KIERKEGAARDconcluding5

The thing of being a Christian is not determined by the what of Christianity but by the how of the Christian.

...this being which is ascribed to the thinker does not signify that he is, but only that he is engaged in thinking. [about Kant's "I think, therefore I am" philosophy]

To be content with a "mostly," an "as good as," a "you could almost say that," a "when you sleep on it until tomorrow, you can easily say that," suffices merely to betray a kinship with Trop, who, little by little, reached the point of assuming that almost having passed his examinations was the same as having passed them. We all laugh at this; but when philosophers reason in the same matter, in the kingdom of the truth and the sanctuary of science, then it is good philosophy, genuine speculative philosophy.

What the conception of God or an eternal happiness is to effect in the individual is, that he transform his entire existence in relation thereto, and this transformation is a process of daying away from the immediate. This is slowly brought about, but finally he will feel himself confined within the absolute concept of God; for the absolute conception of God does not consist in having such a conception at every moment.

...when one discovers that every street urchin can say "we," one perceives that it means a little more, after all, to be a particular individual. And when one finds that every basement-dweller can play the game of being humanity, one learns at last that being purely and simply a human being is a more significant thing than playing hte society game in this fashion. And one thing more. When a basement-dweller plays this game everyone thinks it ridiculous; and yet it is equally ridiculous for the greatest man in the world to do it.

When Socrates believed that there was a God, he saw very well that where the way swings off there is also an objective way of approximation, for example, by the contemplation of nature and human history, and so forth. His merit was precisely to shun this way, where the quantitative siren song enchants the mind and deceives the existing individual.

Without risk there is no faith. Faith is precisely the contradiction between the infinite passion of the individual's inwardness and the objective uncertainty. If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe.