Bogoslovska smotra, Vol. 91 No. 3, 2021.
Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.53745/bs.91.3.3
Anxiety as a Possibility of Human Self‑realisation. A Short Investigation on Ontological Relevancy of Anxiety in the Light of Kierkegaard and Tillich
Danijel Tolvajčić
; Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The intention of this contribution is to present the concept of anxiety as understood by contemporary philosophical approaches, especially those of existential philosophies of Søren Kierkegaard and Paul Tillich, inspired by Christianity. Anxiety, as discussed here, is not a matter of psychopathology, but is rather existential and ontological in its nature. It constantly threatens the human being as a permanently present possibility of death and failure. The human being can, therefore, not avoid it; instead, anxiety, properly embraced, actually presents his/her authentic possibility of self-realization. The source of ontological anxiety is to be found in the human being’s »finitude«, understood as one of the fundamental »components« of human existence. In the thought of the two aforementioned philosophers, precisely this understanding of anxiety constitutes their central anthropological teaching: it is a state in which we become aware of our own non‑being. However, the awareness of non‑being implies the question of being, i.e., that power that gives everything that is its being and that is sensed in everything that is. In this way, anxiety points to that reality that traditional philosophy and Christian theology call God.
Keywords
anxiety; finitude; non‑being; courage; being itself; human self‑realisation; God.
Hrčak ID:
273596
URI
Publication date:
2.2.2022.
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