Kierkegaard explores the ethics surrounding what faith requires of the believer. Is there an ethical component to faith? Using the example of God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, Kierkegaard asks the difficult questions about the implications of such a mandate. Whom do we ultimately choose to obey? Are there instances where the ethical is the wrong choice? Every detail within this text underscores the tension found between the ethical and the right choice for a particular situation.
Fear and Trembling as a text is densely packed with significance. From the title, to the dedication, to the literary and historical examples throughout, Kierkegaard’s descriptions and arguments are beautiful. There is not a word wasted in this text, marking one reason it is one of my favorite philosophy books. Philosophy is not always organized in such a clear and systematic order, nor often written so tightly. It makes for refreshing and exciting reading.
The title of the work, Fear and Trembling, is taken from Philippians 2:12, “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (NKJV), which lays the foundation for the exploration of faith Kierkegaard embarks upon. The purpose of his work is to explore the ethics of the choice Abraham was faced with when God asked him to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. This passage of Scripture is found in Genesis 22. Scholars regard Kierkegaard’s work here as deeply personal and autobiographical, as Kierkegaard had just broken off a marriage engagement with Regine Olsen in order to serve in the Lutheran Church. His work here to understand the anguish and sacrifice of Abraham is reflected in his life’s decision to give up Regine.
Today, we will look at each section of Kierkegaard’s text, and his ultimate conclusion about the paradox between ethics faith, where Abraham found himself.
Dedication
“What Tarqun the proud said in his garden with the poppy blooms was understood by the son but not by the messenger. – Hamman”
This dedication, illuminated first by H. Hong, and further here, speaks to roles of faith and relationship. The poppy bloom which was struck down was the highest in the land, signaling to the son to carry out his duty. The son understood his father’s signal because of their relationship, whereas the messenger simply observed a flower being cut down. Similarly, the reader approaching this passage in Scripture, who does not share Abraham’s faith in God sees a would-be murder, while the Christian believer sees a sacrificial act of faith. This is Kierkegaard calling attention to the fact that reader’s relationship will determine the message.
Author’s Preface
In his preface, Kierkegaard, writing as Johannes de Silento, identifies himself as a writer, and specifically not a thinker or philosopher. He then decries the lack of passion marking his generation, and predicts the consequential lack of interest in his writings,
“In an age where passion has been done away with for the sake of science – in an age when an author who wants readers must be careful to write in a way that he can be comfortably leafed through during the after-dinner nap,… He forsees his fate will be to be completely ignored…”
He charges his Enlightenment contemporaries, trusting in science rather than faith, with attempting to go “further than faith.” What could be further than faith, though? As we will see, Kierkegaard has a conclusive answer to this question.
Attunement
Next, Kierkegaard presents four fanciful versions of Abraham’s three and one-half-day journey to Moriah. These scenarios Kierkegaard says he imagines as the more understandable versions of what the text actually records, and indeed, they do seem the rational expectation of such a command. The first version sees Abraham telling Isaac of the requirement God has made, which results in Isaac being terrified of his father. In the second, Abraham has no faith, sacrifices the ram, and lives the rest of his days resenting God for putting him in an impossible position. Abraham goes to Moriah alone in the third version, and begs God’s forgiveness for being willing to sacrifice Isaac, thereby violating his ethical standard. In the fourth scenario, Abraham can’t bring himself to harm Isaac, and Isaac loses his faith in God because of it.
Kierkegaard mentions here, and elsewhere in the text, that he cannot understand Abraham; he can only admire him. This sentiment leads into the next section, praising the resilient faith of the patriarch.
Speech in Praise of Abraham
This section begins, in my opinion, with one of the most moving questions in philosophy,
“If there were no eternal consciousness in a man, if at the bottom of everything there were only a wild ferment, a power that twisting in dark passions produced everything great or inconsequential; if an unfathomable, insatiable emptiness lay hid beneath everything, what would life be but despair?”
Love, Kierkegaard says, is what drives mankind, and what a person loves determines their greatness. He exalts Abraham as being an individual above the universal ethics, thus becoming the father of faith,
“One became great through expecting the possible, another by expecting the eternal; but he who expected the impossible became greater than all.”
It is difficult to overstate the significance of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac. Abraham has been promised a son by God, an heir who will go on to produce nations. Yet, Abraham is one hundred years old before this son arrives. He loves Isaac with the love of a father, as well as the treasuring adoration only developed by years of waiting, struggling, and expecting. Isaac was the long-awaited representation of God’s love and promise.
“But it was not to remain so; Abraham was to be tried once more.”
Then, an unthinkable test; God commands Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.
“All was surely lost!”
Most of us, as Kierkegaard comments, would have regarded Isaac as lost from that moment on.
“But Abraham had faith, and had faith for this life.”
Faith, and faith that God would provide him a son in this life, rather than the next, is what sets Abraham apart. He wasn’t satisfying himself with the idea that he would see Isaac in the next life; he was convinced that God would do what He said here. This remarkable conviction elicits the following praise from Kierkegaard:
“You who first saw and bore witness to that tremendous passion that scorns the fearful struggle with the raging elements and the forces of creation in order to struggle with God instead, you who first knew that supreme passion, the sacred, pure, and humble expression of the divine madness which the pagans admired – forgive him who would speak in your praise if he did not do it correctly….[H]e will never forget that in one hundred thirty years you got no further than faith.”
Here, Kierkegaard details the often-cited struggle between reason and faith. His Enlightenment contemporaries looked to science, reason, and philosophy to take humanity “further than faith, ” whose work we continue and benefit from to this day. However, Kierkegaard sees this lack of faith or passion as a hindrance to humanity, and extols the great example of Abraham, who attained greatness precisely and only because of his faith. Kierkegaard is not positing that science is bad of itself, but lamenting the replacement of faith with science as the highest ideal for a person.
The Three Dilemmas
Preamble:
“Abraham I cannot understand; in a way all I can learn from him is to be amazed.”
“The last stage he loses sight of is infinite resignation. He really does go further and comes to faith.”
Kierkegaard addresses three ethical dilemmas surrounding Abraham’s decision. He regards Abraham’s journey as a solitary quest in faith.
Dilemma 1:
Is there a teleological suspension of the ethical?
With this question, Kierkegaard asks whether there is a suspension of the general principles of ethics in order to accomplish a specific purpose.
“Then how did Abraham exist? He had faith. That is the paradox which keeps him at the extremity and which he cannot make clear to anyone else, for the paradox is that he puts himself as the single individual in an absolute relation to the absolute. Is he justified? His justification is once again, the paradox; for if he is the paradox it is not by virtue of being anything universal, but of being the particular.”
Kierkegaard argues that the nature of Abraham’s testing puts him, the individual, above the general ethical standard.
Is Abraham and his charge to sacrifice Isaac above and removed from the general universal ethic of not killing? Why would God demand a killing? Is Abraham destined to go “further than faith?” These questions have been asked for centuries, and hook the reader. “What is further than faith?” “What step could one possibly take that goes beyond an act of faith?”
In Abraham’s mind, to the best we can know, Isaac was never lost. When he and Isaac complete their journey to Moriah, Isaac asks, “Where is the ram for the sacrifice?” to which Abraham replies, “God will provide the ram Himself.” These being the only words recorded from Abraham, it would seem that he never doubted God’s goodness or promise in providing him with a son.
Because Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac, Kierkegaard says, this leaves us with two options; Abraham is either a murderer or a paradox.
Dilemma 2:
Is there an absolute duty to God?
“Faith’s paradox then, is this, that the single individual is higher than the universal, that the single individual determines his relation to the universal through his relation to the absolute, not his relation to the absolute through his relation to the universal.”
Here, Kierkegaard rejects the Hegelian system which states that the outer is greater than the inner man. He insists that it is the individual instance which determines how a person relates to ethics generally, not the other way around.
“Unless this is how it is, faith has no place in existence; and faith is then a temptation, and Abraham is done for, since he gave in to it.”
In order for Abraham to have made the correct decision, the individual instance must supersede the general directive of not killing. Faith, therefore, must be higher than ethics. If a person is going to become a knight of faith, he must embrace this enigma, and be willing to walk out his faith alone,
“Either the single individual becomes a knight of faith himself by putting on the paradox, or he never becomes one.”
“Partnership in these regions is quite unthinkable.”
Kierkegaard next refers to the passage in Luke 24:6, where Jesus states that any man who would follow Him must hate his family. This passage is used to illuminate the Abraham passage, and Kierkegaard rejects the notion that such strong language is used merely for comparative purposes. We don’t love God more by loving our family less. On the contrary, God demands absolute love, and commands that we love others. It is only by, as Kierkegaard notes, embracing and translating this passage literally that we can fulfill it. Abraham, in loving God and choosing to follow His command, “hates” Issac. However, he doesn’t actually, emotionally hate Issac; that would undermine the entire point of sacrificing something Abraham loves. He is making the choice to put his faith in God above the ethical decision to keep his son alive.
“The absolute duty can then lead to what ethics would forbid, but it can by no means make the knight of faith have done with loving.”
This leads us to the contrast between the knight of faith and the tragic hero. Abraham as the knight of faith walks in isolation, his role as particular in violation of the universal. This knight of faith is not an iteration of the classic, tragic hero, who bravely acts in line with universal ethics, bringing a loss to himself. The tragic hero would have, like most of us, regarded Isaac as lost, and lost all faith in God as a consequence. Abraham, most fascinating and importantly, never considered the sacrifice of Isaac to be a loss. This is not because he didn’t love Isaac, but because Abraham remained steadfast in his faith that God would provide Isaac to him. Abraham trusted the source of the command, that is, God Himself, rather than his understanding of the command itself. This resiliency has become the ultimate example of faith for millions of people, second only to that which it foreshadows, the sacrifice of Christ for unbelievers and sinners. This faith permeates the life of the faithful, and sparks the passion which Kierkegaard earlier lamented was lost in his generation.
Dilemma 3:
Was it ethically defensible of Abraham to conceal his purpose from Sarah, from Eleazar, from Isaac?
In this final section, Kierkegaard examines the dilemma Abraham experienced in determining whether or not to reveal this command to his wife, Isaac, or his servant.
“The ethical is as such the universal; as the universal it is in turn the disclosed. Seen as an immediate, no more than sensate and psychic being, the individual is concealed. So his ethical task is to unwrap himself from this concealment and become disclosed in the universal. Thus whenever he wants to remain in concealment, he sins and is in a state of temptation, from which he can only emerge by disclosing himself.”
Kierkegaard explores examples from literature which models the relationship between silence and disclosure as either ethical or unethical, depending on the situation; after which, he returns to Abraham.
Ethically, Abraham must not tell anyone, because they would, ethically, prevent him from carrying out his duty. He bypassed the ethical in order to act in faith and obedience in this particular situation. He simply can not speak.
“Abraham is silent – but cannot speak, therein lies the distress and anguish. For if when I speak I cannot make myself understood, I do not speak even if I keep talking without stop day and night. This is the case for Abraham.”
What, if he wanted to speak, could he possibly say to make anyone understand? What could Abraham possibly gain by speaking?
“The tragic hero knows nothing of the terrible responsibility of solitude.”
“We are now at the paradox. Either the individual as the particular can stand in an absolute relation to the absolute, and then the ethical is not the highest, or Abraham is done for, he is neither a tragic hero nor an aesthetic hero.”
“So either there is a paradox, that the individual stands afar off from the universal, or Abraham is done for.”
Here then, is where every individual must reckon with himself, the ethical, and God. According to Kierkegaard, we must always be ready for a test of faith; for a situation which will require faith, not understanding or ethical consideration, but faith in God to arrive at the right conclusion.
Epilogue
Faith is the ultimate expression of passion for Kierkegaard.
“The highest passion in a human being is faith…”
He repeats, for emphasis,
“Faith is the highest passion in a human being.”
He concludes with a final thought on where faith lies for each age,
“Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.”
For all the talk of going further, deeper, and beyond; the utmost passion with which a human being can take action is faith.
Conclusion
What Kierkegaard defends then, is individual obedience, wherein a person’s obedience to God surpasses all else, even understanding or perhaps, ethics. This is the passion with which the patriarchs lived, this is the passion which the Old and New Testament spur believers toward; it is the passion which Kierkegaard recognized as lacking in his generation, and it is that passion which continues to be the height of human attainment. Faith, then, is the highest act an individual can take.
Ed. note: This is the twenty-fifth post in a series looking at the three schools of philosophy for perspectives on navigating our modern world. Inspired by Emerson’s “The American Scholar,” we are exploring timeless wisdom which endures to inform our approaches to learning, relationships and leadership.Click here for all the posts in this series.
