It was early in the morning, everything was ready for the journey in Abraham's house. So there was strife in the world, man against man, one against thousands, but he who contended with God was greater than all. By faith, Abraham left the land of his fathers and became a stranger in the promised land.
There was also someone in the world who lived in exile from the homeland he loved. Abraham grew old, Sarah became a laughing stock in the land, and yet he was God's chosen one and heir to the promise that in his seed all the races of the world would be blessed. But Abraham believed just before this life that he would grow old in the land, honored by the people, blessed in his generation.
He would have been admired in the world, and his name would not have been forgotten.
Fear and Trembling by Søren Kierkegaard
Preliminary Expectoration
He believed because of the absurd; because it could not be about man. He believed because of the absurd; for all human reckoning had long since ceased. Man can discover nothing of that remote and superior nature by which man knows the rider of the infinite.
It is not so with the knight of infinite resignation: he does not give up his love, not for all the glory of the world. For the knight does not contradict himself, and it is a contradiction to forget the whole content of your life and yet remain. Spiritually speaking, everything is possible, but in the world of the finite there is much that is not possible.
On the other hand, he has no need of the intervention of the finite for the further growth of his love. But by faith, says that wonderful knight, by faith I will take her on account of the absurd. The comic contradiction in the orator's behavior is that he reduced Abraham to insignificance, and yet would admonish the other to behave in the same way.
Problem One: Is There Such a Thing as a Teleological
Suspension of the Ethical?
Problem Two: Is There Such a Thing as an Absolute Duty
Therefore, in the ethical way of understanding life, it is the duty of the individual to give up internal determinants and express them in an external way. When one does this, it is ridiculous to deny that faith has existed in all ages. This paradox does not allow mediation, because it is based precisely on the fact that the individual is only the individual.
On the other hand, he is not a knight of faith, and he also has a different answer than Abraham: he does not say that it is a test or a test. He who believes that it is easy enough to be an individual can always be sure that he is not a knight of faith, for vagabonds and wandering geniuses are not men of faith. The knight of faith knows, on the other hand, that it is glorious to belong to the universal.
He knows that it is refreshing to become understandable to himself in the universal, so that he understands it and so that each individual understands him. He knows that it is beautiful to be born as the individual who has the universal as his home, his friendly abode, which immediately welcomes him with open arms whenever he wants to stay there. But he also knows that higher than this there winds a lonely path, narrow and steep; he knows that it is terrible to be born outside the universal, to walk without meeting a single traveler.
The knight of faith knows that surrendering yourself to the universal awakens enthusiasm and takes courage, but he also knows that there is certainty in this, precisely because it is for the universal. He knew that it is wonderful to express the universal, wonderful to live with Isaac. He knew that it is a royal thing to sacrifice such a son for the universal; he himself would have found rest in it, and everyone would have found rest in the praise of his deed, as a vowel rests in its consonant, but this is not so. the task - he is being tried.
The concentration of the hero also has Abraham, although in his case it is far more difficult, since he has no support in. If Abraham did not, he is only an Agamemnon - if it is in any way possible to explain how he can be justified in to sacrifice Isaac, when thus no surplus accrues to the universal.
Problem Three: Was Abraham Ethically Defensible in
Hence it is that the effect produced by a Greek tragedy is like the impression of a marble statue lacking the power of the eye. In revenge, the bride's family put a temple vessel among his household items and he is convicted as a temple robber. The family has ideal significance only insofar as it is drawn into the hero's dialectic.
His heroism is therefore essentially to be found in the fact that he gives up aesthetic highness, which, however, in this case could not easily be thought to have any interference from the vanity that consists in being hidden, because it must. So the utterance of the augur is not intelligible only to the hero, but to all, and no private relation to the deity results from it. In this, too, he would be able to find peace (as well as I am able to work it out for myself), whereas his magnanimous silence would have been constantly disturbed by the demands of ethics.
In doing so, she would be acting directly in the interest of the religious, for religion is the only power that can save the aesthetic from its conflict with the ethical. So, with the help of the demonic, the merman wants to be an individual who, as an individual, is higher than the universal. If he is released from the demonic into repentance, two paths are open to him.
In the case of sin, the individual is already higher (in the direction of the .demonic paradox) than the universal, because it is a contradiction on the part of the universal to impose itself on a human being who lacks the condition sine qua non. I can understand the movements of the merman, whereas I cannot understand Abraham; for it is precisely through the paradox that the merman reaches the goal of realizing the universal. And yet she is the most unhappy maiden, for she knows that the evil demon who loves her will kill the bridegroom on the night of the wedding.
They probably consider it an admirable act of magnanimity to remain silent. He is a doubter, and the doubter hungers as much for the daily bread of joy as for the food of the spirit. If, on the other hand, Agamemnon were to say to her: "Despite the fact that the deity demands you as a sacrifice, it may still be possible that he did not demand it - on the basis of viz.
It goes without saying that the tragic hero, like any other man who is not deprived of the faculty of speech, can do so at the moment of his speech.
Epilogue
But the highest passion in a man is faith, and here no generation begins at any other moment than the previous generation, each generation begins anew, the succeeding generation goes no further than the above - so long as this one remained faithful. in her duty and did not leave her in the mud. If the generation begins such a thing, it is upside down, and what wonder then that all existence seems upside down to it, for surely no one has found the world so upside down as the fairy tailor has. talewi who during his life ascended to heaven and from this point of view contemplated the world. If the generation were only concerned with its duty, which is the highest thing it can do, it cannot be weary, for duty is always sufficient for a human life.
When the children on holiday have played all their games before the clock strikes twelve and say impatiently: 'Isn't there anyone who can think of a new game?' Does this prove that these children are more developed and advanced than the children of the same generation or a previous one, who could keep up the familiar game all day long? There may be many in every generation who don't even make it, but no one gets any further. Whether there are many in our time who do not discover it, I cannot decide, I only dare to appeal to myself as a witness who makes no secret of the fact that the.
But even for the man who does not so much as reach faith, life has tasks enough, and if you love them sincerely, life will in no way be wasted, although it can never be compared to the life of those who sensed and grasped it highest. . But he who came to the faith (it makes no difference whether he is a man of distinguished talents or a simple man) does not continue to stand by the faith, yes, he would.