Agape and Personhood. David L. Goicoechea

parallel opposites of the neither/nor of infinite resignation.

      In his skeptical irony he was resigned to never knowing

      but his wisdom was open to his Daimon for direction.

      Socrates had discovered the religion of the second immediacy

      but Søren saw that it was not the God man’s reconciliation.

      II.1.4 The Logic of Agapeic Reconciliation

      The Socratic reconciliation with which Søren was so gifted

      when he fell in love with his beautiful and adorable Regina

      did harmonize him in three dimensions of his personhood.

      But it did not reconcile him to marrying with her.

      He was reconciled within himself, with the world and with God.

      But after his engagement with Regina he called it off

      because he saw that if he married her he would lose

      his erotic inspiration and all its religious creative energy.

      His thorn in the flesh which troubled him even more than

      being a hunchbacked, little cripple probably had to do

      with homosexual inclinations and so he felt so

      unbelievably blessed to be able to really love his Regina.

      Socrates, like so many Greeks, saw Platonic love as

      the homosexual love of a man for a beautiful youth.

      When Socrates and Plato discovered Platonic love in which

      erotic passion made possible celibacy and celibacy’s greater passion

      they were astounded at the reconciliation of the black and

      white horse with its love of wisdom and even of holiness.

      Søren saw at once the difference between Platonic erotic love

      and agapeic erotic love and he knew his was not agapeic.

      He thought that if he had Christian faith he would be able

      to marry her and still have his erotic inspiration.

      Agapeic reconciliation in its logic moves from either the aesthetic

      or the ethical to neither the aesthetic nor the ethical to the both-and.

      Søren beheld Socrates, the Shaman, discover presence in absence.

      Socratic wisdom had to do with the three great secret things.

      As the sexiest man in Athens Socrates refrained from sex.

      As about to die he thought he might live on forever.

      As an atheist his familiar Divine Sign protected him.

      But Søren’s good Lutheran Christ as incarnate God-man

      should be able both to sublimate black horse energy and marry.

      II.1.5 The Logic of Personal Growth

      As Søren pondered the differences between Socrates and Jesus

      he saw that they were not irreconcilable and he defined

      the four loves and the stages of personal growth precisely.

      For Socrates there was the first immediacy of black horse eros.

      Then, there was the noetic reflective realm of friendship.

      Finally, there was the second immediacy of Platonic eros.

      For Søren there is either the first immediacy of the aesthetic erotic

      or the ethical reflection of decisive married affection or

      the infinite resignation of the neither/nor that opens religiousness A.

      Thus Søren in Sickness unto Death defines the person

      “as a relation (aesthetic) that relates to itself (the ethical)

      and relating to itself relates to the others (as the absolute and

      then as the relative).” So it is our personal task to grow

      through the stages on life’s way not only with the great

      burst of growth that the Platonic lover experiences with Socrates

      but also in such a way that what Socrates leaves behind

      with the celibate love of his enthusiasm and Divine Madness

      Søren as a good Lutheran thinks he can recover in marriage.

      Søren was hoping that even after he broke the engagement

      his faith would blossom and he could happily marry Regina.

      He did not want to be a burden to her with his melancholy

      which he thought might return if he lived in marriage.

      He was afraid he would hurt her by breaking the engagement.

      But to his surprise she quickly married another and while

      she was happily married he kept on loving his inspiration.

      In 1848, at Easter time, he did think he could have faith

      and become a Lutheran pastor; but even that failed him and

      he lived on as a philosophical genius of erotic inspiration.

      II.1.6 The Logic of the Both-And

      Søren’s logic of the both-and seeks to reconcile opposites

      and in this case the opposites are Socrates and Jesus.

      He had identified with his father’s quest to be religiously ethical.

      But, his father deeply felt his failure and so did Søren

      As a university student he tried to escape his father’s ideals,

      and in following the black horse of wine, women and song,

      even though he was brilliant, he could not follow the white horse

      and write his Master’s Thesis in a satisfactory manner.

      Then through Regina he found the way of Socrates and with

      all the energy of the black and white horses he wrote his thesis.

      The gift of Socratic, erotic inspiration had truly saved him

      and he knew it could forever if he but loved his muse.

      His thorn in the flesh could have been masturbation as well

      as homosexuality and he was miraculously delivered from both.

      If he was sexually tempted he need but focus on her who

      was always powerfully present in his soul’s adoration and

      his temptation would flee away and he could continue

      to ponder his new philosophy of love and his writing project.

      The Socratic way in its paradoxical irony let him follow Jesus.

      But what about Regina and the ethical way of Christian marriage?

      With Socrates he had been gifted with the reconciliation

      of me, myself andI. for the black horse me-id and the

      white horse myself-super-ego were harmonized with the charioteer ego.

      Socrates reconciled him with Jesus, but would Jesus let him

      be reconciled with Socrates and homosexual celibacy

      and no real concern with Regina’s quest for marriage?

      He began to see that to be an integrated person he had

      to