Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard - Essay Example

Understanding the Inner Confines of Soren Kierkegaard – Fear and Trembling Soren Kierkegaard has been regarded as one of the most influential and philosophical writers; so much so that he is known by a number of names including the Danish Socrates, Master of Irony and even Father of Existentialism. All these names have over the years attached themselves to him because of the credibility that he brought to theology, religion, philosophy and psychology during his time. As a writer, he mostly tried to get the idea of being a single entity within the cosmos, across to most people through his work. In terms of philosophy he pressured the emphasis on concrete thinking rather than placing one’s thoughts in an abstract manner. In one his greatest works, Fear and Trembling he wrote about how an individual should focus on his or her own choices and make their own decisions rather than being influenced by societal ideas and ideologies. In theology, he questioned the belief and faith of Christianity and the relationship between human beings and Jesus. He wrote about how he believed that the sole motive and purpose of one’s life was to try and understand as well as develop and nurture his own self in order to attain a certain degree of self actualization and realization. He actively preached and supported how a person had to make choices based on the kind of life he was going to live, and how one’s faith was rational as per his own standards. Whatever a person commits to or undergoes is because he has inflicted it upon himself. Therefore, he came to the conclusion that being truly oneself was an unswerving action of determination or will. Kierkegaard also did not want the public to know about his writing on a direct basis because he believed in a spiritual understanding and brought about his communication with a higher power for the purpose of understanding for the common people. This was again his method of communicating indirectly with everyone else, and at the same time, reaching to God on a higher level as well. In a number of his works, he wrote fierce dialogues ranging between two or more people that were nothing but figments of his own self. Even though a number of different names were used for each work, journal or book, all the voices in the end were coming from Kierkegaard himself and the kind of relationship he shared with a higher power. He used this method in every piece of writing that he did and this was thus, his way of communicating his thoughts with the rest of the world. In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard has made an attempt in order to try and explain the relationship between Abraham and his son Isaac. Within this work, he has tried to emphasize how a person has to make choices based on his own life in order to be one with God and try and attain a level of actualization. This was the dilemma that Abraham faced in his life; he could both listen to God’s wishes and sacrifice his son for the greater good, or not. One way Abraham would become a saviour for his child, and the other way, prove his loyalty towards his religious faith. He writes, “Who gave strength to Abraham's arm? Who held his right hand up so that it did not fall limp at his side? He who gazes at this becomes paralyzed. Who gave strength to Abraham's soul, so that his eyes did not grow dim, so that he saw neither Isaac nor the ram? He who gazes at this becomes blind.–And yet rare enough perhaps is the man who becomes paralyzed and blind, still more rare one who worthily recounts what happened. We all know it–it was only a trial.” Through this paragraph he talks about the difference it can make to one’s life to follow a faith and how at the same time, it was only rational that Abraham devoted his life to God; by ‘it was only a trial’, he means to say that it was God’s own test that Abraham had to pass if he gave Him the utmost importance. Either way, according to Kierkegaard, he was not in a position to judge the kind of decisions Abraham made because those were his solitary choices or the direction he wished to steer his life in. However, he writes that if only because of societal whims and wishes Abraham succumbed to the right of God and sacrificed his son for the purpose of making others think in his favor, it was wrong. While presenting his first problem in the book, Kierkegaard questions whether or not there is something as an ethical or moral purpose behind a person’s faith. According to him, “For faith is this paradox, that the particular is higher than the universal–yet in such a way, be it observed, that the movement repeats itself, and that consequently the individual, after having been in the universal, now as the particular isolates himself as higher than the universal. If this be not faith, then Abraham is lost, then faith has never existed in the world … because it has always existed. For if the ethical (i.e. the moral) is the highest thing, and if nothing incommensurable remains in man in any other way but as the evil (i.e. the particular which has to be expressed in the universal), then one needs no other categories besides those which the Greeks possessed or which by consistent thinking can be derived from them.” Therefore, Kierkegaard writes that one’s faith and belief is something very personal to him and must not be disclosed to the rest of the world. Others should not try and make an inference out of the moralities of another’s opinions. As soon as people start underlining the meaning of the word faith and start giving it a definition, it creates an issue for the majority of society because the word itself cannot really be defined per se, it has its own meaning, on the basis of what a person makes it out to be. It is based on the free will of a person and follows his own theory and his own level of understanding of his life and the fundamental questions to his own existence. Kierkegaard poses certain difficulties for the reader thus. Through his writing, he has tried to pose a number of questions to which a person feels answerable by the time he finishes reading. These fundamentals question a person’s life and the purpose for his existence, thus Kierkegaard has been known to possess the ability of opening a man up and exposing him to his actual inner side, deliberately with a view to try and make the reader comprehend the kind of quandary that Abraham was put through. Through the eyes of Johannes, Kierkegaard poses a number of alternatives and questions to Abraham; whether he will be a good father or give up his offspring as an offering to his God; and whether or not he has more belief in his faith than anything else. Throughout the piece, the writer mediates between extreme situations. In the prelude, he writes, “That man was not a thinker, he felt no need of getting beyond faith; he deemed it the most glorious thing to be remembered as the father of it, an enviable lot to possess it, even though no one else were to know it.” To conclude, Kierkegaard has been able to structure existence and the sheer meaning of existence on the basis of certain decisions made by a person during the course of his lifetime. All of his work till date is an insight into the raging battle going on between the contradictions in his mind that he has been able to put forth with the help of his faith and oneness towards God. He feels that there is no need to go beyond one’s faith if one did not have the power to think on a higher level with God, or think about the bigger picture instead of personal attainment. In ‘Fear and Trembling’ where he talks about the issue faced by Abraham with regard to his son and God, the same issues crop up in an individual’s life on a more levelled basis. The author is highly regarded for his contribution to philosophy and psychology and the kind of spot he puts his readers in through the force of his written word. According to him, going beyond one’s faith may not necessarily be a bad idea because that in itself is something a person wishes to do on his own free will, thus it becomes his faith in a layered manner. Fear and Trembling has used a number of instances where the reader might feel that personal faith or belief might be questioned, however Kierkegaard has helped one to understand how faith can only be answered on a personal basis and no one can do that for another. To an outsider thus, the relationship of one’s faith towards rationality might seem misleading, but not so for the one who is practising it or is in that situation. Works Cited Dawkins, Sabrina. Literary Analysis: Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard. Helium. 16 June 2010.Web. 26 Feb. 2011. Read More