He reasons that it is better that his son believes him to be a monster “than that he lose faith in thee”. When Isaac realises what is happening he pleads with his father, but Abraham does not, as you might expect, blame his actions on God, instead assuming full responsibility. Yet when Abraham seems called by God to go to the Mount to make the sacrifice, he does not hesitate or question, but saddles up his horses and sets off. Thus he was especially loved and cherished. For Isaac was not just any child, but the only son of Abraham and Sarah, who had miraculously been given them in their old age, after many years waiting. Kierkegaard spends the book getting to grips with how Abraham could be willing to do such a thing. Fear and Trembling recounts the three day journey of the biblical Abraham to Mount Moriah, where God has seemingly requested he go in order to sacrifice his son Isaac as an offering. The opposite of doubt is faith, and Kierkegaard had long been fascinated by the story of the Old Testament’s Abraham, the ‘father of faith’. In his Principles of Philosophy, Descartes supported the ‘natural light’ of reason only if nothing contrary to it was revealed by God his writings were not a call to the rest of the world to doubt all. Or was it? Descartes, Kierkegaard notes, was in fact “no doubter in matters of faith”. This was exactly the approach taken by the arch doubter of modern philosophy, Descartes. To Soren Kierkegaard, it seemed that in the modern age, everyone begins by doubting everything.

Fear and Trembling by Søren Kierkegaard