Fear and Trembling

by Søren Kierkegaard

God said to Abraham, go kill me a son. Abe said, Man, you must be puttin’ me on. BOB DYLAN, Highway 61

The opening verse of Bob Dylan’s song concludes, ‘God said, you can do what you want, Abe, but next time you see me comin’, you’d better run. Well, Abe said, where you want this killin’ done? God said, do it on Highway 61’.

Not just in commerce but in the world of ideas too our age is putting on a veritable clearance sale. Everything can be had so dirt cheap that one begins to wonder whether in the end anyone will want to make a bid.

When the old campaigner approached the end, had fought the good fight,4 and kept his faith, his heart was still young enough not to have forgotten the fear and trembling that disciplined his youth and which, although the grown man mastered it, no man altogether outgrows – unless he somehow manages at the earliest possible opportunity to go further.

For what occupied him was not the finely wrought fabric of imagination, but the shudder of thought.

exegete,

exegete /ˈeksəˌjēt/ I. noun an expounder or textual interpreter, especially of scripture. II. verb — [with obj.] 1. expound or interpret (a text, especially scripture) • I am able to exegete the scriptures in ways that make sense. – origin mid 18th cent.: from Greek exēgētēs, from exēgeisthai ‘interpret.’

had he known Hebrew then perhaps it might have been easy for him to understand the story of Abraham.

And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him… Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.

Abraham rose in good time, had the asses saddled and left his tent, taking Isaac with him, but Sarah watched them from the window as they went down the valley10 until she could see them no more.

And Abraham’s expression was fatherly, his gaze gentle, his speech encouraging. But Isaac could not understand him, his soul could not be uplifted; he clung to Abraham’s knees, pleaded at his feet, begged for his young life, for his fair promise; he called to mind the joy in Abraham’s house, reminded him of the sorrow and loneliness. Then Abraham lifted the boy up and walked with him, taking him by the hand, and his words were full of comfort and exhortation. But Isaac could not understand him. Abraham climbed the mountain in Moriah, but Isaac did not understand him. Then he turned away from Isaac for a moment, but when Isaac saw his face a second time it was changed, his gaze was wild, his mien one of horror.

But below his breath Abraham said to himself: ‘Lord in heaven I thank Thee; it is after all better that he believe I am a monster than that he lose faith in Thee.’

When the child is to be weaned the mother blackens her breast, for it would be a shame were the breast to look pleasing when the child is not to have it. So the child believes that the breast has changed but the mother is the same, her look loving and tender as ever.

From that day on, Abraham became old, he could not forget that God had demanded this of him. Isaac throve as before; but Abraham’s eye was darkened, he saw joy no more.

Second negative

When the child has grown and is to be weaned the mother virginally covers her breast, so the child no more has a mother. Lucky the child that lost its mother in no other way!

It was a tranquil evening when Abraham rode out alone, and he rode to the mountain in Moriah; he threw himself on his face, he begged God to forgive his sin at having been willing to sacrifice Isaac, at the father’s having forgotten his duty to his son.

He could not comprehend that it was a sin to have been willing to sacrifice to God the best he owned; that for which he would many a time have gladly laid down his own life; and if it was a sin, if he had not so loved Isaac, then he could not understand that it could be forgiven; for what sin was more terrible?

When the child is to be weaned the mother too is not without sorrow, that she and the child grow more and more apart; that the child which first lay beneath her heart, yet later rested at her breast, should no longer be so close. Thus together they suffer this brief sorrow.

Then they turned home again and Sarah ran to meet them, but Isaac had lost his faith. Never a word in the whole world is spoken of this,11 and Isaac told no one what he had seen, and Abraham never suspected that anyone had seen it.

When the child is to be weaned the mother has more solid food at hand, so that the child will not perish. Lucky the one who has more solid food at hand!

Every time he came home from a journey to the mountain in Moriah he collapsed in weariness, clasped his hands, and said: ‘Yet no one was as great as Abraham; who is able to understand him?’

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 then would life be but despair? If it were thus, if there were no sacred bond uniting mankind, if one generation rose up after another like the leaves of the forest,12 if one generation succeeded the other as the songs of birds in the woods, if the human race passed through the world as a ship through the sea or the wind through the desert, a thoughtless and fruitless whim, if an eternal oblivion always lurked hungrily for its prey and there were no power strong enough to wrest it from its clutches – how empty and devoid of comfort would life be!

for the hero is so to speak that better nature of his in which he is enamoured, though happy that it is not himself, that his love can indeed be admiration.

he wanders round in front of everyone’s door with his song and his speech, so that all can admire the hero as he does, be proud of the hero as he is.

he has fulfilled his task, he is united with the hero who in his turn has loved him just as faithfully, for the poet is so to speak the hero’s better nature, ineffectual certainly as a memory is, but also transfigured as a memory is.

Therefore no one who was great will be forgotten: and however long it takes, even if a cloud of misunderstanding13 should take the hero away, his lover still comes, and the more time goes by the more faithfully he sticks by him.

For he who loved himself became great in himself, and he who loved others became great through his devotion, but he who loved God became greater than all.

One became great through expecting the possible, another by expecting the eternal; but he who expected the impossible became greater than all.

For he who strove with the world became great by conquering the world, and he who strove with himself became greater by conquering himself; but he who strove with God became greater than all.

greater than all was Abraham, great with that power whose strength is powerlessness, great in that wisdom whose secret is folly,14 great in that hope whose outward form is insanity, great in that love which is hatred of self.

He left behind his worldly understanding and took with him his faith.

It was by his faith that he could be a stranger in the promised land; there was nothing to remind him of what was dear, but the novelty of everything tempted his soul to sad longing.

There was once another who lived in exile from the beloved land of his fathers.

The reference seems to be to Jeremiah, though the Danish editors of the 1963 edition suggest also Ovid, who was exiled on the Black Sea, where he wrote his Tristia ex Ponto.

Time went by, the possibility was still there, and Abraham had faith; time went by, it became unlikely, and Abraham had faith.

From Abraham we have no song of sorrow.

Would it not be better, then, were he not God’s chosen? What is it to be God’s chosen? Is it to be denied in youth one’s youthful desire in order to have it fulfilled in great travail in old age? But Abraham believed and held firm to the promise.

for it is great to give up one’s desire, but greater to stick to it after having given it up; it is great to grasp hold of the eternal but greater to stick to the temporal after having given it up.

for he who always hopes for the best becomes old, deceived by life, and he who is always prepared for the worst becomes old prematurely; but he who has faith, retains eternal youth.

for Moses struck the rock with his rod19 but he did not believe.

‘And Moses … smote the rock twice: and the water came out abundantly, but the Lord said, Because ye believed me not to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.’

with that watchful opponent that never takes a nap, with that old man who outlives everything – time itself.

But Abraham had faith, and had faith for this life.

But Abraham’s faith was not of that kind, if there is such, for a faith like that is not really faith but only its remotest possibility, a faith that has some inkling of its object at the very edge of the field of vision but remains separated from it by a yawning abyss in which despair plays its pranks.

Abraham had just one, the son he loved.

We read further: ‘And Abraham rose up early in the morning.’

He said nothing to Sarah, nothing to Eliezer. After all, who could have understood him? Hadn’t the test by its very nature exacted an oath of silence from him? ‘And [he] clave the wood, he bound Isaac, he kindled the fire, he drew the knife.’

He knew it was God the Almighty that tried him, he knew it was the hardest sacrifice that could be demanded of him; but he also knew that no sacrifice was too hard when God demanded it – and he drew the knife.

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 admired29

he will never forget that in one hundred and thirty years you got no further than faith.

An old proverb pertaining to the outward and visible world says: ‘Only one who works gets bread.’

the outward world is subject to the law of imperfection; there it happens time and again that one who gets bread is one who does not work, that one who sleeps gets it in greater abundance than one who labours. In the outward world everything belongs to whoever has it, the outward world is subject to the law of indifference and the genie of the ring obeys the one who wears it, whether he be a Noureddin or an Aladdin,31 and whoever holds the world’s treasures does so however he came by them.

He who will not work does not get bread, but will be deluded, as the gods deluded Orpheus32 with an airy figure in place of the beloved, deluded him because he was tenderhearted, not courageous, deluded him because he was a lyre-player, not a man.