style="font-size:15px;"> 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 move from aesthetic happiness, to ethical health,
to the religious holy and then to have the wisdom that
after leaving the aesthetic and ethical he could so transform
the holy that he could return and renew the aesthetic and ethical.
II.1.7 Loving Socrates as More Important
Can Socrates and Jesus be fully reconciled in Søren’s thinking
if Jesus is like the prodigal son and Socrates like the elder brother?
While Socrates lived and died as a philosopher Jesus lived
and died as a God and such a claim could offend Socrates.
Jesus could look like a prodigal with his claim to be the one
and only Son of the one and only Creator, Father God.
According
