Summary
The 'sickness' which Kierkegaard's book
refers to as 'unto death' is resistance to this belief. It is the
inclination to accept that as far as the individual is concerned,
death is indeed the end. Now why should Kierkegaard want to call
that a sickness? After all, even in his own time there must have
been people strong both in might and body who rejected the
Christian teaching of sin and salvation, and who faced what they
accepted as total extinction with equanimity. And today, of course,
even in societies that once proudly professed Christian principles,
the rejection of Christian belief--or at least the failure
unequivocally to accept it--is the rule rather than the exception.
So in what sense can the denial of Christian dogma constitute an
illness?
