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Summary: It sure wasn't despairing reading this insightful book!
Review: A classic that transcends time - Kierkegaard's Sickness Unto Death reveals the struggling search for the self. We are led to relate "despair" to the act of achieving one's "true" self and life is left only bearable through faith in God and afterlife.
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Summary: Great insights for Christian counseling
Review: Based on Kierkegaard's book, it is clear that despair is essential for a person to realize he is not a "self," and thereby turn to God; but many people choose to create a self on their own-they become a carbon copy of everyone else in the world. I was intrigued by Kierkegaard's insights. From what I understood, there are two possibilities a person can have: (1) There is the possibility of becoming the self that God intended for the person, or (2) The alternate possibility when one manufactures a "self" then for the rest of his or her life, strives to attain it. The "fantastic" is the result of one's idea of self that is always being improved and refined from the previous "self." However, a person can only have a self if God gives it to him or her. The "sickness unto death" is when the person does not realize this until he or she faces death and had lived a life in sin (sin was explained as the spiritual and actual position of a person in comparison to God).
The person had a chance to live in "actuality," but instead was in despair and now is left with the "sickness unto death." Kierkegaard offered an insight to the human soul that ought to be the foundation to understanding the psyche of the Christian. His work is still relevant, and had probably ushered the Christian psychology movement into existence. It would be safe to say that he is a "founding father" of Christian psychology and was a very observant man. This book is not easy to read, but it is worth the effort.
Rating:
Summary: Getting a life
Review: In sum, Kierkegaard shows that despair is the inability to live with oneself. We all experience depression, disappointment, and anxiety rooted in the identities we strive to establish apart from the one we were meant to have in God. Therefore, there is no greater truth to eradicate despair than this: that God has made us for relationship with Himself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Him. Only when a person relies on his perfect relationship with God, and not his imperfect relationship with his parents, his society, his friends, as the sole criterion for the worth of his soul will he find rest from despair.
Rating:
Summary: A life changing experience
Review: It doesn't often happen that you can feel reading a book changing your world-view. I can remember the first time I read "Sickness Unto Death" and suddenly commercials sounded different. It's a simple Either/or: either you are part of the problem or you are part of the solution. Either you are moving, and, whether you know it or not we are all moving, in one direction or the other. The opposite of "faith" is not "doubt," for "doubt" can a moment within faith. The opposite of "faith" is "despair." Despair is the "Sickness Unto Death," and there is no other real death. All else is temporary, but despair is eternal. The great dialectian draws out and describes the variety and etiology of despair in a language he describes as "algebraic" (that is, spare, formulaic, a prime example is the famous opening paragraph with its comic parody of Hegel (he's pulling your leg at the same time he is deadly serious. That's SK)). You may find this language hard to deal with, but it is worth it to stick with it.
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Summary: A study of sin through philosophical categories
Review: Kierkegaard addresses why a man fails to "be oneself," or what later philosophers called a failure to be "authentic." He addresses this self-division through a Christian understanding of the category of despair, and shows that at bottom sin and despair are equivalent, even if the sinner is not consciously aware of the despair. This is an excellent work on sin. There is no Bible-thumping or preaching; just a straightforward philosophical and technical look at what it means to be in sin. You may find the Hegelian dialectics difficult, but if you catch what Kierkegaard is saying, your view of what sin is and its reality can be completely changed. Kierkegaard shows how despair can be found in the midst of everyday routines as well as in "classic" sinful actions. The work focuses on how an ontological gap in one's being colors every action, no matter how simple or dramatic the action appears to be. Be warned, the book is not as easy to read as his overtly religious works. The book is not as difficult as some of his other philosophical works and it is short, but an exposure to 19th Century continental philosophy or an education in the humanities will definitely help you get through the Hegelian terminology and dialectics.
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Summary: Finding God Through Despair
Review: Soren Kierkegaard is a wonderful philosopher. He understood the universal truth: we are all accountable to God, and our goal is to gain eternal life through this accountability of living for God, which means living for Good (ethics). To discover our "self" in this goal is why we are here, it is our purpose in life.This (above) is what Kierkegaard talks about in "The Sickness Unto Death" and how we don't come to this understanding except after struggle in this world and despair with our lives. While reading it, you have the feeling of being struck by a sense of profound truth. This is one of Kierkegaard's finest works. David Rehak
author of "A Young Girl's Crimes"
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Summary: A rollicking romp through medieval Sweden
Review: This book is much more "upbeat" than you might think from its title. I love the characters, I was really moved by the descriptions of furniture and-- wow! a LOT of philosophy in here! Even better -- I lost TWENTY-SIX POUNDS!!!! (This is even better than "The South Beach Diet"!!!)
Rating: 
Summary: thank God for fireplaces
Review: this book was a total waste of time. if i had one regret in my life, it would be not reading this book's cliff notes. by the way, when i rated this book, there is no option for zero stars. i would have a better time crawling through broken glass. thanks for the waste of time, sore end corkyourfaart
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Summary: Timeless Masterpiece of Philosophical Anthropology
Review: Using a highly compressed schematic of the self as a fundamentally relational being that confronts itself and otherness primarily through the imagination and its determination of anxiety and despair, SK both exposes the pathologies latent within imbalances of the relational unity that mark the integrated life, and points to a fundamental misrelation of the self to the Ground of Being as the source of our alientation. Restoration of that relation -- healing and integration of the self -- comes by means of an authentic faith that "annihilates the possibility of despair" by trusting in God as the answer to the self and its alienation. For me, SK has an almost providential gifting to communicate the essential truth of the inner meaning of anxiety and despair, and does so the most prodigious profundity, brilliance, and passionate faith. Highly recommended!!! If you take the time (and energy) to attune yourself to this message of Kierkegaard, your life will be changed....
Rating:
Summary: A transparent translation
Review: With the many words of review of Kierkegaard, I thought a few should be written in honor of the Hongs, who have render such clear translations. Some of the difficulties of understanding SK are not because of his writing style or the nature of the concepts he was communicating, but less than poetic translations of his work. The Hongs have remedied that, so now we merely have to contend with what SK had to say. I for one am grateful for their contribution.
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