Kierkegaard: the natural hatred of Spirit

Sunday, February 14, 2010
    Feast of Cyril & Methodius, Missionaries to the Slavs, 869 & 885
    Commemoration of Valentine, Martyr at Rome, c.269
Meditation:
    But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.
    —Romans 8:10 (NIV)
Quotation:
    What is “spirit?” (for Christ is spirit, his religion that of the spirit). Spirit is: to live as though dead (dead to the world).
    This way of life is so entirely foreign to man that to him it is quite literally worse than death.
    Very carefully introduced for an hour or so in the distance of the imagination, natural man can bear it, it even pleases him; but if it is brought nearer him, so near that it becomes, in all seriousness, something required of him, the natural instinct of self-protection rises up so powerfully in him that a regular uproar follows, as with drink... And in that condition, in which he is beside himself, he demands the death of the man of spirit, or rushes upon him to put him to death.
    ... Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), Journals, ed. Alexander Dru, Oxford University Press, 1959, p. 548 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, take away the spirit of rebellion and allow Your Spirit to reign in my life. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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