The Sickness unto Death: A Six-Week Introduction (6 lectures; lecture 1 free)

If two or more of these sound like you, this course may be a good fit.

• A sense of helplessness or emptiness has become part of your everyday life.
• You seem to be doing well by others' standards but wonder whether you are living as your true self.
• You have heard of Kierkegaard but do not know what his philosophy has to do with your faith.
• You want to understand despair as more than sadness—as part of becoming an individual before God.
• You want to explore anxiety and depression at a theological and existential level as well as a psychological one.

About the course

We often associate a “sickness unto death” with cancer or incurable illness. The Danish philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard offers a different diagnosis: despair. This course explores the existential crises of modern life through his challenging book The Sickness unto Death.

The course presents human beings not simply as a union of body and mind, but as relational beings whose selves are continually formed between them. It examines forms of despair that arise when the self becomes absorbed in itself or gives up on itself instead of standing before God. Viewers are invited to look honestly within and consider how faith and hope can begin at the limits of despair.

Difficulty: ★★☆

Provocativeness: ★★

Editor's note: Kierkegaard asks us whether we recognize our own despair. His warning that unrecognized despair may be the most dangerous form of the “sickness unto death” is unsettling. Beyond conveying ideas, this course invites viewers to encounter the challenge of standing as an individual before God.

Instructor

Pastor Changwoo Lee

Director of Charis Academy

Ph.D. in Systematic Theology, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

Researcher, translator and publisher of Kierkegaard's works

Course contents

Lecture 1: Introducing The Sickness unto Death

Lecture 2: What Is the Self?

Lecture 3: The Possibility and Actuality of Despair

Lecture 4: What Is Death?

Lecture 5: The Universality of Despair

Lecture 6: Forms of Despair

• This course is offered through Charis Academy, Changwoo Lee's paid membership program.