Fear and Trembling

by Johannes de Silentio

The book title echoes a phrase from the New "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." (Philippians 2,12) In alluding to these words of St. Paul, Kierkegaard indicates that religion in general and Christianity in particular are not a couch potato state of mind (convenient and comfortable relation toward the contents of faith). We need to ground ourselves in the uncertain and infinite transcendence. Already this gives rise to fear and trembling. But there is more to that. Since faith requires a total and constant engagement of individual's selfhood with regard to God's existence, this means that we believe truly only when we do not shun acts that understandably generate fear and trembling both as to their nature and consequences. To be sure, "fear and trembling" are not the source of faith, but they are its indispensable catalysts ("the oscillating balance wheel" as Kierkegaard puts it in his Journals).

100 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 12, 2014

Reviews

[Hogan Vaupel]

I don't get it

[ger]

A good translation with thorough introduction and notes. Kierkegaard makes superb points about Faith without in many ways getting it. He focused too much on suffering and the 3rd section of problem was a struggle. In many ways a classic.

[August Foulds]

Kierkegaard is a fantastic existential writer… read this in my Philosophy 211 class! I really enjoyed depicting the meaning of all of Kierkegaard’s writing.

[Dan Nuxoll]

This is a hard book to understand properly. Clearly, the author is bouncing off Hegel and he assumes a familiarity with Hegel that many readers will not have.

[Lisa]

Lyrical rhetoric. It's quite the intellectual read while strangely poetic.