Posted by Patrick on July 09, 19100 at 22:27:23:
In Reply to: The Olsen War posted by Xophe Andronicus on July 06, 19100 at 09:41:30:
SK certainly was jealous about Regine's re-engagement to Schlegel, and he seems to have been genuinely hurt that Schlegel refused him permission to re-establish his friendship with her. He also seems to have been completely shocked when she did become engaged to Fritz, even though he had tried to 'free' her for a happier union with someone else.
If you read 'Guilty/Not Guilty?' in Stages on Life's Way there's a clear, not very veiled autobiographical pain that he had to reinforce, rather than overcome, the huge 'misrelation' between them. She simply didn't understand his religious self, and he despaired of ever letting her understand the true SK, so he had to deceive her to keep her in her happy, simple 'immediacy' and give her a chance at some sort of happiness.
But the interesting thing for me is that SK goes on and on about the immesurable qualitative gulf between he and Regine ("I was a thousand years too old for her"), yet his whole theology is driven by the notion of finite humans seperated by such a gulf from God and the Infinite and Absolute. And he's quite clear that only Faith can bridge that gap.
So it could be that, just as it is faith (of the 'Religiousness B' kind, not the religion of immanance, because you need the paradoxical figure of the crucified God to bridge the gap) that can join two utterly different beings, so it was faith that could have joined SK and Regine. All the things he felt would make the totality of union impossible for them- his knowledge of his father's guilt, his own probable ual 'fall'- could have been overcome had he simply had the faith which he saw as necessary for a sinful being to find true happiness.
Also, consider that in the ethical sphere, ethics is "shipwrecked" against the impossibility of realizing the Universal, necessitating the "second ethics", the religious ethics of Love (see Works of Love). So love is an important part of actualizing one's 'true' selfhood, and for Kierkegaard it was this higher love that he had despaired of with Regine. Without faith, he couldn't truly be with her, for he needed that faith to overcome the difference between them.
It's really sad to think how different SKs life might have been had he stayed with Regine- but then if he had, I doubt any of us would have heard of him, for he probably would not have written any of his best works.
Pat
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