ABSTRACT
The dramatic pattern is not equally marked in the various forms of existential thought. It is central in the “crisis theories” as typified by Kierkegaard and by Karl Jaspers and the Prostestant dialectical theology of Karl Barth and Emil Brunner. The decisive act through which everything is won or lost is called choice—a conception formulated by Soren Kierkegaard and faithfully upheld by the majority of Existentialists. Kierkegaard saw the historic hour marked by the final breakdown of institutionalized Christianity and his own life suspended between the alternative of reckless enjoyment, with despair in his heart, and a total devotion to God. This was his extreme situation. In the Existentialist view, choice at its gravest cannot possibly be a choice between good and evil. Anguish as conceived by the Existentialists is neither unreal nor devoid of philosophical significance. But it is so utterly opposed to contemplation, the theoretical attitude, that the attempt to express it in analytic terms inevitably falsifies it.
