Zeal For Truth

Previously, I have outlined Kierkegaard’s idea of the suspension of universal ethics for duty towards God. This was then contrasted with the tragic hero who remains in the universal ethic. The Knight of Faith is wholly unique from other humans because of the paradox of faith. The Knight of Faith is absolutely different from mankind. Now, we take a more in-depth look at the character and actions of the Knight of Faith (KoF). For the KoF, submitting to the universal ethic is glorious because it is understandable. It also brings security. Yet the KoF foregos that for duty towards God, something not understandable and against the universal ethic. Duty towards God makes the universal ethic mere temptations for the KoF. For Abraham “could surely have wished now and then that the task were to love Isaac as becomes a father, in a way intelligible to all, memorable throughout all ages; he could wish that the task were to sacrifice Isaac for the universal, that he might incite the fathers to illustrious deeds — and he is almost terrified by the thought that for him such wishes are only temptations and must be dealt with as such, for he knows that it is a solitary path he treads and that he accomplishes nothing for the universal but only himself is tried and examined” (Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, 66). None of Abraham’s actions here was for the universal ethic. Abraham’s action does not save the state, his family, or the universal ethic. Would he not be considered mad? After 130 years, Abraham finally gets a son and then goes to sacrifice the boy! Abraham doesn’t explain why he must do these things, only that it is a trial. His actions never become available for public scrutiny.
The KoF is absolutely different from others: “So the knight of faith has first and foremost the requisite passion to concentrate upon a single factor the whole of the ethical which he transgresses, so that he can give himself the assurance that he really loves Isaac with his whole soul. If he cannot do that, he is in temptation” (Kierkegaard, F&T, 68). Furthermore, the KoF has “enough passion to make this assurance available in the twinkling of an eye and in such a way that is completely valid as it was in the first instance” (Kierkegaard, F&T, 68). He is also alone and without support of the universal ethic. Lastly, the KoF is silent to the ethical. Having accepted the paradox, Abraham does not speak to Sarah, Eleazar, or to Isaac–three ethical authorities; this is because “the ethical had for Abraham no higher expression than the family life” (Kierkegaard, F&T, 100). The KoF already understood the universal ethic and knew that his actions would transgress such ethics. Abraham cannot be an aesthetic hero because the aesthetic hero is such by an accident; there is no accident in God’s directive to Abraham. Abraham cannot be a tragic hero either because a tragic hero sacrifices all of himself in order to reveal his pledge to the universal ethic; Abraham, on the other hand, does nothing for the universal and remains concealed to it. Abraham can only be a KoF, in paradox: “Either the individual as the individual is able to stand in an absolute relation to the absolute (and then the ethical is not the highest) /or Abraham is lost–he is neither a tragic hero, nor an aesthetic hero” (Kierkegaard, F&T, 100). Unlike the aesthetic hero who can speak, Abraham cannot. Abraham cannot make his position any more understandable if he were to speak for days on end uninterrupted. He is unable to find relief in the universal. And this is where the second movement brings Abraham into faith. The first movement was that of infinite resignation–that of giving up the universal ethic (see part 1). The second movement is that of the absurd. Abraham finds comfort in the absurd by saying “But yet this will not come to pass, or, if it does come to pass, then the Lord will give me a new Isaac” (Kierkegaard, F&T, 102). The Knight of Faith, when seen from the perspective of the universal ethic, is a fool. He transgresses the ethical for some duty to something higher than the universal, is unintelligible, and finds comfort in the very thing leading him to break the universal ethic.

It seems that the word “faith” is used in many ways today. Some use it to refer to religious tradition in general. Others use it to refer to some kind of mystic spirituality. Neither of those really explain what it is. Kierkegaard thinks of faith as “infinitely and personally and passionately interested on behalf of his own eternal happiness for his relationship to this truth” (Concluding Unscientific Postscript, 23). For Kierkegaard, it is faith and only faith that allows inspiration to arise. What can we define as this kind of faith? I believe we, like Kierkegaard, can find this answer in the character of Abraham.

The story of Abraham can be lengthy, but Kierkegaard hones in on one in particular: God’s test at Mount Moriah. God tells Abraham to take his son (Isaac for Jews and Christians, Ishmael for Muslims), go to a mountain, and sacrifice him. In his Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard looks at some of the different aspects of the story: could this be a suspension of human ethics? Kierkegaard defines the ethical as the universal law of conduct. If this is the case, then faith is the paradox “that the particular is higher than the universal” (Fear and Trembling, 46). Because of this, one cannot see Abraham as a tragic hero because in the end, the ethical wins. The tragic hero remains in the ethical. Tragic heroes may perform the actions like Abraham had to (e.g. Agamemnon, Brutus), but they remain situated in their duty to the universal. The tragic hero does not perform from a duty to something higher than the universal. We are left with two choices before the end of Abraham’s story: “either Abraham was every minute a murderer, or we are confronted by a paradox which is higher than all mediation” (F&T, 56).

Abraham was a knight of faith, not a tragic hero. One can become the latter by one’s own power and many can give that one counsel. No one can understand the knight of faith because faith is, ultimately, a miracle. Faith is not a tragedy.