Kierkegaard
writes in his Journals: "What is the Absurd? It is, as may quite
easily be seen, that I, a rational being, must act in a case where my reason,
my powers of reflection, tell me: you can just as well do the one thing as the
other, that is to say where my reason and reflection say: you cannot act and
yet here is where I have to act".
Kierkegaard's concept of absurd is closely
related to his concept of Paradox.
The absurd is something or a state which cannot be rationally explained. It could be said that for Kierkegaard the
absurd is any action which happens without a rational reason to justify it.
Like the paradox, the absurd is linked to the collision between two opposing
powers which in Kierkegaard's philosophy are the ethical and the religious,
which prompts the "Leap of faith" from one to the other. The inability to mediate the two
contradicting forces leaves the individual in a paradoxical state of absurd. In Fear and Trembling Kierkegaard gives the example of Abraham's absurd condition in which he
faithfully intends to kill his own son Isaac while at the same time believing
that God will keep him alive. This is for Kierkegaard the exemplary
manifestation of the absurd faith.
