we can begin to see its significance in some of Kierkegaards major works. Two years after writing his university dissertation, Kierkegaard published the found papers of two men which had been edited by the pseudonymous Victor Eremita. The two volumes of Either/Or are definitive of the esthetic life and the ethical life respectively. These two ways of viewing the world while fundamentally different from each other are both human and therefore both experience anxiety in their own ways. In volume I of Either/Or the papers of A disclose to us the workings of the esthetic life. It is amid this window into the life of A that we are able to see the anxiety of one who lives as an esthete. The accusation that A makes early in his entries that people are without passion identifies his innate awareness of anxiety even when he refuses to acknowledge the freedom necessary for the concept. Since we lack passion we are not even capable of sin as Adam is in Haufniensiss understanding. Sin requires passion and freedom and because we lack both according to A, we are not sinful but wretched.[8] The longing for passion, for decisive action that makes a difference, for freedom is the very desire to feel the anxiety of freedom. As understanding of anxiety is profound when he discusses either/or decisions. He says that, the true eternity does not lie behind either/or but before it.[9] It is before the either/or decision is even made that freedoms possibility is found it is the mere possibility of the either/or that induces anxiety. A would experience this if he could only believe that the either/or makes a difference. But instead he says one way or another, it will not matter, Marry or do not marry, you will regret it either way.[10] Because of this deep sense of impotence, A simply speaks despairingly about the utter meaninglessness of his life.[11] Without knowing how to be anxious in the right way, A is left with a barely human life. He is higher than the animals because of the quality of the things that bring him pleasure (they are more intelligent), and yet he is not so much higher because he simply lives for pleasure, for him that is the esthetic. The second half of Either/Or contains the papers of B which are letters to A. In these letters we are presented with a view of life that goes beyond the esthetic and into the ethical. The ethical life is one that while capable of appreciating the esthetic, does not understand simple pleasure to be the fullness of human life. It is here in the ethical that one encounters the true Either/Or and

with it, true anxiety. B admits that there are certainly things in life that need no such profound decision, but he admonishes A because there are also times when one must be able to say with pathos: Either/Or.[12] This is where the true depth of anxiety felt by human beings is found. When we realize that we are free and that the infinite possibility of freedom that lies before the Either/Or is real and potent (as opposed to As belief that it is illusion and impotent) then do we experience anxiety. B demands earnestness of spirit[13] from A because he believes that with this honesty comes the realization that as human beings we have real freedom, real possibility and real responsibility for our choices. When we are this honest, then we are anxious. All Either/Or decisions are ethical and all ethical decisions induce anxiety. To choose the ethical life is not to choose a specific good, it is instead to choose Choice. The Either/Or is not between good and evil, it is between the ethical and the esthetic, between Choice and indifference. The point is not to choose good over evil, the point is simply to believe that this choice has meaning.[14] When one lives the ethical life and believes that our freedom has meaning, then one experiences true human anxiety. For B living the ethical life gives humanity its dignity. The ethical person is well aware that every human being develops in freedom.[15] With this awareness comes the almost overwhelming anxiety that human freedom carries with it. The ability to experience what it is to be anxious in the face of freedom, before we choose is to be human. However, the experience of choosing gives humanity a certain nobility. After we know anxiety and have learned to be anxious in the right way, then we are left with Bs assessment of the worth of choice: Now I will say that to choose gives a persons being a solemnity, a quiet dignity, that is never entirely lost.[16] Through the insight of Either/Or we are able to see the workings of anxiety in the lives of two very different characters. In both we find that whether the person is less aware (A) or more aware of it (B), encountering anxiety is a fundamental human experience. The same year as he published Either/Or (and still one year before The Concept of Anxiety) Kierkegaard wrote Fear and Trembling under the pseudonym Johannes De Silentio. In Silentios writing the subject of faith is observed in detail and pondered in light of the great hero of faith Abraham. Through the investigation of faith in Fear and Trembling and in the climactic event of Abraham being tested, we find much human anxiety. In the act of Abraham one can imagine that there is much anxiety, even in the sense that we normally speak. If a man believes that God is asking him to sacrifice his only son, the most treasured being in his life, then much anxiety would naturally present itself. One would think that Abraham worried with the very depth of his being the night before he took Issac to sacrifice him. And yet Abrahams anxiety is so much deeper than mere worry. Silentios respect for Abraham comes not from his obedience, but from his authentic faith. This faith involves much anxiety because it is a truly profound choice. It is not merely the willingness to sacrifice in full obedience, but it is so much more; it is Abrahams belief that with this sacrifice he will not lose Issac but instead gain everything and more back from it.[17] The leap of faith is an existential choice and as such it is moral. The rich man could have simply obeyed

Jesus when he told him to sell all he had, but to have faith would have been to believe that he will sacrifice it all and yet get every penny back.[18] To live by faith is to make the choice that you will live and do everything you do by virtue of the absurd.[19] The responsibility of handing over ones most significant decisions to an absurd faith is grounds for the greatest anxiety. There is then not only the responsibility that is felt with any either/or decision, but also the anxiety-ridden responsibility of making that decision with a faith that cannot be defended or explained or rationalized. One is completely alone in matters of faith; had Abraham tried to explain his actions to anyone in his life, they could not have understood him. One of Silentios main observations is that, in faith there is a transcendence of the ethical that we see in the second half of Either/Or. In the religious the person transcends the ethical in faith, believing in God to be the source of direction. This conclusion is reached by Silentio because there is no other way to explain Abrahams actions. Based on all of the universal principles that we have, Abrahams greatest obligation was to Issac. But Abraham transcended the universal and did something that we cannot ethically justify it was by faith and as such was absurd. This action in faith without the ethical is something that we must believe brings even more anxiety than the ethical either/or. There is much anxiety when we choose choice and choose to believe that in the infinite possibility of our freedom our decisions truly matter. We become responsible in a way that we are not when we live merely esthetically and from this freedom arises anxiety. However, how much more anxiety is present when one must decide to act on faith, knowing full well that no one else will understand, no one else will see anything but foolishness. Now in all our freedom is the ability to choose to individually rise above the universal (which is truly absurd[20]) and to go beyond the ethical and live in faith before God. Abraham experienced some of the depth of human potential in directly relating to God in faith, but he also experienced some of the most anguishing anxiety in having to do so alone in the absurd. Through these two works of Kierkegaard we see the importance of anxiety. But one must wonder is this attribute of human existence one that is a positive part of life or something negative that is to be endured? It seems that at times it is a great positive; to be truly human we must experience the anxiety of freedom and in this we are really able to live authentically. But surely it can also be a very negative thing; the weight of the responsibility of freedom is the heaviest burden one can bear and it has the potential to drive us as humans into the emptiness of despair. In one of Kierkegaards very last writings we get an insight into the depth of human anxiety, both in its negative and positive possibilities. We may conclude from it the purest meaning of anxiety in the human life. The Changelessness of God is a meditation in which Kierkegaard shows two very powerful reactions that come from knowing that God is indeed unchanging. He says that when we speak of the Changelessness of God, we speak both in terror and for reassurance.[21] This is the heart of knowing that our God is changeless and it is also the heart of what it means to live as a human being with freedom, and consequently with anxiety. The first of these, terror, is the negative both of the knowledge of God and of anxiety. As we realize that God is absolutely unalterable and changes not even in the least we come to see that

everything that we do is under the eye of a supreme Changeless One. Unless our wills be perfectly in line with His, there is at some point in time the unavoidable confrontation between my will and the will of the Changeless One. This thought is the true terror like a mountain that I would wait in front of for seventy years hoping only that it would yield to my will and let me pass, how much more terrible is the One whose very will is eternal![22] Similarly, we must feel the horror of anxiety knowing that our freedom is in a universe where a changeless God watches, ever seeing never forgetting. Our anxiety is a great weight to bear and forces us to realize the vast responsibility that freedom brings: responsibility for our own existential development, responsibility for our ethical decisions, and responsibility for the degree to which we live by faith. There is then the negative aspect of anxiety, the sheer weight of freedom. In a world without God this induces the most powerful despair; in a world with an unchanging God it brings us to the most profound sense of terror. All this is not without the positive value to life that anxiety brings. To live in freedom necessitates that we live with anxiety, and to be truly human means being free. Knowing an unchanging God allows hope and reassurance in the face of freedom. Without God we are left in despair either with the conscious experience of anxiety or the feeling that all is meaninglessness. The positive comes in this: when you, weary from all this human, all this temporal and earthly changefulness and alteration, weary of your own instability, could wish for a place where you could rest you weary head, your weary thoughts, you weary mind, in order to rest, to have a good rest ah, in Gods changelessness there is rest![23] It is when we are at the very bottom of the negative aspect of anxiety that we might find rest in God. When we are weary from bearing the weight of freedom, when we are terrified of living before an eternal Changeless One, then may we find rest in God. It is here also that we might see the absolute human blessing of anxiety. Here, in being driven to Gods rest by the very unrest of our instability in freedom do we find that anxiety is truly a blessing. This is the depth of the value of human anxiety. We are given real freedom to experience the possibility of choice in the world, but we are not left alone to be crushed by the weight of anxiety and wither in despair. Instead, the God who made us not only gives us freedom and allows us to experience the depth of His creation (including the profound sense of anxiety), but He also gives us rest in Him, in His eternal changelessness. In this we may learn to be anxious in the right way, and in doing so, from God we may learn the ultimate.[24]

. [1] Sren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety, The Essential Kierkegaard, ed. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000) 140.

[2] Matthew 6:34. [3] Anxiety 139-140. [4] Anxiety 141. [5] Anxiety 145. [6] Anxiety 146. [7] Anxiety 153. [8] Sren Kierkegaard, Either/Or, The Essential Kierkegaard, ed. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000) 40. [9] Either/Or 44. [10] Either/Or 43. [11] Either/Or 43. [12] Either/Or 71. [13] Either/Or 74. [14] Either/Or 74. [15] Either/Or 83. [16] Either/Or 75. [17] Sren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, The Essential Kierkegaard, ed. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000) 98. [18] Fear and Trembling 98. [19] Fear and Trembling 97. [20] Fear and Trembling 99. [21] Sren Kierkegaard, The Changelessness of God, The Essential Kierkegaard, ed. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000) 485. [22] The Changelessness of God 486. [23] The Changelessness of God 490.

[24] Anxiety 153.