Faith and ethical judgment › Faith makes the further movement

The knight of faith combines resignation with trust that the finite can nevertheless be received. In Abraham's case, this concerns Isaac himself and life with him. Johannes emphasizes that Abraham does not reserve fulfillment exclusively for a distant life beyond the present world.

The phrase by virtue of the absurd names the difficulty of this trust. From the standpoint of human calculation, the ordinary possibilities have been exhausted; nevertheless, faith expects what cannot be secured through them. The phrase should not be diluted into the familiar thought that an unlikely good event might happen. That would make faith an optimistic estimate rather than the movement Johannes is describing.

Nor should the absurd be turned into a general recommendation to accept every contradiction. Its role belongs to this account of religious trust, divine possibility, and the return of the finite. A claim that any belief becomes admirable when it lacks reasons would have a much wider scope than the argument warrants.

Johannes also imagines a knight of faith whose outward life looks ordinary. The person enjoys finite activities without displaying a conspicuous badge of spiritual distinction. This picture matters because the movement concerns how the finite is received, not simply withdrawal from it. An exceptional inward relation need not announce itself through an exceptional public appearance.

The two movements resist being turned into a recipe. Resignation is not a bargain in which someone gives something up to ensure its return. If the return were guaranteed by a technique, the loss and the paradox would have been replaced by a strategy for obtaining what one wants.