The following text has been excerpted from Soren Kierkegaard’s The Sickness Unto Death, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983).
The sinner is so much in the power of sin that he has no idea of its wholly encompassing nature. He takes into account only each particular new sin that seems to give him new impetus on the road to destruction, just as if he were not proceeding along that way the moment before with all the impetus of previous sins. Sin has become so natural to him, or sin has become so much his second nature, that he finds the daily everyday to be entirely in order, and he himself pauses only for a moment each time he perceives a new impetus, so to speak, from new sin. In his lostness, he is blind to the fact that his life has the continuity of sin instead of the essentially continuity of the eternal through being before God in faith.
“The continuity of sin” — but is not sin specifically the discontinuous? So here it is again, the view that sin is merely a negation, which like stolen goods can never be legitimized — a negation, a powerless attempt to establish itself, which, however, undergoing all the torment of powerlessness in despairing defiance, it is incapable of doing. Yes, this is how it is speculatively, but Christianly (this must be believed, since it is indeed the paradox that no man can comprehend) sin is a position that on its own develops an increasingly established continuity.
Sin grows every moment that one does not take leave of it. The sinner is so mistaken in regarding only each new sin as an increase in sin that, from the point of view of Christianity, the state of sin is actually greater sin than the new sin. In the deepest sense, the state of sin is the sin; the particular sins are not the continuance of sin but the expression for the continuance of sin; in the specific new sin the impetus of sin merely becomes more perceptible to the eye. In other words, deep within itself sin has a consistency, and in this consistency in evil itself it also has a certain strength. But such an observation is never arrived at by merely looking at the particular sins.
Most men probably live with all too little consciousness of themselves to have any idea of what consistency is, they do not exist qua spirit. Their lives — either in a certain endearing childish naivete or in shallow triviality — are made up of some action of sorts, some incidents, of this and that: now they do something good, and then something stupid, and then they begin all over again; now they are in despair for an afternoon, perhaps for three weeks, but then they are jolly fellows again, and then once again in despair for a day. They play along in life, so to speak, but they never experience putting everything together on one thing, never achieve the idea of an infinite self-consistency. That is why they are always talking among themselves about the particular, particular good deeds, particular sins.
Despair over sin is an effort to survive by sinking even deeper. Just as a balloonist ascends by throwing off weights, so the person in despair sinks by more and more determinedly throwing off all the good (for the weight of the good is elevating); he sinks, privately thinking, of course, that he is ascending — and he is indeed growing lighter. Sin itself is the struggle of despair; but then, when all the powers are depleted, there may be a new intensification, a new demonic closing up within himself: this is the despair over sin. It is a step forward, a heightening of the demonic, and of course an absorption in sin. It is an effort to give stability and interest to sin as a power by deciding once and for all that one will refuse to hear anything about repentance and grace.
In life there are frequent misconceptions about this despair over sin, presumably because of a universal preoccupation with frivolity, thoughtlessness, and sheer triviality, and for this reason people as a rule become quite formal and deferentially take off their hats to any manifestation of something deeper. Either in confused haziness about itself and its significance, or with a streak of hypocrisy, or by way of the craftiness and sophistry intrinsic to all despair, despair over sin is not averse to giving itself the appearance of being something good. Then it is supposed to be the mark of a deep nature, which therefore is so sensitive about its sin.
For example, if a person who has been addicted to some sin or other but has successfully resisted temptation for a long time has a relapse and again succumbs to temptation, then the depression that sets in is by no means always sorrow over the sin. It can be something very different … Such a person emphatically declares, perhaps in ever stronger terms, that this relapse plagues and torments him, brings him to despair, and he says: “I will never forgive myself.” This is supposed to show how much good there is in him, what a deep nature he has. It is a subterfuge.
I deliberately used that stock phrase, “I will never forgive myself,” words commonly heard in this connection. And with this very phrase one can immediately straighten out oneself dialectically. He will never forgive himself — but now if God would forgive him this, well, he certainly could have the goodness to forgive himself. No, his despair over the sin is a far cry from being a qualification of the good, is a more intensive qualification of sin, the intensity of which is absorption in sin — and it is this most of all when he is passionately repeating this phrase and thereby denouncing himself (the least of his considerations), when he “never will forgive himself” for sinning like that (for this kind of talk is exactly the opposite of the brokenhearted contrition that prays God to forgive).
The point is that during the time that he was successfully resisting temptation he appeared in his own eyes to be better than he actually was, he became proud of himself. It is to this pride’s advantage that the past be altogether a thing of the past. But in this relapse the past suddenly becomes very much present again. His pride cannot bear this reminder, and that is the reason for his profound distress, etc. But the distress clearly indicates a movement away from God, a secret selfishness and pride, and is a substitute for humbly beginning by humbly thanking God that he helped him to resist temptation for so long a time, acknowledging before God and himself that it is already much more than he deserved, and then humbling himself under the recollection of what he has been.