信仰の情熱とその逆説 : キェルケゴール『おそれとおののき』におけるアブラハム解釈をめぐって

Abstract

In his Fear and Trembling, using a pseudonym "Johannes de Silentio", Kierkegaard handles Abraham's story about sacrificing his own son Isaac to God. Johannes says Abraham's faith in God is paradoxical. In this paper, I intend to explain the meaning or usage by him of the word "paradox". I think that Kierkegaard shows us faith as interpreted by Johannes seems paradoxical to Johannes himself. His basic view of the episode in Genesis is that Abraham is great, not in an ethical but in a transcendent sense. This view has been gained through a kind of poetic ability, and he, as a man having such an ability, praises Abraham for holding his wish to be with Isaac against many difficulties. Through his intellectual abilities, on the other hand, Johannes understands the difference between the passion of Abraham's faith and the passion of resignation which ethically great people, such as Agamemnon, have. While people with a passion of resignation alone give up their wish and love with respect to actual objects and try to gain satisfaction in the eternal through recollection, the passion of faith enables people to believe that their very wish which has been given up will come true in the actual world. As a man having intellectual abilities, Johannes cannot accept the existence of the contradictory passion of faith. For Johannes, Abraham's faith is to be praised and not to be accepted. This contradictory attitude makes the faith he interprets seem paradoxical to himself.