page_title: The Concept of Anxiety
section_title: The first sin
hierarchical_section_title: The Concept of Anxiety / The first sin
context_page_description: The Concept of Anxiety: A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin, is a philosophical work written by Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard in 1844. The original 1944 English translation by Walter Lowrie, had the title The Concept of Dread. The Concept of Anxiety was dedicated "to the late professor Poul Martin Møller". He used the pseudonym Vigilius Haufniensis for The Concept of Anxiety.
  All of Kierkegaard's books have either a preface, dedication, or prayer at the beginning. This book includes a lengthy introduction. The Concept of Anxiety was published on exactly the same date as Prefaces, June 17, 1844. Both books deal with Hegel’s idea of mediation. Mediation is a common thread throughout Kierkegaard’s works. His work up to this point was to show that faith was being mediated by knowledge. Here he takes up the questions of sin and guilt.
  For Kierkegaard, anxiety/dread/angst is unfocused fear. Kierkegaard uses the example of a man standing on the edge of a tall building or cliff.
context_section_description: Kierkegaard is not concerned with what Eve's sin was, he says it wasn't sensuousness, but he is concerned with how Eve learned that she was a sinner. He says "consciousness presupposes itself. Eve became conscious of her first sin through her choice and Adam became conscious of his first sin through his choice. God's gift to Adam and Eve was the "knowledge of freedom" and they both decided to use it. In Kierkegaard's Journals he said,  "the one thing needful" for the doctrine of Atonement to make sense was the "anguished conscience." He wrote, "Remove the anguished conscience, and you may as well close the churches and turn them into dance halls."
  Kierkegaard says, every person has to find out for him or her self how guilt and sin came into their worlds. Kierkegaard argued about this in both Repetition and Fear and Trembling where he said philosophy must not define faith. He asks his reader, the single individual, to consider some questions. Can sin and guilt be transferred from one person to another? Is it "an epidemic that spreads like cowpox"? Was every Jewish person responsible for the crucifixion of Christ? Does the single individual find sin in others or in him or herself? He believed in a rigorous self-inspection and at the same time a lenient inspection of others. He put it this way in Four Upbuilding Discourses of 1844: 
  We do not know the life of Paul in great detail, but we do, however, know Paul, which is the main consideration. That is to say, just as the sensate man is distinguishable by his seeing the speck in his brother’s eye but not seeing the log in his own, by his rigorously condemning the same fault in others that he lightly forgives in himself, so the mark of a more profound and concerned person is that he judges himself more rigorously, uses all his ingenuity to excuse the other person but is unable to excuse or forgive himself, indeed, is convinced that the other one is more excusable, because there is always still a possibility, since the only one in relation to whom a person is deprived of this possibility is he himself. Bold confidence is a difficult matter, because it is not exactly synonymous with mental weakness. One may very well stop with it and need not go further by even wishing to judge God, that is, if in other respects bold confidence is bold confidence in the judgment, which certainly requires that God’s judgment penetrate the thought and heart, that is, if it is bold confidence in God’s mercy and there words are not a feigned pious expression of one’s own thoughtlessness, which does not trust God but is consoled by having ceased to sorrow long ago. If no human being is capable of acquitting himself he is capable of one thing-of indicting himself so terribly that he cannot acquit himself but learns to need mercy. With regard to this, it is difficult for one person to understand another, because the earnest person always lays the stress on himself. Søren Kierkegaard, Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, Hong p. 339-340
  
  What was the intention of Christianity? Does the concept emerge through definitions and examples? Sin and guilt are both religious categories as far as Kierkegaard is concerned. He wrote:
  The concept of guilt as a totality-category belong essentially in the religious sphere. As soon as the esthetic wants to have something to do with it, this concept becomes dialectical like fortune and misfortune, whereby everything is confused. Esthetically, the dialectic of guilt is this: the individual is without guilt, then guilt and guiltlessness come along as alternating categories of life; at times the individual is guilty of this or that and at times is not guilty. If this or that had not been, the individual would not have become guilty; in other circumstances, one who is not considered as being without guilt would have become guilty. Søren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, (1846) Hong p. 525-537
  With the help of faith, anxiety brings up the individuality to rest in providence. So it is also in relation to guilt, which is the second thing anxiety discovers. Whoever l
caption: The Parable of the Mote and Beam
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