Fear and Trembling

by

Søren Kierkegaard

Fear and Trembling: Problema 3 Summary & Analysis

Summary
Analysis
Johannes writes that, as the universal, the ethical is also the “disclosed.”. When a person conceals anything, they are sinning and can only rectify it by becoming more open. For this reason, unless Johannes can establish that there are situations in which the individual (as a being higher than the universal) can ethically justify concealment, then Abraham can be rightly condemned for not telling Sarah, Eleazar, and Isaac about God’s demand. Johannes proposes to look at the question in an aesthetic way, especially in the category of the interesting. To become interesting is a “fateful privilege,” but one that involves a lot of personal pain. Because the interesting serves as the border between the aesthetic and the ethical, this examination will constantly refer to ethics while trying to invoke an aesthetic feeling from the reader.  
To “disclose” is to bring a secret to light so that everyone knows what it is. The ethical, then, is out in the open, transparent, and known to all. By this logic, anything that a person feels like they should conceal is actually a sin; concealment is a violation of ethics, so if a person isn’t comfortable with their actions or thoughts being known, then there’s a good chance that whatever it is violates ethics. Johannes describes being interesting as a “fateful privilege.” This indicates that it is out of a person’s control—either their life will be interesting or not. However, it’s also a privilege because people will be interested in it; it could even open the door to becoming great.
Themes
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Quotes
In drama (both Greek and modern), concealment creates tension while recognition helps resolve the tension. In Greek drama, Fate conceals things (maybe a son murders his father but doesn’t learn it was his father until later), but in modern drama both concealment and revelation are the hero’s responsibility. If what the hero hides is silly, then the drama is a comedy; if an idea is concealed, the drama is likely a tragedy. For the purposes of this investigation, Johannes says he will deal exclusively with the tragic, such as when two lovers are nearly separated because they each conceal their love for one another. In drama, a third party (maybe a housekeeper) would reveal the secret, the lovers would talk, and in the end they are united as heroes. Ethics, however, would condemn both for concealing anything because ethics doesn’t consider feelings or experience when passing judgment.
 Johannes chooses to focus on drama because it’s something that evokes emotions (or what he calls aesthetics). Drama and fiction have the unique ability to get people involved in the story; they put themselves in the hero’s shoes or try to feel with the heroine. Drama is also unique because it uses the ethical and unethical as tools to create something interesting. Johannes also highlights how unfeeling ethics is because it leaves no wiggle room for exceptions or special cases. Anyone who doesn’t abide by ethics will be condemned by the universal.
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Aesthetics asks for concealment and rewards it, but ethics punishes concealment because it demands disclosure. Sometimes aesthetics calls for disclosure, though. For instance, Agamemnon had to keep his grief over having to sacrifice Iphigenia quiet because he’s the hero, but aesthetics demands that somehow the other characters find out why Agamemnon must do this terrible deed. So, a servant reveals everything, and everyone understands. Ethics makes no allowances for third-party interventions and coincidences, though. Agamemnon becomes an ethical tragic hero by telling Iphigenia what will happen to her himself. Still, there are times when people achieve greatness through keeping a secret. Johannes argues that silence can be both divine (communion between divinity and the individual) or demonic (as a lure that gets stronger the longer a person is silent).
Ethics doesn’t just demand disclosure; it demands that each individual disclose whatever they’re concealing themselves. If they don’t do it, then they would still be in a state of sin and thus condemned by the universal. Agamemnon, however, finds something of a loophole after his secret gets out to others: he discloses himself to the one person his actions will affect the most. When Johannes notes that a silence can be demonic, he means that it can, like a demon, be designed to torment, usually to torment oneself but possibly to torment another person. This is similar to what’s supposed to happen in Hell: a demon torments the souls that didn’t make it into heaven. In this way, someone who gives into demonic silence is like a demon themselves.
Themes
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Johannes says that before he returns to Abraham’s story, he will examine some other poetic figures. He starts with the story of a bridegroom who was scared by an augur who predicted that misfortune would befall him if he got married. The man loved his fiancée but worried about what the misfortune would be. He had three choices: say nothing, get married, and risk both misfortune and the bride’s anger if she learns the truth; say nothing, don’t get married, and face the bride’s family’s anger; or tell everyone about the prediction. Ethics requires him to speak, although aesthetics would prefer that he stay silent. The man has these options because the augur’s words can be understood by anyone—the man can speak about them to anyone. If the words had come privately from God, the man wouldn’t be able to speak intelligibly to anyone and so must be silent.
Like Abraham, the bridegroom receives a message from a deity (an augur was a well-respected spiritual leader who could convey messages from the deities). However, the bridegroom doesn’t get the message direction, it comes to him through the augur. This automatically makes the prediction something anyone can understand because it’s clearly been delivered in universal terms. As part of the universal, a person might rightly say the bridegroom has an ethical obligation to disclose the information to his fiancée because ethics (the universal) demands this kind of direct disclosure. 
Themes
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The story of the bridegroom had to do with the divine, and now Johannes will share a similar story that has to do with the demonic: Agnete and the Merman. The Merman is a seducer who lures innocent women to the ocean and then drags them in when they bend over the water. The Merman successfully lures Agnete to the sea, but just as he’s about to drag her into the depths she looks at him with eyes full of trust; the Merman is unable to drag her into the ocean and so he brings her back to her house and says he just wanted her to see how beautiful the ocean was. Johannes now takes control of the story and declares that Agnete’s innocence has destroyed the seducer in Merman—he will never seduce again and must decide between repenting of his sinful past by himself or with Agnete.
The Merman is transformed by Agnete in a similar way to how people are transformed by faith after catching a glimpse of it. After seeing what true love, trust, and innocence looked like, the Merman became unwilling to risk tarnishing it in anyone else. It makes him want to be a better person, as shown by Johannes’s statement that the Merman decided he’d never be able to seduce another person again. Similarly, once someone attains faith and understands the eternal, they strive to break their bad habits and devote their energy to their faith.
Themes
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Johannes says that if the Merman chooses to repent alone, he’s choosing to be a concealer; on the other hand, if he chooses to be with Agnete, then he’ll have to disclose himself. Agnete will be unhappy if he chooses the former because she loves him; the Merman will be unhappy because he has genuine passion for Agnete. This is the demonic side of repentance—it tells the Merman that it’s a good thing for him to be tormented. The Merman can even try to make Agnete hate him to ease the separation—he can mock and belittle her but telling her the truth won’t be enough to destroy her love. This option is a lot like the paradox of faith in that the Merman would be trying to be the particular that’s higher than the universal. However, the Merman can speak, so he can also be a tragic hero.
If the Merman chooses to be silent—even if he makes Agnete hate him to save her the pain—then he is also devoting himself to being punished. His guilt will eat away at him, and it will be a lifelong hurt. This is the kind of torment that characterizes the demonic. Staying quiet would also require infinite resignation, which highlights another thing the demonic and divine have in common.
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The Merman can save himself from the demonic in two ways: stay hidden and hope the divine will save Agnete or be saved by marrying Agnete. Johannes says it’s important for him to point out that through sin the individual can be higher than the universal (the demonic paradox). Johannes believes that any ethics that ignores sin is useless, and it goes beyond itself if it tries to determine sin. Johannes then states that he can understand the previous two stories, but they don’t help him understand Abraham because Abraham didn’t become the particular through sin. Any analogy with Abraham must involve an individual who accomplishes the universal, thus repeating the paradox. The Merman must either become a demon or be lost to the world if he’s silent, but only aesthetics believes he can be saved through marrying Agnete. If he disclosed himself, he’d be the greatest man Johannes knows. 
Sin takes the individual above the universal because sin implies some spirituality. Spirituality is not subject to the universal the way ethics is. When a person sins, they effectively say that they have some higher authorization for their actions, albeit a higher authorization that comes from nefarious forces (Satan). Because ethics is the universal it has no right to determine anything about the spiritual, which is why Johannes says ethics would go beyond itself by trying to define or determine sin. The Merman can become great through disclosure because disclosure is the primary thing that ethics and the universal asks from individual people.
Themes
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The Merman uses all his strength making the movement of repentance and so he can’t make the next movement “on the strength of the absurd.” However, some people don’t have the requisite passion to make either movement; they are the ones who have given up on really living. Johannes remarks that very few people enter monasteries, but this doesn’t mean that the majority of people are greater than those who do enter monasteries. In fact, Johannes is impressed by people who can dedicate so much of their lives to exploring every secret thought and dark corner of their mind. In society, few people consider and even avoid those thoughts. Furthermore, a person who moves into a monastery is just one movement away from the absurd.
Johannes notes that the Merman would have made another movement “on the strength of the absurd” if he had the energy. This means that the Merman might have made the final movement into faith. Even though the Merman would have had to renounce Agnete, if he made this final movement then he would have received a lot of comfort because he’d believe that he and Agnete would still surely be together one day.
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Johannes moves on to a story from the Book of Tobit, but he modifies it somewhat for his examination. Tobias wants to marry a beautiful woman named Sarah, but Sarah knows that a demon will kill anyone she marries on their wedding night. It is tragic, but Sarah goes through with the wedding and, that night, Tobias proposes they pray to God for mercy. In an aside, Johannes notes that most poets would select Tobias as the hero, but Johannes believes Sarah is the real hero for letting Tobias risk himself to marry her. A man in the same situation would hide away and succumb to the demonic. Johannes uses Shakespeare’s Richard III as an example of someone who was set aside from the universal from birth due to physical deformity; his anger over this led to Richard III turning to the demonic through contempt for humanity.
Both Sarah and Tobias make a movement of infinite resignation by deciding to get married: Tobias renounces his life and Sarah renounces the future of her marriage. However, they have hope that God will spare them the fate they think they’ll face. This shows that both of them are on the path to faith. They could also just be tragic heroes because they appear to be able to make themselves understood to the other (faith, of course, is unintelligible to anyone else).
Themes
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Johannes writes that Faust also tried to save the universal by his silence. Most people see Faust as a “doubter” and seducer, but Johannes sees Faust as a doubter with a deeply sympathetic nature. However, at some point Faust realizes that spirit sustains life, although he firmly believes the spirit doesn’t really exist. However, because Faust is sympathetic and loves life himself, he keeps quiet about his realizations and his doubt. Faust knows that if he shares his discovery (the spirit doesn’t exist) then everything will devolve into confusion and despair. Ethics condemns this silence, but if he stands in absolute relation to the absolute then his silence can be justified (although his doubt will become guilt because he’ll enter the paradox). Additionally, passages in the Bible show that sometimes it’s better to conceal—even Jesus recommends that people should clean their face to hide the fact that they’re fasting.
When Johannes calls Faust a “doubter,” he means that Faust doubts in the existence of God, the spirit, eternity, or anything divine. Faust’s sympathetic nature makes him more human, though, because it enables him to actively avoid doing anything that might ruin or disrupt another person’s life. Even though ethics categorically condemns concealment regardless of motives or feelings, Johannes finds ample evidence that concealment has divine support through Jesus’s own words. This indicates that Abraham’s silence can be justified, particularly because he stays quiet for spiritual reasons.
Themes
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Johannes turns his attention back to Abraham, who didn’t tell Sarah, Eleazar, or Isaac about God’s command to sacrifice Isaac. Aesthetics says that it’s okay to be silent if silence saves someone else. For obvious reasons, this can’t be applied to Abraham’s story—Abraham is actually an outrage, aesthetically speaking. Aesthetics might understand a person’s decision to sacrifice themselves, but not one person sacrificing another for their own sake. Ethics demands disclosure, which is why ethics loves the tragic hero (who acts for the universal and is disclosed somehow). Abraham, however, remains silent and does nothing for the universal. Unless the individual can stand in absolute relation to the absolute, ethics reigns supreme and Abraham is neither an aesthetic nor a tragic hero. 
A lot of what Abraham’s story boils down to is his connection with God, or his absolute relation to the absolute. Johannes has already established that there is an absolute duty to God and it’s possible for there to be a teleological suspension of the ethical, but these things also depend on whether it’s possible for one individual to have a personal connection with God. If Abraham doesn’t have this connection, it would mean that everything else about his story is a lie. This is why he wouldn’t be any kind of hero; he’d be more like a villain.
Themes
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Quotes
Abraham’s anguish and distress are rooted in the fact that he can’t speak and be understood, that he must be silent. This is because no universal terms can help anyone understand that Abraham must sacrifice Isaac because he loves him and because God has given him a trial. This is something a tragic hero can’t understand, in part because they’ve given counterarguments the chance to be heard (such as Agamemnon letting Iphigenia and others talk to him about the sacrifice he must make). Abraham can’t do this—his family would ask him why he would sacrifice Isaac if he could just as easily choose not to, and if Abraham looks to them for comfort, they will think he’s a hypocrite. There is simply no way for Abraham to speak without compromising his identity as a faithful man. 
Abraham is not only condemned to sacrifice his own son he’s condemned to silence about it. If he’s not silent, he risks the legitimacy of what he’s doing because trying to speak about it would reduce everything to the universal; in other words, it would no longer be so much a spiritual trial as a temptation. Abraham’s family would see him as a hypocrite for looking for comfort in a couple of ways: either he’s an ethical hypocrite because he’s saying he loves his son but will still sacrifice him for personal reasons (which would mean he actually hates Isaac), or he’s a spiritual hypocrite because he’s looking to the universal for comfort instead of finding comfort in his faith and through God even though he preaches faith to others. 
Themes
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Although Abraham can’t speak, he is simultaneously making the movement of faith, which tells him that Isaac won’t really be lost. This comforts Abraham in his silence. In fact, the only thing Abraham reportedly says to Isaac is that God will provide the lamb (this in response to Isaac’s question about where the lamb they are sacrificing is). Johannes says he will explore Abraham’s last words, which gives his story more depth. There is some debate over whether a tragic hero should make any final statement before their sacrifice (Johannes believes Agamemnon might have cheapened his sacrifice if he insisted on saying something at the last second), but it seems appropriate in cases where the hero’s life tends towards the spiritual—final words in this case would help immortalize the hero.
When a hero has spiritual leanings, their last words should contain some moral lesson or some other inspiration. This is why final words can make (that is, immortalize) or break a hero for future generations. Abraham’s last words about the lamb are unique for what they don’t say—either an untruth or the truth. Abraham came up with the perfect non-answer that still technically answers the question. Indeed, God will provide the lamb, but there is no saying whether Isaac (who was a literal gift from God) isn’t that lamb. Isaac doesn’t see or understand this, though, and is content with Abraham’s words. 
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Abraham has to be very careful in his choice of words—he shouldn’t tell a lie, but if he tries to share the bare truth then he risks tumbling back into the universal and transforming the situation into total temptation. Abraham’s words are a form of irony because even though words come out of his mouth, he doesn’t say anything. However, his words do show that Abraham is constantly making the double movement of infinite resignation and faith. Johannes believes this becomes more obvious because Abraham knew what would happen on Mount Moriah—Abraham will sacrifice Isaac. If Abraham didn’t know that, then he wouldn’t have made the movement of infinite resignation and then he wouldn’t even amount to a tragic hero.
Johannes notes that Abraham talks without speaking, which hearkens back to Johannes’s earlier statement that Abraham truly couldn’t speak. This is why Abraham chose words that didn’t actually reflect his thoughts. However, Abraham doesn’t speak complete nonsense because the words themselves are calm, confident, and decided. They reveal that Abraham has made the movement of infinite resignation. The words also convey Abraham’s certainty that even though God has asked him to sacrifice Isaac, Abraham won’t actually lose Isaac—surely God will send a lamb on the strength of the absurd.
Themes
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Quotes
Johannes says that he can understand Abraham, but he lacks the courage to speak or act like Abraham did. While people admire the tragic hero, they are baffled by Abraham. However, Abraham doesn’t need praise or tears—he loses sight of his own suffering in his deep, abiding love for God. Johannes concludes that there really is a paradox and a person can stand in absolute relation to the absolute, or Abraham should be condemned.
People are confused by Abraham because, unlike a tragic hero, he isn’t making a sacrifice that abides by traditional ethics nor does he act like a true hero (Abraham doesn’t disclose himself). However, unlike a tragic hero Abraham also doesn’t need approval from the universal—he gets his sense of approval from both himself and God, both of which are higher than the universal.
Themes
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