                           19970808.00

     Andre van den Bor writes:

     > I am trying to write something for my doctorate-thesis >
about deathanxiety and my research is concentrated upon >
Kierkegaard. The problem is though, that there is not >
specifically writen much about this topic in combination > with
Kierkegaard's thoughts, nor can I find any literature > about
Kierkegaard autobiografical situation and the problem > of
deathanxiety.

     =============== Andre van den Bor would like to know what
Kierkegaard might have said about "deathanxiety". If this term is
not colloquial to American English, that may be so in part
because our language is less flexible when it comes to
contracting complex meaning into a single term, but more
importantly, because deathanxiety is out of fashion among us.
For us, not deathanxiety but death-evasion is the name of the
game.  and death-evasion is the mudsill on which our secular and
idolatrous public piety is constructed.

     Kierkegaard, on the other hand, if I interpret him
correctly, found deathanxiety and its complementary antithesis,
the expectation of "evige Bevidsthed" (eternal consciousness) to
be the coordinates of an analytic account of spirit, one facet or
another of which is exhibited in literally all of those writings
of his that I have read: most directly in Begrebet Angest (The
Concept of Dread), but also in the Philosophical Fragments, in
the Concluding Unscientific Postscript and in Indovelse i
Christendom. (Practice in Christianity)

     I wish Andre van den Bor would tell us the Dutch word(s)
which he translated as deathanxiety. The German equivalent is
"Todesangst", to which Grimm's Woerterbuch ascribes three
meanings: 1) the anxious anticipation of death, 2) the spiritual
agony contemporaneous with dying, and 3) an anxiety so great as
to cause death. It is only for this last and in fact primarily
fanciful meaning that we Americans have a colloquial expression.
One refers to oneself as being "scared to death", usually in a
frivolous context.  For "deathanxiety" in its other dimensions we
have no name, but we cope with it by means, among others, of CPR
(cardiopulmonary resuscitation) administered by legions of
certified and licensed EMT's (emergency medical technicians)
masquerading as angels who presume to rescue us from death.

     Kierkegaard understands deathanxiety to have its origin as
described in the account of Genesis:
    16. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying
    Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:

    17. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
    thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof
    thou shalt surely die.


     The trouble started, as is well known, when Eve obtained and
relied upon a second opinion, rendered by the most prominent
advocate of Women's Liberation of her day, an opinion which
contradicted the original and authoritative though perhaps
somewhat chauvinistic command.

    3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman,
    Ye shall not surely die.

     There was in fact, some truth in that second opinion;
neither Adam nor Eve died "in the day that thou eatest thereof".
as a matter of fact, they procreated Cain and indirectly the rest
of us to carry on with Cain's projects.

     Ever since that original misunderstanding between God and
his creatures, sin and death have been inextricably entwined.
All anxiety is ultimately anxiety about death as the punishment
for the original sin, - which was to be human.

     Kierkegaard's obscure distinction between subjectivity and
objectivity bears heavily on our understanding of death, and
consequently also on the anxiety which we experience concerning
it.  The truth of the death which we observe, which frightens us
and reflects in our anxieties, is objective. The question
presents itself, how does one experience death subjectively? Can
death be subjective?

     I believe a very plausible argument can be made for the
thesis that in Kierkegaard's theology, where to become a
Christian, and hence to be "saved" from sin - and death - is
synonymous with becoming subjective, the evige Bevidsthed, the
eternal consciousness is likewise synonymous with (absolute)
subjectivity.  It is contradictory to argue that death is
compatible with subjectivity.  The subjective truth of death
simply does not exist.  (Just as, according to Kierkegaard, the
objective truth of Christianity simply does not exist.)
Subjectivity entails self-awareness. So long as one is aware of
oneself, one is not dead; and when hypothetically, one is not
conscious of ones subjectivity, that subjectivity is subjectively
non-existent, although it may still "exist" as an objective
concept, much as the embalmed corpse in the undertaker's parlor
"exists" as an objective person.

     Death as potential subjective experience is
incomprehensible.  For however compelling death anxiety may be as
_anticipation_ of death, we are never able and we will never be
able to experience death subjectively, because subjectively death
is the absence of all experience. Death is valid only as an
objective concept.  Death is the apotheosis of objectivity; and
in a religious context, the conquest of death is the conquest of
objectivity.

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