DE Weekly: Kierkegaard, Surrender, & the Leap of Faith
“Who am I, and what is my fate?” In last week’s newsletter, I wrote about how existentialism sought to answer this question through examining all facets of existence. I introduced the French philosopher and Catholic theologian Blaise Pascal, and his philosophical argument commonly referred to as “Pascal’s wager.”
To refresh your mind (or to catch you up to speed), Pascal’s wager is an argument that posits we, as humans, engage in a gamble regarding the existence of and our belief in God, a belief which ultimately defines our fate.
DE Weekly: Pensées, Reason, & Pascal’s Wager
Existentialism has arrested the thoughts of readers because the questions it poses are fundamental to our existence. Joining all questions into one, readers are forced to ask themselves, “Who am I, and what is my fate?”
Centuries before the existentialist authors we normally think of came around, a French philosopher and Catholic theologian named Blaise Pascal lived and wrote on the same existential questions.
DE Weekly: Past, Present, & Future
“Life can only be understood backwards;” wrote Søren Kierkegaard in his journals, “but it must be lived forwards.”
This is one of Kierkegaard's most famous entries, and rightly so; I’d wager all of us have at one point or another reflected on our past and thought, “If only I had known…” or, “If only I had done that instead of this…”.
DE Weekly: Peterson, Kierkegaard, & Anxiety
The crux of existentialism is its contention with the human condition. We are born into this world without our choosing, we must contend with the totality of our freedom, and we are forced to make a series of choices that define the meaning of our life.
I’ve written about the human condition before–what the existentialists thought about it, what their suggestions were to face it…