In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

the gaze of the abyss 151 The Gaze of the Abyss The previous chapter concluded with the notion that the self-surrender of spiritual trial—as expressed by the silent prayer of faith in divine possibility —opens the wounded self to the possibility of becoming itself before God: a relation that, as this chapter will elaborate, transcends and transfigures the infinite qualitative difference to the point of proposing a heterogeneous “resemblance” between the struggling self and the Holy Other. However, in this chapter, consideration will also be given to how this transition is traumatized by freedom’s inviolable possibility of “offence” toward the forgiveness of sins: this is the ultimate expression of human freedom, which constitutes the grief of God as well as the despair of the self. “to see god is to die”: the optical motif one must never avoid questions, as one must not turn one’s gaze away from the abyss. —Elie Wiesel, Four Hasidic Masters and Their Struggle against Melancholy On 30 July 1849, Kierkegaard published his most explicit work on the self before God, The Sickness unto Death, under the exalted pseudonym AntiClimacus . In parallel to this important volume, Kierkegaard published “Three Discourses at the Communion on Fridays” (14 November 1849) under his own name.1 The three discourses contained therein are comprised of “The High Priest,” on Hebrews 4:15 (which was considered in the previous chapter in relation to God-forsakenness); “The Tax Collector,” on Luke 18:13; and “The Woman Who Was a Sinner,” on Luke 7:37ff. The latter two are both considered in this chapter in relation to repentance before God. But all three discourses reprise many of the central themes of The Sickness unto Death from a more explicitly pastoral perspective: the consciousness seven 152 kierkegaard and the self before god of sin, forgiveness, and the individual before God. As preparation for the act of communion, these three discourses engage with the dilemma of the individual ’s sense of unworthiness, as sinner, to enter into intimate presence with God (i.e., forgiveness)—a dilemma that is given more formalized expression in The Sickness unto Death’s consideration of the centrality of sin (despair) and forgiveness to the self’s endeavor to become itself before God. Contained within Kierkegaard’s discourse on “The Tax Collector,” in particular, is the impression of distance between the individual and God that is postulated by the consciousness of sin—a distance that The Sickness unto Death expresses by way of Kierkegaard’s category of the “infinite qualitative difference.” As the previous chapter concluded, however, the distance between the self and God is one which can be transcended by the intimacy derived by the self-surrender of prayer. And yet, as Kierkegaard’s discourse on “The Tax Collector” elucidates, the attitude of prayer is itself determined by a dreadful and humble recognition of the distance between the one who prays and the Holy One. In prayer, one stands “before God”—but also at a distance, as Kierkegaard expounds in this discourse on Luke 18:13: “And the tax collector stood far off and would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast and said: God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” “The tax collector stood far off,” Kierkegaard emphasizes. But this gesture enunciates an apparently paradoxical element to the attitude of prayer. “What does that mean? It means to stand by yourself, alone with yourself before God—then you are far off, far away from people, and far away from God, with whom you are still alone” (“The Tax Collector,” WA, 128).2 And yet, as remarked at the end of the last chapter, has Kierkegaard not declared in an upbuilding discourse on prayer that there is no distance between prayer and God (EUD, 383)? The tax collector is alone before God and still, Kierkegaard concedes, a distance exists between them: a distance between the self and the Holy that is postulated by the consciousness of sin. “What is further away from guilt and sin than God’s holiness—and then, oneself a sinner, to be alone with this holiness: is this not being infinitely far off!” (“The Tax Collector,” WA, 129). According to this discourse on “The Tax Collector,” the thought of God’s holiness coming into agonizing contrast with the consciousness of sin postulates an infinite distance between the sinner and the Holy One. In visual terms, the gaze of the sinner becomes lost in this infinite distance between...

Share