A Sickness unto Death

A person begins as an it and must become an I. The fact that they are not necessarily so is the source of their misery. Sin leads to a disrelationship, a separation of people from themselves called despair. Kierkegaard says this disrelationship of the self to the self, this despair, this spiritual sickness unto death reveals not only our separation from ourselves ... but our separation from God. To be rid of the despair, one must choose it. A person will be enabled to overcome it if they recognize the sickness, accept it, and through an act of free will, makes a leap of faith past it. The cure is to choose the good, to choose one's self, Kierkegaard tells us. It is in the act of becoming one's self a person moves from an it to an I.

Stephen Goforth