In "Problem II", the
fourth chapter of "Fear and Trembling", Kierkegaard returns to the Hegelian assertion that opened "Problem I" according
to which "The ethical is the universal". Kierkegaard says that if follows from this that this
that ethical is once again divine and this makes any duty a duty towards God.
But such an abstract equation of God and ethics in fact leaves God out of the
picture by bounding man only within the compass of moral duty which is never
directed at God. In such a case
"God becomes an invisible vanishing point, a powerless thought, His power
being only in the ethical which is the content of existence" (Fear
and Trembling, p.117).
Kierkegaard asks if there can be anything in human life which transcends the ethical? in order to
answer this question he starts a debate with Hegelian philosophy which holds that the external
is higher than the inner. The inner is defined by the external which is the
manifestation and realization of the inner. But faith, according to Kierkegaard, is a Paradox in which the inner has the upper hand over
the external. Faith for Kierkegaard
can only come from an inner movement towards the infinite which yields faith.
The Paradox of faith according to
Kierkegaard is "that the
individual is higher than the universal, that the individual... determines his
relation to the universal by his relation to the absolute, not his relation to
the absolute by his relation to the universal" (Fear and Trembling, p.119). If we set a complete duty to face the
divine absolute, then it follows that there is something higher than the
ethical, which can bring someone to do something extra-ethical in the name of
his Love for God.
If it were otherwise, Kierkegaard
asserts, faith would not have any place nor meaning.
Back to the main summary of Fear and Trembling
or by chapter:
Problem II
See also:
Some books to check out: