October 30, 2009 at 7:06 am (Blooms)
Tags: But It Is Blessed to Be Mocked, Christian Discourses
“Imagine a gathering of worldly-minded, timorous people whose highest law in everything is a slavish regard for what others, what ‘they’ will say and judge, whose sole concern is that unchristian concern that ‘everywhere they speak well’ of them, whose admired goal is to be just like the others, whose sole inspiring and whose sole terrifying idea is the majority, the crowd, its approval — its disapproval. Imagine such an assembly or crowd of worshipers and devotees of the fear of people, that is, an assembly of the honored and esteemed (why should such people not honor and esteem one another — to honor the other is, after all, to flatter oneself!) — and imagine that this assembly is supposed (yes, as it is in a comedy), is supposed to be Christians. Before this Christian assembly a sermon is delivered on these words: It is blessed to suffer mockery for a good cause!
But it is blessed to suffer mockery for a good cause!”
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~Source: Christian Discourses: “But It Is Blessed to Be Mocked” (1848)
Author: Søren Kierkegaard
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October 18, 2009 at 6:52 am (Blooms)
Tags: Christian Discourses, Resurrection of the Dead
“Save me, O God, from ever being completely sure; keep me unsure until the end so that then, if I receive eternal blessedness, I might be completely sure that I have it by grace! It is empty shadowboxing to give assurances that one believes it is by grace — and then to be completely sure. The true, the essential expression of its being by grace is the very fear and trembling of unsureness. There lies faith.”
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~Source: Christian Discourses: “Resurrection of the Dead” (1848)
Author: Søren Kierkegaard
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July 17, 2009 at 4:17 am (Blooms)
Tags: Christian Discourses, Hardship Procures Hope
“Imagine hidden in a very plain setting a secret chest in which the most precious treasure is placed — there is a spring that must be pressed, but the spring is concealed, and the pressure must be of a certain force so that an accidental pressure cannot be sufficient. The hope of eternity is concealed within a person’s innermost being in the same way, and hardship is the pressure. When the pressure is put on the concealed spring, and forcefully enough, the content appears in all its glory!” ——————————————————– ~Source: Christian Discourses: “Hardship Procures Hope” (1848) Author: Søren Kierkegaard
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June 2, 2009 at 11:20 am (Blooms)
Tags: Christian Discourses, Resurrection of the Dead
“Save me, O God, from ever being completely sure; keep me unsure until the end so that then, if I receive eternal blessedness, I might be completely sure that I have it by grace! It is empty shadowboxing to give assurances that one believes it is by grace — and then to be completely sure. The true, the essential expression of its being by grace is the very fear and trembling of unsureness. There lies faith.”
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~Source: Christian Discourses: “Resurrection of the Dead” (1848)
Author: Søren Kierkegaard
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April 15, 2009 at 7:40 am (Blooms)
Tags: Christian Discourses, He Was Believed in the World
“Ordinarily everyone who lives in Christendom has unconditionally enough knowledge about Christianity to be able to invoke and supplicate, to be able to turn in prayer to Christ. If he does that with the need of inwardness and in honesty of heart, he surely will become a believer. If only it is altogether definite before God that this person feels the need to believe, he will very definitely find out what he is to believe. The opposite is: without a need to believe, to go on researching, ruminating, and pondering, more and more wanting nigglingly to waste year after year of one’s life, and finally one’s eternal salvation, on getting absolutely and precisely definite, down to a dot over a letter, what one is to believe. This opposite is empty shadowboxing that merely becomes more and more self-important, or it is a scholarly, learned practice in the wrong place, therefore a scholarly, learned malpractice, or it is cowardly, inhuman, and to that extent also ungodly pusillanimity.” ——————————————————– ~Source: Christian Discourses: “He Was Believed in the World” (1848) Author: Søren Kierkegaard
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January 11, 2009 at 7:29 am (Blooms)
Tags: But It Is Blessed to Be Mocked, Christian Discourses
“Imagine a gathering of worldly-minded, timorous people whose highest law in everything is a slavish regard for what others, what ‘they’ will say and judge, whose sole concern is that unchristian concern that ‘everywhere they speak well’ of them, whose admired goal is to be just like the others, whose sole inspiring and whose sole terrifying idea is the majority, the crowd, its approval — its disapproval. Imagine such an assembly or crowd of worshipers and devotees of the fear of people, that is, an assembly of the honored and esteemed (why should such people not honor and esteem one another — to honor the other is, after all, to flatter oneself!) — and imagine that this assembly is supposed (yes, as it is in a comedy), is supposed to be Christians. Before this Christian assembly a sermon is delivered on these words: It is blessed to suffer mockery for a good cause!
But it is blessed to suffer mockery for a good cause!”
——————————————————–
~Source: Christian Discourses: “But It Is Blessed to Be Mocked” (1848)
Author: Søren Kierkegaard
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December 30, 2008 at 6:42 am (Blooms)
Tags: Christian Discourses, I. Luke 22:15
“What sheer vanity the earthly and temporal is… Everything, all that I see, is vanity and vicissitude as long as it exists, and finally it is the prey of corruption. Therefore, when the moon rises in its radiance, I will together with that devout man* say to the star, ‘I do not care for you: after all, you are now eclipsed’; and when the sun rises in all its splendor and darkens the moon, I will say to the moon, ‘I do not care for you: after all, you are now eclipsed’; and wwhen the sun goes down, I will say, ‘I thought as much, because all is vanity.’ When I see the brook running along so briskly, I will say: Just keep on running; you will never fill the sea. To the wind I will say, yes, even it it tears trees up by the roots, I will say to it: Just keep on blowing; there is no meaning or thought in you, you symbol of inconstancy. Even if the loveliness of the field, which charmingly captivates the eye, and even if the melodiousness of the birds’ singing, which deliciously falls upon the ear, and even if the peacefulness of the forest, which invitingly refreshes the heart — even if they were to use all their persuasiveness, I will still not allow myself to be persuaded, will not allow myself to be beguiled; I will still call to mind that all of it is deception. Even though through thousands of years the stars remained so fixed and without changing their positions in the sky, I will still not allow myself to be deceived by this reliability; I will call to mind that they at some time will fall down.”
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~Source: Christian Discourses: “Discourses at the Communion on Fridays; I. Luke 22:15″ (1848)
Author: Søren Kierkegaard
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November 18, 2008 at 6:21 am (Blooms)
Tags: Christian Discourses, Resurrection of the Dead
Save me, O God, from ever being completely sure; keep me unsure until the end so that then, if I receive eternal blessedness, I might be completely sure that I have it by grace! It is empty shadowboxing to give assurances that one believes it is by grace — and then to be completely sure. The true, the essential expression of its being by grace is the very fear and trembling of unsureness. There lies faith.”
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~Source: Christian Discourses: “Resurrection of the Dead” (1848)
Author: Søren Kierkegaard
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June 5, 2008 at 8:25 am (Blooms)
Tags: Christian Discourses, The Care of Lowliness
“[The lowly Christian] sees with the eyes of faith; with the speed of faith that seeks God, he is at the beginning, is himself before God, is contented with being himself… From ‘the others’ a person of course actually finds out only what the others are — it is in this way that the world wants to deceive a person out of becoming himself. ‘The others’ in turn do not know what they themselves are either but continually know only what ‘the others’ are. There is only one who completely knows himself, who in himself knows what he himself is — that is God. And he also knows what each human being is in himself, because he is that only by being before God. The person who is not before God is not himself either, which one can be only by being in the one who is in himself.”
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~Source: Christian Discourses: “The Care of Lowliness” ( 1848 )
Author: Søren Kierkegaard
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June 2, 2008 at 8:05 am (Blooms)
Tags: Christian Discourses, Resurrection of the Dead
“Save me, O God, from ever being completely sure; keep me unsure until the end so that then, if I receive eternal blessedness, I might be completely sure that I have it by grace! It is empty shadowboxing to give assurances that one believes it is by grace — and then to be completely sure. The true, the essential expression of its being by grace is the very fear and trembling of unsureness. There lies faith.”
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~Source: Christian Discourses: “Resurrection of the Dead” (1848)
Author: Søren Kierkegaard
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