Summary

In this section, Kierkegaard’s de Silentio explores the first of three problems that underlie Abraham’s anxiety-ridden paradox and his status as a knight of faith: whether or not there is a teleological suspension of the ethical. The ethical, de Silentio observes, is a universal principle or program for action that applies to all persons at all times. It has no end or purpose (a telos) outside itself. The universal subsumes the unique singularity of the individual. Under normal circumstances, anytime a person, Abraham for instance, desires to act or express his singular individuality, he most take the ethical universal into account and restrain or annul himself accordingly.

Within this context, de Silentio argues that faith is another name for Abraham’s paradox, for the aporia that places the single individual in a position that is higher than the ethical universal. Abraham...