Lanxin Shi

This paper focuses on an important yet underexplored idea of existential trial, expressed by the notion of Anfægtelse, in Kierkegaard’s account of the human self. I argue that there are three kinds of existential trials, corresponding to the three major existential spheres: the esthetic, the ethical, and the Christian-religious. Each existential trial involves an essential conflict between two constitutive elements of the relevant sphere, and thereby reveals the problem inherent to one’s relation to a certain “other” in that sphere. The possibility of existential trials highlights the Kierkegaardian idea that the human self is not self-grounding or self-sufficient, which in turn points to the need for divine assistance in one’s self-development. Furthermore, I show that the religious Anfægtelse can mean two different but closely related things. It sometimes refers to a spiritual temptation that distracts one from engaging in an absolute God-relationship, and sometimes a spiritual trial to which the spiritual temptation pertains only as a part.

Interpretations of Vigilius Haufniensis’ analysis of anxiety in the literature can be mainly classified into two models. One holds that anxiety is a phenomenological companion to freedom, whereas the other explains it through the phenomenon of frailty or volitional weakness. Curiously, however, scholars holding one model rarely mention the other. I suggest that this results in a partial understanding of Haufniensis’ concept of anxiety. Building on these two popular models, I argue for a more holistic reading that anxiety is rooted in the human’s structural freedom that is not absolute but limited, qualified by three conditions of evil—ignorance, the possibility of frailty, and the possibility of defiance.