The Concept of Anxiety: A Simple Psychologically Oriented Deliberation in View of the Dogmatic Problem of Hereditary Sin

The works of Søren Kierkegaard in some ways built upon trends in late- 18th and 19th-century philosophical and religious thought, but in other ways Kierkegaard rebelled against these ideas. First, Kierkegaard lived in a time when some scholars challenged key elements of Christian doctrine by applying historical analysis and source criticism to the Bible and early Christian documents. Such scholarship undermined the idea of Biblical inerrancy, or the belief that everything in the Bible is true and factual. Similarly, many of the major scientific discoveries of the 19th century challenged the traditional Biblical account of creation and historical development. 

Kierkegaard makes several references to such scholarship and the rise of religious skepticism when he writes about living in “an age that produces myths and at the same time wants to eradicate all myths” (46). He argued that matters of religious belief and faith cannot be approached empirically, i.e., through observational evidence and tangible experience, as embodied by the scientific method. Instead, Kierkegaard asserted that one must take a “leap of faith” in religious matters, choosing to follow a belief even when it lacks empirical evidence.  

Kierkegaard was also influenced by German idealism. Immanuel Kant challenged the empiricism of Enlightenment philosophers like David Hume, arguing that people do not have a direct experience of the objects around them.