Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T17:01:18.176Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘Eternity will nail him to himself’: the logic of damnation in Kierkegaard's The Sickness unto Death

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2015

R. ZACHARY MANIS
R. ZACHARY MANIS*
Affiliation:
The Courts Redford College of Theology and Ministry, Southwest Baptist University, 1600 University Ave, Bolivar, MO 65613, USA e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Though Kierkegaard's writings are rarely referenced in discussions of the problem of hell, the choice model of hell, I argue, can be strengthened by a close reading of the relevant passages of The Sickness unto Death that bear on the topic of damnation. Each of the two major forms of the choice model that are discussed in the contemporary philosophical literature are anticipated and developed in masterful psychological detail in this key Kierkegaardian text. The first form of the choice model, which sees damnation as the explicit and direct object of choice of those who are finally lost, faces the challenge of explaining motive: why would anyone freely choose eternal damnation? The second form, in which damnation is the natural consequence of certain free choices but not that which is chosen directly, faces the significant challenge of explaining why God does not annihilate the damned, mercifully putting them out of their misery. I argue that The Sickness unto Death contains conceptual resources for meeting both of these challenges.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 52 , Issue 3 , September 2016 , pp. 287 - 314
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, Marilyn McCord (1993) ‘The problem of hell: a problem of evil for Christians’, in Stump, Eleonore (ed.) Reasoned Faith (Ithaca NY & London: Cornell University Press), 301–327.Google Scholar
Adams, Marilyn McCord(1999) Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God (Ithaca NY & London: Cornell University Press).Google Scholar
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor (1922) The Brothers Karamazov, Garnett, Constance (tr.) (New York: The Macmillan Company).Google Scholar
Evans, C. Stephen (1983) Kierkegaard's ‘Fragments’ and ‘Postscript’: The Religious Philosophy of Johannes Climacus (Atlantic Heights NJ: Humanities Press International, Inc.).Google Scholar
Evans, C. Stephen (2006) Kierkegaard on Faith and the Self: Collected Essays (Waco TX: Baylor University Press).Google Scholar
Flint, Thomas P. & Freddoso, Alfred J. (1983) ‘Maximal power’, in Freddoso, Alfred J. (ed.) The Existence and Nature of God (Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press), 81–113.Google Scholar
Frankfurt, Harry (1971) ‘Freedom of the will and the concept of a person’, Journal of Philosophy, 68, 5–20.Google Scholar
Kierkegaard, Søren (1980) The Sickness unto Death, Hong, Howard V. & Hong, Edna H. (eds & trs) (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Kierkegaard, Søren (1987) Either/Or, part II , Hong, Howard V. & Hong, Edna H. (eds & trs) (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Kierkegaard, Søren (1990) Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, Hong, Howard V. & Hong, Edna H. (eds & trs) (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Kierkegaard, Søren (1995) Works of Love, Hong, Howard V. & Hong, Edna H. (eds & trs) (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Kierkegaard, Søren (2009) Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, Hong, Howard V. & Hong, Edna H. (eds & trs) (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Kvanvig, Jonathan L. (1993) The Problem of Hell (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, C. S. (1946) The Great Divorce (New York: Macmillan).Google Scholar
Lewis, C. S. (1947) The Problem of Pain (New York: Macmillan).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manis, R. Zachary (2009) ‘Foundations for a Kierkegaardian account of moral obligation’, Southwest Philosophy Review, 25, 71–81.Google Scholar
Manis, R. Zachary (2015) ‘The doxastic problem of hell’, in Kvanvig, Jonathan L. (ed.) Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion, VI (Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press), 203–223.Google Scholar
Martin, Michael (1990) Atheism: A Philosophical Justification (Philadelphia PA: Temple University Press).Google Scholar
Mulder, Jack Jr. (2010) Kierkegaard and the Catholic Tradition: Conflict and Dialogue (Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press).Google Scholar
Plantinga, Alvin (1974) The Nature of Necessity (Oxford: Clarendon Press).Google Scholar
Plato, (1992) Republic, Grube, G. M. A. (tr.), rev. Reeve, C. D. C. (Indianapolis IN & Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.).Google Scholar
Pojman, Louis (1986) Religious Belief and the Will (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul).Google Scholar
Rocca, Ettore (2000) ‘Søren Kierkegaard and silence’, in Houe, Poul, Marino, Gordon D., & Rossel, Sven Hakon (eds) Anthropology and Authority: Essays on Søren Kierkegaard (Amsterdam & Atlanta GA: Rodopi), 77–84.Google Scholar
Seymour, Charles (2000) A Theodicy of Hell (Dordrecht, Boston MA, & London: Kluwer Academic Publishers).Google Scholar
Stump, Eleonore (1985) ‘The problem of evil’, Faith and Philosophy, 2, 392–423.Google Scholar
Stump, Eleonore (1986) ‘Dante's hell, Aquinas's moral theory, and the love of God’, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 16, 181–198.Google Scholar
Swinburne, Richard (1977) The Coherence of Theism (Oxford: Clarendon Press).Google Scholar
Swinburne, Richard (1983) ‘A theodicy of heaven and hell’, in Freddoso, Alfred J. (ed.) The Existence and Nature of God (Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press), 37–54.Google Scholar
Swinburne, Richard (1989) Responsibility and Atonement (Oxford: Clarendon Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Talbott, Thomas (1990) ‘The doctrine of everlasting punishment’, Faith and Philosophy, 7, 19–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walls, Jerry L. (1992) Hell: The Logic of Damnation (Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walls, Jerry L. (2004) ‘A hell of a choice: reply to Talbott’, Religious Studies, 40, 203–216.Google Scholar