In Chapter 7 Kierkegaard lists his final barrier to willing the One Thing – commitment to a certain degree:
“Before finally leaving the subject of double-mindedness for a similar examination of purity, the talk should at least touch upon that versatile form of double-mindedness: the double-mindedness of weakness as it appears in the common things of real life; upon the fact that the person who wills the Good up to a certain degree is double-minded.”
What Kierkegaard critiques here is laziness, wishy-washiness, only willing and doing the Good when you are in the mood. He gives an example of someone “with faith” who ignores his neighbor because he just didn’t have the right feeling at the time…
“So the double-minded person, then, may have a feeling – a living feeling for the Good. If someone should speak of the Good, especially if it were done in a poetical fashion, then he is quickly moved, easily stimulated to melt away in emotion. Suppose the world goes a little against him and then someone should tell him that God is love, that His love surpasses all understanding, encompassing in His Providence even the sparrow that may not fall to the earth without His willing it. If a person speaks in this way, especially in a poetical manner, he is gripped. He reaches after faith as after a desire, and with faith he clutches for the desired help. In the faith of this desire he then has a feeling for the Good. But perhaps the help is delayed. Instead of it a sufferer comes to him whom he can help. But his sufferer finds him impatient, forbidding. This sufferer must be content with the excuse ‘that he is not at the moment in the spirit of the mood to concern himself about the sufferings of others as he himself has troubles.’ And yet he imagines that he has faith…”
How many times is there something we ought to do but are not “at the moment in the spirit of the mood to concern ourselves”? Kierkegaard also spends a lot of time in this chapter discussing busyness – not willing/doing the Good because we are too busy, too caught up in our own world.
Kierkegaard again seems harsh in this chapter. We are human are we not? Everything is set to the pitch of “be perfect because your heavenly Father is perfect,” and he will go on in subsequent chapters to say that the Good demands “readiness to suffer all.” There is an ongoing seriousness to this entire work. It’s not an option to will the Good – something we try out when we are in the mood – but our duty.
Ultimately though, those who struggle with this barrier are at least on the right path.
“In preference to the earlier double-mindedness, this has the Good on its side, in that it wills the Good, even though weakly…”
They will the Good, though weakly.