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| Abraham's Dark Half | |||||||
| 29.09.98 | |||||||
| Abraham and Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard and Abraham. One was the father of great nations, the other was a philosopher and writer. One claimed faith, the other renounced it. Yet there is a connection between the two, though it may be no more than a few strands of coincidence, imagination, and fancy. S�ren Kierkegaard uses Abraham as the primary focus of his novel Fear and Trembling. Kierkegaard sees something in Abraham and the story of Abraham that helps him communicate his own story. Abraham is perhaps Kierkegaard's alter-ego, the flip side of the same gilded coin, where the coin is faith and the gild is sacrifice. There are parallels in their stories, yet there are contradictions as well. Their stories compliment each other and show the stark differences between Abraham's act of faith and Kierkegaard's act of ambition. | |||||||
| I think that the story of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac is a classic example for Kierkegaard to use to describe his own feelings toward both faith and his life. Personally, Kierkegaard had experienced some of the same emotions that Abraham had been forced to endure. Like Abraham, Kierkegaard was willing to and in fact did give up the love of his life, Regine Olsen, in order to pursue his personal needs. While he could have lived a more normal and perhaps even happier life, Kierkegaard felt that it was imperative to remain single in order to achieve his goals. Similarly, Abraham knew that he must sacrifice Isaac because God had told him to. The circumstances leading up to the situations where something had to be sacrificed were also similar: Abraham had to leave his homeland to venture to a new land, while Kierkegaard had to renounce his familiar family life in order to embark on his own adventure, alone. To me, Kierkegaard sets up a comparison between Abraham, who he identifies as being the father of faith, and himself. Perhaps a lofty self-regard led him to do this, but, considering how Kierkegaard felt toward his contemporaries, it is no surprise that he thought himself above the rest. There are numerous times when Kierkegaard outright rejects the teachings of Hegel, and he goes so far as to ridicule Hegel's idea of going further than faith when, speaking of Abraham, he writes, "that in one hundred and thirty years you got no further than faith" (56). Like Abraham, Kierkegaard seems to believe that it is not necessary to go further that faith - in fact, Kierkegaard almost suggests that just going to faith is superfluous itself. Kierkegaard presumably believes that his own beliefs are the correct beliefs, and, like Abraham, he should be at least respected for these beliefs and the sacrifices that he has made for them. However, Kierkegaard is instead ridiculed by his society for his beliefs, eventually becoming the laughingstock for a local newspaper. Likewise, the people of Abraham's time did not or could not understand his actions or beliefs; Kierkegaard goes so far as to say that the same might be true forever. He asserts that no one can rightly understand precisely what Abraham went through, yet Kierkegaard's own actions (though not motivations) mirror those of Abraham. Abraham rejected his early life, as did Kierkegaard. Abraham was forced to sacrifice, as was Kierkegaard. So if anyone is able to understand Abraham, it should be Kierkegaard. And if anyone is able to understand what it means to go out on one's own in order to pursue one's destiny, it should be Kierkegaard. If Abraham is the father of faith, then Kierkegaard should be the father of meaningful existence. | |||||||
| Yet despite Kierkegaard's familiarity with Abraham and his plight, Kierkegaard repeatedly confesses that he can not understand Abraham's unshakable faith. To me, Kierkegaard seems to be implying that there is no faith in a greater power to understand. He calls Abraham's ability to believe in something bigger than himself a leap into the absurd. "Absurd" - the very word seems to signify that the idea is foolish. Abraham's faith in God is something that Kierkegaard does not try to emulate. Instead, Kierkegaard's faith is in himself. He does not decide to break off his engagement with Olsen because God deems it so; he does it because he deems it so. Kierkegaard, unlike Abraham, does not expect to get his sacrifice back - Kierkegaard can go as far as renunciation and sacrifice, but not faith. If faith was truly something worth the trouble, it seems as though Kierkegaard himself would have made the jump. Instead, he seems content to say that he can not. I can only fathom that this is because he feels that he does not need to make such a jump to achieve his goals, namely, the inscribing of his ideas in various literary works. In fact, Kierkegaard does not get Regine back, though Abraham, through no action of his own, receives Isaac back. It seems to me that because Abraham was able to receive Isaac back only because he gave him away. Kierkegaard can not receive Regine back based on the same principle. He gave Regine up to his own ambition, and his ambition did not have the ability to give her back. And yet Abraham did not take the final plunge: he did not execute Isaac. Kierkegaard, in fact, did execute his relationship with Regine. Perhaps in this respect, Kierkegaard considers himself superior to Abraham. While Abraham can only claim that he was willing to sacrifice, not that he had done the actual deed, Kierkegaard can point to Regine and say with confidence, "I did something that Abraham will never understand." Kierkegaard surpasses Abraham in the act of actual sacrifice. | |||||||
| Abraham's story can be seen as a vehicle of expression for Kierkegaard's own story. The stories parallel each other in many places, but many times they cross and intersect, bringing their differences into stark contrasts. While Kierkegaard may respect Abraham's actions, it seems almost as though he respects his place in history even more, and that may be the true key to the use of Abraham's sacrifice as a treatise on faith. Kierkegaard wrote, "Faith begins where thinking leaves off" (82). For Kierkegaard, the thinking is constant and the faith nonexistent.�� | |||||||