On Kierkegaardian Upbuilding and 'The Sickness Unto Death'

The subtitle to Søren Kierkegaard’s The Sickness unto Death captures both the tone and the overall project for this seminar as: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening. From this point of orientation, an exploration of the Kierkegaardian oeuvre will unfold that focuses on what he believes to be the earnest need of attending to the dual existential tasks of self-examination and the strengthening of the inner being through spiritual upbuilding.

In “building up” from his spiritual diagnosis on the various forms of existential despair – and by way of his cycle of discourses on the “lilies of the field and the birds of the air” – this course will ultimately arrive at Kierkegaard’s proclamation of “how glorious it is to be a human being.”