“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 Kierkegaarden 