Decision, betrayal, and faith

Søren Kierkegaard rejects the Kantian argument that the universal demand of ethics is the highest claim upon the individual. Whilst his Christian existentialism focuses on existence as ethical existence, within his existential framework the highest level of existence is the religious. Kierkegaard makes a distinction on this level between Religiousness A, or the last stage before faith; and Religiousness B, true Christianity. This essay explores the movement from religiousness A to B, and questions the location of the actual transition point, the boundary zone of humour. Since, for Kierkegaard, the divine is both immanent and transcendent, the fluidity of this boundary zone opens up the possibility that religious transition entails a double transcendence. This essay suggests that the highest point of Religiousness A is a movement to a certain form of the divine, whilst the absolute movement to Religiousness B is the reclamation of true faith.