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Not a Negation, but a Position: Kierkegaard on Evil and Sin

  • Ingolf U. Dalferth
Published/Copyright: July 10, 2024
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Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook
From the journal Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook Volume 29 Issue 1

Abstract

For Kierkegaard, the problem of evil is the existential challenge of our entanglement in evil, suffering, and sin. Sin is not a “negation” but a “position,” not a moral wrongdoing or lack of virtue, but a distinctive condition in which humans live. Nor is evil simply a lack or absence of good, but the weakening, obstruction, and destruction of good. This paper traces Kierkegaard’s account of evil and sin in his major writings in terms of despair, boredom, and fear. Sin and evil do not question God’s love, but rather become the occasion for God to create good out of evil, life out of death, being out of nothing.

Online erschienen: 2024-07-10
Erschienen im Druck: 2024-07-10

© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Titelseiten
  3. Preface
  4. Titelseiten
  5. Section 1: Interpreting Kierkegaard’s Works and Journals
  6. Section 1:   Interpreting Kierkegaard’s Works and Journals
  7. Demonic Pantheism: Either/Or on Boredom as the Modern Crisis of Faith
  8. Kierkegaard, Spiritual Crisis, and Anxious Faith: Battling for Faith in Fear and Trembling and Strengthening in the Inner Being
  9. “Existence is the Spatiating”: Typographical Thinking and the Concept of Existence in Kierkegaard’s Postscript
  10. The Sickness unto Death Penalty: To Condemn the Other to Despair for the Sake of One’s Own Despair
  11. Section 2: Concepts and Problems in Kierkegaard
  12. Section 2:   Concepts and Problems in Kierkegaard
  13. Re-Staging Existence: Revisiting Kierkegaard’s Theory of Life Stages
  14. Ignorance, Frailty, and Defiance: The Anxiety of Freedom
  15. Not a Negation, but a Position: Kierkegaard on Evil and Sin
  16. Original Sin and Transmission of Trauma: A Dialog between Kierkegaard’s Hamartiology and the Phenomenon of Transgenerationality
  17. “A Satire on What It Is to Be a Human Being”: A Kierkegaardian Critique of Neoliberal Subjectivity
  18. Section 3: Kierkegaard’s Sources and Historical Context
  19. Section 3:   Kierkegaard’s Sources and Historical Context
  20. Who Is the Father of Existentialism? The Historical Context of Kierkegaard’s Criticism of Hegel’s Interpretation of Actuality
  21. Kierkegaards Auseinandersetzung mit Magnús Eiríksson: Werkstattbericht und Übersetzung
  22. Section 4: Receptions of Kierkegaard’s Thought
  23. Section 4:   Receptions of Kierkegaard’s Thought
  24. Zwischen Glauben und Verzweiflung. Franz Werfel und Søren Kierkegaard
  25. La pensée existentielle de Kierkegaard et la philosophie de Charles De Koninck: contexte et résonances
  26. Section 5: Kierkegaard’s Contemporaries: Sources in Translation and Commentary
  27. Section 5:   Kierkegaard’s Contemporaries: Sources in Translation and Commentary
  28. Martensen’s Review of Heiberg’s New Poems and the Discussion on Speculative Poetry and the Crisis of the Age
  29. Hans Lassen Martensen’s “New Poems by J.L. Heiberg”
  30. Abbreviations
  31. Abbreviations
https://doi.org/10.1515/kierke-2024-0008

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Titelseiten
  3. Preface
  4. Titelseiten
  5. Section 1: Interpreting Kierkegaard’s Works and Journals
  6. Section 1:   Interpreting Kierkegaard’s Works and Journals
  7. Demonic Pantheism: Either/Or on Boredom as the Modern Crisis of Faith
  8. Kierkegaard, Spiritual Crisis, and Anxious Faith: Battling for Faith in Fear and Trembling and Strengthening in the Inner Being
  9. “Existence is the Spatiating”: Typographical Thinking and the Concept of Existence in Kierkegaard’s Postscript
  10. The Sickness unto Death Penalty: To Condemn the Other to Despair for the Sake of One’s Own Despair
  11. Section 2: Concepts and Problems in Kierkegaard
  12. Section 2:   Concepts and Problems in Kierkegaard
  13. Re-Staging Existence: Revisiting Kierkegaard’s Theory of Life Stages
  14. Ignorance, Frailty, and Defiance: The Anxiety of Freedom
  15. Not a Negation, but a Position: Kierkegaard on Evil and Sin
  16. Original Sin and Transmission of Trauma: A Dialog between Kierkegaard’s Hamartiology and the Phenomenon of Transgenerationality
  17. “A Satire on What It Is to Be a Human Being”: A Kierkegaardian Critique of Neoliberal Subjectivity
  18. Section 3: Kierkegaard’s Sources and Historical Context
  19. Section 3:   Kierkegaard’s Sources and Historical Context
  20. Who Is the Father of Existentialism? The Historical Context of Kierkegaard’s Criticism of Hegel’s Interpretation of Actuality
  21. Kierkegaards Auseinandersetzung mit Magnús Eiríksson: Werkstattbericht und Übersetzung
  22. Section 4: Receptions of Kierkegaard’s Thought
  23. Section 4:   Receptions of Kierkegaard’s Thought
  24. Zwischen Glauben und Verzweiflung. Franz Werfel und Søren Kierkegaard
  25. La pensée existentielle de Kierkegaard et la philosophie de Charles De Koninck: contexte et résonances
  26. Section 5: Kierkegaard’s Contemporaries: Sources in Translation and Commentary
  27. Section 5:   Kierkegaard’s Contemporaries: Sources in Translation and Commentary
  28. Martensen’s Review of Heiberg’s New Poems and the Discussion on Speculative Poetry and the Crisis of the Age
  29. Hans Lassen Martensen’s “New Poems by J.L. Heiberg”
  30. Abbreviations
  31. Abbreviations
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