Soren Kierkegaard
Reflecting on yesterday’s post, I went back to a favourite quote from Soren Kierkegaard. It’s from the preface to The Sickness Unto Death:
“Everything essentially Christian must have in its presentation a resemblance to the way a physician speaks at the sickbed; even if only medical experts understand it, it must never be forgotten that the situation is the bedside of a sick person.”
One take on Kierkegaard is to assert that all Christian theology needs to be pastoral; that its primary ethical mandate – like that of the physician – is to “do no harm”. This obligation may at times necessarily override other significant ethical commitments, even to “the truth” or to one’s own personal integrity.
