Sean Meslar- Outside Reading 5- Fear and Trembling

We talked about Kierkegaard a bit in class so I figured this would be an appropriate book to talk about. I haven’t yet read the entire book, but to this point I’ve found it quite engaging, if not difficult. Fear and Trembling is devoted to discussing the myth of Abraham. In my earliest philosophical discussions about the book, I’ve always argued that it’s just a story, it didn’t actually happen, the story is just meant to be taken figuratively like everything else in the bible. While I still stand by that opinion, disregarding the rest of the book for this reason would be short sighted. Even if it didn’t happen, the story of Abraham is one of the more interesting stories in the bible. What does God hope to prove by telling Abraham to kill Isaac? Sure, he can prove his faith through this immense sacrifice, but it also shows that he is willing to kill his son based on a voice in his head; we commit people who do this, whether or not they actually kill their sacrifice. Kierkegaard was a smart man and a Christian who recognized the problems with this story; however, he was fascinated by the faith that Abraham must have had in order to carry out this task. Rather than taking the story figuratively, Kierkegaard examines the story as if it were real to increase its significance. His response to the apparent difficulties posed by the situation is what he calls a “teleological suspension of the ethical.” This term indicates a situation in which circumstances dictate that conventional ethical behavior no longer be followed, for instance the divine command of God. This commitment to straying from objective right and wrong does not come easily, and requires what later becomes the phrase most associated with Kierkegaard, the leap of faith. Rather than obtaining knowledge about God, the value in religious belief is that it is more difficult than knowledge and requires a frightening, necessarily unknowing belief in God. This is one (of the many) reasons that Kierkegaard claimed there was only one Christian: Jesus of Nazareth. People who meet Kierkegaard’s criteria for true Christianity are those who would call themselves agnostic while still believing in Christ. This concept helps establish Søren as the :father of existentialism;” while certainly not the only factor, his emphasis on belief and establishing meaning in a bleak universe set the stage (ironically) for some of the most vehemently atheistic philosophers of history.