Page 129 - Eclipse of God

102 Chapter 7

Fear and Trembling he was able to set down the sentence, “Had
I had faith, I would have remained with her.”
The event is here removed out of the situation between
Abraham and God, in which God breaks through the ethical
order which He Himself established, into a sphere where what
happens takes place in a much less unequivocal fashion than in
the Biblical narrative. “That which the Single One is to under-
stand by Isaac,” says Kierkegaard, “can be decided only by and
for himself.” That means, clearly and precisely, that he does not
learn it, at least not unmistakably, from God. God demands
a sacrifice of him, but it is left to the Single One to interpret
what that sacrifice is. His interpretation will always be deter-
mined by his life- circumstances in this hour. How differently
the Biblical voice speaks here! “Thy son, thine only one, whom
thou lovest, Isaac.” There is nothing here to interpret. The man
who hears learns entirely what is demanded of him; the God
who speaks proposes no riddles.
But we still have not arrived at the decisive problematics.
This first appears to us when Kierkegaard compares his Abra-
ham with Agamemnon, who is getting ready to sacrifice Iphi-
genia. Agamemnon is the tragic hero, who is called upon by
“the universal” to sacrifice for the welfare of his people. He,
therefore, “remains within the borders of the ethical,” which
Abraham, “the knight of faith,” crosses over. Everything de-
pends upon this, that Abraham crosses over them with the
paradoxical movement of faith. Otherwise all becomes a de-
monic temptation (“Anfechtung”), the readiness to sacrifice a
readiness to murder, and “Abraham is lost.” This also is decided
in “absolute isolation.” “The knight of faith,” says Kierkegaard,
“is left to his own resources, single and alone, and therein lies
the dreadful.”
This is true insofar as there is no one on earth who can
help him to come to a decision and to perform “the movement