Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Fear and Trembling, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Belief vs. Doubt
Faith and the Absurd
Infinite Resignation
The Unintelligibility of Faith
Summary
Analysis
Johannes remarks that the ethical is part of the universal and thus applies to everyone at all times. Individuals have their “telos” in the universal and must be part of the universal. When a person acts as the “particular,” then they violate ethics and must make up for it through repentance and by forfeiting their “particularity.” Presumably, the eternal and universal telos is the same, otherwise it would be wrong to say one “suspend[s]” it for any reason since that would also mean forfeiting it. Abraham is a unique study because he acted through faith for the eternal, seemingly in violation of the ethical. Johannes says faith presents a paradox: the individual becomes greater than the universal through being a part of the universal and then setting themselves apart from it. Either this is faith or one can justifiably condemn Abraham and “faith has never existed […] because it has always existed.”
Telos means “purpose” or “goal,” so a person’s telos is their purpose in the universal (the temporal world). The “particular” is the individual or exception, meaning that they are something other than the universal. To “suspend[]” ethics would mean to pause it, but this in turn means forfeiting it. When Kierkegaard writes that “faith has never existed […] because it has always existed,” he means that either faith has always been the justifiable means of the individual transcending the universal, or it has never existed because it’s always been completely in line with ethics, and there can be no exceptions in ethics. In other words, faith is either the particular, or it has always been the universal.
Themes
Johannes states that Abraham’s story involves a “teleological suspension of the ethical.” Abraham embodies faith, which is rightly expressed only by people whose lives are paradoxical. This is because faithful people act on the absurd, and no action done on the strength of the absurd can be properly “mediated” in the universal. If Abraham were to try to do this, he would have to admit that he was being tempted. Furthermore, it was through the absurd that Abraham got Isaac back, and so he can’t be considered a tragic hero—he either has and acts on faith, or he’s a murderer. Johannes says that he will examine Abraham’s story through an ethical lens to determine if there is a way to ethically justify Abraham’s willingness to kill Isaac.
A “teleological suspension of the ethical” is what happens when a person feels they can “suspend” (pause or stop) the ethical for a higher purpose or end (the telos). In this context, “mediated” means conveyed or expressed. So, when people are acting on faith, they can’t express or convey their own meaning, purpose, or motives in universal terms. If Abraham were to try to convey his motives in sacrificing Isaac in universal terms, it would be nearly impossible because the only way to explain it is that he’s being tempted; only, in this case, he’s being tempted to follow the ethical (to just not kill Isaac) rather than leaping into faith and the absurd (sacrificing him with the belief that Isaac won’t really be lost).
Themes
Johannes writes that if a father had to make a sacrifice similar to Abraham’s under different circumstances—to appease an angry deity (like Agamemnon sacrificing Iphigenia to appease a vengeful goddess) or because the law demands it—then people admire them for their sacrifice and sympathize with their pain. However, if at the last second, these fathers said that they don’t believe it will really happen on the strength of the absurd, then nobody would understand them. The difference between Abraham and these men (who fall under Johannes’s definition of tragic hero) is that their actions are a “higher expression” of the ethical and they effectively subjugate the private relationship between parent and child to the individual’s relationship to the universal. For this reason, people consider them great. On the other hand, Abraham had a telos higher than the ethical, and his greatness is achieved through a purely personal act.
Tragic heroes are understandable because their actions are a “higher expression” of universal ethics. In other words, their actions are for the greater universal good even though they simultaneously break some ethical rules; in fact, it would be a far greater breach of ethics if they didn’t act because far more people would be hurt. This highlights the idea that individual people have a higher obligation to their community or the world than they do to their private relationships (parent and child, spouses, siblings, and so on). This is what makes Abraham’s story so controversial. He violates ethics, but not for the universal good; actually, it seems as if he does it for himself (which, as Johannes will point out, is half true), and so it seems like a flagrant and unjustifiable breach of ethics.
Themes
Johannes explains that Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac for both his own sake and God’s—God’s because he demanded proof of his faith, and Abraham’s so he would have the means of proving his faith. In this way, the event was both a temptation and a trial. Johannes believes this means there needs to be a new category for Abraham’s actions, although this will be difficult because there’s no language (which is universal) to adequately explain Abraham’s actions except to call the situation a temptation. For this reason, Johannes both admires and is appalled by Abraham. A tragic hero, at least, makes a definite sacrifice for a definite result, and so anyone can weep for Agamemnon’s sacrifice. Abraham made a sacrifice to try to grab something above the universal, and so his actions don’t inspire the same sympathy.
Language is a universal concept, and as such it is inadequate to mediate what one does on the strength of the absurd and faith (which is higher than the universal). This is why it’s so difficult to understand Abraham when examining the details of his story, and it’s why Johannes says he both admires Abraham for his faith and is appalled by him because his bare actions violate ethics. Furthermore, Abraham’s actions seem selfish, so few people can sympathize with the pain he must have felt. After all, he could have just not sacrificed Isaac; however, this would have meant failing the spiritual trial he had to endure to prove his faith.
Themes
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Abraham is justified through the paradox of faith, which allows him to be the particular above the universal. But how does anyone know if they are justified in their actions? Johannes points out that most people would say this should be determined by the outcome, and even some heroes have said that time will prove their greatness. In fact, there are whole groups of people who judge the actions of people from centuries ago to decide whether their actions were justified. However, by focusing on the outcome people forget that everything has a beginning, and nobody will begin anything if they think they can only judge the rightness of their actions by the outcome. Johannes also asks if Abraham would’ve been less justified if he’d sacrificed Isaac. Either way, the outcome of the story is what grabs people’s attention, and they unfortunately ignore all that came before it.
One of the reasons people love the story of Abraham is because it illustrates what faith should look like. Abraham was going to sacrifice Isaac because God ask him to, and everyone should be willing to do whatever God asks of them. This is why Johannes wonders if Abraham’s actions would be harder to justify if he had sacrificed Isaac. He still would have been doing as God asked, and if people are supposed to be willing to do whatever God asks of them then Abraham’s actions were justified.
Themes
Johannes urges the audience not to speak of greatness like it’s very far away, but to embrace it and remember that all the people who are recognized as great had to begin somewhere, and anyone can begin. Johannes turns his attention to the Virgin Mary, who gave birth to Jesus Christ and is generally believed great. Yet in this case, like Abraham’s, people focus on the outcome and forget that Mary, a young girl, had to endure a pregnancy that she couldn’t explain to anyone else because the ministering angel only came to her. Mary, like Abraham, became great through faith’s paradox and the distress they endured before they arrived at the end of their trials.
Johannes makes an interesting point about Mary’s story. Most people know that an angel visited Mary before she married Joseph and told her she was going to have God’s son, Jesus Christ. It was great of Mary to be Jesus’s mother, but it was greater for her to keep faith in the angel’s words during her pregnancy even though some people must have doubted her story and because pregnancy itself was a scary time for any woman during that time period (high maternal and infant mortality rates).
Themes
Johannes says that Abraham was either a murderer every minute of his trial up until the end (when the outcome was good), or the audience agrees to embrace the paradox of faith. Ultimately, Johannes believes Abraham’s story involves a teleological suspension of the ethical because he entered the paradox of faith (if this isn’t true, again, it means he was nothing but a murderer). Either way, Abraham cannot be a tragic hero. A tragic hero can talk to others and get advice during their journey to heroism. A knight of faith, however, must walk alone because nobody can understand them, let alone properly advise them. Still, anybody can have faith—it is a passion that unites all humanity.
Johannes’s conclusions here highlight how easy it is to discount faith and, by extension, just how difficult it is to act on faith. Abraham’s story is riddled with “ifs”—if one judges him by the ethical, if he had actually sacrificed Isaac, if he had talked to someone about it—and the conclusion is that if he had acted differently, everything might have been different and he wouldn’t be the same great man of faith. Any knight of faith knows that if they deviate from the path of faith at all, they risk failing entirely.
Themes
