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C. Williams
Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling
Three Problems
Structure of Problems
(1) Question
(2) Definition of ethical
(3) *Disjunction(s) – EITHER there is a unique thing called faith OR faith has
never existed because it has always existed. Abraham is EITHER a knight of faith OR a
murderer/lost.
(4) Poetic examples to serve as contrasts to Abraham
(5) How Abraham is different.
Problem 1
(1) Question – Is there a teleological suspension of the ethical?
(2) Definition of ethical
a. Universal
b. Telos
c. Temptation to evil is to separate oneself from the ethical
d. Ethical relationship between Abraham & Isaac – father should love son
more than himself
(3) Disjunction – Either faith is the paradox that the single individual can rise
above the universal, or Abraham is a murderer and faith has never existed
(because it has always existed).
(4) Poetic examples of tragic heroes: (1) Agamemnon, (2) Jephthah, (3) Brutus
(5) How Abraham is different
a. Private matter between himself and God
b. Acts for God’s sake and his own sake (one and the same)
c. Abraham’s temptation is to obey the ethical instead of God
d. Abraham cannot speak or explain his situation to other people, not be
wept for by the multitude (like the tragic hero)
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e. Absolute relation to absolute and relative relation to the universal
(instead of absolute relation to universal and relative relation to the
absolute)
Problem 2
(1) Is there an absolute duty to God?
(2) Definition of ethical
a. Outer (exteriority, publicly expressed) is higher than the inner
b. Duty to God = duty to universal = duty to duty (duty to God is really a
tautology); God has no transcendence, so there is nothing
incommensurable with human life
c. Task is to get rid of one’s inwardness and express this in an outward
form – temptation is to resist doing this. Faith is not a “new
inwardness”
d. Being the single individual is easy, while the universal is harder and
more praiseworthy
(3) Disjunction – Either Abraham’s duty to God, as absolute, cannot be mediated
and thus cannot be expressed or made intelligible to the universal, or it is
expressible, and is therefore not faith, but a spiritual trial, and Abraham is lost
since he yielded to it.
a. Luke 14:26
b. knight of faith cannot understand another knight of faith – not
Kierkegaard’s view, but only Johannes de Silentio’s view
(4) Poetic examples of Cain, Roman general (Cunctatot), Agamemnon
(5) Contrast to Abraham:
a. Abraham’s task is harder because he knows the value of the universal,
but also what is higher than the universal, and thus what it’s like to be
alone and misunderstood.
b. Constantly being tested – anxiety before the act of sacrifice
c. Addresses God as Thou (personal) instead of the ethical, which must
address God in the third person (objective, abstract)
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C. Williams
Problem 3
(1) Question – Was it ethically defensible for Abraham to conceal his
understanding from Sarah, Eliezer, and Isaac?
(2) Definition of ethical - disclosed, not hidden; all concealment is a fall into the
esthetic.
(3) Disjunction – Either faith is purely an esthetic category, the “first immediacy,”
and therefore never existed because it has always existed, or faith’s
hiddenness is a later immediacy, beyond the ethical sphere, and therefore the
highest.
(4) Poetic examples that show the distinction between four categories:
(1) hidden (aesthetic)
(2) disclosed (ethical/tragic hero)
(3) hidden (demonic)
(4) hidden (religious/faith)
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.
Man and woman in love who cannot marry and must keep love secret
Agamemnon
Amor and Psyche
Bridegroom from Aristotle’s Poetics
Agnes and the merman
Tobit and Sarah
Faust
Sermon on the Mount (shows how silence is sometimes called for)
(5) Contrast to Abraham
a. Abraham is not an aesthetic hero because aesthetics requires that he
is only silent in order to save someone, but Abraham is silent to conceal
from Isaac what he is doing.
b. Abraham is not a tragic hero, because ethics demand that he explain to
Isaac, Sarah, and Eliezer what he is about to do, and he does not.
c. What Abraham does say (“God himself will provide the lamb for the
burnt offering, my son”) is ironic because it is not a lie, nor is it a
disclosure – he both says something and says nothing.
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Excerpt from Augustine’s Confessions (3.8-9)
(Notice parallel to SK’s teleological suspension of the ethical)
3.8.15. …. Nevertheless, when God commands anything contrary to the customs or
compacts of any nation, even though it were never done by them before, it is to be
done; and if it has been interrupted, it is to be restored; and if it has never been
established, it is to be established. For it is lawful for a king, in the state over which he
reigns, to command that which neither he himself nor anyone before him had
commanded. And if it cannot be held to be inimical to the public interest to obey him-and, in truth, it would be inimical if he were not obeyed, since obedience to princes
is a general compact of human society--how much more, then, ought we
unhesitatingly to obey God, the Governor of all his creatures! For, just as among the
authorities in human society, the greater authority is obeyed before the lesser, so also
must God be above all.
…..
3.9.17. But among all these vices and crimes and manifold iniquities, there are also
the sins that are committed by men who are, on the whole, making progress toward
the good. When these are judged rightly and after the rule of perfection, the sins are
censored but the men are to be commended because they show the hope of bearing
fruit, like the green shoot of the growing corn. And there are some deeds that
resemble vice and crime and yet are not sin because they offend neither thee, our
Lord God, nor social custom. For example, when suitable reserves for hard times are
provided, we cannot judge that this is done merely from a hoarding impulse. Or, again,
when acts are punished by constituted authority for the sake of correction, we cannot
judge that they are done merely out of a desire to inflict pain. Thus, many a deed
which is disapproved in man’s sight may be approved by thy testimony. And many a
man who is praised by men is condemned--as thou art witness--because frequently
the deed itself, the mind of the doer, and the hidden exigency of the situation all vary
among themselves. But when, contrary to human expectation, thou commandest
something unusual or unthought of--indeed, something thou mayest formerly have
forbidden, about which thou mayest conceal the reason for thy command at that
particular time; and even though it may be contrary to the ordinance of some society
of men--who doubts but that it should be done because only that society of men is
righteous which obeys thee? But blessed are they who know what thou dost
command. For all things done by those who obey thee either exhibit something
necessary at that particular time or they foreshow things to come.