The Sickness Unto Death Imagery

The Sickness Unto Death Imagery

The imagery of sight

The bystanders cannot believe that Jesus can perform a miracle unless they see with their eyes. The sense of sight is depicted to the reader when the author writes, “Now we know that Christ was thinking of the miracle which would permit the bystanders, "if they believed, to see the glory of God" (11:40), the miracle by which He awoke Lazarus from the dead, so that this sickness was not only not unto death, but, as Christ had foretold."

The Imagery of Man

The description of the man’s equanimity depicts the sense of touch to readers through self-reflection. The author writes, "Man is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity; in short, it is a synthesis. A synthesis is a relation between two factors. So regarded, man is not yet a self."

The imagery of despair

According to the reader, the sense of hopelessness among Christians is a paradox because despair is simply a faith test. The author argues that suffering is not gloomy and depressing because after emerging victorious, God offers a reward. The author says, "At any rate, there has lived no one and their lives no one outside of Christendom who is not in despair, and no one in Christendom unless he is a true Christian, and if he is not quite that, he is somewhat in despair after all. This view will doubtless seem to many a paradox, an exaggeration, and a gloomy and depressing outlook at that. Yet, it is nothing of the sort."

The Imagery of Touch

The negative feeling of self is itself destruction to the flesh. The author depicts this sense of emotion and touch when he writes, "The negative self, the infinite form of the self, will perhaps cast this clean away, pretend that it does not exist, want to know nothing about it. But this does not succeed, its virtuosity in experimenting does not extend so far, nor does its virtuosity in abstraction; like Prometheus, the infinite, negative self feels that it is nailed to this servitude."

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