Despairing without God
an experiment on Kierkegaard’s philosophy
God is, in Kierkegaard’s philosophy, a key element around which all of his thoughts should be understood. Furthermore, his ideas are immersed so deeply in the context of Christendom that eliminating the concept of God from them, while keeping consistence, seems unconceivable. Yet, analyzing this philosopher’s thoughts from an atheistic standpoint could yield highly interesting results –given that, if something were to withstand an interpretation of such kind, the remaining ideas would be of great generality and, thus, speak more directly of the human essence. With this in mind, I will try to explore the consequences of taking God out of Kierkegaard’s conception of despair.
To begin with, central to this philosopher’s argument is the notion of human self, which he defines as synthesis of different natures: the finite and the infinite; the eternal and the temporal; the possible and the necessary. But self is also “a relation which relates itself to its own self, and in relating itself to its own self relates itself to another”
For the sake of the argument, we will suppose the inexistence of God and will, therefore, reduce Kierkegaard’s definition of self to a consistent, self-referential synthesis which is able to identify itself as a center (i.e. recognize itself as different from the world). In trying to stay as close to Kierkegaard as possible, we will keep the synthesis as made from the same elements above mentioned.
Yet, in Kierkegaard’s view, humans cannot become a self during their lives –the reason for this being despair. Despair can be seen as an unbalance of the different natures that compose human self. In this manner, the philosopher identifies two main categories of despair: one stemmed in not willing to be oneself and the other in willing to be oneself. The first kind (called also despair of weakness) arises from a problem in the way that the synthesis relates to itself: one doesn’t want to be oneself, he wants to be another –and this means not wanting to be at all, for the only way to be is to be oneself. The second sort (defiance) has origin in the relation with God, since one wants to be a self on his own and does not recognize the link to the power of which the relation is actually made.
Then, it becomes obvious that, if we extract God from this thinking, we are left with only one kind of despair: that of not willing to be oneself –given that this is not defined in terms of God. On the contrary, willing to be oneself cannot still be considered despair; since there is actually no relation that the person is not willing to accept. Hence, wanting to be oneself, in principle, would seem to be a way out of despair.
Therefore, for the moment, the first sort of despair is the only one to require analysis. We have, thus, to ask the question: what may make someone will not to be oneself? Kierkegaard gives two different answers: despair over the earthly, when one despairs over a concrete thing, person or situation; and despair over the eternal, when one despairs over being in despair. Without making reference to a divinity, the despair over the earthly could be easily explained by means of sociological, psychological or even biological arguments; but the second one would not be so easy to understand. After all, why should one despair over being in despair when there are sociological, psychological and biological explanations for that state? The answer is embedded in the question, for, are we so feeble that we despair so easily? Are we so insignificant that we can be reduced to sociological, psychological and biological explanations? Are we so dispensable that there is no deepness at all in our existence, no secret meaning of life? Thus, despair is auto-catalytic and its cause is found in the consciousness of our lack of purpose.
So, is everyone in despair? According to Kierkegaard, yes. But there is hope: we must only recognize it is not in our power to get out of despair and must have faith that God will make of us a self. Nonetheless, if there is no God, there is no way out of despair either. Not even seeking to be oneself –although we had identified this attitude as a possible escape from despair into the self– can eliminate the absurdity of life. Hence, the despair of those in defiance does not arise from a broken relation with the divinity (as Kierkegaard would assert) but from being more aware of despair than those in weakness; they are far more deeply and constantly affected by the lack of purpose of existence and, in the conscious effort to create themselves, can never eliminate the despair which, in turn, is the cause of their personal struggles (i.e. the effort to create themselves). Nevertheless, it must be noted that, given that we have taken God out of the system, defiance becomes the closest state to being a self –considering that, for Kierkegaard, being more conscious of despair implies being closer to becoming a self.
Consequently, the nonexistence of God implies a lack of transcendence and external meaning, and, therefore, the absence of a self that is qualitatively different from the rest of the universe. Despair, then, arises, from our desire to be special and the realization that we are not –in the form of an internal contradiction (or “battle”) between the part of ourselves that wants to transcend and that which, in its resignation, wants to die.
As a result of this argumentation, one might conclude that, without God, Kierkegaard’s philosophy would reduce to an existential nihilism. However, this is not necessarily the case; because, in spite of everything, aren’t we special in our despair? As far as we know, we are indeed. And, can’t existence as it is be enough? If we wondered at life and valued it for its diversity and richness without the need of transcendental additives, then despair would definitely be soothed –by being transformed in curiosity, discovery and action. Would we still be in despair? For sure, but we would be able to rejoice in our despair, to be proud of it as the mystery that constitutes us.
Without any doubt, whatever the result of eliminating God from Kierkegaard’s philosophy is, it is not Kierkegaard’s philosophy anymore. Moreover, it would be surely regarded by the philosopher as an example of defiance of the worst kind –since there could be nothing worse for him than purposely denying God. Yet, as expected, this analysis yields some interesting results. First it becomes evident that the search of a meaning for our lives gets much more arduous if one is not willing to accept the existence of a God that would, from a higher level of existence, give us purpose. But most important is the clarification of the idea that value might be found in despair itself and that, in the end, it is this entire struggle what makes us Humans. Quoting Kierkegaard himself: “The possibility of this sickness [despair] is man’s advantage over the beast, and this advantage distinguishes him far more essentially than the erect posture, for it implies the infinite erectness or loftiness of being spirit”
Maximiliano Isi
Note: Sin is a central concept in Kierkegaard’s philosophy, but there is no place for it if we do not consider God. For that reason, sin has not been analyzed in this work.
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