Soren Kierkegaard once wrote about himself, saying “Once I am dead, Fear and Trembling alone will be enough for an imperishable name as an author” (Kierkegaard's Papirer). Undoubtedly one of his most popular works, it is no surprise he could foresee the endless amount of philosophical discussion that could spawn from his analysis of the binding of Isaac. Fear and Trembling acts as an adequate summation of Kierkegaard's overall impact as a writer and a thinker because it has so many qualities that are unique to the Danish philosopher, such as the origins of existentialist thought, the cunning use of pseudonyms, and the open disdain for Hegelian philosophy. Yet despite all of these immortal characteristics of this ‘dialectical lyric,' perhaps the most important aspect of this work is the fact that it directly attempts to explicate the difference between faith-based ethics and the ethics of reason.
[...] Jean Paul Sartre sums this up fittingly in his discourse on existential atheism: If an angel appears to me, what is the proof that it is an angel; or, if I hear voices, who can prove that they proceed from heaven and not from hell? (Sartre, 213) Some scholars, such as Emmanuel Levinas, have argued that Kierkegaard is promoting religious violence. Levinas says that the Kierkegaard has created a loophole for Abraham that allows for murder to be morally justified: Kierkegaardian violence begins when existence is forced to abandon the ethical stage in order to embark on the religious stage, the domain of belief. [...]
[...] Faith is not black and white, true or false. Beneath the argument about ethics versus faith, there is a deeper conversation about what knowledge, truth, and reality actually are. Because we cannot fully answer these questions, there is no way that we can somehow expect an expansion of this incomplete logic to apply on a universal, absolute level, such as what Hegel was working to accomplish. “What is truth?” asks Pilate, before washing his hands of the pursuit of it. [...]
[...] Silent sets out to exposit monstrous paradox which is the significance of his (Abraham's) (FT 58) and he shows how this paradox of faith can invert every single intuition we hold in regards to normative ethics. The writer is able to turn many of the traditional, systematic ideas from ethical discourse on their head merely by appealing to the logic (or lack thereof) involved in Abraham's actions. Because the writer speaks directly to his audience at many points throughout the writing, and because he often refers to other philosophers and thinkers that were familiar to readers of his particular time, it is usually helpful when reading this work, to have a strong understanding of the philosophy of ethics and where the author fits into the general scheme of this discussion. [...]
[...] This is where Silentio begins to break down the difference between a rational belief and a faith based belief, the latter being based on the absurd notion that the believer will be rewarded somehow for their actions. Despite claiming to be unable to understand the faith of Abraham and having nothing at all to say about it, Silentio is able to shed some light on the subject merely through comparing and contrasting him with the Knight of Infinite Resignation and also by analyzing his actions through Hegel's system. [...]
[...] Silentio decides that Abraham must have “overstepped the ethical altogether, and had a higher telos outside of and he begins to exposit the perspective of Abraham as being guided by the religious sphere and what seems to be a blind faith in God. There are aspects of this work that seem to promote religious violence, or violence that has been ordained by God. Although this analysis does seem to have the characteristics of a system of ethics that defies rational judgment and strictly relies on a divine-command theory of justice, Silentio is able to show why Abraham's actions are not merely to be considered murder in the name of God. [...]
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