Faith and ethical judgment › Praising Abraham makes a difficult demand

A father prepares to sacrifice his son. Described in ordinary ethical terms, the action is horrifying. Described through the biblical story of Abraham, it is associated with faith. Fear and Trembling asks what happens when these descriptions meet. If admiration for Abraham is to mean anything, it must confront the action that would otherwise make us condemn him.

Søren Kierkegaard published the book in 1843 under the name Johannes de Silentio. The pseudonymous speaker admires Abraham while repeatedly declaring that he cannot understand him or make the movement of faith himself. That distance shapes the work. We hear someone trying to think through an experience he does not claim to possess.

The question concerns the relation between faith and ethical justification. Can the individual stand in a relation to God that cannot be expressed through reasons everyone else can recognize? If so, how could this differ from a person's private conviction that they are exempt from an obligation? The book makes the difficulty acute without supplying a procedure that reliably resolves it.