The Concept of Anxiety: A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin (Danish: Begrebet Angest.

Kierkegaard used the pseudonym Vigilius Haufniensis (which, according to Josiah Thompson, is the Latin transcription for "the Watchman"[2][3] of Copenhagen) for The Concept of Anxiety.

Kierkegaard focuses on the first anxiety experienced by man: Adam's choice to eat from God's forbidden tree of knowledge or not.

Anxiety informs us of our choices, our self-awareness and personal responsibility, and brings us from a state of un-self-conscious immediacy to self-conscious reflection.

Johann Goethe (1749–1832) was at a crossroads and couldn't make up his mind about what he wanted so he talked to the devil about it in his play Faust.

Croxall, The Westminster Press, copyright 1955, by W. L. Jenkins p. 56–57The Brothers Grimm were writing about the use of folktales as educational stories to keep individuals from falling into evil hands.

Søren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, (1846) Hong p. 525-537With the help of faith, anxiety brings up the individuality to rest in providence.

Søren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety, Thomte p. 161Kierkegaard observes that it was the prohibition itself not to eat of the tree of knowledge that gave birth to sin in Adam.

On the other hand, if feeling is lacking, there remains only the abstract concept that has not reached the last inwardness of the spiritual existence, that has not become one with the self of the spirit."

"[38] Kierkegaard and Rosenkranz thought it was a good idea for a person to find out about their own dispositions so he or she can live a happier life.

Kierkegaard questioned whether teaching begins with prohibition or love—whether Christianity starts with the negative (the works of the flesh) or the positive (the Fruit of the Holy Spirit).

He raised these questions as part of the "great dialogue of science," first discussed in his Two Upbuilding Discourses of 1843 in relation to Galatians 3: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

… Because of the jumbling together of the idea of the state, of sociality, of community, and of society, God can no longer catch hold of the single individual.

… The immorality of our age could easily become a fantastical-ethical debilitation, the disintegration of a sensual, soft despair, in which individuals grope as in a dream for a concept of God without feeling any terror in so doing.

He posed a similar question in Philosophical Fragments about how one becomes Christian: Is it due to family and personal history or a "decisive resolution"?

And this is the wonder of life, that each man who is mindful of himself knows what no science knows, since he knows who he himself is, and this is the profundity of the Greek saying know yourself, which too long has been understood in the German way as pure self-consciousness, the airiness of idealism.

The Concept of Anxiety p. 96-97 Kierkegaard repeats his synthesis in The Sickness unto Death, linking it to his idea of the "Moment" from Philosophical Fragments.

In Edifying Discourses in Diverse Spirits (1847), he explains that Providence guides individuals with two calls: one forward to the good, the other back from evil, through repentance and remorse.

Lowrie interpreted the book as dealing with "an apprehension of the future, a presentiment of a something which is a nothing" that must be fought internally, about what one, as an individual, can become.

In earlier works, Kierkegaard suggested that the consciousness of sin drives man to confront the paradox or fall into "demonic despair."

Kierkegaard argues that man's "fall" is always due to a deliberate act of the will, a "leap," which contradicts modern views of environment and heredity.

Despite its somberness, the work is enriched by insightful observations on dread in human life, drawn from history and literature.Robert Harold Boethius, in his 1948 book Christian Paths to Self-Acceptance, discusses Kierkegaard's concept of dread, explaining that the distorted doctrines of man's depravity from the Reformation and Protestant scholasticism are clarified by neo-orthodox theologians.

Kierkegaard views this "sickness unto death" as central to human existence, teaching that a "synthesis" with God is necessary for resolving inner conflicts and achieving self-acceptance.

He wrote the following in 1958: Kierkegaard views man’s humanity through his creatureliness, defined by his position between life and death.

For Kierkegaard, rational thought is ineffective for discovering identity or duty; only through examining one's unique existence—desires and tensions—can an individual understand themselves.

A true Christian, Kierkegaard argues, must embrace an irrational world and make choices without certainty of salvation or damnation, requiring a "leap of faith."

While atheistic existentialists reject Kierkegaard's belief in God, they accept his notion of the individual who creates meaning through personal choices.

In actuality, no man ever became so unhappy that he did not retain a little remnant, and common sense says correctly that if one is cunning, one knows how to make the best of things.

He sank absolutely, but then in turn he emerged from the depth of the abyss lighter than all the troublesome and terrible things in life.

On the other hand, whoever is educated [by possibility] remains with anxiety; he does not permit himself to be deceived by its countless falsifications and accurately remembers the past.