In Genesis, when the Lord told Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, Abraham obeyed without hesitation. What is this story saying about faith and morality? Nearly the entire account is told in just ten short verses. Søren Kierkegaard, the 19th century Danish philosopher, attempts to reconcile Faith and Philosophy using this story as a focus.

Kierkegaard elaborates on the idea of the 'knight of faith' who will try to achieve the impossible based on some absurd hope. Isaac was promised to be the first of a proliferate nation, and yet he was to be sacrificed as a boy. How could this contradiction not cause Abraham's faith to waver? His faith was so unshakeable he was nearly driven to do something evil. What if God had let him sacrifice Isaac, would the story be any different?

Ultimately, Kierkegaard's lengthy analysis of this story leads him to the conclusion that faith is the eternal contemplation of an advanced mind, that faith begins where philosophy leaves off. I didn't understand half of what he said in this book, probably because I know nothing about Hegelian philosophy. I appreciate the different perspectives he presents, but I never found any profound ideas. It is likely there were profound ideas proposed and I was not able to understand.

Adding Kierkegaard to my stan list

I have a lot more appreciation now for Abraham

One of the most impactful books of my life so far. Very few days go by without thinking of this book.

I think I understood a solid two thirds of that so I'm pretty proud of myself

Kierkegaard stumbles across the great rift between religious tradition and secular humanism in this fascinating little book. Over the course of fifty some-odd pages, he grapples with the glaring inconsistency of ethics found in many old testament stories and religious traditions in general.

How are we to judge a man today that takes his only child to the mountains to murder him in the name of God? We would undoubtedly lock the man in prison. Why, then, do we revere Abraham as the Father of faith rather than a mad man? What is the difference? How are we to recognize the difference as outside observers? Kierkegaard’s conclusion, somewhat unsatisfyingly, is that we simply cannot understand Abraham. Nor can we understand any man of faith, for that matter, as he relates to humanity in general or, in other words, the ethical.

Kierkegaard's attempt to refute Hegel's interpretation of the ethical left me more persuaded by Hegel in the end. I can only conclude, for my own sense of what is moral and ethical, that my actions must not harm or compel another if we have no means by which the question of rightness can be collectively settled. Perhaps I, like Kierkegaard, simply cannot make the two movements of faith and, instead, I can only be content with never understanding the hero of faith, and must merely govern myself according to the ethical.

I can't remember the last time a piece of writing bored me so aggressively. An overlong and, to me at least, largely irrelevant collection of opaque writing.