Meaningfulness of Human Life according to Kierkegaard’s Characterization of Three Spheres of Aesthetics, Ethics, and Religion

It seems that the spirit governing Kierkegaard's ideas about meaningful components is based on religious beliefs. In his view, every human being, through the emergence of individuality, chooses one of the aesthetic, moral, or religious spheres and seeks meaningful life in one of these three. The basic question of the present paper is how to analyze the meaning of life based on the three spheres in Kierkegaard’s thought. The achievements of this research are as follows: encountering the question of what sphere of human life has more meaning, three different lifestyles are presented: the person seeking aesthetic wants to eliminate ethical and religious matters, while ethical sphere includes aesthetic, and religious sphere includes aesthetic and ethical matters. The important thing is that which of these three spheres can truly be meaningful. It seems that Kierkegaard considers the religious sphere to be the most complete sphere. Despite the meaningfulness of religious life, Kierkegaard sees this meaningful life as independent of the Biblical teachings of Christianity, and is explainable by the emergence of individuality in the face of God. Human beings can make their lives meaningful by choosing one of these spheres, though, without progress in the religious sphere, their lives have no real meaning. Since he, himself, states that without meaning we are in a state of despair and existential weakness, we conclude that meaningful life from Kierkegaard’s point of view is synonymous with religious life, and meaning must be sought in this sphere.