The Sickness Unto Death :: Introduction

For human beings death overshadows life. Death for humans is the last thing of all; the end of the self. All of life then is orientated in accordance with this trajectory. How we view life, sickness, suffering and even death itself is contingent upon our view of death. That for humans whilst there is life there is hope, and conversely, without life there is no hope. Yet this is not the case for the Christian.

For the Christian death does not represent the the end of the self. For all who would accept Christ by faith, it is merely another minor event in an eternal series of events. In answer then to the question "And what good would it have done Lazarus to be awoken from the dead if in the end he must die anyway? What good would it have done Lazarus if He did not exist" we must think differently. To the Christian his resurrection brings glory to God, and his second death is not the end. He does not cease to exist. For the Christian there is, in death, infinitely more hope than in life in all it's flourishing and glory.

Life for the Christian then is no longer orientated towards death as some grand finale of the self. Yet man is preoccupied with this notion and even sets up life as an idol; to preserve at all costs. Kierkegaard uses the analogy here of a child drawing back in fear of what the adult thinks nothing of. For the Christian there is something greater to fear the sickness unto death. That is to live and orientate life as though death were the end of the self; to presume that what I am should be defined by my temporality consciously or not. For Kierkegaard the courage to live is drawn from a greater fear of this sickness as something even more horrifying.