Essay Database

Soren Kierkegaard is said to be one of the "founding fathers" of existentialism. His style of writing, his tone and vocabulary tie him closely to another forerunner of existentialist thought: Fyodor Dostoevsky (although either of them would probably deny this vehemently). However, in the course of his writings, Kierkegaard takes quite a liberal and (dare I say it?) individualistic stand on the side of Christianity. In the passages I have read of Kierkegaard ("That Individual" …

…like it had been in the past, it is simply harder to distinguish the truth-seeking Christians from the simple, practical Christian. In his closing he almost looks at the present and future with lackluster optimism (as do most existentialists), believing that maybe the objectively-oriented Christian has replaced the truth-seeking Christian as the normal of the world. Maybe this scares him to no end and, after seeing today's society of naysayers and pessimists, maybe it should...