1.

0 INTRODUCTION

In his work, Gabriel Marcel insists on the point of human uneasiness; which seems to have taken

much of his time to reflect upon. But for our part, we observe that Marcel uses the ideas of other

people like Heidegger, Nietzsche, Pascal, and Kierkegaard in elaborating more about the

question of Uneasiness and Anguish, just as we shall discuss below. In short, Marcel explains

uneasiness in relation to what other proponents asserted about it.

2.0 UNEASINESS IN PASCAL

Before we tackle this question using other people’s minds, let us first call to find out exactly

what the mind of Pascal was about this problem so to speak.

Now for him, he relies and actually brings in the meditative prayer of William of Thierry who

seems to be one of the greatest spiritual minds of the twentieth century about this problem. In

this way, he asserts that there is uneasiness even in Christian spirituality; simply because that the

soul prepares to pray to its God, always holding itself in its hands, as if to offer itself to Him; that

it is indeed afraid even before what it knows. 1 And because of that immense desire for God, it

loves to the point of scorning everything which exists or even scorning itself. Hence, making

Uneasiness not only inevitable but also absolutely salutary.2

In the same way, he also cites out St. Bernard’s Treatise on the Love of God; in which Bernard

asserts that the human soul transcends from the inferior stage where loving itself by itself but

loving God, is the finally the only way, in which it will attain to the perfection of love which is

the portion of the Blessed after Resurrection.3

1
Gabriel Marcel, Problematic Man (New York: Herder and Herder Inc., 1967), 96.
2
Ibid., 97.
3
Ibid.

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Having read all this, Gabriel points out that the nature of uneasiness takes root in the nature of

man. Remember, to Pascal, there is no strict difference between anguish and uneasiness.

However, Marcel further says that emptiness helps to recognize the increase in depth which has

realized in the soul and mind of Pascal. That is to say, therefore, that there are two modalities of

uneasiness; ambition and love; which are clearly expressed in Pascal’s Discours sur les Passions

de l’amour.4

3.0 UNEASINESS FROM PASCAL TO KIERKEGAARD

From the above background, we can see that to Pascal, diversion is a fruit of uneasiness. That

man is a nothing in comparison to the infinite, everything comparison to nothingness, indeed a

mean between nothingness and everything.5 He remarks that we must know that our range is,

that we are something but not everything; because the being we have conceals or hides from us

the knowledge of the first principles which are born from nothingness; and continues to hide

from us the view of the infinite

3.1 Who is Kierkegaard?

From we notice that Kierkegaard is an existential thinker, and not an abstract thinker like Hegel. 6

He is this kind whose thought is determined by the tasks and the difficulties of his own life, so

that it is truly in the service of his existence.7

3.2 The Characteristics of an Existential Thinker

This is one who is not interested in the sense. He is passionately, virtually interested in

something which is at the very heart of existence. His subject of thought is an individual in his
4
Ibid., 98.
5
Ibid., 101.
6
Ibid., 102.
7
Ibid.

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uniqueness. Kierkegaard thus writes that the task of this subjective, or existential thinker consists

in understanding himself in existence; as was in a way, the Greek thought.8

3.3 Anguish according to Kierkegaard

Kierkegaard, first acknowledges the fact that one may be tempted to think that this Phenomenon

of anguish is implied for him by the general fact of sin and its consequences (of course, “Death

being the wages of sin, not only physical but also eternal death of the soul” he continues to say).9

But for this Danish Philosopher, especially in his treatise on The Concept of Dread, says that this

phenomenon is situated in the Heart of the domain explored by whoever seeks to understand how

sin is possible; the result of which (this analysis), is innocence taken in itself to involve and

contain the possibility of fault or, if you will, of the fall. Indeed, he regards “Innocence as

Ignorance.”10

In this very regard, because he is not yet determined as mind, but only in his psychism, in unity

with what constitutes his nature, man is not yet at the knowledge between good and evil.11

It is merely still a situation of peace, and quietude although again something not yet either

uneasiness or opposition and this is nothing; because the mind is still but in the dream state in

him. It is still dialectic, and eventually, not yet real. 12 Hence, in the long run, the very effect on

this nothing is anguish. Hence making it the profound mystery of innocence.

Remember, Anguish is the determination of the dream mind. A mind of adventure for the

mysterious, and the unusual; of reality not yet real but possible still; as essentially, belongs to a

8
Ibid.
9
Ibid., 103.
10
Ibid.
11
Ibid.
12
Ibid.

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child who cannot do without it, even if it disturbs him, but enchants him. 13 He adds that it is even

found in all peoples where childhood has been reserved as a reverie of the mind; that is to say,

that the less the mind there is, the less the anguish; as is evidenced in children and absorbed

people.14

4.0 FROM KIERKEGAARD TO NIETZCHE AND HEIDEGGER

Gabriel Marcel sets off by asserting that no one, not even Pascal has profoundly analyzed the

conditions which must be or ought to be met by him who dares to call himself a Christian; and

also, to what extent he has met such conditions. 15 And that indeed, between the Christian

condition and this condition itself, therein, subsists or exists an interval which can only be

crossed by what the Danish Philosopher- Pascal called, the a leap; which to the eyes of

reflection, will always appear risky or illegitimate to the Christian; to whom it is.16

This division is brought about by Christ Himself. And on this, Marcel points out that there is

truly a disturbing ambiguity in Kierkegaard’s thought of anguish. In short, it is divided into two

on the way, hence, leading to the development of the recent theological doctrines of the reformed

Church; mostly, that of Karl Barth, which opposes the liberal Protestantism of Immanuel Kant,

and Schleiermacher.17

He emphasizes above all, the Absolute transcendence of a God; who is above the believer as the

“Absolutely Other.” And this led to a radical humbling of reason before the word of God-sole

13
Ibid., 104.
14
Ibid.
15
Ibid., 107.
16
Ibid.
17
Ibid.

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bearer of salvation (Barthism). Hence, Marcel noted that some Catholic theologians like

Pryzwara, or Guardini, have been influenced by this kind of thought.18

4.1 The Direction Taken by the Existentialists (Heidegger) on the Basis of

Kierkegaard and Nietzsche

Heidegger, acknowledges the importance of the Kierkegaardian concept of anguish which is

traced back to Nietzsche in his Zarathustra. Marcel, therefore, asserts that we ought to ask

ourselves questions like; “To what extent Nietzsche is concerned as philosopher of anguish: First

by accepting the fact Nietzsche’s thought has been highly influenced by anguish, more so, that

the problem of solitude personally experienced as trial, is at the heart of Nietzchean tragedy (the

affirmation of the death of God, is ascribed to the tragic consciousness- from the fact that to

Nietzsche, we have actually killed God, you and I; and we are all His murderers).19

Marcel puts out Jaspers who writes about Nietzsche that: The Atheism of Nietzsche is due to the

progressive uneasiness of search for a God which perhaps, no longer understands itself,

revealed in the unspoken suffering portrayed in the statements of necessity of renouncing God,

such as: “You will no longer pray,” “You will no longer rest in infinite confidence.” And as

such, the death of God should not be taken as a historical fact but rather, as a question of a

certain decision which one has to make in order to assume: thus, doing violence to a nostalgia

for childhood which remains deep down inside a great many of us.20

4.2 How Does Anguish Come in Then?

18
Ibid.
19
Ibid.
20
Ibid., 109.

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Heidegger in his analysis of human condition of Man’s situation in the world, develops the

Kierkegaardian thought of anguish in a category of existence that is, one exists in so far as he is

in relation with the exterior world. The world of his experience, he does not exist in this world as

certain content in a container. Rather this existence is that of preoccupation which defines every

object in the external world and in turn it is through these objects that the world addresses itself

to man. And that man in turn, is defined by the many possibilities of actions which are in him.

This confers a meaning upon things, and places them in a totality which is the world. This world

therefore, is a global sense which my possibilities project upon the background which has no

meaning.21

This answers the traditional problems of the realities of the external world, Marcel therefore,

says that Heidegger has shown that it is absurd to isolate the existent subject and to ask oneself

basing on the isolated subject, whether the world exists or not. For in fact, this existence subject

is so because of its relation to the world.22

Heidegger, like Kierkegaard, differentiates anguish from fear. Fear always has a given object

whereas anguish is never provoked by a determined or determinable existent. Weahlens, like

Heidegger, wrote that in anguish all the objects of the world and our environment itself, appear

devoid of all importance; they become nonsensical and collapsed into an absolute nullity.23

“Even I feel myself disappearing from the scene in as much as I refer to my habitual self, made

up of preoccupations, ambitions and day today desires,” de Weahlens continues to say. This

anguish that disturbs us is not located anywhere but in the very things which occupy us-

omnipresent it envelops us with the felling of radical strangeness of being lost without support.

21
Ibid., 111.
22
Ibid., 112.
23
Ibid.

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This anguish shows us the world as the world and not as particular object in the world. And at

the same time, anguish bring us to question who we are and we rediscover here the identity of

anguish and unsteadiness which Kierkegaard had already recognized.24

5.0 GENERAL CONCLUSION

In a word, basing on the minds of other Philosophers, we have basically discovered how Marcel

demonstrates uneasiness: whereby, he portrays this topic in Pascal; who asserted that uneasiness

indeed, is found in Christian Spirituality; while for Kierkegaard, it is especially found in fixated

people in whom there is a desire and admiration as we have seen as it is common even in the

children. And for Heidegger, he insists that we become uneasy after God has deserted us; when

we nowhere to run to other God, who has abandoned us completely.25

24
Ibid., 112.
25
Ibid.