6.4.09

LENTEN REFLECTION OF THE DAY: Kierkegaard, again. On the short list of philosophical passages that have notably influenced my life, this is near the top:

The infinite reflection in which alone the concern of the subject for his eternal happiness can realize itself, has in general one distinguishing mark: the omnipresence of the dialectical. Let it be a word, a proposition, a book, a man, a fellowship, or whatever you please: as soon as it is proposed to make it serve as limit, in such a way that the limit is not itself again dialectical, we have superstition and narrowness of spirit. There always lurks some such concern in a man, at the same time indolent and anxious, a wish to lay hold of something so really fixed that it can elude all dialectics; but this desire is an expression of cowardice, and is deceitfulness toward the divine. ... As soon as I take the dialectical away, I become superstitious, and attempt to cheat God of each moment's strenuous reacquisition of what had once been acquired. But it is far more comfortable to be objective, and superstitious, and boastful about it, proclaiming thoughtlessness as wisdom.

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