"Philosophical Fragments" by Soren Kierkergaard,1844

..
Men can be separated into three groups,depending on the values they hold :
a.the aesthetes want entertainment,pleasure,and freedom from boredom ;
b.ethical men live for the sake of duty,taking on obligations in order to be bound to discharge them ; and
c.the religious men live in order to obey God.
.
The Socratic idea of religious truth is :
a.that truth in religious matters is not unique,
b.that one learns religious truths by recollection of what one has learned in the realm of Ideas.
.
The alternative position (the Christian view) is :
a.that God in time (Jesus Christ) is the teacher of men,
b.that faith is an organ of knowing,
c.that knowledge comes through the consciousness of sin,and
d.that in a moment of decision a man's life can be changed.
..

Of learned ignorance

..

GOD is the absolute maximum and also the absolute minimum ;

HE is in all things,and all things are in him.

..

If man makes his own ignorance the object of his desire for knowledge,

he can aquire a learned ignorance ;

although God cannot be comprehended,

some knowledge of him can be acqired by reflection on our limitations.

..

The absolute maximum -GOD- is absolute unity,

for unity is the minimum -and GOD is the absolute minimum- ;

GOD,as a unity excluding degrees of more or less,is infinite unity.

..

The visible world is a reflection of the invisible ;

man mirrors the eternal and the infinite by his conjectures.

..

GOD is best studied through the use of mathematical symbols.

..

In the Providence of God contradictories are reconciled.

..

The world is the absolute effect of the absolute maximum ;

it is a relative unity.

..

Jesus is the maximum at once absolute and restricted ;

HE is both GOD and MAN brought to perfection.

..

"Concluding Unscientific Postscript" by Soren Kierkegaard,1846

The subjective thinker is an engaged thinker,

one who by his activity commits himself

to an understanding of the truth which,

by the manner of his existence,he is ;

he seeks to comprehend himself,not as an abstraction,

but as an ethically engaged,existing subject.

Only individuals matter ; existence is individual in character.

An existent individual is one in the process of becoming ;

he moves into an uncertain future.

Since death is imminent every choise has infinite worth,

and every moment is a unique occasion for decisive action ;

each individual achieves has being through decision.

In his development the thinker may pass through

a.the aesthetical stage

-in which he experiments but does not commit himself-,

b.the ethical stage

-in which he acts decisively and commits himself-,

c.to the religious stage

-in which his sin is acknowledge and he commits himself to God-.