I. Preliminary Thoughts:

First of all, what needs to be said are some preliminary thoughts about Kierkegaard. His writings include three different spheres of existence: the esthetic (immediate), the ethical, and the religious. This work is a preliminary look into the religious sphere of existence. He wrote through pseudonymous authors, each of whom had a different personality, with different perspectives and different outlooks. In Fear and Trembling, the pseudonymous author Johannes de Silentio sees himself as a messenger of faith and admirer of faith; but is not a Christian himself. He doesn’t understand what faith is, but he says he understands what faith is not. In this work, he tries to further articulate his idea of this. Also, I should make the point that I am speaking from my point of view as a Christian, so please grant me that premise.

In the book, Fear and Trembling, Søren Kierkegaard uses the pseudonym Johannes de Silentio to explore the issue of faith, while using the sacrifice story of Abraham as a model. From it, Silentio wonders what it is that makes Abraham to be known as such a great man of faith rather than a murderer. He explores three questions in which he attempts to answer this problem of faith: whether there is a higher telos/end than the ethical; whether there is such a thing as an absolute duty to God; and whether Abraham was justified in keeping his silence about sacrificing Isaac. In this paper, I will focus on the first question of a higher telos than the ethical (or what Silentio mentions as the universal). According to Silentio, what made Abraham's act so great was that as an individual, he became superior to the universal and came to be in absolute relation to the absolute (which is God). To better explain this concept, I have proposed an analogy in which the musician is compared to the individual of faith. At first glance, this analogy may appear to be greatly flawed; however, I will attempt to prove that by understanding the musician, one will be able to come to a better understanding of the individual of faith.

In this sacrifice story found in Genesis 22:1-18, Abraham is tempted by God to take his son of promise, Isaac, up to the mountains in Moriah to be offered as a burnt sacrifice. In an act of obedience and faith, Abraham tells no one of the nature of his temptation, and travels with Isaac for three days up to Moriah, knowing well that he was to kill his only son. However, when they reached the mountain, and as Abraham lifted the knife to slay his son, God stopped him. In verse 12, it states, "'Do not lay a hand on the boy,' he said. 'Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.'"

What is generally praised is the outcome of this story – that Abraham as a man of faith was given back his son after he had been so willing to sacrifice someone who he loved greatly for the sake of God’s will. However, Silentio does not see the issue so simply. If we put ourselves in the situation of Abraham, we would see that for three days Abraham was forced to walk in silence, thinking that he was going to kill his only son. Silentio wonders what it is that made Abraham’s action such that it constituted his faith reputation. Society should be frowning upon Abraham and charging him a murderer, as the Hegelians (and Kantians) do, because his act was unethical. Instead, Abraham is known throughout history as a great man of faith.

In the first problem titled, "Is there a Teleological Suspension of the Ethical?" Silentio discusses the role of Abraham as the Knight of Faith who transcended the ethical by his individual act of faith. He defines the ethical as that which is expressed as the universal. In other words, one acts such that her action is an end in itself. The universal in this case is above the individual. In the ethical life, one generally moves beyond the single and immediate act of the esthetic and subsumes oneself under the realm of universality.

This concept of the universal, however, is not one that Silentio means to equate with Kant’s notion of the universal. By universal, Kant means those rules that are applied to all people at all times independent of the state of a given society. Silentio's idea of the universal is more like that of Hegel’s. In this case, the universal involves those rules that are dependent upon the highest institution of a given society. Thus, the goal of the individual in the ethical is to place herself under the universal by conforming to the laws of the highest social institution. For example, Silentio talks of Agamemnon, who sacrificed his daughter in order to gain victory in battle. Because of the rules of the given public state (which was his highest social institution), this was considered ethical and therefore universal, for it was for the sake of the state that Agamemnon gave up his daughter.

What makes Abraham’s case so intriguing is that unlike Agamemnon, he so seemingly undermined his highest social institution of the family and obeyed God by agreeing to sacrifice his only son. His sacrifice was done not for the sake of the universal; but rather as an individual. However, this was done not such a way that his act was inferior to the ethical, as it is in the esthetic sphere of life. Despite the demands of the universal to put his family above all else, Abraham had transcended the universal in his individuality by faithfully acting in a way that had passed through and become superior to the universality of the ethical. "Faith is namely this paradox that the single individual is higher than the universal – yet, please note, in such a way that the movement repeats itself, so that after having been in the universal he as the single individual isolates himself as higher than the universal" (pg. 55). Thus, he had teleologically suspended the ethical.

Not only is this teleological suspension of the ethical a paradox; it is also an absurdity to outside observers. It does not and cannot be made to make sense to say that the faith act of the individual comes to be superior to the universal. This is a paradox precisely because it is only known and understood completely by the individual. At the very moment this paradox comes to make sense and understood by others, it is embodied in the universal, and therefore in the realm of the ethical.

When it comes to be understood, faith no longer can be considered faith in the sense of Abraham’s unique faith; rather it will become faith in the generic sense, in which case "faith has never existed in the world precisely because it has always existed" (pg. 55). By this, Silentio means that faith has always existed because it has been understood and therefore becomes part of the universal as a generic, disinterested, and rather dispassionate type of act. This is what Silentio has a problem with. Many see faith to be an easy thing - something that can be easily comprehended and grasped (such as a cliché). They may in a way mindlessly follow it just because everyone else is. In such a case faith becomes a part of the universal. Consequently, faith, as the term is applied to Abraham, cannot be this way. Faith as a generic cliché is a misunderstanding. It must be a unique and special aspect of the individual. It cannot previously exist in another's understanding of the individual's faith, for it involves an inwardness that can only be expressed and understood by the individual of faith.

Thus, the exclusivity of the individual is what is emphasized in the act of faith. It is only Abraham who can understand the nature of his temptation, and it is only Abraham that this temptation is given to. As a result, it is only because Abraham who as the individual suspended the ethical and came to be in absolute relation to the absolute that he was considered a great man of faith.

How then, can we come to better understand how it is that the individual can come to the point of transcending the universal by means of the universal such that he/she is in absolute relation to the absolute? I propose the following: a possible analogy of the Musician to perhaps better explain this.

When a person first learns to play a music instrument such as the bass guitar, she must start out by learning "the basics". In other words, she must learn the general rules about how to play the instrument. For example, she must learn that each fret signifies a half-note, that she tunes by using the fifth fret, that she must point her fingers when playing, or that she must take time to practice while using the correct fingering over and over again irregardless of the seeming unimportance of the exercise. The musician in the basic stage through time continues to develop her skills by means of the universal and generic methods. In other words, at this stage of her musical development, she places herself under the universal. She cannot progress musically without it, because it is only by means of it that she is able to play. If she chose to arbitrarily play the bass in any fashion that she chose, she would never be able to play the instrument. She needs to know and follow the rules of music, even if she doesn’t understand why the rules must be this way. This is done so that she can eventually come to understand the structure of the bass and bass playing, which allows her to further progress in her musicianship.

Time goes on and the musician continues to learn through the example of others. She may have a teacher who gives her more exercises to practice, or she may listen to the various CDs of her favorite music groups to try to pick out their various playing styles. Through this, she becomes aware of certain clichés in a certain musical groove, and combines that into her style. Her style of playing comes to be part of a corporate of generic grooves and clichés. In other words, the musician has embodied her playing in the universal. She comes to the understanding of the generic, and sees the universal method of playing as her musicianship.

However, as much as this person thinks herself to be a Musician, she is not. For true musicianship is not constituted by generic, universal methods of playing. True musicianship in the generic, universal sense cannot exist precisely because it has always existed. She is not to to "mindlessly" play the instrument in a certain way just because everyone else is. Even in her learning process, she is to be constantly aware of the rules and continue to try and follow them. She cannot grow complacent. If she does, musicianship would then have never existed simply because it has always existed. A true musician is one such that as the individual, he has surpassed the universal. When a musician comes to know all the rules that he can know in playing, he departs from the generic and his style and method of playing comes to be unique and special. What he plays is played in a way that only he knows and understands. What it is that makes him a great musician is that he does something that is unique and sometimes even seemingly absurd to the generic or cliché set of rules. He may tune the bass according to the fourth fret instead of the fifth, or flatten his fingers while playing in order to produce a certain effect in his grooves. Whatever it may be, the style belongs solely to her, and the uniqueness of the music can come only from the individual musician, because the style belongs only to her. Some or many of these rules may still be in effect. However, she now reaches a point where she does not follow the rules; but rather fulfills them in her playing. This Musician, like the Knight of Faith, is then "a single individual, who, after being subordinate to the single individual as the universal, now by means of the universal becomes the single individual who as the single is superior, that the single individual as the single individual stands in an absolute relation to the absolute" (pg. 56).

The difficulty that arises at this point is that, as with any analogy, we seemingly run into problems and contradictions. It does not seem that faith can be so easily explained to be compared with the musician. (A) For one thing, Kierkegaard may have rejected a musician analogy simply because he had previously compared music to the esthetic sphere of life in Either/Or I. (B) Another problem that we may find with the above analogy is that we know a musical style is such that once it becomes unique to the individual, the aspects of that style is made known to the greater musical community and is copied. In that sense, part of the uniqueness of the style is lost, because it is now understood and has therefore in a sense entered back into the realm of the universal. Does this analogy mean to presuppose that the results are important? In the case with Abraham, Silentio says that he is a Knight of Faith because his act cannot be copied. The faith of Abraham was exclusively his own. At the moment that Abraham's faith is understood, it no longer becomes faith, for an understanding by others presupposes the universal. (C) Last of all, even if these two problems were answered, Johannes de Silentio does mention in Fear and Trembling that the faith of Abraham is so unique and special that "there is no dearth of keen minds and careful scholars who have found analogies to it." He further comments:

Since I am no such person of a keen mind and careful scholar, it is very possible that I am flawed considering that I found it comparatively easy to think of the musician analogy.

Even so, is there a way to answer the above problems in such a way that it is made possible so the musician analogy can be used? In the first problem posed with comparing faith to the development of a musician, we are left to only guess what Kierkegaard’s answer would have been. There is a chance, however, that he will not be so quick to judge this as too similar to the esthetic sphere of life, for this analogy discusses the development of the musician and not the content of the music. In "The Immediate Erotic Stages" of Either/Or I, the pseudonymous author focuses on the immediacy of music and how the opera allows the individual to be passionately intoxicated in the sensuality of the song. The development of the musician does not and cannot focus on immediacy. Instead, immediacy is rejected, for the musician only comes to be the musician through reflecting on his skills and slowly coming to the understanding of the universals in playing the instrument. Finally, it is through many years and much hard work that an individual is able to surpass the universality of generic musicianship and become the individual who as a true musician by means of the universal surpasses it.

The second problem posed is that the musician is imitated in his style and technique once he has come to be known to be a great musician. The musician analogy seems to make the claim that it supports the fact that history will look back at the example of Abraham and attempt to imitate his faith act such that it will come to be understood and judged, and become subsumed in the universal. In effect, they will attempt to understand the faith of Abraham according to the result.

What Silentio seems to insist upon is that Abraham was not great because of the result of his faith action (that Isaac indeed did not die and God provided the ram for the sacrifice). Abraham was great because he did not know the outcome of his situation, but had faith and chose to act otherwise. He acted in such a way that he intended to kill his son at God’s request. However, at the same time, because of the kind of relationship that he had with God, he had faith that the outcome of his intended action would not so greatly affect his son's ontological status. This was the absurdity of Abraham's faith that enabled him to transcend the universal as an individual. This is what we must focus on, because this was the situation that Abraham was under, and it is what made Abraham to be known as a great man of faith.

Is this musician, then, wrong in trying to use this analogy to interpret that faith will be judged and imitated according to the result of Abraham’s actions? By no means! We are not looking at the consequences of his action, but rather the faith of Abraham as it was at the present moment where his action was such that as the individual it became superior to the universal. We are instead observers of the past who try to see how we should view and learn from Abraham’s situation. As such an observer, Silentio chooses only to admire (he stops at infinite resignation), for he still claims that he is not willing to and does not know how to become the individual who transcends the universal by making the further step of faith. Indeed, it is a very hard thing to do.

In the case of the musician, it is true that there is a time after the realization of the musician's unique and absurd techniques that others will pursue his leading and try to learn his techniques. Nevertheless, the musician does not lose his individuality. In fact, she cannot come to that unique individuality which transcends the universal unless she first imitates others. In effect, it is only by means of the universal that she comes to be superior to the universal. Even when she imitates techniques, the musician of whom she is imitating will never have a time in which his style becomes that of another. His style, though imitated, still remains to be his own and never will belong to that of another, for his style can only be understood by him, as it has been developed through his own personal life experiences.

Such is the same for one who pursues genuine faith. The problem for Silentio is that he has not come to the point where he can imitate Abraham. For those others who do wish to act in faith such that it is not in the generic sense, they must first imitate those, such as Abraham, who have gone before them. However, this imitation is not done in such a way that one's imitation becomes a sort of understanding which is subsumed in the universal (as it is in the teleological/utilitarian sense). We imitate in such a way that we learn not to look towards the realization of our action and judge accordingly; but rather try to see how it was that led Abraham to the faith life that transcended the universal and in absolute relation to the absolute. We learn from observing him that he had obeyed God and followed his universal laws. We learned that he did love his family, but had made God the absolute. As followers of faith, we try to imitate the kind of trust that he had in God, and continue to press on in such a way that we will appropriate this faith and make it our own. In other words, we admire and try to learn from his individual faith relationship with God, and at the same time try to develop our own personal faith relationship with God. In this way we will be able to have our own individual faith lives that can eventually (through a long process of development) transcend the universal and come to be in absolute relation to the absolute.

This can probably be better understood in another light. In last semester’s Senior Seminar, we learned that Scotus believes that we attain our goal of union with God by following the virtues. We come to know what is virtuous by first doing something second-hand. For example, children learn by copying their parents or other role models. They learn what is right and what is wrong because their role models say so, or because their role models do it. However, through time we uncover what lies behind the role models’ actions and see it as itself. In the case of faith, we appropriate faith as our own and see it in itself. In the case of the musician, we appropriate the musicianship of the particular instrument(s) as our own and see it in itself. Dr. Hare used the example of the race track. We follow the universal because it is the universal and know "that" it is what we should follow. However, when we reach the point of the track, we can in this sense as an individual transcend the universal, because we come to appropriate it and realize "why" it is universal and thus fulfill it by coming into absolute relation to the absolute. Because most of the time, it is the "that" that is understood, others may think it absurd that one has followed God as an individual who has transcended the universal. They do not understand this person’s personal faith relationship with God, and may try to falsely judge that relationship.

Thus, it is through the example of coming to have faith in things that seem absurd that we are able to imitate Abraham. This, however, is not an easy thing to be achieved. It is through the long process of time and personal development that one may come to have a faith that is manifested normatively to him. It will be a faith that belongs solely to the individual and not to any other, for an individual's life experiences belong exclusively to the individual. The absurdity of the action of our faith becomes such that the individual has made herself superior to the universal by means of the universal. This faith will be such that it belongs only to me as the individual, for no one else can understand me in my individual life experiences as a whole.

The last problem posed involves my use of analogy. Because Silentio says that we have never found a good analogy for Abraham’s faith situation, and it seems that I have found one, does it mean that I am wrong? Is Silentio saying that any analogy found will come back full circle and prove to support a generic understanding of faith; in which case faith will never have existed simply because it has always existed? Perhaps it is because all analogies fail simply because they are analogies. Once faith is compared to something for the purpose of making it understandable, it will no longer be faith precisely because has become understood and therefore subsumed under the universal. Faith must be seen as a paradox, and cannot be understood because its significance rests in its absurdity.

Before I proceed, I should first explain what is meant here by "analogy," and how that plays in one’s faith relationship with God. By analogy, we need to remember that there are both similarities and dissimilarities. We are comparing two different things in order to explain how one can be better understood in the light of the other. In this case, I am comparing the person of faith with the musician. Though there are similarities between the two, I will nevertheless need to recognize that there are dissimilarities, and all analogies will fail at some point. In the case of anything that relates to God (please remember that I am speaking from the point of view of a Christian), we see Him as something that is divine and Holy Other. This is something that places God in a category all by himself. As a result, the only way we can understand him and the kind of relationship he wants to have with us is through comparing Him with the things that are dissimilar; but are similar enough so that we can have some understanding of what these qualities are.

With that explained, I can now proceed. As I had said earlier, I do not believe that Silentio means that any attempts to understand faith will necessitate a universalization of it. In this analogy case, it seems that Silentio is rather arguing against those who will attempt to mindlessly follow faith and take it lightly, understanding it from the more disinterested, dispassionate, and generic point-of-view. Perhaps this is what Silentio means when he says, "What their wisdom amounts to is the beautiful proposition that basically everything is the same" (pg. 56).

It is true that we can never come to understand Abraham’s faith, simply for the fact that we are not Abraham. For us to understand the nature of Abraham’s temptation and why because of it Abraham became known throughout history as a great knight of faith, we would have to understand the whole of the person of Abraham. It is in trying to make up these kind of analogies that attempt to enter into the mind of Abraham and understand his own faith relationship with God. However, this is impossible, for no one can understand the whole of a person’s inwardness. In my case of the musician analogy, I am not attempting to understand and capture the essence of Abraham’s faith. Rather, I am trying to understand the significance of his individuality and why it was important that he had a passionate relationship with God. Our understanding of Abraham is an understanding that we will never fully understand. We acknowledge that the faith act of Abraham was an individual act – one of which only Abraham would understand as his situation is wrapped up into the whole of his life experiences.

If the understanding of Abraham’s faith is understood in this sense, then we will not run into problems in comparing it with the musician. It is not that we understand the musician in the sense that we understand and grasp the essence of her musical style. Rather, we understand the musician by acknowledging the uniqueness and specialty of her musicianship. The fact of the matter is that we cannot understand the musician, for in order to understand the musician we would have to understand the whole of his experiences in his musical development. At the same time, we should not lose appreciation for him, or grow complacent to the appreciation of his work. As Silentio said it in the case of faith, this was not something that happened immediately and with ease. For Abraham to come to the point that he did of acting in faith, he had to go through a long process of coming to be higher than the universal by first being lower to it. This was a process that took time, which is why faith was "manifested normatively in him." In a similar sense, musicianship is a normative manifestation. It is something only the individual can come to know and understand, for the musicianship belongs solely to the musician, just as the faith of Abraham belongs solely to Abraham. It will then be the case that we will not understand this simply because we are not that individual.

The absurdity for the musician then, lies in the fact that as an individual her musical style has transcended the universal (the generic musical style) and comes into absolute relation with the absolute. What makes a person a great musician is that it is specifically because he is able to break some of the rules of generality and thus remove himself from cliché grooves. His techniques are absurd in a way that others may not understand his methods. But this is why the absurdity makes him the great musician that he is. No one else is able to understand why it is or how it is that he makes use of the absurdity; but he does, and, as the individual becomes superior to the universal by means of it. One could say that she has teleologically suspended the ethics of music. However, she could not have come to this point unless she first subordinated herself to the universal and then later by means of it came to be greater than the universal. Otherwise, musicianship will have never existed simply because it has always existed. Similarly, it seems that Silentio has described faith as such: that the individual must first subordinate himself to the universal, and through the process of time and development, come to transcend the universal by means of it. No one else will be able to understand why or how he does it, but it is exactly because it is absurd, outrageous, and incomprehensible that he is able to do it.

Thus, if I have been able to prove my points accurately, the musician analogy does enable us to better understand an individual's faith, particularly the faith of Abraham. However, we must still realize that all analogies do fail at some point, for they can never be a complete explanation of something that is unexplainable. As I have said earlier, with every analogy there is a similarity and a dissimilarity. The difference we must recognize in this analogy is that in the musician this absolute relation does not involve anything divine such as God, but rather a relation to the realm of music. Faith involves an inwardness and a passion that only the individual can understand, and I have attempted to show only an aspect in the understanding of the process of faith. Says Dr. Evans, this musician analogy provides perhaps a more secular way of understanding. What the musician analogy fails to explain is the importance of the relational aspect that faith plays in an individual’s development. Faith involves a relationship with God - one that is very much unlike a musician’s relationship with his instrument. This faith relationship is one that is uncertain, in the same way that Abraham’s faith in God concerning his son was uncertain. However, it is this very uncertainty that enables one’s faith development to be manifested normatively. A person must go through a long hard process of development in her life and be inferior to the universal by imitating those before her, and then by virtue of absurdity, she is able to act in such a way that her action becomes superior to the universal and stands in absolute relation to the absolute.