Books : Fear and Trembling
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 170
EAN: 9781604593181
ISBN: 1604593180
Label: Wilder Publications
Manufacturer: Wilder Publications
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 92
Publication Date: December 18, 2008
Publisher: Wilder Publications
Release Date: December 18, 2008
Sales Rank: 4638
Studio: Wilder Publications
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In our time nobody is content to stop with faith but wants to go further. It would perhaps be rash to ask where these people are going, but it is surely a sign of breeding and culture for me to assume that everybody has faith, for otherwise it would be queer for them to be . . . going further. In those old days it was different, then faith was a task for a whole lifetime, because it was assumed that dexterity in faith is not acquired in a few days or weeks. When the tried oldster drew near to his last hour, having fought the good fight and kept the faith, his heart was still young enough not to have forgotten that fear and trembling which chastened the youth, which the man indeed held in check, but which no man quite outgrows. . . except as he might succeed at the earliest opportunity in going further. Where these revered figures arrived, that is the point where everybody in our day begins to go further.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard's labyrinth, even though it is liberally sprinkled with a plethora of sometimes agonizing and complex detail, you should not shy away from reading it, for one simple reason: reading Kierkegaard's words is a pleasure in itself even if the topic is already revealed.
Kierkegaard is discussing the biblical story of Abraham; the story of an 80 year old man, who prays for a son, and finally has his wish granted by god, assuming it is a true story. Abraham's son Isaac is thirty years old, when God commands Abraham to kill his son; I assume readers know the rest of the story. Kierkegaard is concerned about the feelings and emotions that Abraham as a human had at this point. Kierkegaard suggests 4 different scenarios and discusses Abraham's feelings, thoughts and faith accordingly.
The act of killing alone is unethical, but given that God ordered it, a person with extraordinary faith should do it regardless of the immorality of the act. Abraham's faith forced him to make a decision to commit an unethical act, but Kierkegaard's discussion of the story assumes a paradox between what Abraham believed and what he had faith in. Abraham believed that he must kill his son, but he had to have faith that his son would not die; a paradox that only faith will resolve because of the limitations of the human mind. Perhaps the real message in the story of Abraham and Isaac is that having absolute faith in anything is a bad idea. Was Abraham's ... Read More
Rating:  -
Not to be seen as making an Ad Hominem attack (a judgment based on the writer, or, in this case, the reviewer, as opposed to his or her argument), it should be quite obvious that at least one critic of this book does so on the basis of his own, personal "faith" in the Christian concept of God and all the rest of the residue that this belief provides. Now, I realize that I, being a confirmed atheist, bring my own intellectual baggage to this review. For that reason alone, some will dismiss my critique as one of a heathen, a pagan, an infidel, or something even worse (like, perhaps, a Jew). Well, my critique has nothing to do with my belief or disbelief in any god. I approach this from the standpoint of memetics, a fledgling science first introduced by Richard Dawkins in his tour-de-force of a book, The Selfish Gene. A "meme", basically, shares some, though certainly not all, of the characteristics of a gene, except for one important difference. A meme is the smallest unit of CULTURAL transmission, as opposed to a gene, which is a unit of biological transmission. A meme could be, say, the song "Happy Birthday to You", or rap music, or the obsession with anything made by Marc Jacobs. One obvious consequence of cultural verses biological transmission is that genes are transmitted vertically - from parents to offspring - while memes are transmitted horizontally, like viruses. In fact, the epidemiological model frequently invokes memes as being "viruses of the mind". Now, what does any of ... Read More
Rating: -
This is an amazing book that deals with Abraham and his order from God to kill, then desist from killing Isacc. This book has the ring of Gods image, or inner truth distilled in us all. Abraham was indeed no genius but with the combination of realizing his inner image of God (truth) and his faith he took a huge step for Gods Children. With that combination abraham possed true faith. It was God himself who told Abraham to sacrifice Isacc, yet a mere angel whom told him not to. A person of modern faith would have, without much doubt went ahead and killed Isacc as a person of modern faith would think that the angel was the devil simply tempting he/she-after all it was god who gave the order to kill and only an angel who said not to.
Find out if you have been blinded by modern faiths lack of truth and seeking, and see if you would do as abraham did. Read this and it will help you tear away modernities fairy tale faith from the inside out and leave you seeking true faith, a faith that does not come cheap and is not shear leniency like most modern versions of faith.
Rating: -
Faith, it goes without saying, is a personal thing. It is a private aspect of a person's life that may, if they wish, become public, though there is no real need for this to occur. Faith is something that cannot be explained - certainly not to the satisfaction of an atheist - rather, it is something that is believed. Faith, in short, is faith. The particularities of faith are among the causes of many great schisms of the last thousand or so years of European history. Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard's small, dense work on faith, tackles the problem of what is means to believe.
In the 19th century, secular philosophy believed that religion was explicable, whereas the difficulties of Hegel were exceedingly great. 'I for my part have devoted a good deal of time to the understanding of the Hegelian philosophy, I believe also that I understand it tolerably well, but when in spite of the trouble I have taken there are certain passages I cannot understand, I am foolhardy enough to think that he himself has not been quite clear. All this I do easily and naturally, my head does not suffer from it. But on the other hand when I have to think of Abraham, I am as though annihilated.'
Annihilated. Kierkegaard explores the biblical story of Abraham, who was commanded by God to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. Abraham sets out with the full intention of doing so, but is prevented at the last moment. A ram is provided as a sacrifice instead. Kierkegaard saw this as the ... Read More
Rating: -
Essential reading for anyone with the slightest interest in religion or philosophy. He makes an important point: faith cannot be collapsed into the ethical, taking the Old Testament story of Abraham's aborted sacrifice of Isaac as his proof text. If faith was simply a matter of acting ethically, then we wouldn't need religion, only ethics. That said, I don't like how he makes faith into something so superhuman and difficult that only a few spiritual athletes are capable of it. Which is wrong. Christian faith is available to anyone. Christ said, "come unto me all ye that are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." And I don't believe that faith contradicts ethics either, as Kierkegaard suggests. Kierkegaard's message was to a largely Christian society that took faith for granted. He wanted to bring out the radicality of faith, which is a valuable message. But today, when Christian Churches are losing members, we need the evangelical message, to bring people in. Faith is first of all an expression of love for God and our fellow humans, not a leap into the absurd. Kierkegaard used to appeal to me more when I was younger, and I liked the idea of viewing my faith as something radical and even scandalous. Now that I'm more mature, I realize that faith is really about loving and trusting God and loving my neighbor as myself. Yes, there's a sacrifice involved; Kierkegaard is right about that, but trusting God means trusting his goodness and love.
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