"When, with perfect consistency from the systematic point of view, one abstracts systematically from the interest what that makes of immortality, God only knows, or even what the sense is in wishing to prove it, or what kind of fixed idea it is to bother oneself about further."God only knows, he says. It seems Kierkegaard is humorous. Immortality, he thinks, is the most subjective of points whereby we have passionate interest. What is it about immortality that makes it more passionately interested than anything else? Life is one of the highest goods in the universe. Thus, eternal life would seem to be among the highest things of which one could have interest. Kierkegaard thinks the the ethical culminates in immortality as well. He says that without immortality that the ethical simply leads to 'use and wont', a truly utilitarian view.
I wonder about how he is using immortality here, though. That, I suppose, is the purpose of this journal. He says that immortality is subjectivity's most passionate interest and as the quote above shows, can not be proved, per sé. He speaks of immortality as that which can not be proven, as that which is ultimate, as that which one must most subjectively relate or else the ethical itself is without meaning. If I am not mistaken, it looks on the surface as if Kierkegaard is using immortality in exchange with the idea of God himself.
If that is the case, I think Kierkegaard has a major problem, which is this: if immortality is interchangeable with the God, then what we are subjectively relating to is not God but ourselves. What if the gift of God were not immortality? Would we still not have an ultimate duty to truth? Does one only desire truth because it will give him immortality? If that is the case, it seems that immortality has usurped God in our passions. This seems to be a major problem for Kierkegaard if it is indeed what he is doing, am I am at a loss to figure out how to respond.
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