Post #3: On why the knight of faith must remain paradoxical; Kierkegaard’s division of the religious and the ethical

Johannes de silentio has used the chapters in Fear and Trembling thus far to solidify essential elements of faith that must exist outside of reason. These examples lead to a reconfiguration of the concept of the universal insofar as the singular may be conceived above the universal within the realm of the absolute. The repercussions of this assertion are numerous and paradoxical to Hegelian and Kantian rational faith, and in Problem III, a final distinction is made when the knife twists a final turn and the problem of aesthetics and ethics in regards to the knight of faith. Abraham must remain a paradox or else it is impossible for him to be the father of faith. It is only through he light of faith that one may emphasize the necessity of Abraham as an essential impossible possibility.

The concept of the aesthetic here refers to an instance where an individual is put in a position where they may justify their acts against that of the universal by remaining in silence. The instances here are all justified by reasonable ends and therefore cannot be knights of faith as Abraham who must remain paradoxically above all explanations of ethical distinction in order to avoid categorization as a murderer. The ends of this silence would be to save another person in opposition of Abraham’s silence, which mustn’t be in doubt, reasoning, or any sort of lack of faith in his mission. This instance is in contradiction to the ethical by forms of revealing and hiding information or reason. The tales that de silentio weaves around the concepts of the knight of faith against the “aesthetic hero” form a solid net by which the notion of Abraham’s absurdity solidly lands. As noted in class the importance of the state of Abraham’s conscience is of utmost importance when considering his position as the pinnacle achievement of Faith. If we try to explain ourselves (or make our actions reasonable), we are reducing to the realm of language, paradoxically Abraham’s task cannot be explained through language directly because it is not reducible the dependence of shared experience on language.

Thus, the notion of language and speech has a triple-fold function within Fear and Trembling. First, Soren Kierkegaard cannot write straight from his own stance and must write under a pseudonym so as to place the work in a middle ground between lyrical tale, scripture, and philosophy. Secondly, Johannes de silentio must then as a fictitious narrator epitomize passion for the subject matter but also the impossibility of its translation into words. He must be the poet for the hero of Abraham but also explain why this cannot and need not be so. Thirdly, Abraham himself must remain silent in order for the whole work of writing to be justified, making Fear and Trembling itself a paradox within a paradox.

“…It appears that one may well understand Abraham, but only in the way that one understands the paradox. For my part, I can perhaps understand Abraham but realize as well that I do not have the courage to speak in this way, not more than I have the courage to act like Abraham; but by no means do I therefore say that it is something insignificant when on the contrary it is the only miracle.” (Page 105)