Genesis 22 Morality

Genesis 22 is a well-known biblical story detailing the trial of Abraham’s faith in God through his willingness to sacrifice his son. In Fear and Trembling, written by Soren Kierkegaard, the story of Abraham‘s faith demonstrates how faith and the religious life exceed the ethical life. If it were not for faith, Abraham could not be a highly regarded figure.
In the beginning paragraphs of the chapter “Is there such a thing as a Teleological Suspension of the ethical?” Kierkegaard describes the ethical life by claiming that the “ethical is the universal”. If the ethical is the universal, then the ethical pertains to, and encompasses, all of humanity, as it cannot be universal if it does not extend to everyone. He goes on to explain the “telos”,
In order to acquire faith an individual first separates themselves from their individuality to become apart of the universal. However, the paradox rests in the idea that once an individual resigns themselves to the universal they reclaim their individuality through their subordination to the universal to develop into someone who sees beyond the universal and “stands in absolute relation to the absolute”, becoming superior to the universal (Guignon, Pereboom 57). Kierkegaard asserts that when an individual moves beyond the universal by turning inward and acting as a true individual, they thereby enter into a relationship with God, and it is the faith in God that affords them a higher purpose. For this reason, the ethical life is inferior to faith, as the ethical life does not express any relation to
Kierkegaard details that Abraham’s actions were one of a private undertaking in which he acted on behalf of himself and God in order to attest his faith to God and himself. God’s will was for Abraham to demonstrate his faith by sacrificing his son, which conflicted with his ethical duty of loving “his son more dearly than himself” and created an environment of temptation, defined as “that which would keep him from doing his duty” (Guignon, Pereboom 58, 60). This temptation acted as an obstacle for carrying out God’s will. By refraining from this temptation, Abraham transgressed the universal by shelving his ethical duty and expressing God’s will. This, Kierkegaard states, is the teleological suspension of the ethical. Kierkegaard also explains that Abraham cannot be “mediated” as his intentions behind his actions cannot be easily understood or explained. The reason being is faith is the virtue of the absurd. Faith goes beyond the universal, and in doing so, goes beyond our capacity to reason with it. Faith is not something that has a clear definition and description; rather it is something inexplicable to the reasonable mind that is best understood when it is experienced as an individual aligned with