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Taylor Little
Teresa Welch
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Kierkegaard vs. Nietzsche

Soren Kierkegaard was a philosopher, like many others, whos work wasnt recognized
until after his death. The only difference was how Kierkegaard made his readers feel. He used a
lot of sarcasam as well as irony in his writings which made it very hard to understand. He also
went against what he called the system and the form of objectivity. To Kierkegaard subjectivity
was the way of truth not objectivity.
One of Kierkegaards most famous quotes was The question is not what am I to believe
but what am I to do? (Archetypes of Wisdom, pg. 396) In one of his writings Kierkegaard
follows a man to find out what it is truly like to be a Christian. In this he watched everything the
man did from how he ate, to what he read, even to what type of brands he bought. After this he
made the observation that this man did the same things that Kierkegaard did. This is where he
realized that being a Christian or a non-Christian is based of things that you cannot see.
Kierkegaard explained that you can do the basic practices as a Christian would but that doesnt
necessarily make you a Christian. He said you are just fooling yourself by following the heard
like most people are. He called these people The Christian Mob.
Truth is a subjective condition, not an objective one (Archetypes of Wisdom, pg. 404)
What Kierkegaard meant by this was that truth is not something that you see, its something you
feel. Truth is something that is individual and must be experienced firsthand. People need to have
some sort of personal experience to experience these truths and most truths are like that. A

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product of personal experience. Basically what he was trying to explain was that objective truth
is great for chemistry or physics but not for fathoming the human soul or cultivating our human
capacity. He explained objectivity as being easy. Its something that can be seen but it becomes
more difficult when you have to start thinking about the inner thoughts of being and our
existence.
Without God, [a man] is never essentially himself and therefore never satisfied with
being himself. (Archetypes of Wisdom, pg. 414) With this, Kierkegaard was saying that you are
never satisfied or happy with yourself if you do not have God in your life. As humans we have
this need for God and that need is real. But Kierkegaard never tried to prove that God actually
exists. He was never interested in proving something that was felt. One is deluded in thinking
that one could demonstrate that God exists. (Archetypes of Wisdom, pg. 414)
To experience God as a subject of truth, means we must be willing to expand the outer
perimeter of what death actually means to us and what life means to us. Kierkegaard believed
this to be the same for how religion works. Faith in God isnt a matter of observation or logic its
a subjective truth. Its something we have to experience it firsthand like love. Religious life isnt
about trying to prove that God exist. God could never be a form of objective truth since there
will always be limitations.
This bring us to Mortality. How do we know we are going to die? We observe that all
human beings end up dying. This is based off of an Objective truth. But our subjective truth
about mortality is much more personal. We actually have to experience how death runs through
every moment of our lives to experience subjective truth. Like an unsettling undercurrent. We
have to feel every now and then that cold and very intimate impress of finality on our souls. To
feel our selves giving birth and dying as we move from moment to moment. To experience our

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mortality that way is so much more personally challenging than simply accepting it as an object
of truth.
Most of us are obeying the pleasure and pain cycle. We want to maximize our pleasure
and minimize our pain. This is everyones ultimate goal in life. Except for Kierkegaard. To him
there was a lot more to life than just maximizing those pleasures and minimizing the pain. Lifes
pleasures very quickly lose the charm they once had if we keep repeating them enough. A great
example of this buying something like a pair of shoes. We wait all this time to go out and buy a
pair of shoes and once we get them the pleasure of having them is only there for a little while and
then we are moving on to the next thing that gives us more pleasure. Kierkegaard explained that
its not really those things that bore you. Its the hamster wheel where you keep running around
in a circle of trying to find the thing that gives you the most pleasure. Its the same thing over
and over.
The next pattern that Kierkegaard explained is the ethical mode of existence. An example
of this stage is being happily married or being a parent in the genuine sense. Because now its not
about your own pleasures, but about maximizing someone elses. It becomes more of a satisfying
for you to watch the other person enjoying pleasure instead of enjoying simple pleasure alone.
That is not the Final destination or answer to Kierkegaard. For him it is the Religious
mode of existence or stage. The obedience with God. He explained that we need to leap toward
God and religion if we want to be escape the despair in our lives. The teleological suspension of
the ethical is a leap of faith from the ethical mode to the religious mode is how he explained this.
He also used Abraham as an example saying that he took that leap from being ethical in not
sacrafising his son because its not right to having faith in God that, that was the correct thing to

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do. A philosopher who is different in the way that he views God was Friedrich Nietzsche. But he
also had similarities with Kierkegaard.
Nietzsche had originally wanted to follow in his fathers foots step and become a
Lutheran minister but soon after changed his mind. He started questioning the existence of God,
had uncertainties and like Kierkegaard went through a very rebellious stage. He was soon called
the anti-philosopher.
Nietzsche said that we have no chance of discovering the objective truth about anything.
But we only invent truths according to our individual needs and wants. If we want something to
be true, we can keep telling ourselves over and over that it is true until we actually start to
believe and think that it is true. We all have a hidden agenda and that is shown behind every
truth. Nietzsche believed that Christians, philosophers, and scientists believe in terms such as
the self substance God and gravity and fail to grasp their metaphorical of fictive nature.
In addition, all of these people have a single hidden agenda that motivates their philosophies. The
will to power. (Archetypes of Wisdom pg. 464).
Unlike Kierkegaard, Nietzsche says that our ultimate goal in life is our will to power.
Everyone wants to be on top. We all have this need to want people to listen to us, to respect us as
a person. Whether you are a big time CEO or a minister for a church. You are still in the constant
need to be in power.
The Will to power is a more fundamental motivation than the will to pleasure, truth, or
meaning. Truth is an expression of power. Power can take on many different forms on the outside
such as strength, economics, political, and physical. But most importantly he focuses on the
power as it flows across subjectivity and through values.

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According to Nietzsche, man is something that must be overcome. Humans are closer to
the apes than to the Underman or (powerful man). Nietzsche said that the merely human being is
being created in the image of God (Archetypes of Wisdom pg. 472). We must also remain
children of God. But when God is dead and gone we are left without any purpose or identity.
God is dead and we killed him because religion doesnt provide us with salvation. The
idea of God has lost the way we need him. We show our needs and wants in our actions by the
way we run our life. And if you were to look at it from that view than we dont need God.
Because we show a need for technology and advancement and wealth because that is basically
how we live our lives day to day. God has become more and more unbelievable.
As you can see these two philosophers are completely different in the way they think
about life, objectivity and most importantly God. In the end I cant tell which philosopher is
better than the other. They both have great points and have made me question a lot of things.
Through all their weaknesses and strengths, they have become some of the greatest philosophers
in history.

Moral Values. Currently ost dominant and least questioned ways of interpreting our
experience. Good and evil.
Classified slave morality to the Christian view. Of being obedient to the lord or a flock.
Explains of why Christian morality is about hemming in people natural desires and impulses by

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telling them what not to do. Its about creating a system based on fear, guilt, and doubt. A
negative morality