Beyond Understanding

(Søren Kierkegaard - found here)

“The dialectic of faith is the finest and most remarkable of all; it has an elevation of which I can certainly form a conception, but nothing more. I can make the great trampoline leap whereby I pass over into infinity; my spine is like a tightrope walker’s, twisted from my childhood. Thus it is easy for me to go one, two, three, and turn a somersault in existence, but the next movement I cannot make, for the miraculous I cannot perform but only be amazed by it. Indeed, if at the moment Abraham swung his leg over the ass’s back he had said to himself, ‘now Isaac is lost, I could just as well sacrifice him here at home as travel to Moriah,’ then I do not need Abraham, whereas I now bow before his name seven times and before his deed seventy times.”
~Søren Kierkegaard


“Kierkegaard, who supposedly did have a curved spine, is impressed, certainly, by those who can leap beyond the finite, who can do the unthinkable. The real trick is in the landing. This, he cannot imagine carrying off.

Why is Abraham great? He was ready to kill his son at God’s command; this sounds despicable, not admirable. And in fact, Kierkegaard doesn’t think that Abraham’s obedience to God’s command to sacrifice Isaac is what makes him great. If Abraham had just killed Isaac in his sleep, then we would have to say, unequivocally, that he’s a monster. But as Kierkegaard repeats many times in Fear and Trembling, Abraham’s greatness was that he believed that he could obey God’s command and still, somehow, against all logic, keep Isaac. And, as the story goes, his belief was true.

Abraham collided with the paradox at the limits of human thought and ethics, but he did not fall backward into despair and murder. By embracing the contradiction at the heart of the paradox, his hope was fulfilled. God smiled upon Abraham’s obedience, and Isaac lived. It isn’t truly a happy ending–God is forever the God who demanded Isaac, Abraham the father who was ready to kill, and Isaac forever traumatized–but it is an ending unimaginable without a hope that goes beyond understanding.”
~Jonathan Malesic