After his "foregoing discussion" (See
previous parts of the summary of Problem III) Kierkegaard
returns to the story of Abraham not in order to make the story more
intelligible but rather in order to make the extent of its unintelligibility
more intelligible. Kierkegaard restates that "Abraham I cannot understand, I can
only admire him" (Fear and Trembling, p.153).
Abraham kept silent and did not let anyone
in on his dire task. The aesthetic allows for silence if it can save someone, but this is not the
case for Abraham who cannot save Isaac through silence. Kierkegaard also says that Abraham
is not aesthetic since the
aesthetic can accept personal sacrifice for others, not the sacrifice of
other for the sake of the personal. Ethics, on the other hand, condemns
concealment and demands disclosure that bring the inner into the light of the universal. But Abraham does not do anything for the sake of the ethical
universal and he remains concealed. This leads us once again to Kierkegaard's
paradox: "Either the individual as the individual is able to stand in an absolute relation to the
absolute (and then the ethical is not the highest)/or Abraham is lost–he is
neither a [ethical] tragic hero, nor an aesthetic hero" (Fear and
Trembling, p. 154). Abraham does not speak, he cannot speak, and this is not
simply a withdrawal from society but an anguishing fate of carrying your burden
all by yourself. Unlike the tragic hero, Abraham would not be understood by
others, and this condemns him to silence and solitude. Abraham appears as
insane but inside he knows "here I am" in face of the absolute.
Towards the end of the last chapter of
Fear and Trembling Kierkegaard
looks to Abraham's reply to Isaac: "God will
provide Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son". Kierkegaard argues that this is the
only possible thing Abraham could have said to prevent everything from slipping
into chaos. Speaking in every other way would have taken Abraham out of the
paradox. Abraham's response is ironical, " for it always is irony when I say something and do not say
anything" (Fear and Trembling, p. 157). Abraham's response demonstrates
the double movement of the paradox, he does not lie since the answer captures
the absurd embedded in his faith which at the same time resigns to God's and
trusts him to keep his word. It is not an answer of ignorance, since Abraham is
fully aware of their condition.
Kierkegaard concludes "Fear and
Trembling" by once again asserting that "either there is a paradox,
that the individual as the individual stands in an absolute relation to the
absolute/or Abraham is lost".
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