Fear And Trembling Kierkegaard

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In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard discusses the relationship between faiths and ethics based on the biblical story of the sacrifice of Isaac at God’s behest, the son he has waited so long to have. Going against Kant’s universal-ethical position, Kierkegaard suggests that there are higher duties, which surpasses all forms of human morality. This raises a controversial question of whether there is teleological suspension of the ethical. In the story, God tests Abraham’s faith and command him to sacrifice his firstborn son Isaac, an action that we would ethnically label murder. It is important that we first distinguish the differences between faiths and ethics. In the story of Abraham, faith is equates to the obedience of God’s commands. God’s…show more content…
Similarly, the criteria that Kant uses Religion to distinguish his moral in religion from superstition in religious delusion. Kant clearly drew his boundaries and states “apart from good life-conduct, anything which the human being supposes that he can do to become well-pleasing to God is mere religious delusion and counterfeit service of God” (Kant 166). Thus, if Kant were to consider the situation that Kierkegaard is in, he would not act the same way in surpassing morality. In Kantian’s view, it doesn’t matter if Abraham is commanded by God to kill his son, the command could never be the divine of origin, as it will go against the rational conception of human morality. While Kant might argue for the Universalist ethic, Kierkegaard presents his paradox of faith that surpasses all forms of…show more content…
However, if we deny that Abraham’s act as insane or murderer, then faith can represent exception that cannot be measured by ethical standards. Abraham acts on the strength of the absurd and his story reveals much suspicion of the ethical. Being an individual higher than the universal and before God, perhaps there is no terms that can explain his paradox. If Abraham ever attempts to find an explanation, that is feeling “an urge to assert his particularity, he is in the state of temptation,” (p.62) Abraham then would have never sacrificed Isaac, or he would have become a murderer repentant before the
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