Kierkegaard's view of death

Abstract

Saren Kierkegaard shows in his writings that one’s view of death is very much linked to one’s total view of existence. In his discussion of various attitudes to, and beliefs about, death, he lets an important distinction emerge between views that presuppose only the world order as we know it, and views that presuppose in addition a transcendent order of existence Views belonging to the former group are characterised by emphasis on the problem of life in the world with death as the ultimate background factor. For the purpose of this article I propose to call this group immanentalist. Views belonging to the latter group make a distinction between this world and a higher eternal order of existence in which the individual can or does personally participate even after his physical death. This group I will call transcendentalist. Members of the immanentalist group may reject the claims of the transcendentalists about life after death, they may take the line that it is impossible to make any statements on the subject or they may try to handle death and eternal life positively from a totally immanentalist position. The German philosopher Martin Heidegger is of course the classic example of this type of positive response to death (Sein und &it, 1927), while the Welsh philosopher D. 2. Phillips has attempted to interpret religious language about eternal life as expressing values rather than facts, (Death and Immortality, Macmillan, U.K., 1970). Since the immanentalist standpoint is to be found described in Kierkegaard’s writings, at a first superficial reading it may be tempting to think that his personal view of existence is immanentalist. Yet this is not the case. His entire authorship with its delineation of various attitudes to death is strongly transcendentalist in terms of an actual transcendence and faith in an actual personal God.