PROBLEMATA

Preliminary Expectoration 

An old saying fetched from the external and visible world says: “Only the one who works gets the bread.”1 Oddly enough, the saying does not fit the world where it is most at home; for the external world has been subjected to the law of imperfection, and here it happens again and again that the one who does not work also gets the bread and the one who sleeps gets it more abundantly than the one who works. In the external world, everything belongs to the possessor; it serves like a slave under the law of indifference, and the one who has the ring, him the spirit of the ring obeys, whether he is a Noureddin or an Aladdin, and the one who has the world’s treasures has them no matter how he got them.2 In the world of spirit it is otherwise. Here there rules an eternal and divine law, here it does not rain both on the righteous and the unrighteous, here the sun shines not on both the good and the evil,3 here it holds that only the one who works gets the bread, only the one who was in anxiety finds peace, only the one who descends into the underworld saves the beloved, only the one who draws the knife gets Isaac. The one who will not work does not get the bread, but becomes deceived, as the gods deceived Orpheus with an airy figure in place of the beloved; deceived him because he was soft, not courageous; deceived him because he was a Zither player, not a man.4 Here it does not help to have Abraham for one’s father, or seventeen ancestors; for the one who will not work, what stands written of the maidens of Israel fits him: he gives birth to the wind; but the one who will work, he bears his own father.5 There is a knowledge that presumptuously would introduce into the world of spirit the same law of indifference as the one under which the external world sighs. It thinks that it is enough to know the great—no other work is needed. But then one does not get the bread, one perishes of hunger, while everything transforms itself into gold.6 And what does it know, anyhow? There were many thousands of Greek contemporaries, uncounted numbers in later generations, who knew all of Miltiades’s triumphs, but there was only one who became sleepless over them.7 There were countless generations who knew every word of Abraham’s story by heart; how many did it make sleepless? The story of Abraham has the remarkable characteristic that it is always glorious, no matter how poorly one understands it; but of course it once again holds true here that one must labor and be heavy-laden.8 But one is unwilling to work and yet  still wishes to understand the story. One speaks in Abraham’s honor, but how? One gives the whole thing an entirely ordinary expression! “The great thing was that he loved God in such a way that he was willing to sacrifice his best to him.” That is very true; but “the best” is an indeterminate expression. One runs together in thought and mouth “Isaac” and “the best” with sure confidence, and the contemplator can certainly smoke his pipe while meditating, and the listener may very well stretch out his legs comfortably. If the rich young ruler whom Christ met on his way had sold all his goods and given them to the poor, we would praise him as we do all who are great, and even if we could not understand him without working, he would still not yet be an Abraham, notwithstanding that he sacrificed “the best.” The one thing left out of Abraham’s story is the anxiety; for to money I have no ethical obligation, but to the son the father has the highest and holiest obligation. Yet anxiety is a difficult subject for the delicate; therefore one forgets it—and yet nonetheless one would speak of Abraham. One then speaks, and in the course of talking exchanges the two terms “Isaac” and “the best,” and everything goes admirably. However, if it so happened that among the listeners there was a man who suffered from insomnia, then the most frightful, the deepest tragic and comic misunderstanding lies very close. He goes home, and he would do just as Abraham did; for the son is indeed the best; if that speaker came to hear of it, then perhaps he went to him, gathered all his spiritual dignity and shouted: “You abomination, you scum of the community, which devil has so possessed you that you would murder your son?” And the minister, who had not detected any warmth or perspiration while preaching about Abraham, would be surprised at himself, at the earnest wrath with which he thundered at that poor fellow; he was pleased with himself, for he had never spoken with such vigor and unction. He said to himself and his wife: “I am an orator; what has been lacking has been the occasion. When I spoke about Abraham on Sunday, I did not feel gripped at all.” If the same speaker had a little superfluity of understanding that he could lose, then I think he would lose it if the sinner had calmly, and with dignity, answered: “Why, it was what you yourself preached on Sunday.” Now, how could the minister have gotten such a thing in his head? Yet it was so, and his mistake was only that he had not known what he was saying. To think that there is not a poet who could bring himself to prefer such situations to the stuff and nonsense with which one stuffs comedies and novels! The comic and the tragic touch each other here in absolute infinity. The minister’s discourse was perhaps, in and for itself, laughable enough, but it became infinitely laughable by its effect, and yet this was certainly natural. Or, if the sinner, without making any objection, were actually made repentant by the minister’s castigation, if this zealous divine went home happy, happy in the consciousness that he was not only effective in the pulpit, but above all with irresistible power as a spiritual advisor, inasmuch as he inspired the congregation on Sunday, while he stood like a cherub with a flaming sword on Monday,9 set before the one  who by his deed would put that old saying to shame, that “It does not go in the world as the preacher preaches.”*10 If, on the other hand, the sinner was not persuaded, then his situation is tragic enough. Then he was presumably executed or sent to the madhouse—in short, he became unhappy in relation to so-called actuality; in another sense, I think that perhaps Abraham made him happy; for the one who works does not perish. How does one explain such a contradiction as that speaker’s? Is it because Abraham has received a prescriptive right to be a great man, so that whatever he does is great, and when another does the same, it is sin, an atrocious sin? In that case, I do not wish to participate in such thoughtless praise. If faith cannot make it a holy act to be willing to murder one’s son, then let the same judgment fall on Abraham as on every other. If, perhaps, one lacks the courage to complete one’s thought, to say that Abraham is a murderer, then it would surely be better to acquire this courage than to waste time on undeserved praises. The ethical expression for what Abraham did is that he intended to murder Isaac; the religious expression is that he intended to sacrifice Isaac; but the anxiety that can surely make a person sleepless lies precisely in this contradiction, and indeed, Abraham is not who he is without the anxiety. Or perhaps Abraham did not do what is narrated there at all; perhaps due to the circumstances of the time it was something entirely different; then let us forget him—for what is the point of recollecting the past if it cannot become a present? Or perhaps the speaker had forgotten something that answered to the ethical oversight that Isaac was the son. When faith is taken away by becoming null and void—so that only the raw fact remains that Abraham intended to murder Isaac, which is easy enough to mistake for anyone who lacks faith—that is to say, the faith that makes it difficult for him. I, for my part, do not lack the courage to think a thought whole; hitherto I have not feared any, and if I were to encounter such a thought, then I hope I will at least have the integrity to say, “This thought frightens me; it stirs up something strange and therefore I will not think it; if I do wrong thereby, the punishment will surely not be lacking.” If I had recognized it for the judgment of truth that Abraham was a murderer, I do not know whether I could have brought my reverence for him to silence. However, had I thought that, then I would have presumably kept it quiet; for into such thoughts one should not initiate others. But Abraham is not illusion, he did not sleep his way to renown, and he does not owe it to a whim of fate. Can one speak unreservedly of Abraham, without running the risk that an individual might become deranged and do likewise? If I dared not, then I would simply * In the old days, people said: “It is too bad that things do not go in the world as the preacher preaches.” Maybe the time will come, especially with the aid of philosophy, when they can say: “Fortunately things do not go as the preacher preaches, for there is still some meaning in life, but there is none in his sermons.” keep silent about Abraham, and above all I would not scale him down in this way, so that precisely thereby he becomes a snare for the weak. If one makes faith exactly everything—that is, makes it what it is—then I certainly think that one can dare to speak without risk about it in our age, which is scarcely extravagant in faith, since it is only by faith that one acquires likeness to Abraham, not by murder. If one makes love into a flighty mood, a sensual feeling in a person, then one only lays snares for the weak when one would speak of love’s accomplishments. Surely everyone has passing feelings, but if therefore everyone each intended to perform the frightful act that love has sanctified as an immortal deed, then everything is lost, both the deed and the deluded one. Then surely it is permissible to speak of Abraham, for what is great can never do harm when it is comprehended in its greatness: it is like a double-edged sword that kills and rescues. If the lot fell upon me to speak about it, then I would begin by showing what a devout and God-fearing man Abraham was, worthy to be called God’s chosen one. Only upon such a person can such a test fall; but who is such a person? Then I would describe how Abraham loved Isaac. To this end, I would bid all good spirits to stand by me so that my speech might be as glowing as a father’s love. I thus hope that I should describe it in such a way that there would not be many fathers in the king’s realms and lands who would dare to lay claim that he loved in this manner. But if he does not love as Abraham did, then surely every thought of sacrificing Isaac is a spiritual contest, an agon of the spirit [Anfægtelse]. One could already speak for several Sundays on this, one certainly need not hurry. The consequence would then be, if it were told properly, that some fathers would by no means insist on hearing more, but for the time being would be happy if they actually succeeded in loving as Abraham loved. If there were such a one who, after having heard the greatness, but also the frightfulness, in Abraham’s deed, ventured to go forward on that path, then I would saddle my horse and ride with him. At every station until we came to Mount Moriah I would explain to him that he could still turn back, could repent this misunderstanding that he was called to be tried in such a struggle, could acknowledge that he lacked the courage, that God himself must take Isaac if he intends to have him. It is my conviction that such a person is not repudiated, that he can be blessed with all others, but not in time. Would one, even in the most faithful ages, not judge such a person this way? I knew a person who once could have saved my life if he had been magnanimous. He said plainly: “I see well enough what I could do; but I dare not do it, I am afraid that later I shall lack the strength, that I shall regret it.” He was not magnanimous, but who would therefore not continue to love him? Then, when I had spoken thus, had moved the listeners to previous faith’s dialectical struggle and its gigantic passion, then I would not be to blame for a delusion on the listeners’ part, so that they should think: “Now, he has faith in so high a degree, it  is already enough for us to hold his coattails.” For I would add: “I by no means have faith. I am by nature a shrewd head, and every such person always has great difficulties making the movement of faith; but yet I, in and for myself, will not attribute the difficulty any worth, which brought the shrewd head no further by overcoming it than to that point where the plainest and simplest person comes more easily.” Now, love has its priests in the poets, and every once in a while one hears a voice that knows how to uphold its honor; but concerning faith there is heard not a word—who speaks in its honor? Philosophy goes further. Theology sits by the window putting on its makeup and courts its lover, peddling its delights to philosophy. It is supposed to be difficult to understand Hegel, but to understand Abraham, that’s a small matter. To go beyond Hegel, that is a wonder, but to go beyond Abraham, that is the easiest of all. I, for my part, have spent considerable time on understanding the Hegelian philosophy, and I even think I have understood it fairly well—I am reckless enough to think that when I, despite spending so much trouble on particular passages, cannot understand him, then he himself has not been entirely clear enough. All this I do easily, naturally, without getting a headache. When, on the contrary, it is time to turn my thought to Abraham, it is as if I were annihilated. In every moment I have my eye on the gigantic paradox that is contained by Abraham’s life, in every moment I am repelled, and my thought cannot, despite all its passion, penetrate it, cannot get a hair’s breadth further. I strain every muscle to get it in my view, and at the same moment, I am paralyzed. I am not unfamiliar with those things in the world that have been admired as great and magnanimous; my soul feels its kinship with them and is, in all humility, assured that it was also my case for which the hero fought, and in the moment of contemplation, I cry out to myself: iam tua res agitur [now your cause is at stake].11 I think myself into the hero; I cannot think myself into Abraham; when I reach the height, I fall down, since what is offered to me is a paradox. Yet I by no means therefore consider faith to be something lowly, but on the contrary, it is the highest, and it is dishonest of philosophy to give something else in its stead and to disregard faith. Philosophy cannot and should not give faith, but it should understand itself and know what it offers and take nothing away, and least of all cheat people out of something by treating it as if it were nothing. I am not unfamiliar with life’s troubles and dangers, I am not frightened of them, and I advance against them freely. I am not unfamiliar with the terrifying, my memory is a faithful wife and my imagination is what I myself am not, a busy little maid who sits all day with her work and in the evening knows how to speak with me with feeling, so that I must see that which she describes—though it is not just landscapes, flowers, or pastoral idylls that she paints. I have seen the terrifying with my own eyes, I do not flee the fearsome, but I know very well that even if I advance against it with courage, my courage is still not the courage of faith and is nothing to compare with  Fear and Trembling it. I cannot make the movement of faith, I cannot close my eyes and plunge myself confidently into the absurd. It is an impossibility for me, but I do not praise myself thereby. I am convinced that God is love; this thought has for me an original lyrical validity. When it is present to me, I am unspeakably happy; when it is absent, I long after it more vehemently than the lover does after the object of his love; but I do not believe—this courage is lacking in me. God’s love is to me, both in the direct and the converse sense, incommensurable with the whole of actuality. I am not cowardly enough to therefore moan and complain, but neither am I deceitful enough to deny that faith is something much higher. I can well hold out in living my way, I am happy and content, but my happiness is not that of faith, and in comparison with it is actually unhappiness. I do not trouble God with my small sorrows—the particular does not concern me—I merely gaze upon my love and keep the virgin flame pure and clean; faith is convinced that God is concerned with the least matter. I am pleased in this life to give myself to the left hand; faith is humble enough to claim the right—for that this is humility I do not deny and shall never deny. I wonder whether anyone in my time is capable of making the movement of faith? If I am not mistaken regarding this, then, if anything, they are inclined to be proud of doing what the age surely does not think me capable of, viz., the imperfect. My soul balks at what happens so often, speaking inhumanly of the great, as if some thousands of years were a gigantic distance: I prefer to speak humanly of it, as if it happened yesterday, and allow only the greatness itself to be the distance that either lifts or condemns. If I, then (in the capacity of the tragic hero, for higher I cannot come) had been ordered upon such an extraordinary royal journey as this to Mount Moriah, I know well what I would have done. I would not have been coward enough to remain at home, nor would I have stopped and started along the way, nor would I have forgotten the knife so that I could delay a little. I am quite persuaded that I would have arrived on the dot, would have had everything in order—perhaps I would be, if anything, too early, so that it could sooner be over and done with. But I know too what else I would have done. I would, in the same moment I mounted the horse, have said to myself: Now everything is lost, God demands Isaac, I will sacrifice him, but he is my joy—yet God is love and continues to be this for me; for in time God and I cannot speak with one another, we have no language in common. Perhaps someone in our time will be foolish enough, envious enough of the great, to attempt to make himself and me believe that if I had actually done this I would have done something even greater than what Abraham did; for my gigantic resignation12 was far more ideal and poetic than Abraham’s pettiness. And yet this is the greatest untruth: for my gigantic resignation was a substitute for faith. I could not, therefore, do more than make the infinite movement to find myself and again rest in myself. I then would not have loved Isaac in the way that Abraham loved. That I was resolute in making the movement could prove my courage, in a human 

way of speaking; that I loved him with my entire soul is the presupposition without which the whole thing is a misdeed; but I still did not love as Abraham did, for then I would have held back at the last minute, without, however, arriving too late at Mount Moriah. I would have, further, spoiled the whole story with my conduct; for if I had received Isaac again, then I would have been in some embarrassment. This, which Abraham found easiest, I would find hard—to again be happy with Isaac! For the one who with the infinity of his whole soul, proprio motu et propriis auspiciis [of his own accord and on his own responsibility], has made the infinite movement and cannot do more, keeps Isaac only with pain. But what did Abraham do? He came neither too soon nor too late. He mounted the ass, he rode slowly along the way. During all that time, he believed; he believed that God would not demand Isaac of him, while he was, however, willing to sacrifice him when it was required. He believed in virtue of the absurd; for human calculation there could not be discussion of, and surely it was the absurd that God, who demanded it of him, in the next moment should retract the demand. He climbed the mountain, in the moment when the knife gleamed, still at that time he believed— that God would not demand Isaac. He then was perhaps surprised with the outcome, but he had arrived at his first condition through a double movement, and therefore he received Isaac with more joy than the first time. Let us go further. We actually let Isaac be sacrificed; Abraham believed. He did not believe that he would become blessed in the hereafter, but that he should be happy here in the world. God could give him a new Isaac, call the sacrificed one back to life. He believed in virtue of the absurd; for all human calculation surely ceased long ago. That sorrow can make a person lose their mind is plain to see, and this is hard enough; that there is a willpower that can haul sail to the wind so drastically that it saves the understanding, although the person becomes a little odd, is evident also, and I do not propose to denigrate this; but that someone could lose his understanding and thereby the whole of finitude, whose stockbroker it is, and then in virtue of the absurd win precisely the same finitude—this horrifies my soul; but I will not therefore say that it is something slight, since it is, on the contrary, the only miracle. One generally thinks that that which faith produces is no work of art, that it is coarse and boorish workmanship suitable for only the more cloddish natures; yet it is far otherwise. Faith’s dialectic is the finest and the most extraordinary of all, it has an elevation that I can perhaps give a notion of, but nothing more. I can make the great trampoline leap whereby I go over into infinitude, my back is like a rope-dancer’s, twisted from my childhood, therefore it is easy for me, I can—one, two, three—plunge headfirst into existence, but the next thing I am incapable of doing; for this marvel I cannot do, but only be astonished by. Yes, Abraham, if at the moment he swung his leg over the ass’s back, had said to himself: Now Isaac is lost, I could just as well sacrifice him here at home as travel the long way to Moriah—then I do not need Abraham, while I now bow seven times before his name and seventy times before his deed. This is just what he did not do, I can prove by the fact that he was glad to receive Isaac, truly and deeply glad, and that he needed no preparation, no time to regather himself for finitude and its joys. If it did not stand so with Abraham, then he would perhaps have loved God, but would not have believed; for the one who loves God without faith reflects upon himself, but the one who loves God, believing, reflects on God. On this peak Abraham stands. The last stage he loses sight of is that of infinite resignation. He actually goes further and arrives at faith; for all these caricatures of faith, that pathetic, lukewarm sluggishness that thinks: Perhaps it is not necessary, it is not worth grieving before the time; that miserable hope that says: One cannot know what will happen, it is still possible—these caricatures belong to the misery of life, and infinite resignation has already infinitely disdained them. Abraham I cannot understand; I can in a certain sense learn nothing from him except to be astonished. When one imagines that someone could be moved to believe by considering the outcome of that story, he deceives himself, and would defraud God out of faith’s first movement; one would suck the life-wisdom out of the paradox. Someone or other might succeed, for our time does not stand with faith, not with its miracle, which makes water into wine, but goes further: it makes wine into water.13 Would it not be best, after all, to stop at faith, and is it not shocking that everyone wants to go further? When someone in our age—and this is indeed proclaimed in many different ways—is unwilling to stop with love, then where will this person come to? To worldly shrewdness, petty calculation, to meanness and wretchedness, to everything that can make humanity’s divine origin doubtful. Would it not be best that one remain standing at faith, and that the one who stands see to it that he does not fall? For the movement of faith must continually be made in virtue of the absurd— and yet, mark well, in such a way that one does not lose finitude, but wins it whole and entire. I, for my part, can hope to describe faith’s movements but I cannot make them. When someone intends to learn to make the movements of swimming, one can let oneself be suspended from the ceiling in a harness, and then one can certainly describe the movements, but one is not swimming; in the same manner, I can describe the movements of faith, but when I have plunged into the water then perhaps I swim (for I do not belong among the waders), but I make other movements, I make the movements of infinity, while faith makes the opposite movements; it makes, after having made the movements of infinity, those of finitude. Fortunate the one who can make these movements! He does wonders, and I shall never become weary of admiring him, whether it is Abraham or a slave in Abraham’s house, whether it is a professor of philosophy or a poor serving girl; to me it is all absolutely the same, I look only at the movements. But I do watch them, and I do not let myself be fooled, neither by myself nor by some other person. The knights of infinite resignation, one recognizes easily,  their gait is airy, bold. Those, on the other hand, who bear the jewel of faith easily deceive, because their exterior has a remarkable likeness to that which both infinite resignation and faith utterly disdain—bourgeois philistinism. I confess sincerely, in my practice I have not found any authentic examples, though I will not therefore deny that perhaps every other person is such an example. However, at the same time, I have been on the hunt for it for very many years, in vain. One ordinarily travels the world round in order to see rivers and mountains, new stars, multicolored birds, misbegotten fish, preposterous races of humanity; one abandons oneself to the bestial stupor that gapes at existence, and one thinks that one has seen something. This does not occupy me. If I know, however, where there lived such a knight of faith, then I would hike on foot to him: for this wonder occupies me absolutely. I would not let him go for a moment, every minute I would pay attention to how he went about the movements. I would consider myself as provided for life, divide my time between watching him and doing exercises myself, and thus spend all my time admiring him. As I said, I have not found anyone like that; however, I can perhaps imagine him. Here he is. Acquaintance is established, I am introduced to him. The instant I first set eyes upon him, I immediately thrust him away from me, jump back, clap my hands, and say half aloud: “Lord God! Is this the person, is this actually him—he seems nothing but a tax collector.” However, it is nevertheless him. I close in upon him a little nearer, paying attention to the least movement, seeing whether a little heterogeneous optical telegraphy from the infinite should but show itself: a glance, a facial expression, a gesture, a melancholy, a smile, which would betray the infinite in its heterogeneity with the finite. No! I examine his figure from head to toe, seeing whether there should not be a chink there through which infinitude peeks out. No! He is solid all the way through. His footing? It is vigorous, belonging entirely to finitude—no spruced up burgher who is setting out Sunday afternoon for Fresberg treads more solidly upon the ground; he belongs entirely to the world, no bourgeois philistine could belong there more. Nothing is discoverable of that foreign and aristocratic nature whereby one recognizes the knights of infinity. He enjoys everything, partakes in everything, and every time one sees him take part in something particular it is done with an industriousness that signals the worldly person whose soul clings to such things. He attends to his business affairs. When one sees him at that time, one would believe he was a pen pusher who had lost his soul to Italian bookkeeping, so punctilious is he.14 He takes a holiday on Sunday. He goes to church. No heavenly glance or other sign of the incommensurable betrays him; if one did not know him, it would be impossible to single him out from the rest of the crowd, for his hearty, energetic hymn singing proves, at most, that he has good lungs. In the afternoon, he takes a walk in the woods. He is delighted with everything that he sees: with the teeming crowd, the new omnibuses,15 the Sound—if one meets him on Strandveien, one should believe him to be a mercantile soul having a fling. He is happy like this, for he is no poet, and I have in vain sought to lure out poetic incommensurability from him. Towards evening, he walks home, his gait is as indefatigable as a postman’s. En route, he thinks that his wife probably has a special dish of warm food for him when he comes home, for example a roast lamb’s head with vegetables. If he met a kindred spirit, then he could easily go on all the way to Østerport16 conversing with him over the dish with a passion that would be in keeping with a restauranteur. As it happens, he has not four shillings, and yet he fully and firmly believes that his wife has this delectable dish ready for him. If she has, then it shall be an enviable sight for the elite, inspiring to the common people, to see him eat; for his appetite is greater than Esau’s.17 If his wife has it not—strangely enough—he is completely the same. On the way, he walks past a construction site and he encounters another man. They speak a moment together, he constructs a building in an instant, he has every resource at his disposal. The stranger leaves him with the thought that he was surely a capitalist, while my admired knight thinks: Of course, if it came to it, I could easily get it. He sits at an open window and considers the neighborhood in which he lives, everything which takes place: that a rat scurries down a plank across the gutter, that the children play, everything occupies him with a peace in existence as if he were a sixteen-year-old girl. And yet he is no genius; for I have sought in vain to spy out the incommensurability of genius in him. He smokes his pipe in the evening; if one sees him, one would swear it was the butcher across the way who was vegetating in the gloaming. He lets things take their course with reckless disregard, as if he were a light-minded loafer, and yet he buys every moment he lives at the opportune time for the highest price; for he does not do the slightest thing except in virtue of the absurd. And yet, yet—yes, I could become enraged over it for envy’s sake, for this person has made and makes every movement, the movement of infinity. He empties in infinite resignation the deep sadness of existence, he knows the blessedness of infinity, he has felt the pain of renouncing everything, the most precious thing one has in the world, and yet finitude tastes just as good to him as to someone who has never known anything higher, for his remaining in finitude would have no trace of some timid, anxious routine, and yet he has this security to enjoy himself with it as if it were the surest thing of all. And yet, yet it is wholly the earthly figure he presents, a new creation in virtue of the absurd.18 He resigned everything infinitely, and then grasped everything again in virtue of the absurd. He continually makes infinity’s movement, but he makes it with such correctness and sureness that he continually gets finitude out of it; and there is no second when one suspects something different. It is supposed to be the most difficult task for a dancer to leap into a definite position in such a way that there is no instant in which he grasps for the position, but in the leap itself stands in the position. Perhaps no dancer can do this—but this knight does it. The great mass of  people live lost in worldly sorrows and joys—these are the benchwarmers who do not join in the dance. The knights of infinity are dancers and have elevation. They make the movement up and then fall down again, and this also is not an unhappy pastime and not unlovely to look upon. But every time they fall down, they are not able to immediately assume the position: they waver a moment, and this wavering shows that they are still strangers in the world. One of these is more or less successful to the degree they possess art, but even the most artistic of these knights still cannot hide this wavering. One does not need to see them in the air, one just needs to see them in the moment when they touch and have touched the earth—and one recognizes them. But to be able to fall in such a way that it seems in the same instant one stands and one walks, that transforms the leap of life into a gait, to absolutely express the sublime in the pedestrian—only this knight can do that, and this is the only miracle. However, since this wonder can so easily disappoint, I will describe the movements in a definite instance that can illuminate their relation to actuality: for everything revolves around this.19 A lad falls in love with a princess, and the whole of his life’s content lies in this love, and yet the relationship is such that it is impossible for it to be realized, impossible for it to be translated from ideality into reality.† The thralls of misery, frogs in the swamp of life, naturally cry out in their shrill voices: “Such a love is foolishness! The rich brewer’s widow is perfectly as good and just as solid a match.” Let them croak undisturbed in the swamp. The knight of infinite resignation does not pursue this course; he does not give up the love, not even for all the world’s glory. He is no fool.20 He first makes sure that this love actually is his life’s content, for his soul is too sound, and too proud, to squander the least trifle on some infatuation. He is not cowardly, nor afraid to allow it to sneak into his most secret, his most secluded thoughts, allowing it to twist in uncounted coils around every ligament of his consciousness—if this love should become unhappy, he will never be able to tear himself free from it. He feels a blissful pleasure in allowing love to thrill along every nerve, and yet his soul is as solemn as the one who has emptied the poisoned chalice and feels the deadly juice saturate every drop of blood.21 This moment is life and death. When, having done this, he has imbibed the whole love and immersed himself in it, he lacks not the courage to seek and to venture everything. Surveying his circumstances, he summons every rapid thought. Like trained birds, they grasp his every hint; he swings his wand over them and they fly out in every direction. But now, † It follows, as a matter of course, that any other interest whatsoever in which an individual has concentrated the whole reality of actuality for himself can, when it is seen to be unrealizable, provide the occasion for the movement of resignation. I have, however, chosen a love affair in which to display the movement because this interest is probably easier understood and thus exempts me from all preliminary considerations which, in a deeper sense, could concern only a very few.  when they all return, each bears the biddings of sorrow, explaining to him that it is impossible. He then becomes still, thanks them, and, when he is alone, undertakes the movement. If what I have said here is to have any meaning, then it must be maintained that the movement happens properly.‡ The knight will therefore, in the first place, have the power to concentrate his whole life’s content and the meaning of actuality into one single wish. If a person lacks this concentration, this conclusive exclusivity, his soul is from the beginning divided into multiplicity, and he never comes to make the movement. He will negotiate life as shrewdly as those capitalists who place their capital in every kind of bond so as to win on one when losing on another—in short, someone who acts in this manner is no knight. In the next place, the knight will have the power to concentrate the full conclusion of his judgment into a single act of consciousness.22 If he lacks this conclusive exclusivity, his soul from the beginning is divided into multiplicity, and he will never take the time to make the movement. He will continue to run errands in life and never go into eternity; for even when right upon the edge of the moment of action, he will suddenly discover that he has forgotten something, and therefore must start over again. In the following moment, he will think it is possible, and that is also quite true; but through such considerations one never comes to make the movement. Rather, with their help one sinks deeper and deeper into the mud. The knight, then, makes the movement—but which? Will he forget the whole thing? For in such a resolution, there is indeed a kind of concentration. No! For the knight does not contradict himself, and it is a contradiction to completely forget the whole content of his life while remaining the same being. He feels no inclination to become another being, and by no means does he regard such a transformation as something great. Only the lower natures forget themselves and become something new. In such a way has the butterfly completely forgotten that it was a caterpillar; perhaps it can again forget, just as absolutely, that it was a butterfly, so that it can ‡ For which passion is required. Every movement of infinity happens with passion, and no reflection can produce a movement. This is the perpetual leap into existence that explains the movement, while mediation is a chimera which, as Hegel would have it, would explain everything, and which, in addition, is the one thing he never has sought to explain. Even to make the familiar Socratic distinction between what one knows and what one does not know requires passion, and, even more obviously, passion is required to make the genuinely Socratic movement, ignorance. But what our age lacks is not reflection, but passion. Therefore, in a manner of speaking, the age is really too tenacious of life to die, for to die is one of the most remarkable leaps, and a little verse by a poet has always appealed much to me, because he, after in five or six previous lines having beautifully and simply wished himself good things in life, concludes thus: Ein seliger Sprung in die Ewigkeit / a blessed leap into Eternity become a fish. The deeper natures, however, never forget themselves, and never become another being than the one they are. The knight, then, will remember everything; but this recollection is precisely the pain, even though in this infinite resignation he is reconciled with existence.23 His love for the princess became for him the expression of an eternal love, assumed a religious character, became clarified as a love for the Eternal Being, who perhaps had denied the fulfillment but yet brought him peace in the consciousness of its validity in an eternal form such as none could deprive him of.24 Fools and young people go on about how everything is possible for a person. This, however, is a great delusion. In a spiritual sense, everything is possible, but in the world of finitude there is much that is not possible. This impossibility, of course, the knight makes possible by giving it a spiritual expression—but he expresses it spiritually in renouncing it. The wish, which would lead him out into actuality but shipwrecked him upon the impossibility, is now bent inward; but is therefore neither lost nor forgotten. One moment it is the obscure currents of desire in him that wake the memory, at other times he himself wakes it— for he is too proud to be willing that this, the object constituting the content of his whole life, should have been some passing affair of the moment. He keeps this love young, and it increases along with him both in years and in beauty. However, he needs no finite occasion for its growth. From the moment he made the movement, the princess is lost. He does not need those erotic palpitations of the nerves on seeing the beloved, etc.; nor, in a finite sense, does he continually need to take leave of her. He recollects her in an eternal sense and knows very well that those lovers who are so nervous on leave-taking to see each other for the last time once again have the right to be nervous, the right to think that it is the last time—for such lovers forget each other the soonest. He has comprehended the deep secret that even in loving another person one should be self-sufficient. He takes no more finite consideration of what the princess does, and exactly this proves he has made the movement infinitely.25 Here one can take the opportunity to see, in each case, whether the movement is true or false. There was one who also believed that he had made the movement; but behold, time passes, and the princess does something new, she marries a prince, and then his soul lost the elasticity of resignation. He saw thereby that he had not made the movement rightly; for the person who has resigned infinitely is self-sufficient. The knight does not cancel his resignation, and he keeps his love just as young as it was in its first moment. He never releases it precisely because he has made the movement infinitely. What the princess does cannot disturb him; it is only the lower natures who have the law of their actions in another person, the premises of their actions outside themselves. If, however, the princess is like-minded, something beautiful will happen:26 she will then initiate herself into that order of knighthood into which one is not admitted by ballot, but of which everyone is a member who has courage to enroll themselves; this knightly order, in which someone proves their immortality, makes no distinction between man and woman. She, also, will preserve her love young and true, she also will have overcome her agony that she is not, as it said in the song, “Every night by her lord’s side.”27 These two will then be exactly fitted for one another for all eternity, with such a rhythmical pre-established harmony that if ever the moment came—a moment which however does not finitely occupy them, for then they would grow old—if ever the moment came that allowed them to give their love an expression in time, they would be able to begin exactly where they would have begun if they had originally been united.28 Someone who understands this—whether man or woman— can never be defrauded, for it is only the lower natures that imagine that they are defrauded. No girl who is not so proud really understands love, but all the world’s cunning and shrewdness cannot defraud her who has this pride. In infinite resignation there is peace and rest; every person who wills it, who has not degraded himself with what is still more terrible than to be too proud— self-belittlement—can discipline himself to make this movement, which in its pain reconciles one with existence. Infinite resignation is that shirt that is spoken of in an old legend. The thread is spun with tears, bleached by tears, the shirt sewn in tears, but it then also protects better than iron and steel. The imperfection in the legend is that a third party can prepare this linen.29 The secret in life is that everyone must sew it themselves, and the remarkable thing is that a man can sew it fully as well as a woman. In infinite resignation there is peace and rest and solace in the pain, which will confirm whether the movement has been done correctly. It would however not be difficult to write a whole book were I to examine the various misunderstandings, the awkward positions, the shoddy movements I have encountered just in my little practice. A person generally trusts very little in spirit, and yet it belongs precisely to spirit to make this movement; it is necessary that it not be the one-sided result of a dira necessitas [fearful necessity];30 and indeed, the more it is so, the more doubtful it always becomes whether the movement is correct.31 Thus, when a person would think that a cold, barren necessity must necessarily be present, the person implies thereby that no one can experience death before actually dying, which seems to me a crass materialism. Yet, in our time, a person typically worries very little about making the movement correctly. If someone who was learning to dance were to say, “For centuries, now, one generation after another has learned the positions; it is high time that I turn this to my advantage and without delay begin with quadrilles,” people would probably laugh a little at him; but in the world of spirit, people find this utterly plausible. What, then, is education? I thought it was that curriculum that the individual runs through in order to catch up with himself; and for the one who will not undertake this race, it helps him very little to be born even in the most enlightened age. Infinite resignation is the last stage preceding faith; thus, everyone who has not made this movement does not have faith; for in infinite resignation, for the first time, I prepare my self in my eternal validity; and only then can there be talk of seizing existence in virtue of faith.32 We will now let the knight of faith appear in the instance previously mentioned. He does everything exactly as the other knight does: he infinitely renounces the love that is his life’s content, he is reconciled in the pain—but then the miracle occurs. He makes still one more movement, more wonderful than all, for he says: I believe, however, that I will get her—in virtue, namely, of the absurd, in virtue of the fact that for God everything is possible. “The absurd” does not belong to the categories proper to the scope of the understanding. It is not identical with the improbable, the unexpected, the uncalculated. In the moment the knight resigned, he assured himself of the love’s impossibility, humanly speaking; this was the conclusion of the understanding, and he had energy enough to think it. In an infinite sense, it was still possible, but upon the basis of resigning it—and possession of this sort, of course, is nevertheless for the understanding no absurdity, since the understanding continues to be correct in holding that in the world of wretchedness, where it rules, the relationship was and continued to be an impossibility. This also the knight of faith is conscious of; the one thing that can save everything for him is the absurd, and this he grasps with faith. He therefore acknowledges the impossibility and in the same moment believes the absurd; for if, without declaring with all his soul’s passion and with his whole heart the love’s impossibility, he imagines himself to have faith, he deceives himself. His testimony is groundless if he has not even arrived at infinite resignation. Faith is therefore no aesthetic emotion, but something far higher, precisely because it presupposes resignation. It is not the heart’s immediate inclination, but the paradox of existence. Thus, when a young girl, despite all difficulties, nonetheless remains assured that her wish will be fulfilled, this assurance is not at all that of faith, and this even if she was raised by Christian parents and perhaps has gone a whole year to the parson for lessons. She is assured in all her childlike naivete and innocence, and this assurance also ennobles her being and gives her a supernatural strength, so that she, like a wonder-worker, can conjure the finite powers of existence and even make the stones weep on her behalf; while, at the same time, in her nervous agitation she can run to Herod equally well as to Pilate, and touch all the world with her pleas. Her assurance is lovely, quite so, and one can learn much from her, but what one does not learn from her is to make the movements; for her assurance dares not, in the pain of resignation, look the impossibility in the eye. I can see, therefore, that it requires power and energy and freedom of the spirit to make resignation’s infinite movement. Further, I can see that it can be done. What happens next astonishes me and makes my head spin; for, after having made resignation’s movement, now, in virtue of the absurd, to get everything, to get the wish, whole, uncut, this is beyond human powers; this is a miracle. But this I can see:  that the young girl’s assurance is only lightmindedness in comparison with faith’s unshakeableness, despite its having grasped the impossibility. Every time I would make this movement, my eye is darkened; in the very moment I absolutely admire it, a monstrous anxiety grips my soul: for what then is it to tempt God?33 And yet this is faith’s movement, and will be so, even if philosophy wants to confuse the concepts and convince us that it has faith, even if theology wants to sell it off at a bargain rate. Resigning does not require faith, for what I win in resignation is my eternal consciousness, and this is a purely philosophical movement. I find solace in making it when required, and I can discipline myself to make it; for whenever some finitude would grow over my head, I sharpen my hunger until I make the movement; for my eternal consciousness is my love for God, and it is for me higher than all. To resign does not require faith, but to get the least thing more than my eternal consciousness requires faith, for this is the paradox. A person often confuses the movements: someone says that one needs faith in order to give everything up, and yes, one hears what is still stranger, a person complaining that he has lost faith, and when one looks to the scale to see where he is, one sees, strangely enough, that he has only come to the point where he should make resignation’s infinite movement. By resignation, I give up everything. This movement I make by myself, and when I do not make it, it is because I am cowardly and soft and lack enthusiasm, and do not feel the significance of the high dignity that every person is accorded in being his own Censor, something much nobler than to be Censor-General for the whole Roman Republic.34 This movement I do perform by myself, and by this I therefore win my self in my eternal consciousness in blessed understanding with my love for the Eternal Being. By faith I do not give up something; on the contrary, by faith I get everything, in just the sense in which it is said that someone who has faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains. It requires a purely human courage to resign the whole of temporality in order to win eternity, but I can win this, and I cannot give it up, not in all eternity, for this is a contradiction. But it requires a paradox, and a humble courage, to now grasp the whole of temporality in virtue of the absurd. This courage belongs to faith. By faith, Abraham did not give up Isaac, but by faith, he received Isaac. In virtue of resignation the rich young man should have given away everything, but then when he had done it, the knight of faith would have said to him: “In virtue of the absurd, you shall get every cent back again—can you believe it?”35 And that once-rich young man would by no means treat these words lightly. For if he gave away his goods because he was bored with them, then resignation cost him little. Temporality, finitude: around these everything revolves. I can, by my own power, resign everything and then find peace and rest in the pain; I can tolerate everything. Even if that horrifying demon, more terrifying than Death, the terror of humanity; even if Madness held the fool’s motley up to my eye, and I understood that it was I who should array myself in that costume—I can still save my soul if, otherwise, it is  to me more important to act so that my love for God prevails in me rather than my earthly happiness. A person can still, in this last moment, collect his whole soul into one single glance toward Heaven from which all good gifts come, and this glance shall be understandable to him and to the one whom it seeks that he yet kept his love faithfully. Then he shall calmly costume himself in the suit. The one whose soul lacks this romanticism has sold his soul, whether he now gets a kingdom for it, or a paltry silver penny. But by his own power he cannot get the least of that which belongs to finitude; for I continually expend my power in resigning everything. By my own power I can give up the princess, and I shall not become some biting grumbler, but find joy and peace and rest in my pain; but by my own power I cannot get her again, for I expend everything in order to resign. “But by faith,” says that miraculous knight, “by faith you shall get her, in virtue of the absurd.” See, this movement I cannot make. Just as soon as I would begin upon it, everything turns itself about, and I flee back into resignation’s pain. I can swim in life, but for this mystical floating I am too heavy. To exist thus, to express my contradiction with existence in every moment as the most beautiful and secure harmony with it, this I cannot do. And yet it must be glorious to get the princess; this I will say every moment, and the knight of resignation who does not say this is a traitor. He has not had one single wish, and he has not held the wish young in his pain. Perhaps there was someone who found it convenient enough that the wish should no longer live, so that the pain’s arrows would be blunted; but someone like this is no knight. A freeborn soul that grasped himself to be in this condition would despise himself and begin again from the beginning, and would not, for the sake of anything, allow his soul to deceive itself. And yet it must be glorious to get the princess; yet, faith’s knight is the only happy person, the heir of the finite, while resignation’s knight is a stranger and a foreigner. Therefore to get the princess, to live joyfully and happily day in and day out with her—for it was also conceivable, you see, that resignation’s knight could get the princess, but that his soul had penetrated the fact of the impossibility of their future happiness36—to live in this manner, joyful and happy every moment in virtue of the absurd, every moment seeing the sword hovering over the beloved’s head, and yet not to find rest in resignation’s pain, but joy in virtue of the absurd—this is miraculous.37 The one who does this is great, the only great person. The thought of him moves my soul, which is never sparing in admiring greatness. If, now, everyone in this generation who does not intend to stop with faith is actually a man who has comprehended the horror of life, who has understood what Daub meant when he said that a soldier who stands alone at his post with a loaded rifle by a powder magazine on a stormy night gets strange thoughts; if, now, everyone who does not intend to stop with faith is actually a man who had the strength of soul to comprehend and thereby took the time to be alone with the thought that the wish was an impossibility; if everyone who does not intend to stop with faith is a man who 02-DSHPC167-Kierkegaard-Body.indd 43 02/21/24 3:46 PM 44 Fear and Trembling in the pain was reconciled, and was reconciled by the pain; if everyone who does not intend to stop with faith is a man who thereupon (and if he has not done everything that precedes, then he shouldn’t trouble himself where there is discussion of faith) performed the marvelous and grasped the whole of existence in virtue of the absurd— then what I write is the highest tribute to my generation by its lowliest member, who is able to make only the movement of resignation. But then why do they not wish to stop with faith, why does one sometimes hear that people are ashamed to admit that they have faith? This I cannot comprehend. If I ever reach the point where I am able to make this movement, then I will in the future drive with four horses. Is it actually so, is all this bourgeois philistinism I see in life, upon which I do not let my words but my conduct pass judgment, is it actually not what it seems, is it the marvel? It is indeed thinkable; for that hero of faith does indeed bear a striking likeness to this; for that hero of faith was not even an ironist and humorist, but something still higher. There is much said in our age about irony and humor, especially by people who have never been able to practice them, but who nevertheless know how to explain everything. I am not entirely unacquainted with these two passions, I know a little more about them than what is found in German and German-Danish compendiums. I know therefore that these two passions are essentially different from the passion of faith. Irony and humor also involve self-reflection and belong therefore to the sphere of infinite resignation. Their elasticity lies in the fact that the individual is incommensurable with actuality. The last movement, faith’s paradoxical movement, I cannot make, be it now duty or whatever it is; although, notwithstanding that, I would willingly do it. Whether a person has the right to say this must be left to him; it is a matter between him and the Eternal Being who is faith’s object whether he in this respect can hit upon an admirable agreement. What every individual can do is to make the movement of infinite resignation; and I, for my part, would not need a moment’s consideration to declare anyone a coward who would imagine that he cannot do this. With faith it is another matter. But what every person does not have a right to is to imagine otherwise, that faith is something lowly or that it is an easy matter, whereas it is the greatest and the most difficult. One comprehends the story of Abraham in another mode. One praises God’s grace, that he granted him Isaac again; the whole thing was only a trial. A trial: this word can say much and little, and yet the whole matter is over as quickly as it is said. One mounts a winged horse, in the same instant one is on Mount Moriah, in that same instant one sees the ram; one forgets that Abraham rode only on an ass, which carried him slowly along the way, that he had three days’ journey, that he needed some time to cut the wood, bind Isaac, and sharpen the knife. And yet one praises Abraham. Someone who would speak can just as well sleep, the audience can just as well fall asleep during the speech, for everything goes enough without inconvenience from either side. If there was a man present who suffered from sleeplessness, then perhaps he went home, sat down in a corner, and thought: The whole thing is an affair of a moment, you just wait a minute, and then you see the ram and the trial is over. If the speaker met him in this condition, then I think he would step forward toward him and, with all his dignity, say: “You wretch, to let your soul sink into such folly! No miracle takes place, and the whole of life is a trial.” As the speaker grew more effusive and he came to greater and greater effect, he would become more and more pleased with himself, and while he had observed no blood congestion when he spoke about Abraham, he now felt how the veins swelled in his forehead. Perhaps he would be dumbfounded if the sinner quietly and with dignity answered: “Well, after all, that was what you preached about last Sunday.” So, let us either abandon Abraham, or let us learn to be appalled by the gigantic paradox that constitutes the meaning of his life, so that we may understand that our age, just like every age, can be happy if someone has faith. If Abraham is not a nullity, a phantom, some ornament one uses for diversion, then the error can never lie in the fact that the sinner intends to do likewise, but rather the important thing is to see how great what Abraham did was, so that the man can judge for himself whether he has the calling and the courage to be tested in such a way. The comic contradiction in the speaker’s conduct was that he made Abraham into a nonentity and yet would forbid the other to conduct himself in the same way. Should one, then, not dare to speak about Abraham? I believe it is after all possible. If I should speak of him, then I would first describe the pain of the trial. To that end, I would, like a leech, suck all the angst and distress and agony out from a father’s suffering, so that I could describe what Abraham suffered, while he yet, throughout everything, believed this. I would point out one that the journey lasted three days and a good part of the fourth; yes, these three and a half days could be infinitely longer than the few thousand years that separates me from Abraham. Then I would definitely point out—this is my opinion—that every person might still dare to turn back before he begins on such thing, and at every moment can repentantly turn back. If one does this, then I fear no peril, nor am I afraid of awakening desire among people to be tried in like manner with Abraham. But if one intends to offer for sale a bargain edition of Abraham, and yet forbids everyone to do likewise, then it is laughable. It is, then, now my intention to extract, from the story of Abraham, the dialectic that lies within it in the form of Problemata, so as to see what a gigantic paradox faith is, which has the power to make a murder into a holy and God-pleasing action, a paradox which gives Abraham Isaac again, which no thought can grasp—because faith begins precisely where thought draws up