Classics and the Western Canon discussion

Fear and Trembling: A Dialectical Lyric

The phrase "fear and trembling" comes from the letter of Paul to the Phillippians, in which he urges the Phillippians to "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." (Phil 2:12) But what exactly is a "dialectical lyric"? In the western philosophical tradition, dialectic is an exchange of reasoned opinions or arguments in search of the truth. And a lyric is a kind of poem. So is this going to be a poetic kind of argument, rather than a logical one? Or a logical argument in poetic form? Or is "dialectical lyric" a kind of warning that what we are about to read may be somewhat paradoxical? (Or is it perhaps just a joke?)

What purpose does the epigraph about Tarquin's message to his son serve?

Preface

What does it mean to doubt everything but go no further? Is this what Descartes did? Or is Kierkegaard (in the guise of Johannes de Silentio) holding up Descartes as an example of someone who acquires faith easily, at a discount, when he doubts everything "except with respect to faith." What is the implication of this, and does it fit with de Silentio's argument that his work is not systematic and cannot be reduced to a simple summary?

What is the point of the Preface? (If you dare to summarize, that is.)

Tuning Up (Attunement or Exordium in other translations)

Why would it have been easier for the man to understand the story about Abraham if he had known Hebrew? Is it important that the man is not a thinker?

Variations on the Aqedah, the story of the binding of Isaac:

Story I: Abraham deceives Isaac so that he will not lose faith in God.
Story II: Abraham passes the test, but he becomes old and joyless as a result of it.
Story III: Abraham passes the test, but has a crisis of conscience. How could it not be a sin for a father to will the death of his son, no matter what?
Story IV: Abraham hesitates, which Isaac sees, and as a result Isaac loses faith.

It seems to me that the "tuning up" is like an overture before the first act of an opera. It sets the tone for what follows. These pieces do relate in some fashion to the rest of the book, but it's hard to see how right now.

Abraham risked everything he loved -- his only son, the "best he had to offer", the future of his people, in short, everything he had. Was it faith, or was it a kind of gamble? And how do we tell the difference? Do the variations in Kierkegaard's stories shed any light on this difference?

Each story is followed by a metaphor concerning the weaning of a child from its mother. How do these relate to de the variations on the Aqedah story?

A Tribute to Abraham (Eulogy or Panegyric in other translations)

In what way is Abraham a "hero"? And what does the hero have to do with eternal consciousness?

Kierkegaard emphasizes that Abraham believed for *this* life, not for the afterlife, or some other plane of existence. He will have a lot to say about the temporal vs. the eternal, and the finite vs. the infinite in the pages to come, and he goes against the grain of Western philosophy when he makes the finite world and the temporal world important for us. But is there room for faith in the finite and temporal world?

I'm afraid I have more questions than answers, so feel free to pick and choose, and of course, to offer your own.

Thomas wrote: "Fear and Trembling: A Dialectical Lyric

The phrase "fear and trembling" comes from the letter of Paul to the Phillippians, in which he urges the Phillippians to "work out your own salvation with f..."

Knowing Kierkegaard weird sense of humour and love for paradoxes, most easily to assume that this is the joke. But for him, the concepts of poetic and of dialectics (in the Socratic way) were also dear and the idea of poetic dialectics in opposition to pure logical reasoning looks very 'Kierkegaardian'.

Thomas wrote: "Tuning Up (Attunement or Exordium in other translations)

Why would it have been easier for the man to understand the story about Abraham if he had known Hebrew? Is it important that the man is not a thinker?.."

I do not know if it was already kind of common wisdom that knowing Hebrew (and in-depth, including cultural and social context, like classicist) is vital for understanding the Old Testament texts, but this Kierkegaard's statement looks a bit of trivial (now?).

About thinker, it looks like he warned that the following chapter will be an attempt to solve the problem from the position of common sense and analogies with everyday life. Also, it can be a general disclaimer that the book should be nit treated with the position of the thinker or logical-philosophical approach is unhelpful for this problem...

As for the variation of the story in this section, I always treated them as failed attempts to explain Abraham's story from the position of common sense or common wisdom. All the variations are indeed the failure of Abraham, so Kierkegaard went to solve the riddle in another way...

I think Kiekegaard is saying faith is required to be a believer because God is beyond reason, logic, and paradox -- tools of the thinker. One cannot think one's self into belief in God because all the reasoning and logic gets in the way; one must have faith in God. To try and think one's self to God is to lose faith.

Therefore, I don't think Kierkegaard is saying Descartes acquires faith in God on the discount because he doubts everything but his faith. Faith is necessary, a requirement, and doubt has no place in faith. Reasoning brings doubt, not faith.

This does highlight a contradiction in Descartes thinking, though, I think. He uses reason to search for what can be known, yet it all comes back to his faith in the existence of God, and that God is a good God, which requires no reasoning or justification. (In fact there can be no reasoning because God is beyond reason, logic, and paradox.) Descartes is using two different and contradictory belief systems to prove what can be known -- faith and reason.

Alexey wrote: "About thinker, it looks like he warned that the following chapter will be an attempt to solve the problem from the position of common sense and analogies with everyday life. ."

Johannes de Silentio says in the Preface that "The present writer is not at all a philosopher; he has not understood the System..." and a little later, "He easily foresees his fate in an age when passion has been abandoned in order to serve scholarship..."

He seems to believe that modern "thinkers" have lost their passion, their connection with the heart. Traditional philosophy hasn't done an adequate job of explaining the "spiritual" side of human life; i.e. how and who and what we love, the things that make us distinctily human as individuals. The big question is how it is even possible to explain spirit. Isn't this normally the realm of art, and not philosophy?

Xan Shadowflutter wrote: "Descartes is using two different and contradictory belief systems to prove what can be known -- faith and reason. ."

Nailed it. And this is the predicament of the modern West: a dialectical tradition that stems from Plato and Aristotle, combined with a spiritual tradition stemming from Judaeo-Christianity. And these traditions are not very compatible. Often, they're simply contradictory. But they both have powerful applications, so we use them interchangeably and call it good. Kierkegaard seems to be a little appalled at this.

Thomas wrote: "And these traditions are not very compatible. Often, they're simply contradictory. But they both have powerful applications, so we use them interchangeably and call it good. Kierkegaard seems to be a little appalled at this."

I have to be appalled along with and also at K. The cherry picking of what to believe without question (or thought) is one of the main causes of my atheism. K is appalled by the conflating of reason with faith. I’m appalled by the notion the K believes a man willingly murdering his son because a vision told him to shows supreme virtue, while it shows me a thoroughly immoral and likely mentally ill person, not one to emulate unless you’re a lemming.

I’m happen to be studying Plato at this time and read Phaedo in which Socrates expounds on his feelings about the soul yesterday. For someone like me, who believes the soul is a metaphor for the conscience, not a reality, it was problematic to take the existence of a soul as a given, so it marred much of the argument for me. I appreciated his dialectical reasoning, but the argument itself felt rather pointless to me.

In F&T, I’m feeling K suggesting that Abraham was a great man of faith because he was willing to murder his son in cold blood and my morality recoils in horror from this blinding through religious doctrine.

I guess my main problem is that Abraham is held up as the father of faith and thus virtuous, but what kind of virtuous man worships a deity who tells him to murder his son? Even if it was just a test, that willingness seems more like a failure of morality than a bedrock.

I would normally read critical material, but I liked your challenge to wait Thomas, so if you could just guide me a little in what I should be getting out of this, I would appreciate it.

Thomas wrote: “The phrase "fear and trembling" comes from the letter of Paul to the Phillippians, in which he urges the Phillippians to "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." (Phil 2:12)”

I feel like there’s something like a “spoiler” in the introduction of my text:

“The third public reference to Fear and Trembling came as an incidental observation in an article by Bishop Jakob P. Mynster,103who called it a “remarkable book.” “But why is that work called Fear and Trembling (view spoiler)[ Because its author has vividly comprehended, has deeply felt, has expressed with the full power of language the horror that must grip a person’s soul when he is confronted by a task whose demands he dare not evade, and when his understanding is yet unable to disperse the appearance with its demand that seems to call him out from the eternal order to which every being shall submit.” (hide spoiler)] In an entry from June 29, 1855,104 Kierkegaard recalls this observation without comment, but in the posthumously published The Point of View for My Work as an Author, where he states that Fear and Trembling is “a very singular esthetic kind of production,” he adds: “And here the most worthy author with the pen name Kts. placed the proper emphasis, which pleased me very much.””

So no doubt the title alludes to a certain biblical passage, but I think SK also approves of reading the meaning of the title into his intent.

Thomas wrote: "He seems to believe that modern "thinkers" have lost their passion, their connection with the heart. Traditional philosophy hasn't done an adequate job of explaining the "spiritual" side of human life; i.e. how and who and what we love, the things that make us distinctly human as individuals. The big question is how it is even possible to explain spirit. Isn't this normally the realm of art, and not philosophy?"

On one level, yes, K. is directly criticizing abstract systems of philosophy that fail to account for the heart and for spirituality (Descartes, Hegel), which puts him in the same camp as Pascal.

But what I got from reading these first sections is that he is also criticizing conventional understandings of faith. Faith is not easy or simple--it requires that we suspend reason and even human ethics. Faith is a struggle, because it asks us to accept what is absurd and impossible and contradictory.

If I am understanding this correctly, it sounds like the narrator (Johannes, not entirely sure if we can equate him with K.) says that he does not have the perfect faith of Abraham. He profoundly admires Abraham's faith and is both in awe and also a little bit in horror of what it requires.

The variations on the story of A. show all the subtle ways in which such perfect faith could have failed. As children, we can have a simple, trusting faith. He seems to be saying that as we mature, we begin to understand that faith is unreasonable, "mad"; it can even seem immoral. So it becomes a lifelong struggle, to reconcile faith, not only with reason, but with (human) ethics. I wondered if that was what the recurrent motif of the mother weaning the child was about.

While I am not persuaded by any of this, I find it admirable of K. to try and present the struggle of faith in such an honest and deeply thoughtful way.

Another challenge K. presents, and that I also see as a critique of simplistic faith, is that he suggests that the higher form of faith (i.e., Abraham's) cannot find comfort in simply denying the world and hoping that all will be well in the afterlife. No, he says, the highest form of faith accepts all and is prepared to sacrifice all, yet also trusts and hopes for supreme happiness in this life, in this world. Because the absurd is possible and because all things are possible in God. And that leads to the paradox: A. is prepared to sacrifice Isaac, yet never stops believing that God will reconcile everything in the end (in this life).

Just some phrases I thought were significant: "for it is great to give up one's desire, but it is greater to hold fast to it after having given it up." And "But Abraham had faith specifically for this life..."

How can any of this be reconciled to an idea of balance between faith and reason? The narrator admits that the story of Abraham is so paradoxical that it produces a crisis of all of our ethical and religious beliefs: "Anyone who looks upon this scene is paralyzed..."

I don't have any answers; at this point I am only trying to understand what K.'s argument is and what he is trying to do...

Aiden wrote: "I’m appalled by the notion the K believes a man willingly murdering his son because a vision told him to shows supreme virtue, while it shows me a thoroughly immoral and likely mentally ill person, not one to emulate unless you’re a lemming."

This is one of the problem Kierkegaard wanted to solve with this work.

Thomas wrote: "The big question is how it is even possible to explain spirit. Isn't this normally the realm of art, and not philosophy?"

Of Poetry, I believe.

Thomas wrote: “In the western philosophical tradition, dialectic is an exchange of reasoned opinions or arguments in search of the truth. And a lyric is a kind of poem. So is this going to be a poetic kind of argument, rather than a logical one? Or a logical argument in poetic form? Or is "dialectical lyric" a kind of warning that what we are about to read may be somewhat paradoxical? (Or is it perhaps just a joke?)

...

Each story is followed by a metaphor concerning the weaning of a child from its mother. How do these relate to de the variations on the Aqedah story? ”

I wonder if we are meant to decipher the message (I wouldn’t dare call it “Truth” with or without a hat) between the tales: between various versions of the Akedah, between the Akedah and the weaning (and other) tales. So not necessarily by logical argument, “if I can know that I think, then I can know I am.” Not microscopic analysis of the grammar or implications of the Hebrew words, but through perceiving, not necessarily through rational means, but through the effects these tales have on readers, SK could imaginably make us “see” the value or passion or whatever faith entails.

Alexey wrote: "Aiden wrote: "I’m appalled by the notion the K believes a man willingly murdering his son because a vision told him to shows supreme virtue, while it shows me a thoroughly immoral and likely mentally ill person, not one to emulate unless you’re a lemming."

This is one of the problem Kierkegaard wanted to solve with this work. "


And here I am, thinking “you should be appalled and not gloss over it” is itself one of the points.

Lia wrote: "And here I am, thinking “you should be appalled and not gloss over it” is itself one of the points.."

Excellent

Thomas wrote: “ Why would it have been easier for the man to understand the story about Abraham if he had known Hebrew? Is it important that the man is not a thinker? ”

This is what the text says:

“ That man was not a thinker.5 He did not feel any need to [III 62] go beyond faith; he thought that it must be supremely glorious to be remembered as its father, an enviable destiny to possess it, even if no one knew it.
That man was not an exegetical scholar. He did not know Hebrew;if he had known Hebrew, he perhaps would easily have understood the story and Abraham.”

This is Kierkegaard speaking, not JS, right? My immediate response is that SK is being snarky: it’s so reduced into pre-digested knowledge, so readily accepted, the difficulties, the challenge this tale is supposed to offer is lost on the academics, the scholars, the preachers. They drone on and on about it without raised heartbeat, and people are lulled to sleep by it like familiar fairy tales.

BUT, I spent some times trying to read the Bible last year, since I have no biblical studies background, I studied it with a pile of papers and academic press texts and symposiums on any given portion (I never got past Genesis)... my point is, it’s shocking to me how much the academic focus is on how to fill out the text with the vowels, which Hebrew word fits the text better, what are all the associated meanings, what “pun” or double meanings they offer (along side with whether these words implied polytheism...) BTW, this kind of reminds me of Nietzsche’s dismissive jabs at academics in BGE.

I think Hebrew scholars would have been aware of the “breast” puns in the Akedah, and maybe that would have helped readers better understand what is meant to be conveyed by the story... but, this is what puzzles me ... SK tells us JS knows no Hebrew ... but went on to lace his tale with stories of weaning, of blackened breasts...

So I’m kind of confused.

Aiden wrote: "I guess my main problem is that Abraham is held up as the father of faith and thus virtuous, but what kind of virtuous man worships a deity who tells him to murder his son? .."

I think Kierkegaard chose the example of Abraham for precisely the reasons you find it appalling: it highlights the conflict between the ethical and the religious, plus the story is charged with emotion. The conflict is obvious on its face, which prompts many people to simply reject one or the other, either the religious or the ethical, and usually in a passionate way.

And I think his analysis applies to other kinds of faith as well, not just religious faith. (I will do my best to make that argument, anyway.) SK's influence can be found in atheistic existentialism as well as Christian theology, despite his appreciation for the religious.

Thomas wrote: “ I think Kierkegaard chose the example of Abraham for precisely the reasons you find it appalling: it highlights the conflict between the ethical and the religious”

I wonder if this can be mediated at all, and if not, what are the implications for having religious individuals living in ethic-bound communities, and if it can’t be mediated, what is to be done.

I wonder if Kierkegaard would help us think about this.

Alexey wrote: "How can any of this be reconciled to an idea of balance between faith and reason? The narrator admits that the story of Abraham is so paradoxical that it produces a crisis of all of our ethical and religious beliefs: "Anyone who looks upon this scene is paralyzed..."

I enjoyed the rest of your post but I’m also stopping at this question — how can this be reconciled?

Why did SK put John in “the order of silence”? Is it because the conflict rest on something that cannot be spoken, that is beyond human reason, beyond language? If that is the case, why write a novel (this is a novel, right?) about it? Why was the Akedah written in the first place?

Ignacio wrote: "But what I got from reading these first sections is that he is also criticizing conventional understandings of faith. Faith is not easy or simple--it requires that we suspend reason and even human ethics. Faith is a struggle, because it asks us to accept what is absurd and impossible and contradictory. philosophy hasn't done an adequate job of explaining the "spiritual" ..."

Well said.

Why is it immoral to kill one's son? Most people would find it repugnant, but why is it immoral? If I recall correctly, in ancient Roman law a father had the power of life and death over his children. Perhaps it's immoral because it is against God's law. But then if God appear before you face to face and tells you, "Kill your son," what are you to do?

Thomas wrote: "I think Kierkegaard chose the example of Abraham for precisely the reasons you find it appalling: it highlights the conflict between the ethical and the religious, plus the story is charged with emotion. "

Yes, note how SK describes what is at stake for Abraham, the one who must make the decision. If he follows God's command and kills his only son, the promise cannot be fulfilled. He loses his legacy, his immortality. Everything he has lived for -- descendants, a nation, a country of their own, his faith -- turns to dust scattered in the wind. All those years of believing and obeying, leaving his home, traveling here and there, all for naught. Yet if he refuses God's command, the promise is null and void.

Edit: Abraham had a second son, but at Sarah's urging sends him away and, I guess, disowns him.

Roger wrote: "Why is it immoral to kill one's son? Most people would find it repugnant, but why is it immoral? If I recall correctly, in ancient Roman law a father had the power of life and death over his childr..."

Imaginably it’s perceived to be immoral for JS, raised in modern Danish context. The author did explicitly point out he’s not a scholar so historicizing or contextualizing the story is maybe not something we should expect him to do.

I agree with you that in its historical context, child sacrifice as religious ritual was very common, and children were seen as properties of their parents, so the only agent publicly seen as losing anything would seem to be Abraham, and Isaac’s feelings would have been disregarded (and Abraham also drove his other son out into the desert after Isaac was weaned, he did it because Sarah was jealous, presumably he had no reason to expect Ismael to survive, so indirectly killing [exposing] his own children wouldn’t seem particularly objectionable amongst his peers, and especially not to Sarah, anyway.]

But this is not really a story about Abraham, it’s a story about a modern man becoming shocked by the story of Abraham. I don’t know if it’s important in this context to decide whether it’s universally, objectively immoral for fathers to kill their sons.

Roger wrote: "Why is it immoral to kill one's son? Most people would find it repugnant, but why is it immoral? If I recall correctly, in ancient Roman law a father had the power of life and death over his childr..."

I’m atheist, but I still possess a moral code arrived at through study, experience and respect for the rights of every other person. So, yeah, I don’t care about “God’s Law” since I believe he’s a fiction and Ancient Roman law means nothing to me since 1.) I don’t find it very in line with my idea of morality and 2.) I don’t look to any civic laws for my ethical/moral center.

I certainly wouldn’t look to my country’s laws for my morality since it was built on immorality.

Thomas wrote: "I think Kierkegaard chose the example of Abraham for precisely the reasons you find it appalling”

Well, I’m glad to know I’m having the desired reader response, even if it does piss me off in the process. Thanks for the several responses. I look forward to seeing how this relates.

Aiden wrote: "Roger wrote: "I certainly wouldn’t look to my country’s laws for my morality since it was built on immorality..."

I’m not contradicting that and I know this is an apt response to Roger’s post, but I think this is a neat place to point out part of the apparently incommensurable conflict is how or why Abraham stayed silent — his reason for intending to murder his son is not something other people can understand (his relationship to God is personal, private, not in the public domain). So ostensibly he cannot verbalize, make it make sense to, harmonise it with what the public world can understand.

But, realistically, I bet Abraham’s peer can and do and readily understand child sacrifice ...

I think one of the points is that Abraham was wrong from an ethical point of view but that he is right as far God, the absolute, is concerned. Abraham is actually willing to be in the wrong from ethical point of view, by actually lifting the knife with the intention of carrying out the sacrifice, this intention was what was important not the result, he made a leap of faith and had to go no further to please God. He showed his love for God over himself, he expected the impossible, and he struggled with God, bu these acts he became the greatest of all and a knight of faith. He is the definition of living in hope, he is willing to give up what he loved more than God.

Mike wrote: "I think one of the points is that Abraham was wrong from an ethical point of view but that he is right as far God, the absolute, is concerned. Abraham is actually willing to be in the wrong from ethical point of view, by actually lifting the knife with the intention of carrying out the sacrifice, this intention was what was important not the result, he made a leap of faith and had to go no further to please God..."

I agree to a degree, but this seems to be one of the interpretations being partially rejected in one of the alternative scenarios. It’s not that Abraham thinks this is wrong from the ethical POV, he somehow believes this will be made right somehow, even though he can’t comprehend how. I definitely agree he passed over his idea of the ethical, and for the rest of the world who don’t have a relationship to this “god”, this will certainly be judged as an evil act, and his silence seems to suggest he anticipates this, but he still fully trusts it will be made “right” somehow, hence he headed to the sacrificial site with lightness, as opposed to the dread that JS imagines himself would do in his shoes. JS resigns without having faith, Abraham both resigned AND have trust (faith) at the same time. He’s not only willing to give up the most valuable in obedience to God, he didn’t waver and continued to trust and hope.

There's no indication in the text that Abraham thinks that killing his son is ethically wrong.

Roger wrote: "There's no indication in the text that Abraham thinks that killing his son is ethically wrong."

Are you suggesting that "ethical" is a judgement the reader (hearer) of the story places on it, not something inherent in the story itself?

As for perhaps others, the Abraham story was taught to me (simply?) as a story of the Israelite faith's rejection of the child sacrifice still practiced in neighboring tribes/other religious systems.

K, through his spokesperson, seems to invite one to step into the story and view it from there. If that is attempted, what ethical decisions accompany the "role playing"?

Lia wrote: "I think Hebrew scholars would have been aware of the “breast” puns in the Akedah, and maybe that would have helped readers better understand what is meant to be conveyed by the story... "

I wasn't aware of the puns, but it makes sense if the Akedah is a metaphor for weaning. It forces Abraham to make a choice between his two great loves: God and Isaac. He loses either way, but it is going to be his choice alone. God can't help him make this decision; in a sense this is his "weaning" from God. There is no rule to follow here and whatever Abraham's decision is, he alone owns it.

Thomas wrote: "I wasn't aware of the puns, but it makes sense if the Akedah is a metaphor for weaning. It forces Abraham to make a choice between his two great loves: God and Isaac. He loses either way, but it is going to be his choice alone. God can't help him make this decision; in a sense this is his "weaning" from God. There is no rule to follow here and whatever Abraham's decision is, he alone owns it......"

It’s been a year since I did the Biblical deep dive (and I recently lost all my notes in a digital apocalyptic event...) so I could have misremembered, it might not be within Genesis 22, but there are certainly rabbinic / academic efforts to “harmonize” or “rationalize” God’s behavior as unambiguously “good” by reading the breast puns into the Akedah. But why would SK tell us JS knows no Hebrew? It’s almost like he’s deliberately making him ignorant of some of the known wordplays in order to make him stumble or fail to make sense of the weaning narrative.

As well, going through JS’s various Abraham/ weaning scenarios side by side, in every case the weaning tale is “good fortune,” the child had not actually lost the mother; but in each case, Abraham or Isaac have lost something irreplaceable, as though he’s saying “weaning” men from his heavenly father is not comparable to reasonable deceptions that work well in human parent-child relationship.

Not to act like a snobbish Kantian, but if you get the right result (get to keep Issac alive) but for the wrong reasons (intending to kill him), you’re still in the wrong. So for Abraham to deceive Isaac in order to make him have faith in God seems like the wrong kind of faith — he ended up “trusting God” only because dad concealed the nasty bits from him, which ... sounds a lot like what SK is charing modern “birth right” Christians with (a naive, dishonest kind of faith that is only possible through covering up the horror, the horror!)

So I suspect there’s some kind of ironic design in making JS out to be not-a-scholar, to know-no-Hebrew, but then end up doing a detailed side by side comparison of weaning and the Akedah.

Lia wrote: "But why would SK tell us JS knows no Hebrew? ."

I think JS is supposed to be the author of F&T, and he, rather than SK, is the one narrating the story of the man who as a child heard the story of Abraham. My guess is that if "the man" knew Hebrew then he would understand the religious culture and the problem would be resolved as a matter of simple faith or explained away as part of the religious tradition. But JS wants to short circuit the cultural argument so he can present faith as a philosophical problem.

I have been referring to Kierkegaard as the author of F&T, but I should probably be calling him de Silentio. Kierkegaard wrote most of his works under pseudonyms to distance his personal belief from the works. He once said that where he himself stood was between Johannes Climacus and Anti-Cliimacus, two of his other pseudonyms. Needless to say, it's... complicated.

Thomas wrote: "I think JS is supposed to be the author of F&T, and he, rather than SK, is the one narrating the story of the man who as a child heard t..."

This should get on the list of “WCGW if you speed-read tricky text”, I bet Nietzsche the slow-reader has a secret list stashed somewhere :p

BRB, have to reread the whole thing.

Lily wrote: "As for perhaps others, the Abraham story was taught to me (simply?) as a story of the Israelite faith's rejection of the child sacrifice still practiced in neighboring tribes/other religious systems..."

Several years ago I would agree with interpretation you offered totally, now a representation of Akedah, as story about rejection of the child sacrifice, looks for me as out of context (at least Biblical context). Old Testament did not mention the practice of child sacrifice before, but lately has examples of Israelite made child sacrifice (Jephthah) and general idea that the firstborn children belong to God and Levites was their substitution, sacrifice by destroying the entire population etc. so in the composition of the Bible, imo, this story cannot be an allegory for rejection of child sacrifice. However plausible is this representation, for me it looks far-fetched.

Aiden wrote: "I’m atheist, but I still possess a moral code arrived at through study, experience and respect for the rights of every other person. So, yeah, I don’t care about “God’s Law” since I believe he’s a fiction and Ancient Roman law..."

I fear to be rude or oversimplified, but I believe that we can get our moral code from two sources only: the moral code of our social group(s) as it is and the theoretical construction based on some assumptions about humanity and world in general (and as every assumption they are arbitrary by definition). As a rule, every person combines the two, but, in my opinion, the second approach is often just the first in disguise. Generally, the words moral and immoral just mean something that this group of people think to be right and wrong and that changes along with the time, space, social classes, professions, etc. I have not heard that someone found the principle which can help us to sort out the good and bad moral or ethics.

Interesting set of conversations thus far. Thank you to the organizers who started this thread, and to the people who are reading and contributing. Always fascinating to see how people willingly come together over a text.

In his Preface, Johannes de Silentio laments how everything, referring particularly to ideas, has become cheap in his age as if there were a clearance sale going on (sounding somewhat like Razumihin from Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment). He alludes to how certain trends in thought have become fashionable, so much so that many have opted in for those trends without knowing how one is to actually live up to those conclusions (let alone why). One can assume that perhaps this sale of sorts applies to ideas of faith as well, as some commentators in this thread have mentioned how faith has become simplified and cheap.

On the other hand, JS also mentions that people in his age are no longer content with the faith of their ancestors, that they want to go beyond. In fact, his contemporaries wish to start from the point that their ancestors would see as the ideal, and they wish to go beyond that. Plus, they want to accomplish all this within a certain period of time, whereas their ancestors were content with committing their entire lives to that said ideal of faith.

I feel that JS provides proof for both these standpoints in his Prelude when, in talking about the man who wants to meet Abraham, he says: "That man was not a thinker he felt no need of getting beyond faith...that man was not a learned exegete, he didn't know Hebrew, if he had known Hebrew, he perhaps would have easily understood the story and Abraham (38, Walter Lowrie translation).

In short, while everything including faith has become simplistic and devalued, people are also investing more and want more out of faith, as if their expectations were higher in some way. I can appreciate both these stances separately, but together they seem kinda contradictory. And in talking about the man who wants to see Abraham, JS seems to be saying that this man, who is not learned, has a better 'connection' to the faith because he is not trying to go beyond it, as so many learned try to do. So...what, is faith simple now? Or is it that it demands a different faculty than the one also employed in the study of other ideas? Is it more limited than those who wish to go beyond it?

To give him the benefit, I feel like he is saying that faith is at once both simpler and harder. Simpler because it is less mathematical and cannot be pre-planned; harder precisely because of the need to embrace uncertainty. In that case, faith becomes a product not so much of faith, but of free will, of groping in the dark for support. I think Dostoyevsky knew this well.

W. Kaufmann, in his lecture on Kierkegaard, mentioned, that K. in his writings addressed only danish Lutheran and showed hardly any acquaintance with other protestant denominations, all the more with other confessions. Commentaries to the edition, I am reading now, also suggest that Kierkegaard relation with the Church play a significant role in his philosophy. It also suggests that he wanted to reject Lutheran (neo)orthodoxy and return to Luther's original evangelical tradition. Particularly, he was interested in Luther's interpretation of the 'Sola Fide' principle, which was rather different from what the philosopher saw in the contemporary Church and society.

I think that this rather important to remember that Kierkegaard wrote not for general humanity but for very specific people among whom he lived. The same Kaufmann after spent a lot of time on that peculiarity of Kierkegaard, then without any hesitation claimed as a drawback that his philosophy applied to a different religion/tradition could lead to a drastic effect. But as I understand the reasoning if we know that thinker used some assumptions, we do not expecting that his ideas would work if the situation is different from these assumptions. So it looks like, if for one Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Sola Gratia, Solus Christus, Soli Deo Gloria are just empty Latin words than Kierkegaard would speak a foreign language. But maybe it is the same problem as with knowing Hebrew...

Thomas wrote: "It forces Abraham to make a choice between his two great loves: God and Isaac. He loses either way, but it is going to be his choice alone......"

But isn’t the point that there is no choice to make?

We are told Abraham was a man of faith. His faith transcends his “earthly understanding.”

. . . he left his earthly understanding behind and took faith with him—otherwise he would not have wondered forth but would have thought this unreasonable.

We are told he continues to believe “that in his seed all races of the world would be blessed” in spite of the fact he is old and his wife is past child-bearing. His faith defies logic. It transcends reason. His faith tells him if God wills it, it will happen even though it makes no earthly sense.

And when the promise is fulfilled with the birth of Isaac, Abraham “accepted it by faith . . .”

So when he is told to sacrifice his son, he doesn’t say this makes no sense. He doesn’t ask how can I be the father of a nation when I have been told to sacrifice my son? He has faith.

Yet Abraham believed and did not doubt, he believed the preposterous.

As a person of faith, he views himself as an instrument of God who has to do God’s bidding. There is no choice about it. God tells him this will happen. And he believes it will happen. God tells him do this. And he does.

His actions only make sense within the context of his faith, his belief in the existence of God.

I just read the Preface, will get to the other 2 sections this week. In this section, I gravitated to a couple of things:

First, he says this is his personal story. He's not laying out a manual for how to think, he's saying he achieve what others would consider mastery, but was still full of doubts. He seems to link this to the ancient Greek philosophers, who took on doubt as a lifelong project.

Faith also used to be a lifelong project. He seems to think everyone around him has faith now, but it's a starting point, whereas before it was the challenge to keep it.

Finally, I like the part where he says how writers in his time needed to be entertaining so you'd leaf through it next to the fire, but he expects everyone will leave his book on the shelf, unread.

Tamara wrote: "His actions only make sense within the context of his faith, his belief in the existence of God."

And that God will do as promised?

Lily wrote: "Tamara wrote: "His actions only make sense within the context of his faith, his belief in the existence of God."

And that God will do as promised?"

Abraham's faith (as the story was written) wasn't the faith in the existence of God but in his truthfulness beyond doubts. Indeed, in Abraham's case doubting the existence of God would be a delusion.

I've started on this as well--I've only read the Preface and the Prelude, and I want to read them again this morning before going on.

What struck me as sort of peculiar in the preface was the apparent contradiction between doubt and faith. In these sections Johann sounds very sarcastic to me--"What those ancient Greeks (who also had some understanding of philosophy) regarded as a task for a whole lifetime..."--doubt--"...that is where everyone begins in our time."

But then, with no kind of connection to lead into the change, he nearly repeats himself verbatim when talking about the former difficulty in acquiring faith, and "where these revered figures arrived, that is the point where everybody in our day begins to go further."

I've been trying to reconcile these passages in my mind. First off, because of the sarcasm, I do not think that Johann actually believes anyone from his present time has actually arrived at the points the ancient Greeks or the revered figures of faith managed to get to. The people of the present time just think they have. And thus they are trying to go further--past doubt and past faith.

Second, I'm trying to wrap my head around what he may mean when he says that everyone is trying to go beyond doubt and everyone is trying to go beyond faith. In my mind, I think of these things as mutually exclusive. Is this more sarcasm then? Overall, I get the sense that he is saying people of his time really haven't looked close enough at doubt or faith--they're trying to run before they can walk.

Right after the doubt and faith question, he claims he is no philosopher, and that he does not understand the System. I'm not sure what he means by that--The System--unless it was a kind of au courant grand unified theory of everything that, again with sarcasm, Johann seems to be poking fun at. Some of my endnotes suggest that there was contemporary figure that Johan was specifically targeting with some of this, but I don't want to bring in outside sources yet.

Well...thanks for your patience--just writing some of this out kind of helped me get a better handle on this section.

Alexey wrote: "I fear to be rude or oversimplified, but I believe that we can get our moral code from two sources only: the moral code of our social group(s) as it is and the theoretical construction based on some assumptions about humanity and world in general (and as every assumption they are arbitrary by definition)."

So, in your view, morality is not a definite thing where killing and stealing are immoral behavior, but rather one’s behavior is moral or immoral depending on its compliance with social/cultural norms to that person’s time and place? To me, this renders the word morality meaningless as the words “justice system.”

Socrates described philosophy as “learning how to die” because he believed the reason we’re in this life is to be tested by the gods. I believe it’s the study of how to view and treat the world and others in it. Cultural norms can change over time, but if you judge what is moral by cultural norms, then genocide, slavery and all manner of horrible things throughout history are considered to have been moral simply because their community agreed?

Socrates, Jesus Christ, the Buddha, Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr. All lived in very different cultures with very different norms. I would argue all had solid moral foundations, not because they followed the norms of their individual cultures (they famously did not), but because they preached love, fairness, compassion: moral behavior.

Alexey wrote: "Abraham's faith (as the story was written) wasn't the faith in the existence of God but in his truthfulness beyond doubts...."

I'm sorry, Alexey, but I'm not sure I understand the distinction you're making. I think you're saying Abraham's faith was not only belief in the existence of God but also a belief in God's truthfulness.

Did I understand you correctly?

Bryan "They call me the Doge" wrote: "Overall, I get the sense that he is saying people of his time really haven't looked close enough at doubt or faith--they're trying to run before they can walk."

This is the impression I got as well. Sort of like JS or SK (or both?) is saying that people are in such a hurry to understand more than they did in the past that they skip the crucial learning steps and just take the old teachings arrived at through careful study as “givens” that need no further thought. But in doing that, they devalue the worth of studying and coming to understanding of the fundamentals of what they considered faith.

After reading comments in here, I’m not sure yet if these thoughts are genuine or meant sarcastically/ironically.

Tamara wrote: "Thomas wrote: "It forces Abraham to make a choice between his two great loves: God and Isaac. He loses either way, but it is going to be his choice alone......"

But isn’t the point that there is no choice to make?."

That is the common reading of the Scripture, but it's exactly what Kierkegaard is fighting against: simple faith, which makes Abraham a kind of religious automaton. To be a "hero," Abraham has to have a choice, and he has to struggle with the immense anxiety of choosing between God the Absolute, and Isaac, the gift of the Absolute, who means everything in this world to him. He has to enter the struggle with God and choose between an infinite everything and a finite everything. Otherwise he is no hero, he is just a follower doing what he's told.

Ali wrote: "In his Preface, Johannes de Silentio laments how everything, referring particularly to ideas, has become cheap in his age as if there were a clearance sale going on (sounding somewhat like Razumihin from Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment)."

Nice connection, Ali, and welcome to the discussion. If you recently joined the group you can tell us a little about yourself in the Introductions thread:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

We read Crime and Punishment here a while back, and while F&T is a different sort of book I think there is definitely a thematic connection between them.

Thomas wrote: "To be a "hero," Abraham has to have a choice, and he has to struggle with the immense anxiety of choosing between God the Absolute, and Isaac, the gift of the Absolute, who means everything in this world to him...."

But isn't the struggle a precursor to his faith? Can Abraham's struggle lie in his choice to believe or not believe. But once he has faith and has chosen to believe, isn't his struggle over?

Or is Kierkegaard suggesting Abraham's struggle lies in implementing his faith?

Maybe I'm thinking of Abraham's faith as an absolute. But maybe there are degrees of faith, in which case the weaker the faith, the greater the struggle.

Bryan "They call me the Doge" wrote: "Second, I'm trying to wrap my head around what he may mean when he says that everyone is trying to go beyond doubt and everyone is trying to go beyond faith. In my mind, I think of these things as mutually exclusive. Is this more sarcasm then?.."

It is sarcasm, and it's directed at his contemporaries. I think it would be distracting to look in detail at the philosophical "scene" he was ridiculing but it's enough to know that they believed that everything from science to religion could be encapsulated and expressed in a logical system. Kierkegaard thought this was a cheapening of the human spirit, hence the clearance sale.