The central theme of PURITY OF THE HEART IS TO WILL ONE THING, by Soren Kierkegaard, is the isolation of man, from the flock, from the mass, from the crowd and the heightening of his conciousness as an individual which the eternal accomplishes. Before the quiet gaze of the Eternal, there is no hiding place. As individuals we are what we are before God, and no mass opinion affects this in the least. Kierkegaard believed that his generation was seeking to live in mere time and to make the Eternal superfluous. He reminded them of the Eternal's power to dissolve away time and to separate the crowd into individuals. In memory, in conscience, in remorse, in work at a calling, in solitude, the Eternal still impinges upon the individual and awakens him to a consciousness both of himself and of his responsibility and of his worth to the Eternal.
