“The absolute duty may then bring one to do what ethics would forbid, but it can never make the knight of faith stop loving. Abraham demonstrates this. The moment he is willing to sacrifice Isaac, the ethical expression for what he does is this: he hates Isaac. But if he really hates Isaac, he can be sure that God does not ask it of him…” (Kierkegaard 65)
We must begin with the absolute duty and its meaning in the context in Fear and Trembling; the absolute duty for Kierkegaard (I intentionally do not use the pseudonym Johannes De Silentio) is the duty or obligation of someone to god. Now that we have established what absolute duty is we can move on to the rest of the passage; “…may then bring on to do what ethics would forbid…” (Kierkegaard 65) so now in the second part of the first sentence we have “may” encounter a possible conflict between absolute duty and ethics. In other words the absolute duty sometimes has the possibility to create an obligation that ethics would not allow. “…but it can never make the knight of faith stop loving.” So now we have this idea of the knight of faith which reappears throughout the book, the knight of faith being a god loving, and simple person. We even now have who Kierkegaard makes the knight of faith: “Abraham demonstrates this.” Abraham never stopped loving, or did he?
We now come to the section of the passage which the paradox appears, and should be emphasized. “The moment he is willing to sacrifice Isaac, the ethical expression for what he does is this: he hates Isaac.” (65) Abraham, the knight of faith, sacrifices Isaac, his only son, and his most loved possession. But according to Kierkegaard-and which one can make argument for and even against-Abraham hates Isaac because the ethical decision in killing Isaac for god assumes the conclusion that Abraham does indeed hate Isaac. In a syllogistic sense, Kierkegaard is correct, the absolute duty=sacrificing Isaac for god, but ethically it is forbidden for Abraham to kill his son, thus one can say that the conclusion of this act is that Isaac is indeed hated by his father. This is all fine up until we realize that if Abraham hates his son; god would not ask for him as Kierkegaard so boldly states: “But if he really hates Isaac, he can be sure that God does not ask it of him…” (65). (I believe it would have been better for Kierkegaard to say Abraham does not see much worth in Isaac, because the whether or not Abraham “hates” Isaac can easily be argued)
So the paradox is complete, it is an absolute duty for Abraham to sacrifice his son because god requested it; ethically it is wrong for Abraham to do so, in doing so the question of how much does Abraham truly love Isaac is manifested. So if Abraham hates Isaac why would god request Isaac from him.
Do you really believe that Abraham views Isaac merely as his "most loved possession?" In a sense, children belong to their parents. But, could we ever say parents possess their children? The concept of "possession" seems to imply a level of ownership that eliminates individuality and free will in the possessed being. Clearly parents influence their children in immense ways, but ultimately children face countless decisions every day that are completely free from their parents' influence.
ReplyDeleteIf we view Abraham's relationship to Isaac as possessor/possessed, then it would be easier to say that Abraham hated Isaac. If Isaac's will is just a possession of Abraham anyway, to hate Isaac would simply be a form of self-hatred. It becomes particularly easy to discard Isaac if we view him as you have: as a "possession" that is "without much worth."