Two Upbuilding Discourses (1843)
Two Upbuilding Discourses (1843) is a book by Søren Kierkegaard. History Kierkegaard published Two Upbuilding Discourses three months after the publication of his big book, Either/Or, which ended without a conclusion to the argument between A, the aesthete, and B, the ethicist, as to which is the best way to live one's life. Kierkegaard hoped the book would transform everything for both of them into inwardness. In 1832, Hegel began an argument with Christianity by saying that knowledge is not something hurtful to faith but helpful. He says, philosophy (the love of knowledge) "has the same content as religion." This is due, in part, to the efforts of "Anselm and Abelard, who further developed the essential structure of faith" in the Middle Ages. Hegel wants people to base their belief in God on knowledge rather than faith, but, Kierkegaard wants each single individual to act out their faith before God. Faith isn't won by mental toil, it's won by personal struggle and the help of God. Kierkegaard steers his readers away from the outer world of observation to the inner world of faith. Upbuilding was translated Edifying in 1946 when David F. Swenson first translated them. They became Upbuilding Discourses