Kairos – the right moment
Blog post from 2025.10.11
We live in an age dominated by speed. Everything is measurable, plannable, optimizable. We structure our everyday lives according to appointments, cycles, deadlines - to Chronos, the linear, predictable time. But beyond this cycle, there is another dimension of time: Kairos. It cannot be planned, measured, or controlled. Kairos is the time of happening, of events - that moment when something internal and something external suddenly resonate.
Where does the term come from?
In ancient Greek rhetoric, kairos referred to the moment when the spoken word had the greatest effect - the moment when something was said or done “at the right time". Later, kairos became a philosophical symbol for the right measure of action in the course of time.
In the Christian tradition, kairos takes on a theological meaning: it is the time of grace, the divine moment when salvation is actualized. The New Testament already states: “Behold, now is the time of salvation” (2 Cor 6:2). Thus, Kairos becomes a category of events in which meaning and time intersect.
From a spiritual perspective, Kairos is the manifestation of divine timing – the divinely right moment.
Kairos from a philosophical perspective
Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (* May 5, 1813 in Copenhagen; † November 11, 1855 in Copenhagen) translates Kairos into an existentialist concept: the moment. He understands it as the paradoxical intersection between time and eternity - that moment when the finite touches the infinite.
In the moment, humans recognize themselves as beings of decision. It is not the external event, but the inner consent, the “yes” of the self to the moment, that makes it meaningful. Kierkegaard writes: “The moment is both the first and the last; it is the atom of eternity.” From this perspective, kairos cannot be planned, but is an event of freedom – the moment when humans become aware of themselves and at the same time affirm their existence.
Martin Heidegger (* September 26, 1889 in Meßkirch; † May 26, 1976 in Freiburg im Breisgau) deepens the ontological dimension of the concept of kairos. In Being and Time, Heidegger describes human existence as being-towards-time: existence is not a neutral object in time, but temporal in its essence. For Heidegger, the “moment” (momentariness) becomes an existential structure: it is the attitude in which existence returns from the distraction of everyday life to determination. In the moment, “existence brings the future to itself,” it seizes its possibility.
Here, kairos means not merely the right moment, but rather the existential presence in which existence opens itself up to its own possibility. Heidegger's concept of the event (later: event thinking) radicalizes this idea: time is not a framework in which being takes place - it is itself the dimension in which being happens.
Kairos in the present
In an era of constant acceleration, the experience of kairos is in danger of disappearing. Chronos dominates - time becomes a resource to be “managed”. But life eludes this logic. Meaning does not arise from counting the hours, but from experiencing what is essential. Kairos is the resistance of the moment against linear time. It reminds us that what is important cannot be planned – that insight, encounter, and decision are events. The subject of Kairos is not the manager of his time, but the listener, the receiver, the actor at the right moment.
Time as a possibility of being
Kairos refers to a deeper structure of existence: time is not merely the framework of life, but the space in which life takes place. In kairos, time becomes revelation – the moment when the possible becomes real.
Perhaps this is the existential meaning of kairos: it is the moment when a person encounters themselves – not as a spectator of their time, but as a participant in the events of being.
Time is not what passes – it is what happens.
Kairos as conscious acceptance of risk
Kairos requires us to leave the comfort zone of the familiar - to expose ourselves to the unknown. Because the right moment is not a safe place. It is open, risky, unpredictable. It holds the possibility of something new, but also the danger of failure. And yet that is precisely its value: Kairos calls us to take responsibility for the moment:
- It does not ask: What is certain?
- It asks: What is true?
But we can be ready – through alertness, silence, inner flexibility. Perhaps modern life has become so loud that we can hardly hear Kairos anymore. But sometimes it is enough to pause, take a breath, look in an unexpected direction – and suddenly it is there: the moment when everything is hanging in the balance, and yet everything makes sense.
Kairos is not a coincidence. It is the echo of what has matured within us – and is now seeking form.
Time becomes being
Kairos reminds us that life is more than just events in a calendar. It is an invitation not to manage our own existence, but to live it. It is the intersection between the world and inner life, between possibility and decision. And perhaps that is precisely the meaning of existential freedom: not arbitrary choice, but recognizing the moment when choice becomes essential.
Kairos is that moment when time becomes being. And the human being - for a moment - is fully present.
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