Kierkegaard, while holding up the mask of Johanes de Silencio, uses the metaphor of Abraham's journey with Isaac to personify and characterize his point. As we have discussed in class and in previous blog posts, Kierkegaard, as Silencio, releases his views and opinions into a thick sifter of irony, using a less than parallel Silencio argument to prove his own point. In this case, Silencio follows Hegelian logic (which is Kierkegaard's way of denouncing said logic) and comes to the conclusion that Abraham is a murderer and a sinner.
However, because this is not honestly Kierkegaard saying these things, and it is instead Silencio, we cannot take any of these statements or claims at face value. This unreliable narration serves a point in itself, which is the matter of decisiveness and choice. This serves as a platform for Kierkegaard (or Silencio) to ask his first question: Is there a teleological suspension of the ethical.
When K says Teleological suspension of the ethical, he is talking about a set of actions that are done with a specific goal that will lie at the end of the line--be it life, existence, or what have you. It's very similar to the concept of a formal dogma that is found in nearly all major religions. To continue that thought, Kierkegaard asks the question, "is it right for a person to forgo their own, personal obligations for the sake of the universal, the specific goal. He asks us if there is a higher power that is more important than, and is able to cancel out our human goals.
Personally, I feel that there is not a way for some higher power to trump or conquer our human goals. Hegel and Silencio would disagree with me though, as they both assert that faith (that belief in the perfection of the higher power) is the highest telos capable of mankind, and that it is irrefutable in it's level of importance. However the, if I were to again go back to the story of Abraham (like K does time and time again this book), I would find a concept of faith that is flawed and skewed and altogether non-finite--with rules and doctrines that shift and bend according to the individual. If this notion of Faith was truly absolute, Abraham's feelings of humanity and obligation to his son would have dissipated in the act--for if Abraham truly was to be the father of true faith (and someone who spoke directly with God), he would have been able to brutally murder his son without a second thought.
Something interesting that I found. Penn Jillette, a famous atheist, has a video where he sets the standard of belief or non-belief in God- or any god- as whether or not you would kill your child if God commanded you to do it:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.crackle.com/c/Penn_Says/Agnostic_vs_Atheist_Part_2/2331462
It's interesting that both Kierkegaard/Johannes, presumably a theist, and Penn, an atheist, would consider this the litmus test of faith.
But I think the important point is that if the feelings that Abraham had for Isaac dissipated in that moment, then that sacrifice would no longer be necessary or even pointless. Abraham is meant to love Isaac as much as he does and only because he loves him that much should he be sacrificing him. That is the point of the sacrifice and the moment that the love ceases, the sacrifice loses its meaning. Faith is being able to do that because God told you to.
ReplyDeleteYes, that is true. Unless the sacrifice is painful, it doesn't matter. It must be something that is hard to give up. That's the whole point of a holiday such as Lent, where you have to give up meat and another one of your vices for 40 days.
ReplyDeleteI've given up meat for Lent and, boy, was it tough. If it is a steady part of your diet, you are in for some PAIN. :p I've never wanted to go to McDonalds so much in my life. To get the biggest, meanest, juiciest triple hamburger on the menu, with a cheeseburger for the appetizer and another cheeseburger on the side and another cheeseburger for dessert. No joke.
I'm not sure that I would completely agree with the pain idea - it is not meant to be a torture in a pure sense (as in torture and pain is not its primary goal). It is more the fact that it is something that you truly love and enjoy and that even that you are willing to sacrifice for God. It is the proof that you value God above everything (and everyone) else in your life and are willing to show it if asked.
ReplyDeleteAgreed- but try going without meat and meat products for 40 days, especially in a culture where it is a large part of the normal diet. Let me tell you, it is brutal. Other religions, though, have it way worse. Jews cannot eat for 25 hours straight on Yom Kippur and Muslims cannot eat from sunrise to sunset for an entire month. I have a lot of respect for people who fulfill this requirement because I honestly don't know how they stand it. Maybe it isn't impossible- but it is damn hard. No wonder Muslims have a crazy party when the sun sets and another one when it is all over.
ReplyDeleteI strongly agree with your comment that: "because this is not honestly Kierkegaard saying these things, and it is instead Silencio, we cannot take any of these statements or claims at face value. This unreliable narration serves a point in itself, which is the matter of decisiveness and choice."
ReplyDeleteI think that one of the most important things to remember when reading these passages is that Kkgd might be using JdS to show the reader what NOT to think. I find myself reacting in a similar way every time JdS says something that leads to a paradox or seems just completely and blatanly wrong / nonsensical / contradictory. I'm not perplexed when JdS seems to be saying something that cannot possibly be the case; I simply take it as Kkgd giving us a nod that we shouldn't be taking any of this as necessarily correct.
@Oscar- I really liked your comment. I'm having a very hard time figuring out the significance of the Johannes character. I don't know for sure if Kierkegaard is using him as strictly the 'unreliable' narrator, in the, er, 'Bizarro World' sense (where we can simply read off the oppsite of JdS's statements and get 'what K actually thinks.") It is tricky. I think K built complexity into it. For example, there is speculation that he took the character JdeS from a Grimm's Brother's tale, a 'silent John' in fiction, who is himself faithful to masters and brought back to life by the sacrifice of their children (who then also live). Beyond concerns external to the text, as well, I do think Kierk thinks he lived in an age where doubt and the move to the Knight of Faith are presumed too easy, and he is writing, through JdS to ask people to take a second look. I haven't figured it out, but those are some speculations... TY!
ReplyDelete@Matt,
ReplyDeleteHi. I love the last paragraph at the end of your post. I haven't thought it through deeply enough to know if I can agree with it (agree with that that's how I would would feel if I had that belief) but it seems you have the motivations and beliefs lined up in a way I would agree with: If someone does believe that G-d is the highest thing, and capable of anything, if one takes spirit, and G-d as it's pinnacle as the highest of all values, then one would not feel doubt, nor the bite of ethical conscience nor the pain of aesthetic desires otherwise, upon hearing HIS commandments.
@Matt, cont'd..
ReplyDeleteI think thought the problem K/JdS might be alluding to (and I really have no personal feel for the extent to which K/J is against HEGEL's view of 'spirit' because our culture, even our religious culture, is not in the grip of Hegelian ideology, to require a counterpoint against H's view of spirit, so while I acknowledge that that's part of K/J's urgency, it's not an urgency I can relate to.)
However I think the logical or structural dilemma K/J is highlighting with Abraham, is that IF G-d and the spirit's demands through him are the KNOWN to be the highest of the duty and fulfillment pyramid of personhood, publicly (no matter how arbitrary the demands of that G-d then are) then still, as a known public universally ascribed to 'highest-good'- the spiritual then merely becomes, or is- the ethcial. (A very different 'ethical' but an ethical in that it is universal, cognized by all, equally motivating to all..)
I think it is both the deity, AND Abraham who remain silent (G-d speaks only to Abraham, not 'to the world'- it's not like ancient greece where oracles and augers were 'public') and Abraham silently agrees... it's this privacy, and that it entails doubt (a doubt I, like you can't get my head around- if G-D commands it, what's to doubt, for a true-believer?!?) - but its' that feature that, I admit, with k/j is paradoxical- what if G-d Himself acts in private? Then it is either aesthetic (and because it's G-d, it can't be) or ethical, but because it's not public, universal, it can't be that either. So, on K/JdS, it must be a higher thing, but not one anyone else is privy to. Just trying to think this through.... Thanks.
@Agatha-
ReplyDeleteHere's where I run into trouble with Kierk. I love my cats. It's not hard at all for me to 'resist' eating them. People who love G-d, might have the temptation to eat this or that while it is proscribed by G-d, but the extreme difficulty in not doing so, I think the love of G-d makes it motivating. (I think K/J would say there are possibly two types of 'fasting/avoiding the aesthetic': one that pertains to people who force themselves to do so for the sake of being members of the community of faith- for whom it is a struggle between desire and duty) and those for whom the love and affirmation of personal relationship with that G-d, in a private or personal way, make it a mere foregoing, and not a pitch struggle. K/JdS seems to want to highlight the passion, and compares Abraham to stories of romantic love and it's passion and absurdity, so that has to mean something. K is not the easiest read.
I do agrere with Oscar too because Kierkeegard is using JdS as a pseudonym and trying to expalin his ideas from JdS's view. It is really hard to distinguish what K is really trying to explain. In one way he is comparing his romantic love with Abraham and his sacrifice. Then later is trying to figure out what is ethically right to do or to do according to the virtue of absurd. Then when he raised question as whether there is teleological suspension of ethical or not. His viewpoints are really complicated and hard to understand after reading once.
ReplyDelete@Jeanne and @Junita
ReplyDeleteForgive me, perhaps I should have been more clear with what I was saying. I don't take it to be the case that JdS is a "bizarro" character where we should take everything he says to be the opposite of what is true (although I do appreciate a good Superman reference now and again). I don't think he's either 100% reliable or 100% unreliable. I think Kkgd made him purposely complex so that we (the reader) have to decipher what has value and what doesn't. Certainly some of what he is saying about the nature of faith and the ethical seems to make a lot of sense. I just mean to caution against taking it all as true or taking it all at face value.
In fact, I think that's precisely why this Kkgd material has been so engaging (especially when compared to Kant or Hegel). It's not Kkgd lecturing us with a weighty tome on what is true, period, end of story. Instead of a lecture, I think of it as more of a puzzle that we have to solve (interpret) to figure what has philosophical insight and what doesn't Kkgd is engaging us and making us think for ourselves about these issues to figure what we actually believe to be the case and what we don't.