Kierkegaard on the Double Movement to Faith

Those who’ve glanced at Meine Vorlesungsliste will know that part of my reading over the last few weeks has been a section from Søren Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous work Fear and Trembling, authored by one ‘Johannes de Silentio’. The book is centred on the story of Abraham’s testing in Genesis 22, when he is told by God to sacrifice his son Isaac. Anyone who knows the story will remember that God eventually spares Isaac, and that Abraham sacrifices a ram in his place. According to Johannes de Silentio, however, prior knowledge of this happy conclusion often drains the story of its true weight and difficulty when it is read or preached from the pulpit. It is quickly forgotten, he argues, that a father was seemingly ready to murder his son simply because God had told him to, and, even more, that this man is celebrated in the Bible as the supreme example of faith:

“We recite the whole story in clichés: ‘The great thing was that he loved God in such a way the he was willing to offer him the best’ … If a person lacks the courage to think his thought all the way through and say that Abraham was a murderer [at least by intention], then it is certainly better to attain this courage than to waste time on unmerited eulogies” (FT:29-30).

Much of the remainder of Fear and Trembling is concerned with a discussion of the nature of Abraham’s faith; that he would be prepared to step over the greatest ethical obligation he held as a father (to protect his son from harm) because of a divine command, all the while still believing that God’s promise (that he would through Isaac father a great nation) would be fulfilled. Probably the hardest question here concerns whether there is a ‘teleological suspension of the ethical’ (FT:54-67) i.e. whether one can argue for instances where it is valid to transcend ethical values for some religious reason (e.g. a divine command), or for some greater purpose (telos). This is far too heavy for a blog post, however, so instead we will have short look at what de Silentio describes as the ‘double movement’ to faith.

The promise God had given to Abraham was that he would father a great nation specifically through Isaac, the child of promise. Abraham’s problem, however, was that this looked increasingly unlikely to happen, given that he was being commanded by God to sacrifice Isaac. De Silentio argues that the initial (but still admirable) response to this predicament is that of ‘infinite resignation’: to translate the promise into an infinite and eternal form, to spiritualise it, but to resign oneself to the unlikelihood that the promise could be realised in time and actuality, and so to renounce it. In this way, one remains faithful to the promise (in its eternal, infinite form), but can find a kind of existential rest.

“Spiritually speaking, everything is possible, but in the finite world there is much that is not possible. The [individual], however, makes this impossibility possible by expressing it spiritually, but he expresses it spiritually by renouncing it” (FT:44).

De Silentio sees this is a noble step – one that he thinks he himself could make. Abraham, however, makes a movement beyond this. He does not resign himself to the probability that Isaac is lost, but goes on believing that God’s promise will be fulfilled, not just eternally, but in time and actuality. According to de Silentio, rather than being a weaker, lower, cruder kind of thing (as some might suggest), this movement to faith is of an even higher and more refined quality than the movement to infinite resignation, because it results, not in rest, but in anxiety and struggle. It is belief in the face of impossibility; faith by virtue of the absurd. In Kierkegaardian language, it requires a ‘leap’ that goes beyond what is thought possible by reason, to arrive at faith. And to hold onto this faith requires great courage.

If Abraham had stayed at a point of infinite resignation, he would have accepted that Isaac was lost, and could have sacrificed him at the foot of Mount Moriah. While this would indeed have been ‘giving the best to God’ (as the cliché goes), de Silentio says that this act would not have come from faith, but from infinite resignation. Rather, it was Abraham’s persisting belief that, although Isaac seemed lost, he would somehow receive him back, which required faith – a faith which remained in the tortuous three-day ride up Mount Moriah; a faith which remained even when, without wavering, he raised the knife (Gen. 22:10).

“By faith Abraham received the promise that in his seed all the generations of the earth would be blessed. Time passed, the possibility was there, Abraham had faith; time passed, it became unreasonable, Abraham had faith” (FT:17).

Thus Abraham did not resign himself to an eternal fulfilment of the promise. His faith did not consist in the renouncing of this temporal desire (such a step is often seen as the highest end by Christians), but in his struggling to believe, in the face of the impossible, that he would receive it in time and actuality.

“By faith I do not renounce anything, by faith I receive everything exactly in the sense in which it is said that one who has faith like a mustard seed can move mountains … It takes a paradoxical and humble courage to grasp the whole temporal realm now by virtue of the absurd, and this is the courage of faith” (FT:49).

Faith in the Abrahamic mode, then, does not ultimately evidence itself in some spiritual (and ascetic) renouncing of temporal passions and desires. While it is necessary, according to Di Silentio, to go through this place of infinite resignation (just as Jesus asked the rich young ruler to give up everything [Luke 18]), the movement to faith goes further, to believe in the face of the impossible that you will receive everything back again:

“By virtue of resignation that rich young man should have given away everything, but if he had done so, the Knight of Faith would have said to him: by virtue of the absurd you will get every penny back again: believe it!” (FT:49)

The first movement, the giving up, is by my own strength, and is a continual giving up. But by my own strength I cannot get anything back again, yet to believe that I will: this requires faith. Therein, and only therein, resides the struggle and anxiety of faith; as it was precisely in his believing that he would receive Isaac back again that Abraham was tested. If Abraham is the pattern of faith, then such a testing, such an ordeal, is a prerequisite to receive back, in the mode of gift, what has been given up for God. This testing is necessary for one to make the movement to faith, for it must indeed be in the face of the impossible, or by virtue of the absurd (i.e. in the testing) that one goes on struggling to believe, and thus exhibits the faith of Abraham.

“I do not fear arousing in people a desire to be as Abraham was. But to sell a cheap edition of Abraham … is ludicrous” (FT:53).

N.B. It is sometimes suggested that Kierkegaard is a fideist, in that he opposes faith to reason. This does not seem to be the case here, however, as for de Silentio, faith is not a category that contradicts reason (in an either/or kind of sense), but one which goes beyond the domain of reason; one which exceeds the limitations of reason. Reason understands what is naturally possible; faith believes that with God all things are possible. One can therefore speak of faith and reason in Kierkegaard, but can say that he has a kind of epistemic humility, in that he recognises that reason can only take a person so far; that there are times when faith must take them further, when they believe ‘by virtue of the absurd’.