/lit/ - Literature

>>19971256
OP, you have confused an unused idea for one of his philosophical works for being an autobiographical statement of his own.

>Each of entries III A 220-26 are on a slip of paper and undated. Barfod dates them uncertainly as 1842 (?) and Heiberg as 1840-42 (?). Their contents seem to mark them as items for possible use in Either/Or (published in 1843)

Source:

Søren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers: Vol. 5, (Indiana University Press), p511

>>19913941
>Did he, in any way, transform your life for the best or for the worst, and how exactly?
For me, yes, very much so. And this has not stopped, he is someone who I am constantly returning to in order to examine myself before God, as earnestly as I can. He has forced me to, through critical self-reflection and through sheer conviction when reading his Christian writings I cannot do anything else and pretend to be living well. I was captivated by Kierkegaard initially through reading Anti-Climacus' Sickness Unto Death (especially Part II, where the religious understanding is made very clear) and related it to my own life and my own prayer. I've read nearly all of his Upbuilding Discourses and am going through his Discourses at the Communion currently which are again proving very introspective and simply convict me with every word yet do not fail to offer up hope for upbuilding reflections for my life. Personally, I have and still do struggle with anger, hypocrisy, pride, and lust, in various ways and in different intensities. I am not here to say Kierkegaard is some self-help guru (since if you read him like this, you misread him), because I still deal with these vices - although different now in faith. Kierkegaard has, if anything, grounded my perspective eternally and enabled me to not completely lack any hope but to trust in what is higher than myself yet intimately close. Oftentimes I fall short and fail to meet my own expectations of myself, and I know this too well for myself, but each time I read an upbuilding discourse and an issue of mine is engaged dialectically through him, I am refocused and convicted internally to will to be myself to myself before God transparently, not pretending to be something else or living under self-delusions. I could go on about how Kierkegaard has made a personal impact on me, but I dont want this to just be a biographic wank of a post.

>In which order should I read his books?
Kierkegaard in his journals often laments about his initial pseudonymous philosophical works. If you want to read him and actually benefit from him existentially, then I'd suggest reading his self-authored works (in no particular order):
- For Self-Examination / Judge For Yourself!
- Discourses at the Communion on Fridays
- Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses
- Works of Love
- The Gospel of Sufferings
(and his pseudonymous works):
- Sickness Unto Death
- Practice in Christianity
- The Difference Between a Genius and an Apostle
- Has a Man the Right to Let Himself Be Put to Death for the Truth?

If you really do want to read his more philosophical pseudonymous works, then you can, but they are not needed.

"Kierkegaard was Saint" - Wittgenstein

>>19055112
>How could Christ's disciples reject a system of doctrines they predated by, what, a century?
Do you not know that the seeds of proto-gnostic heresies were present in the era of the apostles, and the apostolic fathers? Have you ever read the first epistle of John, which states that "He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son" (as a polemic against those who deny the Father, like gnostics)? Or the epistle to Timothy, where St. Paul writes, "O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called “gnosis”"?
>Why caricaturize the gnostics as fools and reprobates
I have not characterized them as such, as Jesus forbids us from calling people fools. I have only said the truth as evident to anybody dispassionately observing history: gnostics are spiritually impotent escapists who contribute nothing of value to humanity, which is exactly why impotent and cowardly men gravitate towards it - it provides a justification for their uselessness.

>>19055119
>Your religion is a lie, and you are absolutely SEETHING in rage
The projection is clear for all to see, here.
>[we] yearn for something higher, something true, something beyond what nicaeans or any worldly religion for that matter can ever provide.
And yet there are Orthodox and Catholic mystics and saints who have not only reached higher spiritual states than any gnostic, but have also actually contributed to the world in a positive way, helping to lead others to freedom and salvation - and thus became vessels for the Holy Spirit, who acted through them as Jesus promised. For He said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do". But where are the great works of the so-called "gnostics"? They are, once again, not existent, because they are spiritually impotent.

>>19055139
He's an example of an actual spiritual man who has renounced the world, not just a LARPer who posts on his $500+ electronic device about superior he is to those hylics chained to the material world.

>>19055143
Jesus said to not "be of this world" - but did He say to remove yourself from the world, to run away from it? Or did He say, "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost"?
The apostle says, "Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God?" - but does not Jesus say "I appointed you to go and bear fruit--fruit that will remain--so that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you"?
So where is the fruit of the so-called gnostics? We have been waiting for ~2000 years, but you have not produced any. The Lord says "you will know them by their fruits". If I judge by your fruits, I am left with the unavoidable conclusion that your ideology is vapid, empty, and vain; of value to nobody, it is simply spiritual masturbation.

>>18733118

>The great Ecumenical Councils did not receive collective theoria-visions and then make their decisions, they were guided subtly by the Holy Spirit to reach views together.

Completely false - it's not an either-or situation, the Holy Spirit both guides the Church subtly, and with theoria-visions.

How was Christ's divinity revealed to the Apostles? Did he convene a council to write up legal documents affirming by conciliar consensus that he was the messiah, or did he perform miracles and reveal to them His uncreated divinity in the light of Mount Tabor, on the way to his crucifixion and resurrection, and ascension?

After St Nicholas was defrocked for punching Arius in the face, why was he immediately re-instated? Because Christ & the Theotokos appeared to the other bishops in a vision, telling them to re-instate St Nicholas.

At the Third Ecumenical Council, why did the Fathers write two confessions - one of monophysitism, the other of dyophysitism, and gave them to the relics of St Euphemia to discern? Because they relied on God, in his Saints, to reveal which of the doctrines was true - and she trampled the monophysite confession underfoot: https://orthochristian.com/116085.html

How did St. Joseph the Hesychast learn that the Old Calendarists were going down the wrong spiritual path, despite the fact that they were fully and completely canonical in their logic about keeping to the old calendar? Direct theoria and vision of God - As recorded his life written by Elder Ephraim of Arizona.

>Take the example of St Maximus the Confessor. When he taught the doctrine of the two wills, it did not immediately and infallibly become Church doctrine. It was not until the Sixth Ecumenical Council that the doctrine became one of the bounds of salvation.

>The truth wasn't true until a council formalised it

So it wasn't infallible Church Doctrine that Christ is the uncreated Son of God until the First Ecumenical Council was convened? Completely absurd legalism. It is eternally true that Christ is the Son of God, whether or not a council is convened to correct an error to the contrary.

There is no reason to call any council to clarify doctrinal truth that is already plainly understood by all believers in the tradition, unless there are heretics leading the faithful away with deviations from Holy Tradition, like in Arianism - then, the explicit council is convened to clarify the dogma, and refute the error.

Before the First Ecumenical Council, Christ being God was the accepted Tradition, and completely infallibly dogmatic. If your argument was true, it would be acceptable to refuse to worship Christ before the first ecumenical council, which is completely insane.

Repent of your doctrinal nominalism.