Sören Kierkegaard

Fear and Trembling (Abridged) Sören Kierkegaard

Fear and Trembling is a reference to a line from Philippians 2:12, "...continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling." - itself a probable reference to Psalms 55:5, " Kierkegaard wanted to understand the anxiety that must have been present in Abraham when "God tested [him] and said to him, take Isaac, your only son, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him as a burnt offering on the mountain that I shall show you." Abraham had a choice to complete the task or to refuse to comply to God's orders. He resigned himself to the three-and-a-half-day journey and to the loss of his son. "He said nothing to Sarah, nothing to Eliezer. Who, after all, could understand him, for did not the nature of temptation extract from him a pledge of silence? He split the firewood, he bound Isaac, he lit the fire, he drew the knife." Because he kept everything to himself and chose not to reveal his feelings he "isolated himself as higher than the universal." Kierkegaard envisions two types of people in Fear and Trembling and Repetition. One lives in hope, Abraham, the other lives in memory, The Young Man and Constantin Constantius. He discussed them beforehand in Lectures delivered before the Symparanekromenoi and The Unhappiest Man.[5] One hopes for happiness from something "out there" while the other finds happiness from something in themself. This he brought out in his upbuilding discourse, published on the same date.