Classics and the Western Canon discussion
Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling
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Problem 3 and Epilogue
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HelloMaybe I got to this conversation too late!
It was a pleasure to read this book during the quarantine period. As a Muslim, it was very interesting for me to read Kierkegaard's views on faith. Abraham is the father of faith, and what happened to him was the greatest divine test. Muslims and Christians alike can learn from Abraham.
Kierkegaard's emphasis on the personal aspect of religiosity is very important to me. This view also exists in the Islamic world, but it does not have much opportunity to express itself. Faith is a personal test. Knowing the importance of personal religiosity is even more important in our day because Kierkegaard writes:
Whatever the one generation may learn from the other, that which is genuinely human no generation learns from the foregoing. In this respect every generation begins primitively, has no different task from that of every previous generation, nor does it get further, except in so far as the preceding generation shirked its task and deluded itself.
مجید wrote: "HelloMaybe I got to this conversation too late!
It was a pleasure to read this book during the quarantine period. As a Muslim, it was very interesting for me to read Kierkegaard's views on faith. ..."
Greetings, مجید ! Our discussion threads remain open, so feel free to post your thoughts. I agree with you that Kierkegaard's emphasis is on the "personal test." He spent much of his writing career criticizing his religious community for treating faith as if it was a "bargain at a clearance sale." There are other philosophical nuances to the book, but the main point seems to me that whatever faith is, it is a personal matter and can only be the result of a subjective transformation.
مجید wrote: "HelloMaybe I got to this conversation too late!
It was a pleasure to read this book during the quarantine period. As a Muslim, it was very interesting for me to read Kierkegaard's views on faith. ..."
Thanks for commenting. Abraham is indeed the father of faith. I for one got nothing from F&T. Kierkegaard seems to tie himself up in existential knots trying to imagine Abraham's state of mind. I say we can admire it, but we can't imagine it. Abraham lived in a time and place when human sacrifice, including of one's own children, was accepted. And he talked with God face to face.
Thomas wrote: "مجید wrote: "HelloMaybe I got to this conversation too late!
It was a pleasure to read this book during the quarantine period. As a Muslim, it was very interesting for me to read Kierkegaard's vie..."
Thanks, Thomas
I agree that Kierkegaard shows that faith is a personal transformation that everyone goes through alone. Perhaps for this reason he is considered the initiator of existentialism.
The four interpretations of Abraham's test at the beginning of the book were very interesting. We don't know what was going on in Abraham's mind. With these four interpretations, Kierkegaard helps us understand the importance of Abraham's divine test. This story could have had another ending! But then Abraham could not be the father of faith.
In addition, Kierkegaard shows that faith is superior to aesthetics and morality.
Hello, and welcome to the group, مجید .You said,
مجید wrote: "With these four interpretations, Kierkegaard helps us understand the importance of Abraham's divine test. This story could have had another ending! But then Abraham could not be the father of faith.
In addition, Kierkegaard shows that faith is superior to aesthetics and morality."
I reread the book a few times, read two different translations, took notes, have read some commentaries after having read the primary text unaided ... and I got none of that out of the book.
I think the biggest impression this book left on me was its elevation of, respect for, and defense of the individual. From that particular point of view, the fact that it boils down to a mere trial does not seem very significant, what is more significant to me, and especially in terms of those 4 alternative potential outcomes (Kierkegaard went on to write some more, BTW, Kafka, after having read Kierkegaard/ FAT, also wrote his own Kafkaesque Akedah), is the invisible, subjective turmoil any individual would imaginably go through if they were to face with such a dilemma -- we know it will turn out okay, God wouldn't really make Abraham kill Isaac, but Abraham did not know that, he didn't know it was "only a trial" when he climbed Mt. Moriah.
So I don't see any significance in any particular divine test, what I do do appreciate is the close look at an individual going through great inner struggle not because they say he should, but because he, for personal, passionate, subjective reasons, had committed to that as his highest meaning, as what it means to be Abraham, to become himself.
I also never walked away convinced that faith is in fact higher than moral and/or aesthetics, especially with an aesthetic penultimate chapter (and the last chapter on Abraham), I was left with the feeling that JS himself (his choice, his action, his movement) is on the side of aesthetics, regardless of the content of his [aesthetic] presentation. I think he challenged his reader to go through a ... well, not mental, but existential exercise, I don't think he necessarily or successfully defended faith as higher than the other spheres. (Though, as Thomas suggested, this might just be JS's beginning, the entirely of this text might only be prefacing his movement towards faith, he's not there yet.)
What's interesting is that, in Kierkegaard's journal (first volume), he said,
The absurd is a category, the negative criterion, of the divine or of the relationship to the divine. When the believer has faith, the absurd is not the absurd -- faith transforms it, but in every weak moment it is again more or less absurd to him.
Incidentally, I'm a godless infidel. Abraham's relationship, his choices, his movements are absurd for me. I'm definitely entertaining the possibility that, to someone who lives in faith, Abraham's action makes sense, is heroic, and is (to him, subjectively speaking) clearly higher than ethics or aesthetics.
مجید wrote: "With these four interpretations, Kierkegaard helps us understand the importance of Abraham's divine test. This story could have had another ending! But then Abraham could not be the father of faith."I think that's exactly right. The four stories show us how Abraham could have failed in four different ways, and from Kierkegaard's journals we learn that he had thought of even more ways, so he must have chosen these particular ones for a reason. What I find striking is that in each example Abraham never fails to follow through with God's command; where he fails is in how he follows through.
Lia wrote: " I was left with the feeling that JS himself (his choice, his action, his movement) is on the side of aesthetics, regardless of the content of his [aesthetic] presentation. I think he challenged his reader to go through a ... well, not mental, but existential exercise, I don't think he necessarily or successfully defended faith as higher than the other spheres. ."To judge one sphere as "better" than another he would have to apply a standard or a rule, and the point seems to be that the rule simply does not apply to faith. The absolute is incomparable to anything else. Clearly there are ethical standards -- there are right and wrong according to laws and cultural or societal norms. And there are aesthetic standards -- good and bad art, and Kierkegaard gives us some examples in the third problem. (In my view, the third problem is itself aesthetically suspect in this regard, which is typical of Kierkegaard's ironic style.) But faith, in itself, is beyond both aesthetics and ethics. Whether "beyond" is the same as "higher" is a good question; I suspect that we get this image of the absolute as higher from Plato, but it's an image that has ethical overtones that I don't think apply here.
I suppose “higher” implies better, I don’t know why I chafed at that particular word choice (but not at “higher.”) I think we basically agree that Kierkegaard (or JS) isn’t imposing a new dogma of religion as a higher kind of rule that everybody ought to, have the duty to, obey, follow, etc. But I think, for Abraham to not be “lost,” for the “faithfuls” to still sincerely admire Abraham as father of faith, he’s still arguing that the “sphere” of ethics opens up to something “higher”, above. And yet, this can’t be codified into a dogma for everybody to blindly obey, like automatons.
Kierkegaard’s irony is giving me a headache. >_<
Lia wrote: "Incidentally, I'm a godless infidel."Lia, sorry for the delayed response, but I just now got caught up with reading this thread. Otherwise, I would have responded sooner.
You may or may not be aware of this, but the words "godless infidel" ring alarm bells for the majority of Muslims who have seen their religion highjacked by a bunch of crazies who justify killing civilians by accusing them of being "godless infidels." Further, that term has come to be used as a dog whistle by those on the far right to taunt Muslims with whom they see themselves locked in a civilizational conflict.
Words have power and carry baggage. And your choice of words here can offend Muslims who are justifiably angry at the abuse and exploitation of their religion for political means.
Of course, it is entirely up to you how you choose to identify yourself--whether you choose the word "atheist" or "godless infidel" or any variation thereof. I simply wanted to make you aware of the sensitivity surrounding your choice of words just in case you didn’t know, especially since you are responding to a poster who identifies as Muslim.
That was more an attempt to self-deprecate, especially in face of Kierkegaard’s seriousness about religiosity and faith, and their complete irrelevance to me as a reader, who still paradoxically find his writings (including his more Christianity-specific writings) meaningful. I thought that was an apt usage given that specific context.I hope our new member isn’t offended — I doubt he is, in my experience people often aren’t as sensitive as we fearfully presume them to be, and this level of tiptoeing around seems kind of infantilizing. And if that level of self-policing were expected of members here, I think it would take possibilities out of expressions, especially when it comes to discussions on books designed to be provocative, books that by design are written to make us uncomfortable, to question who we are in relationship to religions.
Lia wrote: "And if that level of self-policing were expected of members here, I think it would take possibilities out of expressions.."I was not suggesting you "self-police," nor was I suggesting you "tiptoe" around. I was merely trying to point out that your choice of words can be deemed offensive to Muslims. I think there are ways of debating an issue without using language that is offensive. Whether you continue to use those words is entirely up to you.
HelloIt was useful for me to read different comments.
I do not think Kierkegaard is talking about a godless world. He talks about Abraham who believed in God. What God wanted from him was a crime, but he realized that faith was higher than morality.
A very special aspect of the divine test was that he could not explain the "divine providence" to anyone, not even Isaac (and according to the Qur'anic Ishmael).
Kierkegaard speaks of the "impossible." Because when Abraham raised his son from the mountain to sacrifice, he thought it was impossible to change the "divine providence". But he did not think the whole thing was "absurd." If Abraham considered the whole test "absurd", why did he have to go to the altar for three days? Every ordinary believer may think for a moment that the divine test is "absurd," but Abraham walked for three days. This is very different from a weak moment.
These words of FAT show that he is not in favor of aesthetics:
Aesthetics throws the cloak of love over the merman, and so
everything is forgotten. It is also careless enough to suppose that at a wedding things go as
they do at an auction where everything is sold in the state it is in when the hammer falls. All it
cares for is that the lovers get one another, it doesn't trouble about the rest.
Thank you for the thoughtful response,مجید wrote: “I do not think Kierkegaard is talking about a godless world. He talks about Abraham who believed in God.”
I want to clarify that my comment referred to my struggle as an atheist reader reacting to an earnestly Christian author, I agree Kierkegaard isn’t talking about a godless world, and he did not write for readers whom had doubts about the existence of God.
It was also brought to my attention that the unfortunate phrase I chose to self-deprecate with has anti-Muslim connotations, which I was not aware of, I sincerely hope I didn’t make you feel targeted.
With that out of the way though ...
مجید wrote: “ What God wanted from him was a crime, but he realized that faith was higher than morality. A very special aspect of the divine test was that he could not explain the "divine providence" to anyone, not even Isaac (and according to the Qur'anic Ishmael). Kierkegaard speaks of the "impossible." Because when Abraham raised his son from the mountain to sacrifice, he thought it was impossible to change the "divine providence". But he did not think the whole thing was "absurd." If Abraham considered the whole test "absurd", why did he have to go to the altar for three days? Every ordinary believer may think for a moment that the divine test is "absurd," but Abraham walked for three days. This is very different from a weak moment.”
I think, the quote I pulled from SK’s journal will agree with you that the choice was not absurd for Abraham, he merely had “reasons” that are beyond language, beyond what human community can make sense of, beyond social approval.
(More on the crime stuff later)
BUT, JS did repeatedly, explicitly designate his leap as absurd, and we are also told JS can get as far as resignation, but he cannot take the leap that will allow him to cross from absurd to faith, he cannot move past that stage. That is, Kierkegaard, for whatever reasons, chose a faithless character to dramatize his struggle to understand Abraham, to understand faith.
(Note JS is “convinced that God is love; for me this thought has a primal lyrical validity” ... that is, JS’s God is a cognitive concept, a conviction, a thought, an idea, and not someone he has a relationship with and comports himself towards.)
No wonder what was not absurd to Abraham is absurd to JS, the “author” of this little booklet.
About the “crime” aspect — as Roger repeatedly brought up, it wasn’t really seen as a crime in that period, child sacrifice was common, and Abraham did not belong to any kind of nation state with any social contract with a government that has any monopoly on violence. At most Abraham has obligation to his household, I don’t think the concept of “crime” is very meaningful in his context, I propose the “provocation” involves having modern subjects (his Danish contemporaries, for example) looking at the Akedah closely and still comfortably proclaim Abraham as worthy of admirations. To do that, they will have to get over the ickiness of child-murder itself, and not a tired old tale about a mere trial with an assured happy ending.
Which brings me to the next point:
مجید wrote: “ These words of FAT show that he is not in favor of aesthetics: Aesthetics throws the cloak of love over the merman, and so everything is forgotten. It is also careless enough to suppose that at a wedding things go as they do at an auction where everything is sold in the state it is in when the hammer falls. All it cares for is that the lovers get one another, it doesn't trouble about the rest. ”
Yes, you’re certainly correct in that JS explicitly tells us what’s dissatisfying or not so great about the realm of aesthetic, but that’s not what I meant when I said I suspect JS himself favors aesthetics. I don’t mean he ranks that as higher, I mean JS (Kierkegaard?) essentially created a dramatic irony situation, in which a faithless character ironically shows his (Kierkegaard’s) contemporaries that they, too, lack faith. Much like Socratic irony that used the dramatization of his own lack of knowledge (or rather, Plato dramatized Socratic-ignorance) to induce his fellow Athenians to contemplate their lack of knowledge. That’s a form of irony that entirely relies on dramatic setup to provoke a dramatic audience response.
As well, the entire book is filled up with Mythos (or faery tales, or parables) as opposed to Logos.
Again, despite what he says about the inadequacy of aesthetics, his action is to rely on aesthetic principles, designed to provoke aesthetic response, as is convention, closing with considerations for aesthetic conventions. (I’m still struggling to locate the “dialectics,” Socratic or Hegelian...) So yes, he tells us aesthetics is no good, very bad, but, you know, poets lie ...
مجید wrote: "What God wanted from him was a crime, but he realized that faith was higher than morality."Hello and welcome to the group.
When I began to read F&T, I was impressed by how seemingly thorough the different scenarios in the Tuning Up section seemed to be. Soon however, and my secular opinions aside, Kierkegaard is priming the reader by presenting a fairly narrow set of possible consequences from a narrow interpretation of a story where Abraham wrestles with the anxiety caused by god's command to commit a crime. In fact there are other interpretations that had to purposefully be left out.
One is that there was an understanding between god and Abraham that Yitzchak was to be “raised up as an offering,” and God would use the opportunity to teach humankind, once and for all, that human sacrifice, child sacrifice, is not acceptable. Raising something up as an offering is significantly different from actually sacrificing it and the thought of actually killing Isaac was never even considered. The idea of sacrifice is centrally critical to Kierkegaard's argument. See: https://outorah.org/p/21996
Another interpretation suggests Abraham's apparent complicity with the sacrifice was actually his way of testing God. Abraham had previously argued with God to save lives in Sodom and Gomorrah. By silently complying with God's instructions to kill Isaac, Abraham was putting pressure on God to act in a moral way to preserve life. Abraham simply called god's bluff.
More evidence that Abraham thought that he would not actually sacrifice Isaac comes from Genesis 22:5, where Abraham said to his servants, "You stay here with the ass. The boy and I will go up there; we will worship and we will return to you." By saying we (as opposed to I), he meant that both he and Isaac would return. Thus, he did not believe that Isaac would be sacrificed in the end. I am sure Kierkegaard might suggest here this was simply Abraham keeping things secret.
Interpretations like these give precedence to simplicity, per Occam's Razor: pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate, “plurality should not be posited without necessity.” Of competing theories, the simpler explanation of an entity is to be preferred. The principle is also expressed as “Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.” Kierkegaard sure posits some extraordinary pluralities.
These other possibilities demonstrate a single collection of ethics for both man and god(s), as established in Plato's Euthyphro, and do not require Kierkegaard's rather involved mechanisms and explanations and ethical gymnastics between two overlapping and distinctly ranked ethical standards in order to justify what would otherwise be a crime.
As for aesthetics, it is easy to see why Kierkegaard's must reject aesthetics by imagining him embracing aesthetics. If aesthetics was part of the story, it would then become just another universal story collapsing the his entire premise and circular conclusion that faith is an impossibly hard and individually absolute virtue. In my opinion, despite Kierkegaard's efforts to distance the story of Abraham from the aesthetics make it even more aesthetically pleasing by enumerating its singular distinguishing characteristics from other aesthetically pleasing stories, in addition to the satisfaction some faithful might obtain from this perspective.
Roger wrote: "...Abraham lived in a time and place when human sacrifice, including of one's own children, was accepted...."As perhaps we still do? Ask a gold star mother? Or ask Candace Lightner? Or Nanfu Wang? Or maybe Emma González? Or, the other side of the coin? Only in the past 100 years are those stories beginning to be recorded from female voices? I don't know, but occasionally I ponder....
Lia wrote: "I think, the quote I pulled from SK’s journal will agree with you that the choice was not absurd for Abraham, he merely had “reasons” that are beyond language, beyond what human community can make sense of, beyond social approval."But reasons that are beyond language are not reasonable, at least not in the classical sense where logos means both langauge and reason. This is why both ethics and aesthetics fail: they both rely on logos. If there were a justification for Abraham's sacrifice, it could be expressed in philosophical terms, but it cannot. If it could be expressed aesthetically, then Silentio would be able to at least approximate that expression in dramatic narrative, but in four tries he fails four times. And Abraham would be able to explain it to Sarah and to Isaac, or he would at least try, but this is impossible.
There is no ethical expression for Abraham's willingness to sacrifice the best he has to offer; no way to "justify the ways of God to Man," as Milton has it... As much as theologians and historians and philosophers might try to weasel their way to a justification, they are bound to fail. For Abraham to kill Isaac, his greatest love and the sign of God's love for him, is not only unethical, it's inconceivable. Abraham's faith cannot be explained. His faith, like all faith, is by virtue of the absurd -- how to explain that?
In the final analysis, I think that Fear and Trembling intends to be a demonstration of how both philosophy and aesthetics fail in the face of faith.
And one last question, if I may: Why is a Christian writer so interested in Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac? And why does he never talk about the death and resurrection of Jesus as a sacrifice parallel to that of Isaac?
Thomas wrote: "But reasons that are beyond language are not reasonable, at least not in the classical sense where logos means both langauge and reason. This is why both ethics and aesthetics fail: they both rely on logos..."Well, maybe the Greeks were wrong to bundle language with reason, maybe there is a type of “understanding” or “sensibility” that is non-verbal, or not possible to capture with words.
OR, there’s a private language for a community of ONE that expresses these reasons, but this language can be understood by no one else (I can hear Wittgenstein rolling up some newspapers inside his grave.)
Okay, classical ethics and aesthetics genre both failed to adequately capture or describe or comprehend what Abraham was up to. Can there be a newer, more modern genre?
Thomas wrote: "Why is a Christian writer so interested in Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac? And why does he never talk about the death and resurrection of Jesus as a sacrifice parallel to that of Isaac?..."But he wasn’t sacrificed! He only got tied up a little! ... unlike Jesus, whom was ostensibly sacrificed (as opposed to “executed.”) Like I said earlier, I hope Jesus wasn’t expecting a parallel and waiting for some Godot who failed to show up to stay the execution.
I’ve argued before that I think SK (or JS) picked something at the beginning, the first step, to highlight the personal aspect of Abraham’s decision. It wasn’t based on blind obedience to some established dogma, doctrine, theology, elaborate rationalization, or rituals. It’s purely based on his personal first person relationship with God.
But I’m keen to hear about other possible reasons or explanations for this odd choice.
Thomas wrote: "Why is a Christian writer so interested in Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac?..."The short answer is covenants.
A longer answer is:
Salvation history, properly so-called, begins with Abram, whom God named Abraham which means “father of a multitude.” Abraham was the first patriarch of the people of Israel. The word patriarch means “the father of the people.” In the person and life of Abraham, the central events of the salvation of the world by Christ in the New Testament have been prefigured.So there is the long and the short of it. I suspect however that a more honest reason is politics in the time of Jesus where prophecy and providence were helpful.
God made the first promise of His salvation of all the people of the earth to Abraham, with whom He also made His covenant to be faithful forever.
The fulfillment of the promise to Abraham comes in Jesus Christ. He is the descendent of Israel’s first father in whom all the families of the earth are blessed. Thus, Mary, the Mother of Jesus, sings at her time of waiting for the Savior’s birth, that all generations will call her blessed because the fulfillment has come from God “as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his posterity forever” (Lk 1.55, see also Zachariah’s Song in Lk 1.67–79). All through the New Testament the claim is made that God’s promise to Abraham is fulfilled in Jesus. . .The faith of Abraham is prototypical of al those who in Christ are saved by faith. The New Testament stresses faith as necessary for salvation. The model for this faith is Abraham.
https://www.oca.org/orthodoxy/the-ort...
Since David brought up “fulfillment,” I thought I’d share this amazing fragment from Either/Or (about Jonathan Swift...)It’s from the section “Tested Advice for Authors”
“Old age fulfills the dreams of youth. One sees this in Swift: in his youth he built an insane asylum; in his old age he himself entered it.”
Classics and the Western Canon
Books mentioned in this topic
Hegel: A Very Short Introduction (other topics)The Concept of Irony: With Continual Reference to Socrates/Notes of Schelling's Berlin Lectures (other topics)
The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales (other topics)
Kierkegaard's 'Fear and Trembling': A Reader's Guide (other topics)
The Idiot (other topics)
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Yes, thank you, Thomas. And each and all who may well be alone in a meaningless world, but still took the risk, the time, and the effort to engage in community.