The Kierkegaarden

“The ethical expression for [Abraham's] relation to Isaac is that the father must love the son. The ethical relation is reduced to the relative in contradistinction to the absolute relation to God. To the question ‘Why?’ Abraham has no other answer than that it is an ordeal, a temptation that, as noted above, is a synthesis of its being for the sake of God and for his own sake… For instance, if we see someone doing something that does not conform to the universal, we say that he is hardly doing it for God’s sake, meaning thereby that he is doing it for his own sake. The paradox of faith has lost the intermediary, that is, the universal. On the one side, it has the expression of the highest egotism, on the other side, the expression for the most absolute devotion, to do it for God’s sake. Faith itself cannot be mediated into the universal, for thereby it is canceled. Faith is this paradox, and the single individual cannot make himself understandable to anyone.” ——————————————————– ~Source: Fear and Trembling (1843) Author: Sren Kierkegaard using the pseudonym Johannes de Silentio

“The ethical expression for [Abraham's] relation to Isaac is that the father must love the son. The ethical relation is reduced to the relative in contradistinction to the absolute relation to God. To the question ‘Why?’ Abraham has no other answer than that it is an ordeal, a temptation that, as noted above, is a synthesis of its being for the sake of God and for his own sake… For instance, if we see someone doing something that does not conform to the universal, we say that he is hardly doing it for God’s sake, meaning thereby that he is doing it for his own sake. The paradox of faith has lost the intermediary, that is, the universal. On the one side, it has the expression of the highest egotism, on the other side, the expression for the most absolute devotion, to do it for God’s sake. Faith itself cannot be mediated into the universal, for thereby it is canceled. Faith is this paradox, and the single individual cannot make himself understandable to anyone.”
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~Source: Fear and Trembling (1843)
Author: Sren Kierkegaard using the pseudonym Johannes de Silentio

“Would it not be better to stop with faith, and is it not revolting that everybody wants to go further?… Would it not be better that they should stand still at faith, and that he who stands should take heed lest he fall? For movements of faith must constantly be made by virtue of the absurd, yet in such a way, be it observed, that one does not lose the finite but gains it every inch. For my part I can well describe the movements of faith, but I cannot make them.”
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~Source: Fear And Trembling: A Dialectical Lyric (1843)
Author: Søren Kierkegaard using the pseudonym Johannes de Silentio

“The knights of the infinite resignation are easily recognized: their gait is gliding and assured. Those on the other hand who carry the jewel of faith are likely to be delusive, because their outward appearance bears a striking resemblance to that which both the infinite resignation and faith profoundly despise — to Philistinism.”
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~Source: Fear and Trembling (1843)
Author: Søren Kierkegaard using the pseudonym Johannes De Silentio

“He who denies himself and sacrifices himself for duty gives up the finite in order to grasp the infinite, and that man is secure enough…But he who gives up the universal in order to grasp something still higher which is not the universal — what is he doing?” ——————————————————– ~Source: Fear and Trembling: A Dialectical Lyric (1843) Author: Søren Kierkegaard using the pseudonym Johannes De Silentio