Writing under the pseudonym of "Johannes de Silentio," Kierkegaard discusses the
story from the Bible, Genesis 22:1-18, of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice
Isaac. For this deed, Abraham is normally acknowledged as the father of
faith, but in this day and age, Johannes remarks, no one is content with
faith. Everyone thinks that they can begin with faith and go further.
In the "Exordium" and "Eulogy on Abraham," Johannes suggests how
incomprehensible Abraham's faith is. Abraham didn't question God, didn't
complain or weep, he didn't explain himself to anyone, he simply obeyed God's
orders. The Exordium presents us with four alternative paths that Abraham could
have taken, all of which might have rendered Abraham more understandable, but
would make him something less than the father of faith. The eulogy asserts that
there is no way we can understand Abraham, or what he did.
Johannes distinguishes between the tragic hero, who expresses the
ethical, and the knight of faith, who expresses the religious. The
tragic hero gives up everything in the movement of infinite resignation, and
in so doing expresses the universal. The knight of faith also makes the
movement of infinite resignation, but he makes another movement as well, the
leap of faith, where he gets everything back by virtue of the absurd.
While the tragic hero is universally admired and wept for, no one can understand
the knight of faith. Johannes sets up three "problemata" to draw out this
distinction.
The first problema begins with the Hegelian assertion that the ethical is the
universal, and that it is the telos for everything outside itself.
According to the ethical, what Abraham attempted was murder: his sacrifice
cannot be understood in terms of the universal. Thus, he suggests, there must
be a teleological suspension of the ethical. Abraham suspended his
obligation to the universal to fulfill his higher duty to God.
The second problema suggests that, contrary to Kantian ethics, there is an
absolute duty to God. Abraham by-passed all his ethical obligations to perform
what God asked of him directly. As a result, he was constantly tempted by
the ethical, but held fast.
The third problema provides hints as to why Abraham did not disclose his
undertaking to anyone. Disclosure is associated with the universal and
hiddenness with the single individual. Abraham acted as a single
individual, isolated from the universal, and as such his actions could not be
explained or disclosed.
Johannes concludes by pointing out that faith requires passion, and passion is
not something we can learn. We have to experience it ourselves, or else we do
not understand it at all.
