Soren Kierkegaard, in his struggle to understand human existence, believed that time is a major factor for this understanding. As humans, we exist in time, and therefore it is an aspect of human nature, given that anything human entails human nature. The aim in this paper is to focus on the concept of "the eternal" and how it relates to the human being. In order to do this we will need to develop Kierkegaard's conception of the self, and the difference between spatialized time and life time.
In his book The Sickness Unto Death Kierkegaard defines the self as:.
"Man is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self, or it is that in the relation which relates itself to its own self; the self is not a relation, but that the relation relates itself to its own self. Man is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity, in short, a synthesis. A synthesis is a relation between two [components]. So regarded, man is not yet a self. In the relationship between two, the relation is the third as a negative unity, and the two relate themselves to the relation, and in the relation to the relation; such a relation is that between soul and body, when a man is determined as a soul. If on the contrary, the relation relates itself to its own self, the relation is then the positive third, and this is the self." (KPA. 87) .
There we have it, the self according to Kierkegaard. He is putting forth the idea that humans are a synthesis of various elements that when comprised make humans uniquely human. A synthesis, in its traditional sense, consists of a thesis and an antithesis that are brought together to form the synthesis. Hegel is credited with this traditional view, Kierkegaard points out that his third factor in the synthesis process is a negative one whereas Kierkegaard's is a positive one, "the relation is the positive third term the relation is the instant in which spirit relates to the synthesis first by reflecting it, second by bringing it to consciousness, and third by actualizing it in existence.
