Concluding Thoughts

Abstract

The present work aimed to challenge the interrelationship between the notions of the Fall, repetition and freedom, principally through the aesthetic writings of Kierkegaard and secondarily through the writings of St Augustine, Kant and Schelling. Kierkegaard’s notion of ‘taking notice’ served as the vehicle in our attempt to show the importance not only of ‘rethinking’, but also of experiencing or ‘living anew’ the moment of the collision of time and eternity, which signifies repetition and freedom in their eminent form. It should be established by now that the choice of Kierkegaard’s so-called ‘aesthetic writings’ was based on my persuasion that they express in a perfect manner the workings of his notion of ‘taking notice’. To put it more explicitly, in his aesthetic writings Kierkegaard does not attempt to impose his personal belief and ‘truth’ on his readers, but on the contrary he compels them to think, live, experience, and ‘see’ with their own spiritual eyes. The interrelation of the concepts of the Fall, repetition and freedom, and the different forms they acquire according to different interpretations, compels us to ‘take notice’ of different aspects of human and divine singularity, that emerge alongside each interpretation.