Summary

The author begins by suggesting that the visible and external world is subject to a law of indifference and imperfection, while the world of the spirit is governed by divine order. In the modern world, i.e., the world of the author, there is a tendency to introduce the law of indifference into the world of the spirit. When this happens, it is enough to merely know what is taken to be great, nothing else is needed. The same is true of Abraham. It is assumed that he is a great hero because he was willing to offer his best (Isaac) to God, but the reasons for this prescriptive status are rarely thought through. “What is omitted from Abraham’s story,” the author writes, “is the anxiety” (28). This anxiety emerges in the contradiction between Abraham’s religious obligation to God and his ethical...