The Faith of Abraham and the Nature of the Paradox

The Faith of Abraham and the Nature of the Paradox

“But there was no one who could understand Abraham. And yet what did he achieve? He remained true to his love. But anyone who loves God needs no tears, no admiration; he forgets the suffering in the love. Indeed, so completely has he forgotten it that there would not be the slightest trace of his suffering left if God himself did not remember it, for he sees in secret and recognizes distress and counts the tears and forgets nothing.

Thus, either there is a paradox, that the single individual as the single individual stands in absolute relation to the absolute, or Abraham is lost.”(Kierkegaard 120)

We in modernity tend to look upon the story of Abraham and the near sacrifice of Isaac with admiration. But we don’t know why. What do we find so admirable about a man who, without remorse, without protest, without question, without guilt, without disclosure, takes his beloved son, rides with him to a mountain, raises his knife to end his son’s life, only to be stopped by an angel? Furthermore, why do we then bestow upon Abraham the moniker of “father of faith”? Is this not a man who nearly killed his own son, not for the common good, not so much as for his son’s own good, but for his own sake? If we say that we admire Abraham because of his unwavering faith in God, what does this mean? Is it not easy to acquire such a faith? Indeed, how difficult is it to have faith? How is Abraham capable of fulfilling his duty to God, to an extent that he is willing to sacrifice his own son as a sign of ultimate faith? What are we to think of a God who demands such an act? And how is it that Abraham, a man who loved his son more than himself, proceeded to fulfill his duty to God, without so much as faltering a single step? How is such a faith possible and why has faith become a challenging task to understand in modernity?

We admire Abraham precisely because we cannot understand him. We cannot understand what he possibly could have gone through after God commanded him to sacrifice his beloved son, a son that God had earlier blessed him with against all possibility. Certainly we want to understand. We ponder about what we were to do if we were in the shoes of Abraham. We ponder his relationship with God, and how it is possible that one man could hold such great faith in the face of such a dire circumstance. Never before have we seen anything like Abraham.

But for the same reasons, we choose to vilify Abraham. Because we cannot understand his actions, we cannot mediate them. That is, it is beyond our human capacities to understand what exactly Abraham went through. As such, it becomes extremely difficult to look upon Abraham with admiration. He had an ethical duty to love his son more than he loved himself, but his actions broke the ethical code. In human law, anybody that acts in opposition to the ethical must be punished. Murder is murder, whether it is done with waveringly or methodically. Are we right in demanding Abraham to be put on trial for his actions? Is this a selfish act of a single- minded individual, or is this an act of supreme faith? According to most theologians, Abraham’s case is the latter.

Yet, as Kierkegaard writes, we in modernity are unwilling to stop with faith, but go further. He writes,

“It perhaps would be rash to ask where they are going, whereas it is a sign of urbanity and culture for me to assume that everyone has faith, since otherwise it certainly would be odd to speak of going further. It was different in the ancient days. Faith was then a task for a whole lifetime…” (Kierkegaard 7)

Our mistake in understanding faith, Kierkegaard believes, is in our fundamental understanding of the nature of faith. We in the modern world tend to be Hegelian in our thinking; we believe that faith is something that is easily attained and that must be moved beyond, perhaps, to philosophy. But as he himself notes, Kierkegaard has a much easier time understanding the philosophy of Hegel than understanding Abraham. What we do not understand is that faith is a journey. Analogous to Abraham’s silent three day journey to Mount Moriah, faith is a silent journey of the individual. It is not communal but rather, individual. This is precisely why we cannot understand Abraham; we live as the communal, and as Kierkegaard notes, as the universal. He writes,

“The ethical as such is the universal, and as the universal it applies to everyone, which from another angle means it applies at all times… Faith is namely this paradox that the single individual as the single individual is higher than the universal.” (p. 54, 55)

The paradox, needless to say, is challenging to the human mind. How is it possible for one to assert his individuality above the universal, that is to say, above the ethical? If one is able to transcend the ethical, then what is the point of the ethical?

In the context of humanity, one’s absolute duty, Kierkegaard writes, is to the universal. He must surrender his individuality in order for the common good. But as noted earlier, Abraham did not sacrifice Isaac for the common good. Had he done this, we might be able to cry for him as we cry for Agamemnon, or Jephtah, or Brutus, who killed their children in order to achieve the common good. They are the tragic heroes, and thus, Kierkegaard notes, we are able to empathize. We cannot cry for Abraham, because we cannot understand him. We cannot empathize, because his story is a story of silence. Unlike the tragic heroes, Abraham does not ask for our tears. Thus, in our minds he has committed a grave injustice against the ethical. Kierkegaard, however, does not see it this way. Abraham does not descend below the ethical; rather, he transcends it.

We must further understand the nature of the ethical before we attempt to understand Abraham. For Kierkegaard, the ethical as the universal traces its goodness back to God. For example, in Problema II, he writes,

“The ethical as such is the universal, and as such it is also the divine. Thus it is proper to say that every duty is essentially duty to God, but if no more can be said than this, then it is also said that I actually have no duty to God. The duty becomes duty by being traced back to God, but in the duty itself I do not enter in relation to God.” (p. 68)

In other words, one’s duty to the ethical finds its roots in God; however, one’s duty to the ethical is not necessarily a duty to God. As is discovered in the case of Abraham, one’s duty to God may run in opposition of his duty to the ethical. Despite being tempted to fulfill the ethical, Abraham must rise above and transcend it, to regain his status as the single individual.

How then, is it possible to transcend the ethical? By virtue of what, are we allowed to regain the individuality which we surrendered to the universal? Throughout the text, Kierkegaard hints at, but never explicitly dictates, three ways of life, and how one makes movements between these phases, a process known as the dialectic of faith. The single individual as the single individual, who lives in accordance with his desires and opinions, lives in the realm of the aesthetic. Through a process of infinite resignation, the single individual surrenders his individuality to the universal and becomes one with the universal. It is at this point in which one’s duty becomes a duty to the ethical. Normally, this is where the limits of humanity end. However, Abraham moves beyond this. By transcending the aesthetic, he has become the universal. He has resigned all that he holds dear. Once he is in the realm of the ethical, however, he makes another movement. Through this movement, he gains back that which he surrendered, by virtue of a “leap of faith” into the absurd. It is precisely because of this leap of faith that the seemingly impossible faith that Abraham possesses shows itself to be possible, and thus he regains the individuality that was lost. Now as the single individual, Abraham has reasserted himself above the universal.

Kierkegaard refers to this mystical realm of the divine as “absurd” because it is beyond human mediation. Not a soul can understand Abraham’s faith. In fact, Abraham himself does not completely understand the object of his faith. Perhaps this is why we in modernity tend to doubt the merits of faith. We cannot reason with faith. We have seemingly no basis for a rational belief. Yet because of this faith, Abraham comes to love God, struggle with God, and expect the impossible (p. 16). Whereas others do not expect the impossible, because it is considered “unreasonable” (p. 17), Abraham expects the impossible. That is, despite the fact that God’s command for human sacrifice runs contrary to reason and to the ethical, Abraham expects to be redeemed in this life. But this redemption can happen only in the context of the relationship between Abraham and God. There is no use in trying to justify Abraham’s actions before a human jury because, in fact, it is not possible. Abraham’s actions can only be justified before the absolute, that is, before God. The only way in which one can enter into a direct relation to this absolute is through a surrendering of knowledge, because in the individual’s relationship with God, one knows nothing but at once knows everything.

The problem with faith is not a matter about the nature of it; rather, Kierkegaard seems to be suggesting that the problem of faith lies within humans’ perception of it, or rather, the lack of ability to perceive it. The problem in the story of Abraham lies not with Abraham, nor with God, but with the rest of us. Abraham, precisely because of his relationship with God, knows that God is love. He has faith that God is indeed good, and that he will be redeemed in this life. We might tend to think that because Abraham does not have proof of his relationship with God, his faith is irrational. But proof, in the empirical sense of the word, only offers itself up to human understanding. We can only “prove” things insomuch that our capacity for reason can understand and conceptualize them. Faith, however, cannot be conceptualized. Faith is the divine language spoken between the individual and God (p.114) and thus, as we see with Abraham, cannot be communicated. We thus think faith is either easy to attain, or non-existent. For Kierkegaard, it is neither. Faith is a task for a lifetime.

We question as to why Abraham seemingly did not suffer through this ordeal. Certainly, it must be the most extreme and horrifying circumstance imaginable. So why doesn’t he suffer? Indeed, because God’s love, the love that Abraham has such great faith in, overcomes the suffering. Abraham knows that God demands nothing but love, and as such, he knew all along that God would return Isaac to him. In a world overcome with scientifically positivist tendencies, we want look for concrete, empirical evidence that God’s love exists; however, we cannot find it. It is only between the single individual, as the single individual, and God himself where that evidence is found. By virtue of the absurd, the unknowable, unquantifiable, mystical realm of human experience, Abraham finds his faith in God’s love, and thus, he is not lost.