Interesting point. Re “community”: (and yes, thanks @Kendel for the great summary of Hegel and SK above which helped clarify some things for me too).
Anabaptists historically made a point of separating from the State, (the first reformers to do so), stressing that there were two “communities”–the New Kingdom of believers, where one becomes a member by choice (through faith) and demonstrated through (adult) baptism, and the secular state community into which one is naturally born. They did not recognize “Christendom” as a valid “Christian” community. So I wonder if SK’s criticism of “following the communities ethics” derives from him being immersed in the Christendom of his day, Christendom which naturally conflates the whole community as being “faithful Christians”.
In the mind of Anabaptists, one doesn’t have to posit Nazis to see the danger of following the ethics of the the crowd, they were skeptical of the regular “secular crowd”, pointing out that commonly accepted ethics (defend the honour of your King and State with force) fall short of Jesus’s counter-cultural ethics via the Sermon on the Mount.
Yes! Thanks for that clarification. Those dystopian architypes that always get brought up (by people like me) sort of function as our cultural bellwethers if we sense that a logical extension of certain attitudes or policies, taken to an extreme are going to lead us to …
But no society starts out in such a state, and seems to be brought to those dark places by fear-fueled reaction against other things.
This is why I just couldn’t bring any interest to reading Marx in the one course on European Intellectual history I took which covered that period. @Mervin_Bitikofer’s post today in the MacDonald thread really drives home how there is no access to the universal (meaning the divine, not the state) except through the individual. And that seems to have been SK’s thought too in regard to poor Abe.
Yep!
You got it, Mark.
The grounds of [true] belief in God is the experience of God: God is not the conclusion of an argument but the subject of an experience report.
The grounds of true belief in God is the experience of God. God is not the conclusion of an argument but the subject of an individual’s experience report.
“Poor Abe”? He suffered some temporally and temporarily, but he got to experience God because he loved him. And the antecedents of those latter two pronouns are commutative.
Which point, about antecedents? God loved Abraham, Abraham loved God. (And it has nothing to do with the Euthyphro dilemma. 
It may touch on Reformed Theology though 
, …and God’s omnitemporallity. ; - )
Ok. That’s what I thought you meant. We are in accord with one another - and with Reformed theology.
@Mervin_Bitikofer and @klw
You’re welcome. I’m glad you said more; there is more to clarify. I should not have mentioned Schindler’s list. It misdirected your attention.
Your comparison to “community” is better. At one point SK actually does compare the church to the universal. Although it isn’t exactly complementary, because it does not require faith to be a part of the church that he was criticizing.
Below is a description of the universal, which I hope will help clarify. It’s from Problema III in F&T. In it the tragic hero is the most noble, laud-worthy member of the universal. He sacrifices everything, if necessary, for the universal. Abraham is the Knight of Faith. The tragic hero does not need faith in Kierkegaard’s “story” within a story:
Let us, then, consider a bit more closely the distress and the anxiety in the paradox of faith. The tragic hero renounces himself in order to express the universal; the knight of faith renounces the universal in order to become the single individual. As noted, everything depends upon how one is situated. Someone who believes that it is quite easy to be the single individual can always be certain that he is not a knight of faith, for happy-go-lucky types and vagabond geniuses are not men of faith. By contrast, the knight of faith knows that it is glorious to belong to the universal. He knows that it is beautiful and pleasant to be the single individual who translates himself into the universal, who, so to speak, himself edits a clean and elegant and—so far as possible—error-free edition of himself that can be read by everyone. He knows that it is refreshing for a person to be understandable to himself in the universal in such a way that he understands it and, in turn, every individual who understands him understands the universal in him, and both find joy in the security of the universal. He knows that it is beautiful to be born as the single individual who has his home, his welcoming place of rest, in the universal, which if he wishes to remain there, immediately receives him with open arms. But he also knows that, higher than this, a narrow, steep path wends its lonely way; he knows that it is frightful to be born alone, outside the universal, to wander without encountering one single wanderer. He knows very well where he is and how he is situated in relation to people. Humanly speaking, he is mad and cannot make himself understood by anyone. And yet, madness is the mildest expression for it. If he is not viewed in this way, he is a hypocrite, and the further up the path he ascends, the more abominable a hypocrite he becomes.
SK must never have read The Pilgrim’s Progress or at least not have identified with Christian.
Dale:
SK must never have read The Pilgrim’s Progress or at least not have identified with Christian.
I have no idea. How could I?
I’ve read one book and a few odds and ends by the man, a short, broad overview of his thought and life, and most of a book about the book I’ve read by him. I’ve caught a few YouTube lectures on the one book by him I’ve read. I think that’s it.
I’ve worked on Fear and Trembling for 6 months. I’ve read, listened to and reviewed most of the sections at least 5 times. I’ve probably written over 100 pages of notes and questions about it just to try to help myself comprehend it, and I feel like I have the most rudimentary grasp on his thought as expressed in this one enigmatic book.
I couldn’t possibly conclude what he has or hasn’t read (except for Hegel), what of that he has accepted or rejected, and with which real persons or fictional characters he identifies.
These are beyond me.
Whatever Kierkegaard thought of or didn’t think of Bunyan, via his unreliable, enigmatic pseudonymous narrator/author he said this:
It is upon this pinnacle that Abraham stands. The last stage that he left behind, out of sight, is infinite resignation. He actually goes further and comes to faith. For all these caricatures of faith—the pitiable, lukewarm indolence that thinks: “There is of course no emergency, it’s not worth worrying about before it happens;” the wretched hope that says: “One cannot know what will happen; after all, it could be possible …”: these travesties have their place in life’s squalor, and they have already been infinitely despised by infinite resignation.
Abraham I cannot understand; in a certain sense, I cannot learn anything from him other than to be astonished. If people imagine that by considering the outcome of this story they can let themselves be moved into having faith, they deceive themselves and want to cheat God out of the first movement of faith; they want to suck sage counsel about life out of the paradox. Perhaps someone or other will succeed in this, for our times do not remain standing at faith, with its miracle of turning water into wine: they go further, they turn wine into water.
Would it not in fact be best to remain standing at faith, and is it not shameful that everyone wants to go further? When, in our times—and this is of course proclaimed in a variety of ways—people do not want to remain standing at love, where are they going, then? To worldly shrewdness, narrow-minded calculation, to wretchedness and misery, to everything that can cast doubt upon humanity’s divine origin. Would it not be best that a person remained standing at faith, and that the person who is standing took care not to fall, for the movement of faith must always be made by virtue of the absurd, though, note well, in such a way that a person does not lose finitude, but gains it wholly and completely. For my part, I can certainly describe the movements of faith, but I cannot make them. If a person wants to learn the movements of swimming, he can put on a harness and suspend himself from the ceiling: he will certainly describe the movements, but he is not swimming. In the same way, I can describe the movements of faith, but when I am thrown into the water, I certainly do swim (for I am not one of those who wade), but I make other movements, I make the movements of infinity, whereas faith does the opposite: after having made the movements of infinity, it makes those of finitude. Fortunate, then, the person who can make those movements: he performs a marvel, and I shall never tire of admiring him; whether it be Abraham or a servant in Abraham’s house, whether it be a professor of philosophy or a poor serving-maid is a matter of complete indifference to me—I look only at the movements.
pp. 44 and 45
And this:
But there was no one who could understand Abraham. And yet, what did he achieve? — that he remained true to his love. But the person who loves God has no need of tears, no admiration—in love, he forgets the suffering; indeed, so completely has he forgotten it that afterward there would not be the least hint of pain if God himself did not remember it, for he sees in secret, and knows the distress, and counts the tears, and forgets nothing.
p. 145
and this
Whatever one generation learns from another, no generation learns what is truly human from a previous generation. In this respect every generation begins in primal fashion: it has no task other than that faced by every previous generation; nor (assuming that the previous generation did not betray its task and deceive itself) does it come any further. What is truly human is passion, in which indeed the one generation perfectly understands the other and understands itself. Thus no generation has learned from another how to love. No generation gets to begin at any other point than the beginning. No subsequent generation has a task that is abbreviated in comparison to the preceding one, and if someone is unwilling to remain standing at love as previous generations did, but wants to go further, then it is just idle and foolish talk.
p. 146 & 147
Not through the state, but definitely through not apart from a covenant community. You do need to read James Smith.
Mike, I think you have misunderstood the exchange between Merv, KLW, Mark and me, which is not only a summary of what I understand SK to have said in his description of Hegel’s concept of the universal and Johannes de silentio’s understanding of Abraham’s relationship to it and to God in the context of faith, but also a discussion of how Marx understood and applied Hegel’s ideas in his own work, and how those played out in an actual marxist and nazistic states, as well as an exploration of the idea of the universal to an Anabaptist concept of community. None of us was suggesting that an individual relates to the absolute by means of the state. Kierkegaard does not do that either, nor did Hegel or Marx.
Mark has already been exposed to a good deal of this discussion earlier in a private thread where some good folks endure my lamentations and meager efforts at this book. So, he was already a bit familiar with what I had said in my public post.
Some time ago I sketched this relationship out (The Teleological Suspension of the Ethical) in my notes on F&T to help myself pull all the bits and pieces together from Problema I, where he first goes into detail on the idea. Maybe it will help you, too.
Here are the notes that I had written to help explain the drawing and what else I had worked on understanding.
This sketch reflects the first 6 paragraphs of Problema 1, where SK describes the Universal/Ethical as the telos of all. The universal/ethical is the highest telos of all. Everything goes into it and remains; nothing is supposed to come out.
Once in the universal, [C] an individual’s ethical task consists in annulling his individuality in order to become the universal. This is essential, because Hegel defines the human being in his particular state, as a “form of moral evil” which is to be annulled in the teleology of the ethical life. If an individual [A] asserts his particularity/individuality vis-a-vis the universal, this is sin or spiritual trial, and must be acknowledged in order to reconcile to the universal. This requires [B] penitent surrender to the universal again. Note that sin/spiritual trial take place within the universal.
Because the ethical is the highest telos in human existence, it has the same character as eternal salvation. There is nothing higher.
Faith is a paradox, because, as with Abraham [D], the single individual, who has been in the universal, annulled his individuality, now acts as a single individual again to isolate himself higher than the universal, that is, now higher than the highest telos of mankind.
Not only that, faith is a paradox, because the singularity of the individual, a moral evil, is now above/superior to what is highest, the ethical/social morality, and is justified over against (gegenüber) the universal (NOT within it).
Being outside the universal/ethical/social morality, this individual, Abraham, is in absolute* relation with the absolute [E], where no mediation is possible between the individual and the absolute (perhaps God), OR between the individual and the rest of society. Mediation is only possible within the universal and would take the form of speech, which Hegel describes as a function of the universal.
*Absolute: unconditioned reality which is either the spiritual ground of all being or the whole of things considered as a spiritual unity (see Schelling & Hegel). Ficte: an absolute self which lives its life through all finite persons.
Because the individual is asserting himself as a particular, the paradox of faith can easily be mistaken for a spiritual trial. However, spiritual trial can only take place within the universal. Because Abraham functions above the universal, he is not in a state of spiritual trial, and cannot speak of it as such, or he would reenter the universal.
An additional paradox is that Abraham’s duty to God is in direct conflict with the ethical. A temptation is something that would restrain a person from doing his duty. In this case, however, the temptation is the ethical demand that “The father should love his son” (and not kill him). If Abraham follows the ethical, he is in conflict with God’s command.
Abraham is different from a tragic hero, in spite of the superficial similarity, that he is willing to kill his son.
Do not mistake my description of what understand as an endorsement. I was trying to figure it out.
I look forward to reading some of Smith’s work. Maybe you can provide some quotes from his work you think would add to the discussion here.
A prayer from Kierkegaard’s “Practice in Christianity”:
Lord Jesus Christ, you did not come to the world to be served and thus not to be admired either, or in that sense worshipped. You yourself were the way and the life – and you have asked only for imitators. If we have dozed off into this infatuation, wake us up, rescue us from this error of wanting to admire or adoringly admire you instead of wanting to follow you and be like you.
Jay, thank you for this!
It fits exactly his description of the Knight of Infinite Resignation staying true to his love (for God) in contrast to the Knight of faith, “who every moment of his life purchases the opportune moment at the highest price, for he does not do the least thing except by virtue of the absurd [that is by faith].”
And his description of the church as equivalent to the universal, rather than something that requires faith.
It is an active faith then.
Thanks for this, Jay.
Soon after that is one of my favorite pages in the whole book. Might as well have just highlighted the whole thing and been done with it.
This was what I figured you were agreeing with.
Thanks for the lengthy explanation, and your notes are cool to look at.
I’m not in a place where I can read a lot of text and make connections that are not immediately apparent.
there is no access to the universal (meaning the divine, not the state) except through the individual
This seems to exclude access to the divine via a worshipping community. I am very much both/and when it comes to God’s relationship with individuals at a corporate and individual level.
Oh wow.
Thank you, Jay. This is a lot to take in.
You’re welcome. I hope it was helpful.
Completely understandable. SK sets out a thinly veiled dare to his readers at the beginning of F&T to read it attentively enough to grasp the meaning.
The present writer is by no means a philosopher, he is, poetice et eleganter [to express it poetically and in elegant fashion], a supplementary clerk who neither writes the System nor makes any promises concerning the System, 6 who neither obligates himself to write about the System nor obligates himself to the System. He writes because for him it is a luxury that is all the more pleasant and palpable, the fewer there are who purchase and read what he writes.
(“Preface”, Fear and Trembling 16% Bookshare edition viewed in Calibre.)
I’ve put in 6 months of work on this book. I’ve read the complete book, each section many times as I’ve gone, and the whole thing straight through at least twice. Some of it is starting to fall into place for me. I’m seeing connections I hadn’t seen before and wondering how much I’ve missed.
This is not the kind of book that one can just tinker around with and then discuss well. Take your time.