Leap of Faith - You Are The One

You Are The One

The difference between Kierkegaard and Marx is that one applied everything to himself while the other applied everything to someone else or to the whole world. Appropriating information or a life-view is difficult and it's more difficult the less one relies on the opinions of others. Abraham just heard God's promises and they were unreasonable but he had faith. This idea that the world has to be reasonable or respond to human reason is one that omits the world of the spirit. The world is abstract, the church is abstract, the world of the spirit is abstract but the single individual is concrete if one wills to be that. And the single individual relates himself or herself to the world, the church, the world of the spirit, the environment, the established order, the educational facilities in a unique way according to Kierkegaard. The leap means to stop relating yourself to a crowd or a race and then to the world, the church, the world of the spirit, the environment, etc. Once the individual chooses to do that the leap is made and resolutions become possibilities and the personality can be developed in freedom.

Kierkegaard started out, in Either/Or, by saying, "“You know how the prophet Nathan dealt with King David when he presumed to understand the parable the prophet had told him but was unwilling to understand that it applied to him. Then to make sure, Nathan added: You are the man, O King. In the same way I also have continually tried to remind you that you are the one who is being discussed and you are the one who is spoken to.” He discussed this again in another way in Either/Or Part II and later, in 1845, he reiterated the same point in Stages on Life's Way with a story:

The esthetic view also considers the personality in relation to the surrounding world, and the expression for this is in its recurrence in the personality of enjoyment. But the esthetic expression for enjoyment in its relation to the personality is mood. That is, the personality is present in the mood, but it is dimly present. The person who lives esthetically tries as far as possible to be engrossed completely in the mood. He tries to bury himself completely in it so that nothing remains in him that cannot be modulated into it, because a remainder like that always has a disturbing affect; it is continuity that will hold him back. The dimmer the presence of the personality in the mood, the more the individual is in the instant, and this in turn, is the most adequate expression for the esthetic existence-it is in the instant. This accounts for the enormous fluctuations to which one lives esthetically is exposed. The person who lives ethically is also familiar with mood, but for him it is not the highest; because he has chosen himself infinitely, he sees his mood beneath him. The “more’ that refuses to be absorbed in mood is precisely the continuity that to him is the highest. The person who lives ethically has a memory of his life (to recall an earlier expression); the person who lives esthetically does not have it at all. The person who lives ethically does not exterminate the mood. He looks at it for a moment, but this moment saves him from living in the instant; this moment gives him supremacy over the desire, for the art of mastering desire is not so much as in exterminating it or utterly renouncing it as in determining the moment. Take whatever desire you please-the secret in it, the power in it, is in its being absolutely in the instant. It is often said that the only way is to refrain altogether. This is a very wrong method, which also succeeds only for a time. Imagine a person who has become addicted to gambling. Desire awakes in all its passion; it is as if his life would be at stake if his desire is not satisfied. If he is able to say to himself; At this moment I will not do it; I will not do it for an hour-then he is cured. This hour is the continuity that saves him. The mood of the person who lives esthetically is always eccentric, because he has his center in the periphery. The personality has its center in itself, and the person who does not have himself is eccentric. The mood of the person who lives ethically is centralized. He is not in the mood, and he is not mood, but he has mood and has the mood within himself. What he works for is continuity, and this is always the master of mood. His life does not lack mood-indeed, it has a total mood. But this is acquired; it is what would be called aequale tempermentum . But this is no esthetic mood, and no person has it by nature or immediately. Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or 1843 p. 229-230

A gambler comes to a standstill, repentance seizes him, he renounces all gambling. Although he has been standing on the brink of the abyss, repentance nevertheless hangs on to him, and it seems to be successful. Living withdrawn as he does now, possibly saved, he one day sees the body of a man drawn out on the Seine: a suicide, and this was a gambler just as he himself had been, and he knew that this gambler had struggled, had fought a desperate battle to resist his craving. My gambler had loved this man, not because he was a gambler, but because he was better than he was. What then? It is unnecessary to consult romances and novels, but even a religious speaker would very likely break off my story a little earlier and have it end with my gambler, shocked by the sight, going home and thanking God for his rescue. Stop. First of all we should have a little explanation, a judgment pronounced on the other gambler; every life that is not thoughtless eo ipso indirectly passes judgment. If the other gambler had been callous, then he could certainly conclude: He did not want to be saved. But this was not the case. No, my gambler is a man who has understood the old saying de te narrator fabula ; he is no modern fool who believes that everyone should court the colossal task of being able to rattle off something that applies to the whole human race but not to himself. So what judgment shall he pass, and he cannot keep from doing it, for this de te is for him the most sacred law of life, because, it is the covenant of humanity. Soren Kierkegaard Stages on Life's Way p. 477-478 Hong