In Fear and Trembling Kierkegaard argues for the importance of faith and the way in which it has been reduced to a diluted, cheapened form, making it something people think is easy to have. Thus he offers the story of Abraham and Isaac, and suggests the inverse through it: that doubting and knowledge is easy -- anyone can doubt -- whereas faith is one of the most difficult qualities to develop. This because faith involves a paradox, that is, something singular that cannot be communicated logically because it cannot make use of universals. The story of Abraham and Isaac, then, involves the most unequivocal paradox and therefore exemplifies faith. At the moment that Abraham is about to slay Isaac, he believes with all his being two contradictory things: that Isaac will and will not die, that God has both kept and broken his promise. Faith involves the teleological suspension of the ethical, as is illustrated in this emblematic example, because Abraham's experience is a singularity and therefore moves above the ethical (because it exists in the realm of universals). In this way, Kierkegaard suggests the limits of philosophy and the way in which it fails to capture the unsayable, irrational, unmediatable, and singular that is found in faith. Philosophy is unable to appreciate the formidable and unreaceable nature of faith in other words.
While I think I am able to brush the contours of understanding here, I am unable to understand how this argument can be applied practically. If the irrationality and singularity of faith is applied in practice, it seems to involve worrying repercussions, and I can't seem to see beyond these consequences. Maybe it wasn't Kierkegaard's aim for it to be applied practically, but surely he wanted faith to be something that is adopted, or rather taken up as "a task for a whole lifetime" (Kierkegaard 23). If this is the case, then how would Kierkegaard respond to cases in which people literally emulate the story of Issac and Abraham, except without the happy ending? This is no insignificant worry, for there have been instances of exactly this. A few years ago I read an article about a mother who drowned her four kids, claiming that God had told her to do it. There seems to be a whole collection of reports on this; here is a link to a similar article http://articles.cnn.com/2004-04-03/justice/children.slain_1_deanna-laney-jury-rules-god?_s=PM:LAW.
How are these examples any different from the story of Abraham, except that 'God' allowed them to go through with the murders? Surely, then, by Kierkegaard's logic, these murderous mothers are even better exemplifications of faith, because they actually had to go through with the murder. Why are these mothers categorised as insane, while Abraham is considered the "father of faith"? For there is no way to show that these women didn't actually hear God, in the same way that there was no way to prove that God ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son. Like Abraham, in fact, these women satisfy the fundamental characteristic of faith: the belief in the proof of things that can't be proved.
In brief, I find the irrationality and incommunicability of faith extremely disturbing. It seems to me like a facade behind which to hide, but maybe that is because I have been sold the 'cheap' version of faith and I'm entangled in and too attached to universals. But even if this is so, Kierkegaard's assertion that faith transcends the ethical realm (because of its dependence on universals) and therefore that it suspends the ethical, seems to result in horrific actions such as the ones mentioned above. What good is Kierkegaard doing then? What is his aim? Because to me all it seems to do is exonerate or excuse these people when they are insane and in fact the need help. I am open to anyone showing me that I have completely missed the point!
To him who looks upon the world rationally, the world looks rationally back. ~~G.W.F. Hegel
I don't think that Kierkegaard is necessarily advocating anything in particular. He is not, as far as I can determine, saying that people ought or ought not be faithful; he is merely remarking at the overly simplistic conception of faith that has been culturally cultivated.
ReplyDeletePerhaps it is because I've always conceived of Kierkegaard as a highly religious man that I assumed his writings were directed towards advocating Christianity and providing people with a more sturdy or grounded outlook on it. I was therefore under the impression that he was arguming for a 'expensive' approach to faith, and actually wanted people to follow it. I see now that this may have been quite a naive perspective. I do, think, however, that in many ways Kiekegaard characterises Abraham as a figure to look up to -- he is the "father of faith after all. For example, Kierkegaad exclaims that "Abraham was greater than all, great by reason of his power whose strength is impotence, great by his reason of his wisdom whose secret is foolishness, great by reason of his hope whose form is madness, great by reason of his hope whose form is madness, great by reason of the love which is hatred of oneself" (Kiekegaard 31). Though it is true that this is one long string of paradoxes, the fact that Abraham is made "great" by this is, to me, disturbing. For would the mother who murders all her childrem be charactersied as "great", even outside the ethical sphere?
Deleteyou say that "these murderous mothers are even better exemplifications of faith, because they actually had to go through with the murder." I disagree with this analysis. What makes Abraham the knight of faith is the fact that he is willing to kill Isaac, yet still believes that Isaac will live. If the mothers who kill their children do so 'because God told her' then she in fact give an account of her actions (or at least does so, regardless of whether they are good reasons or not). It seems to me like these women are NOT the knight of faith because they don't believe the paradox in the way Abraham does. Do the mothers believe that they will both kill and not kill their children? Or are they simply infinitely resigning themselves to the fact that God's will is higher than theirs and they must obey.
ReplyDeleteI really like thinking about this idea of, if we were to encounter an Abraham-like story today, how would we react? How would we treat the person claiming to have a demand from God... and I'm wondering if there is a better example to work with than mothers killing children. I know that there is the same element of parent/child but not all children are what Isaac was to Abraham. I'm just thinking that maybe there is a better example to use in this conversation... but I can't think of anything examples off the top of my head that don't have obvious self-interest behind them... anyone?
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