From CONCLUDING UNSCIENTIFIC POSTSCRIPT (1846)

On religious pathos.

“The reason why it is foolish…to want to set people’s minds at rest in the matter of their eternal happiness is that when it comes to something that the individual human being can do only with himself, the maximum that one can do for another is to make him uneasy (urolig).”

Attributed to the pseudonym Johannes Climacus, Concluding Unscientific Postscript is one of Kierkegaard’s masterpieces—a sprawling work of philosophical analysis, theological anthropology, and cultural satire. In the section preceding the passage above, Climacus argues that religious existence is “pathos-filled.” Since it is involves the highest possibility of one’s existence—namely, to attain an eternal happiness—religion is not something that can be related to as a matter of course, like checking on the weather forecast or chatting about what the neighbors are up to. Moreover, religious pathos is not transferable: I cannot want your eternal happiness for me, and vice versa. And yet, according to Climacus, one can still help another in this quest. When one stimulates another’s passionate search for the eternal, then one is indeed helping. But like a guitarist refining his technique or an athlete practicing her skills, passion increases in proportion to the difficulty of the journey ahead. Thus the religious helper does not want to placate with pat answers but, instead, strives to stir up a sense of unrest (Uro) in the other.