Let's talk about Fear and Trembling by Sren Kierkegaard

Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling stages the Abraham story to challenge the ethical as conceived by Hegel and to provoke later debates about faith and morality. Two key strands to note: 1. Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (the universal/ethical) - Hegel treats ethical life (Sittlichkeit) as the unfolding of rational freedom in social institutions (family, civil society, state). Morality is realized in universal norms and duties that reconcile individual particularity with the common good. - Against this background, Kierkegaard’s “teleological suspension of the ethical” is radical: the individual relation to God (faith) can place the absolute command of God above universal ethical norms. Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac represents a single individual’s absolute duty to God that violates universal ethical duties (a father’s duty to his son, laws protecting life). - The tension: Hegel would see the ethical as higher than idiosyncratic exceptions; Kierkegaard insists that true faith may require a paradoxical, nonmediated relation to the absolute that suspends the universal without dissolving it into arbitrary subjectivity. 2. Contemporary discussions on faith and morality (e.g., D. Z. Phillips) - D. Z. Phillips and other postwar philosophers of religion critique readings that make Kierkegaard endorse irrationalism or moral relativism. Phillips emphasizes careful conceptual analysis of religious language and moral claims. - Phillips resists the idea that faith simply overrides ethics. Instead he often stresses that religious commitments have their own internal rationality and that apparent conflicts between faith and morality need closer attention to meaning, context, and the lived practices of believers. - In this spirit, contemporary debates ask: does Kierkegaard’s figure of Abraham show that faith is beyond reason, or that faith reconfigTitle: Kierkegaard, Hegel, and Contemporary Debates on Faith and Morality Short explanation: In Fear and Trembling Kierkegaard stages a critique of Hegelian ethics by contrasting the “universal” ethical order with the singularity of faith. Hegel’s Philosophy of Right treats moral life (Sittlichkeit) as an objective, rational social whole in which individuals realize freedom by conforming to universal norms—laws, family, civil society, and the state. For Hegel, ethical action is intelligible and justified within this universal framework; exceptions are anomalies to be resolved by the system’s rational development. Kierkegaard rejects the idea that faith can be fully subsumed under the universal. Using the Abraham story, he argues that authentic religious faith may demand a “teleological suspension of the ethical”: the individual’s relation to God can place them above (or against) universal moral duties. Faith is a paradoxical, inward, personal relation that cannot be rationally mediated by social ethics without losing its immediacy and responsibility before God. Kierkegaard thus defends the priority of the singular existential relation over abstract ethical universality. Contemporary resonance — D. Z. Phillips and others: Contemporary philosophers of religion such as D. Z. Phillips engage this tension while resisting both uncritical fideism and reduction of religion to ethics. Phillips emphasizes the distinctiveness of religious language and practice: moral discourse and religious discourse operate with different uses, standards, and responsibilities. He critiques readings that either make religion an ethical subspecies or that isolate it as irrational. For Phillips, like Kierkegaard, the religious is not merely another set of ethical prescriptions; it involves forms of life and ways of speaking that must be understood on their own terms. However, Phillips is careful to avoid endorsing a wholesale “suspension” of ethics; instead he invites careful attention to how religious commitments shape moral reasoning without collapsing one into the other. Key takeaway: Kierkegaard challenges Hegel’s universalist ethical model by insisting on the irreducible singularity of faith. Contemporary thinkers like D. Z. Phillips continue the conversation by exploring how religious faith and moral norms relate—acknowledging distinct registers without necessarily endorsing a simple escape from ethical accountability. Suggested sources: - S. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling (1843). - G. W. F. Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right (1820). - D. Z. Phillips, Religion and Moral Philosophy (and related essays).