The vivid phenomenological description goes to the heart of what it means to be committed to another finite being, with both the excitement and the trembling registered in the most precise Kierkegaardian prose. The wholehearted commitment is rendered literally as letting the love palpitate in every nerve, flow through every drop of blood, steal into his most secret and remote thoughts, entwine itself around every ligament of his consciousness. Moreover, the wholehearted commitment is explicitly a risky venture: something that requires courage and puts the lover’s life at stake. To absorb and immerse himself in the “blissful delight” of love is inseparable from having a lethal poison spread through his body.
The moment of falling in love is “the moment of crisis,” which is to say the moment that requires a decision. If he allows the blissful poison of love to continue soaring through his body, he will be bound to a finite being who can transform and illuminate his life but who may also shatter his existence. This is why his thoughts—which fly out as doves of hope—all come back as messengers of grief. The princess is not unattainable (we later learn that the knight can receive her love and live with her day after day), but their relationship is an “impossibility” if he demands to be sheltered from the pain of loss. On the contrary, his wholehearted commitment must entail that his own life be at risk in his love for her: “If his love comes to grief, he will never be able to wrench himself out of it.”
If the knight here decided to remain wholeheartedly committed, he would have the courage of secular faith. The anticipation of loss—the doves of hope that come back as messengers of grief—would make him all the more resolved to be with the beloved and make the most of their time together. Instead, the knight begins to make the movement of religious faith in order to protect himself against the threat of loss that his thoughts have anticipated: “When they all come back, all of them like messengers of grief, and explain that it is an impossibility, he becomes very quiet, he dismisses them, he becomes solitary, and then he undertakes the movement” (emphasis added).
The first step is the movement of infinite resignation, through which the knight “renounces the love that is the substance of his life.”60 Before the princess can be taken away from him or leave him, he voluntarily gives her up, to free himself of his dependence on her. “He has grasped the deep secret that even in loving another person one ought to be sufficient to oneself. He is no longer finitely concerned about what the princess does, and precisely this proves that he has made the movement infinitely.”61 By virtue of this movement of infinite resignation, the princess can no longer hurt him. “What the princess does cannot disturb him; it is only the lower natures who have the law for their actions in someone else,”62 whereas “the one who has resigned infinitely is sufficient to himself.”63 To avoid the pain of losing his beloved against his will, the knight thus prefers the pain of giving her up in advance. Rather than being at the mercy of his beloved, he actively renounces her, since the latter move allows him to remain in control: “By my own strength I can give up the princess, and I will not sulk about it but find joy and peace and rest in my pain.”64
Yet, while the knight is reconciled to giving up the object of his love (the princess), he does not want to give up the love itself (the activity of loving). Instead, he wants to find a way of loving that will insure him against ever losing the object of his love. Thus, he tells himself that he never really loved the princess in her own right. Rather, his love was “the expression of an eternal love” and should be endowed with “a religious character” through which it is “transfigured into a love of the eternal being” and is given “an eternal form that no actuality can take away from him.”65 The love of the eternal being (God) cannot be fulfilled in this life, but by the same token it cannot be refuted in this life and allows the lover to pursue his love unimpeded by any external circumstances. Accordingly, the knight explains that “every time some finitude will take power over me, I starve myself into submission until I make the movement, for my eternal consciousness is my love for God, and for me that is the highest of all….what I gain thereby is my eternal consciousness in blessed harmony with my love for the eternal being.”66
If the knight does not go further than to renounce the finite for the eternal, he remains a knight of infinite resignation. What distinguishes the knight of faith, however, is that he makes another movement at the same time as he makes the movement of infinite resignation:
Now let us meet the knight of faith on the occasion previously mentioned [falling in love with the princess]. He does exactly the same as the other knight did: he infinitely renounces the love that is the substance of his life, he is reconciled in pain. But then the marvel happens; he makes one more movement even more wonderful than all the others, for he says: Nevertheless I have faith that I will get her—that is, by virtue of the absurd, by virtue of the fact that for God all things are possible. The absurd does not belong to the differences that lie within the proper domain of the understanding. It is not identical with the improbable, the unexpected, the unforeseen. The moment the knight executed the act of resignation, he was convinced of the impossibility, humanly speaking; that was the conclusion of the understanding, and he had sufficient energy to think it. But in the infinite sense it was possible, that is, by relinquishing it, but this having, after all, is also a giving up. Nevertheless, to the understanding this having is no absurdity, for the understanding continues to be right in maintaining that in the finite world where it dominates this having was and continues to be an impossibility. The knight of faith realizes this just as clearly; consequently, he can be saved only by the absurd, and this he grasps by faith. Consequently, he acknowledges the impossibility, and in the very same moment he believes the absurd.67
Both of the knights want to “have” the object of their love without ever losing it. Both of them also understand that such having (absolute possession) is impossible in a finite world. That is why both of them renounce the woman they love. Because her presence cannot be guaranteed—because she may abandon them—they give her up in advance. The real object of their love, they tell themselves, is not any finite woman but an eternal God who will never leave them as long as they remain faithful to Him.
The knight of resignation accepts that such devotion to God entails the sacrifice of his loved ones (e.g., his wife and son), but he is reconciled to the pain because he renounces them in favor of the eternal being of God. The knight of faith does the same, but at the same time he believes that he will get his loved ones back precisely by renouncing—or even killing—them. This faith is absurd and, as Kierkegaard emphasizes, defies any possible understanding. There is absolutely no reason to think that you will receive the very thing you are renouncing and that the son you are killing will come back to live happily with you. For Kierkegaard, however, the absurdity is the point, since it underlines that the movement of religious faith requires that you relinquish any concern for external probabilities in favor of internal conviction. “By virtue of the absurd to get everything, to get one’s desire totally and completely”68—that is how Fear and Trembling glosses the religious faith that defies any finite understanding. Rather than “find rest in the pain of resignation,” the knight of faith can “find joy by virtue of the absurd” and “live happily every moment,”69 since “he has this security [faith in the absurd] that makes him delight in finitude as if it were the surest thing of all.”70
By the same token, however, the knight of faith does not have any real sense of finitude, since he takes the sting out of every loss and removes any lethal force from experience. He may claim that he is wholeheartedly committed to his wife and son, but he only dares to love them by renouncing his care for their fate in the world. Regardless of what happens to them, he maintains his internal conviction regarding what will happen, and as long as he keeps this faith he lives happily every moment. Any devastating outcome (even the killing of his own son) is immediately transformed into th
e renewal of hopeful expectation, since “he drains the deep sadness of life in infinite resignation, he knows the blessedness of infinity,” and “is continually making the movement of infinity, but he does it with such precision and assurance that he continually gets finitude out of it, and no one ever suspects anything else.”71
Those readers who want to see an affirmation of finitude in Kierkegaard have certainly not suspected anything else. But when we pay attention to the movements of the knight of faith it is clear that he does not actually care about the fate of the finite, even though he apparently is fully immersed in finite life. On his way home in the evening, with a spring in his step and seemingly taking pleasure in everything he sees, the knight of faith is looking forward to a special hot meal of “roast lamb’s head with vegetables”72 that his wife will have prepared for him. If he meets someone along the way he will talk “about this delicacy with a passion befitting a restaurant operator,” and “to see him eat would be the envy of the elite and an inspiration to the common man, for his appetite is keener than Esau’s.”73 Yet, if there turns out to be no dinner, “curiously enough, he is just the same” (besynderligt nok—han er aldeles den Samme).74 Even though he is fully invested in the prospect of eating the delicious meal, it makes no difference to him if it does not appear.
The mundane example is important, since the knight is supposed to make the double movement of religious faith at every moment of his life, regardless of whether it concerns the existence of a beloved son or the apparently trivial existence of a delicious meal. Indeed, the knight of faith “is convinced that God is concerned with the smallest things.”75 Even when there is no roast lamb’s head with vegetables, he keeps faith that he will get the dinner, just as Abraham keeps faith that he will get Isaac even when there is no sacrificial lamb and he has to kill Isaac himself. This may seem absurd, but the point is again that it looks that way only to someone who accepts the authority of the external world over the internal conviction of religious faith. The knight of faith is rather full of confident hope (of having dinner with his wife or a flourishing future with his son) while being unmoved by any refutation of his hope. If there is no dinner and he turns out to have killed Isaac curiously enough, he is just the same. Nothing can disturb his state of hopeful expectation, since he renews it at every moment through the double movement: renouncing his care for any given negative outcome (there is no dinner, Isaac is dead) while relaunching his faith that everything will be given to him by God, for whom everything is possible. Thus, “with the freedom from care of a reckless good-for-nothing, he lets things take care of themselves,” since “he does not do even the slightest thing except by virtue of the absurd.”76
The knight of faith thereby demonstrates what it would mean to be free from despair. While Kierkegaard promotes the elimination of despair as a desirable achievement of religious faith, his own account reveals why it is undesirable and why it would undermine the capacity to care. Recall that Kierkegaard defines despair as encompassing all forms of anxiety, ranging from the smallest worry to the most severe existential breakdown. Recall further that he defines religious faith as the complete eradication of despair. To have religious faith is not merely to sustain hope but to eliminate the very possibility of being in despair. “Not to be in despair must signify the destroyed possibility of being able to be in despair,” Kierkegaard explains in The Sickness unto Death. “If a person is truly not to be in despair, he must at every moment destroy the possibility.”77 This elimination of despair is achieved anew at every moment through the double movement of religious faith. As long as the knight maintains his religious faith, he is not anxious about anything that may happen in the future and he cannot be brought to despair even if the worst happens to him.
For the same reason, however, the knight of faith is not actually at stake in any of his commitments. If I am at stake in my commitments, then I must run the risk of despair if I betray my commitments or if everything to which I am committed breaks down. The risk of despair is not a possibility that can be eliminated but a necessary boundary condition for any life-defining commitment. If I have a life-defining commitment, there are things I cannot do and a world I cannot lose on pain of losing myself. The knight of faith believes, on the contrary, that he will be able to go on with his life even if everything is taken away from him, and at every moment he overcomes any form of anxiety. It is therefore no accident that he turns out to be utterly insensitive and irresponsible with regard to what happens. In destroying his ability to be in despair, he is also destroying his ability to care about anyone or anything that is finite.
Fear and Trembling acknowledges that such faith may seem to be not only “absurd” but also “frightening,” “terrible,” and “dreadful.” Yet these characterizations are not meant to repudiate religious faith but to make it appear even more awe-inspiring and sublime. Like many of Kierkegaard’s books, Fear and Trembling is signed by a pseudonymous author—in this case Johannes de Silentio—who narrates the story and speaks directly to the reader. Johannes admits that he himself does not have religious faith and often finds himself “shattered” or “paralyzed” when thinking of Abraham. But this does not prevent Johannes from regarding Abraham as “the greatest of all” and from chastising himself for falling short of the religious faith that is required to sacrifice Isaac. If such faith seems absurd or terrible, it is because one fails to trust fully in God and still has a secular commitment to Isaac as a finite being who can be irrevocably lost. From the perspective of religious faith there is, on the contrary, nothing absurd or frightening about sacrificing your child if God demands it. As Kierkegaard himself explains in his later papers: “When the believer has faith, the absurd is not the absurd—faith transforms it….Therefore, rightly understood, there is nothing at all frightening in the category of the absurd.”78
Hence, in the writings that Kierkegaard signs with his own name (rather than with a pseudonym such as Johannes de Silentio) he can be seen to promote the double movement of religious faith even more emphatically than in Fear and Trembling. For example, in his Christian Discourses, Kierkegaard elaborates at length why the true religious believer should not have a care in the world, since he or she fully expects that God will provide for everything. Commenting on Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount (“Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink”), Kierkegaard argues that a true Christian does not worry about any bodily or material needs, since he has faith that God will provide the daily bread that is needed.79
To renounce your care for bodily and material needs is of course deeply difficult, but the difficulty of the challenge makes it all the more valuable for Kierkegaard as a test of religious faith. Unlike the lilies and the birds (who supposedly live without care), a human being has many reasons to worry, so in order to be a true Christian he must continually sacrifice his cares for the sake of faith. Even if the Christian is poor and does not receive any bread in the literal sense, he does not worry about what to eat insofar as he is really a Christian. He may be poor in a worldly sense, but he is “without the care of poverty”80 and therefore rich in a religious sense. He treats everything (including his own poverty) as a gift from God and trusts that God gives everything that is needed. Even at the moment of starving to death from not receiving any actual bread, the Christian does not worry about his life. Instead “he believes that, just as he will certainly receive the daily bread as long as he has to live here on earth, he will some day live blessed in the hereafter” and such “an eternal life” is “certainly beyond all comparison with food and drink.”81
Those who claim to be Christian but still care about the fate of their finite lives, Kierkegaard chastises for lacking a living religious faith. If you are poor and cannot renounce the care for poverty, if you are dying and cannot renounce the care for your life, if you are a loving parent and cannot renounce the care for your child, then you are not a Christian. You may claim that you trust in God, but
if you cannot prove it through your actions and through how you respond to what happens, then your religious faith is dead: something you claim to believe even though it does not actually shape how you think and feel. A living religious faith is rather achieved through a double movement, where you renounce the cares that follow from being finite and instead place your trust in God. Even though you are starving, you believe that you will be nourished, even though you are dying, you believe that you will live forever, and even though you are killing your son, you believe that he will be given back to you.
While Kierkegaard underlines that such religious faith cannot be attained once and for all—it has to be achieved anew at every moment—he holds that it is the best and most desirable way of living. “I know a way out of your difficulty, which will give you full assurance of victory,” Kierkegaard maintains in one of his edifying religious discourses. “Act in the conviction that even if the opposite of what you wish results from your action, you will nevertheless have conquered.”82 This is, of course, exactly the logic of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac in Fear and Trembling. Abraham passes the most difficult test of religious faith, since he is able to sacrifice his care and put his life in the hands of God even when it entails risking everything that matters to him. Even in killing Isaac, Abraham keeps faith that his beloved son will be given back to him by God.
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