FINITUDE, INFINITUDE AND EXISTENTIAL MEANING: A STUDY ON THE CONCEPT OF RELIGION FROM KIERKEGAARD

Abstract

The text is based on the presupposition that the relation between finitude and infinitude is crucial for the understanding of human existence, in broad terms, as for thinking a concept of religion. From this relation the text develops three key-concepts for the understanding of religion in and from Kierkegaard. The concept of despair is initially presented as the misrelation between finitude and infinitude in the individual, with the consequent loss of existential meaning, especially from some concepts from The Concept of Anxiety and The Sickness unto Death. Secondly, faith is presented as the form of the rearticulation between finitude and infinitude, from the concept of double movement, as it is exposed in Fear and Trembling. This concept of faith will be illuminated from a punctual relation with the concept of ultimate concern, of Paul Tillich, and then, the text will return to the problem of The Sickness unto Death. Finally, the concept of love will be developed from Works of Love as the content that unites finitude and infinitude. This union, however, occurs in a symbolic and paradoxical way. So, at this point I propose a reading that articulates the notion of love with the concept of paradox as developed in Philosophical Fragments.