Fear and Trembling (Penguin Classics) Paperback – January 7, 1986

Soren Kierkegaard was nineteenth-century Danish philosopher and Christian author.In 1843, he wrote Fear and Trembling, an examination of the New Testament story of Abraham and Isaac. For those who don’t know, the story goes that Abraham and his wife Sarah were blessed to have their only child, a son, at the age of seventy. Abraham loved this son very much, and this love was compounded by the fact that he and his wife spent most of their lives thinking that they would never have the opportunity to raise a child. One day, God tests Abraham’s faith by telling him that he expects him to take Isaac up to Mount Moriah, kill him, and burn him as a sacrifice to God. Abraham doesn’t hesitate. He saddles up his donkeys, and makes the trip with Isaac and a couple of his hired hands at dawn the next morning. Once they reach the base of the mountain, Abraham and Isaac head up to the spot God intended and Abraham proceeds to tie up his son. Right when he pulls out the knife to do the deed, God stops him, ostensibly satisfied that Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son for the God that he believed in. So Abraham did not have to sacrifice his son after all.Kierkegaard was in awe of Abraham and he wanted to examine what makes a man like that tick, so in the book, he compartmentalizes the different modes of human expression as he sees them. Thus, he puts people into three categories of expressing their humanity: aesthetic, ethical, and religious.The aesthetic person is a shallow one. This person is most interested in being entertained. Boredom is the mortal enemy of the aesthetic-minded person. The person is self-centered, probably doesn’t have very much in the way of positive personal relationships (as these usually require some reciprocation, which the aesthetic-minded person would find difficult), and probably isn’t functioning with much of a moral code.The ethical person is one who has adopted a moral code and follows it. This person follows the laws of the land and is, by all accounts, a better citizen than that of the aesthetic person, although he still doesn’t have the faith of Abraham.The religious person has made a great leap, and is guided by faith. According to Kierkegaard, very few people will achieve this and we’re not talking about the kind of faith that leads a person to simply say that they have faith. This is the kind of faith that requires proof.In Abraham’s case, he had such faith in what he believed in that he was willing to sacrifice that which was of ultimate importance to him because God told him to do so. Well, at least, that’s one way of looking at it, Kierkegaard argues. The religious expression of Abraham’s faith was that he was willing to sacrifice his only son for his belief in God (one could even argue, by extension, that he had faith that God would never make him go through with it).But the ethical expression of what Abraham was going to do was that he was willing to murder his own son, and murder is wrong, as God Himself decreed.It’s impossible for an ethically-minded person to imagine killing their own child. As Kierkegaard puts it, this creates a paradox. On the one hand, a person should do what God tells him to do and having that much faith in God makes Abraham’s faith stronger than that of most. But on the other hand, he was willing to murder his own son, and that’s really bad.I wish I could relay that Kierkegaard solved the paradox, but that’s not really the point, and I’m not sure this is a paradox that’s going to be solved any time soon. Personally, I’d like to think that Abraham’s faith in God led him to do what God asked and that his faith also led him to believe that he would never have to actually go through with the sacrifice.Unfortunately, Abraham was unavailable for comment.Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard: A book reviewSoren Kierkegaard was nineteenth-century Danish philosopher and Christian author.In 1843, he wrote Fear and Trembling, an examination of the New Testament story of Abraham and Isaac. For those who don’t know, the story goes that Abraham and his wife Sarah were blessed to have their only child, a son, at the age of seventy. Abraham loved this son very much, and this love was compounded by the fact that he and his wife spent most of their lives thinking that they would never have the opportunity to raise a child. One day, God tests Abraham’s faith by telling him that he expects him to take Isaac up to Mount Moriah, kill him, and burn him as a sacrifice to God. Abraham doesn’t hesitate. He saddles up his donkeys, and makes the trip with Isaac and a couple of his hired hands at dawn the next morning. Once they reach the base of the mountain, Abraham and Isaac head up to the spot God intended and Abraham proceeds to tie up his son. Right when he pulls out the knife to do the deed, God stops him, ostensibly satisfied that Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son for the God that he believed in. So Abraham did not have to sacrifice his son after all.Kierkegaard was in awe of Abraham and he wanted to examine what makes a man like that tick, so in the book, he compartmentalizes the different modes of human expression as he sees them. Thus, he puts people into three categories of expressing their humanity: aesthetic, ethical, and religious.The aesthetic person is a shallow one. This person is most interested in being entertained. Boredom is the mortal enemy of the aesthetic-minded person. The person is self-centered, probably doesn’t have very much in the way of positive personal relationships (as these usually require some reciprocation, which the aesthetic-minded person would find difficult), and probably isn’t functioning with much of a moral code.The ethical person is one who has adopted a moral code and follows it. This person follows the laws of the land and is, by all accounts, a better citizen than that of the aesthetic person, although he still doesn’t have the faith of Abraham.The religious person has made a great leap, and is guided by faith. According to Kierkegaard, very few people will achieve this and we’re not talking about the kind of faith that leads a person to simply say that they have faith. This is the kind of faith that requires proof.In Abraham’s case, he had such faith in what he believed in that he was willing to sacrifice that which was of ultimate importance to him because God told him to do so. Well, at least, that’s one way of looking at it, Kierkegaard argues. The religious expression of Abraham’s faith was that he was willing to sacrifice his only son for his belief in God (one could even argue, by extension, that he had faith that God would never make him go through with it).But the ethical expression of what Abraham was going to do was that he was willing to murder his own son, and murder is wrong, as God Himself decreed.It’s impossible for an ethically-minded person to imagine killing their own child. As Kierkegaard puts it, this creates a paradox. On the one hand, a person should do what God tells him to do and having that much faith in God makes Abraham’s faith stronger than that of most. But on the other hand, he was willing to murder his own son, and that’s really bad.I wish I could relay that Kierkegaard solved the paradox, but that’s not really the point, and I’m not sure this is a paradox that’s going to be solved any time soon. Personally, I’d like to think that Abraham’s faith in God led him to do what God asked and that his faith also led him to believe that he would never have to actually go through with the sacrifice.Unfortunately, Abraham was unavailable for comment.Read the book if you are interested in philosophy, existentialism, and/or Christianity.

I'm collecting the entire Penguin Hardback "Pocket Philosophy" books, of which there are 15. It's an excellent introduction to the history of philosophy. This book is one of my favorites from the collection, and is a quick read.The introductions included in penguin editions are well written with a high level of scholarship. This edition of Fear and Trembling is no exception. It includes a timeline that frames Kierkegaard's work in the larger history of philosophy. The translation is very clear and his exuberant writing style rings through.

Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard’s explication of the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac is not easy reading. This short book is definitely not “philosophy light,” or “theology for the masses,” but a very serious philosophico-theological attempt to understand what it means to have the kind of faith attributed to Abraham, without dismissing him as a madman for being willing to kill his favored son when God asks him to. It is complex, detailed, imaginative, expansive, and difficult (unless you read this sort of thing all the time, which I don’t).Kierkegaard may not go down easily with anyone who prefers to think of faith as a warm feeling that gets you through the hard times. By his reading of things, neither faith nor doubt, properly understood, comes easily or cheaply, without effort and a considerable amount of time. Indeed, for a book about faith, Kierkegaard writes quite a bit about doubt, leading to the interesting question: Can faith and doubt co-exist? (Hint: The answer is yes.) In justifying or explaining Abraham’s actions, however, the primary tension at issue in Kierkegaard’s study is not between faith and doubt, with faith triumphant, but between ethics (what is publicly acceptable and, even more important, done for the good of all) and aesthetics (human sensory experience). It is not possible to find any rationale or justification for Abraham’s willingness to kill his son in the realm of ethics. It goes against every norm of human society, parental responsibility, and fatherly love. And it is not good enough to say, “Well, Abraham knew that in the end God would spare Isaac and not really require his blood at Abraham’s hand.” That kind of justification undermines the whole story. The only way to understand Abraham as a hero of faith is if he knew that God’s requirement meant that he would, in fact and in deed, kill his son., but also that God would restore Isaac (another Isaac?) to him, since it was through that genealogical line that God’s promises to Abraham had meaning. Not spare him, but restore him. It’s a paradox, and is explainable only by reference to the absurd. By “absurd,” Kierkegaard does not mean strange or weird or ridiculous. He means that which is beyond the ability of human agency and the grasp of human reason. The only way Abraham could act was by reliance on the absurd—the so-called “leap of faith” often referred to. The only way he could regain Isaac was via the absurd, but in order for his faith to have any effect, he had to believe that he was indeed going to sacrifice his son. That’s the paradox, but it is the paradox that is at the heart of any attempt to understand Abraham, in Kierkegaard’s view, because while he argues that the ethical is higher than the aesthetic, the religious stage of life is higher still. This stage puts one in a relationship with God that is personal, absolute, transcendent, and ineffable.For me, the whole thing began to become understandable (to the extent that it ever did), in the third of the three “problema” that form the core of the book, and especially the last major section. (“But now Abraham. How did he act?”) In the end Kierkegaard denies that he is actually trying to explain Abraham, since he claims that “I cannot understand Abraham, I can only admire him.” Possibly he is just being clever in saying so, though after his discussion of the absurd and of the demands of the religious life, maybe not. The story of Abraham challenges us at the heart of both our private lives (the aesthetic) and our public lives (the ethical), demanding that we at least imagine, even if we cannot live, a life beyond both (the religious).This is not easy going, certainly not a book to pick up when you’re tired or to try to rush through. In the end I’m glad I read it, though I’m not sure I’m ready just yet to rush out and read everything of Kierkegaard’s. But I did find it eye-opening, at times invigorating, at times nearly impenetrable.