Despair as a Theological Category

This article advances a theological-philosophical account of despair as a constitutive category of theological anthropology by placing Paul’s dramatisation of the divided will (Rom 7:14–25) in critical dialogue with Kierkegaard’s analysis of self-loss in The Sickness Unto Death. Methodologically, it combines close exegesis of Romans 7 within the argumentative arc of Romans 5–8 with a reconstruction of Kierkegaard’s typology of despair (unconsciousness, weakness, defiance) and a controlled comparison. I argue that both corpora diagnose an existential incapacity before God – an ontological and relational rupture in which recognition of the good fails to result in action – whose resolution is heteronomous: participation “in Christ” (Paul) and the self “resting transparently in the power that established it” (Kierkegaard). Mapping convergences (division, incapacity, grace) and principled divergences (law/sin vs. despair/self; Spirit-christology vs. existential faith), the study proposes a “comparative grammar of grace” that resists moralism and quietism alike. The result is a taxonomy of agency, identity, and redemption, clarifying how grace reconstitutes fractured selves theologically.