# Knight of Faith?



## Rufus (Mar 9, 2012)

Knight of faith - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



> The knight of faith is an individual who has placed complete faith in himself and in God and can act freely and independently from the world. The 19th century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard vicariously discusses the knight of faith in several of his pseudonymic works, with the most in-depth and detailed critique exposited in Fear and Trembling.



Any thoughts? Kierkegaard regarded Abraham as a Knight of Faith. 

On a side note Johannes de Silentio in the Wikipedia article is the pseudonym of Soren Kierkegaard.


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## Philip (Mar 9, 2012)

Here's what Kierkegaard is up to: the system of ethics that was in vogue at the time was Kantianism, which taught that the only "good" acts were ones done purely from a motive of duty or altruism and which brought the doer as little pleasure as possible. Further, they were also judged according to a categorical imperative: a universal command meant to be applied across the board with no possible exceptions. 

Kierkegaard, on the other hand, believed that the Christian ought to transcend Kantian ethics and instead live by faith, trusting what God says about morality, looking to God's commands, and seeking God's approval. Abraham illustrates this because God calls him to sacrifice Isaac, a command which goes against the categorical imperative.

As you're already aware, this isn't the point of the Genesis passage, but it's an interesting reading.


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## jwright82 (Mar 10, 2012)

If I remeber correctly, it has been a while since I read Kierkegaard, he said that we should take a leap of faith even if God commands us to do something against our every moral intuition (like sacrifice our son). This extreme view of God's freedom is the result of having no covenantal structure to our theology. How could we trust a God who in His absolute freedom can change His moral mind in an instance and we don't think just do.

Yes God is holy, just, and merciful but these attributes are always mediated through human language and concepts (all revelation is in this sense anthropomorphic). It is always God "voluntaraly condescending" (per the confession) to our level to reveal things about Himself to us. Because we are creatures though He must as Calvin says "accommodate" us in our creaturely finitude. He is absolutly free but He has saw fit to bind Himself "by way of covenant" (per the confession) so that we can trust Him because He has promised to engage with us in a set pattern. 

You don't find this in Kierkegaard. In fact for him or the knight of faith we are to obey God even if His commands are irrational or absurd. We just "choose" to live by a faith that is extreme. Again though it has been a while since I read him but I think I got him basically right.


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## Philip (Mar 10, 2012)

jwright82 said:


> You don't find this in Kierkegaard. In fact for him or the knight of faith we are to obey God even if His commands are irrational or absurd. We just "choose" to live by a faith that is extreme. Again though it has been a while since I read him but I think I got him basically right.



James, I don't think that Kierkegaard would necessarily disagree with the covenantal view. He would say that we are to define our lives by what God has revealed of Himself, even if it goes against human reason and human notions of what morality is. Hebrews says that Abraham offered up Isaac by faith _because_ he trusted in God's promise and for Kierkegaard this entails following what God commands even when it doesn't make sense. We trust God and define our moral sense by what He calls us to.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer ended up developing this further by arguing that though the Scriptures make moral commands that are binding on all, God makes special demands on the individual Christian that may not be what He calls every Christian to. So, for example, Bonhoeffer came to believe that God was calling him to be a double-agent to help bring down the Nazi regime, while at the same time believing that not every Christian in Germany was called to do so.


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## jwright82 (Mar 10, 2012)

P. F. Pugh said:


> jwright82 said:
> 
> 
> > You don't find this in Kierkegaard. In fact for him or the knight of faith we are to obey God even if His commands are irrational or absurd. We just "choose" to live by a faith that is extreme. Again though it has been a while since I read him but I think I got him basically right.
> ...



That is good to know, you are definantly more familer with his writings than I am. But doesn't it seem odd that one of the greatest admires of Kierkegarrd is Barth and he definantly affirmed the absolute freedom of God, maybe not as far as I laid out in my critique. But my point was that the covenant definantly prevents this idea from happening. I mean as much as I respect Lutheranism it doesn't have this perspective to guide it. And Keirkegaard was in theory coming from a Lutheran perspective.


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## Philip (Mar 10, 2012)

jwright82 said:


> But doesn't it seem odd that one of the greatest admires of Kierkegarrd is Barth and he definantly affirmed the absolute freedom of God



No question that the early works of Barth draw heavily on Kierkegaard (_Der Roemerbrief_ in particular) but a) Barth drew less on Kierkegaard as his work matured and as he began reading more church history he came to depend on Kierkegaard less and less b) Kierkegaard (like Barth, in many ways) tends to be a blank slate. Here's what I mean: everyone in the 20th century from Barth to Camus wants Kierkegaard on their side, so they end up reading themselves into Kierkegaard, making interpreting him correctly extremely hard. I even read one postliberal reading of SK that claimed that he held something like a Wittgensteinian view of doctrine!

The other thing to say about SK is that the pseudonymns confuse things. When he's writing under a pseudonymn (and only _Training in Christianity_ isn't written under one, unless I'm forgetting something) he's always taking a more extreme position than he actually holds.


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## jwright82 (Mar 10, 2012)

P. F. Pugh said:


> jwright82 said:
> 
> 
> > But doesn't it seem odd that one of the greatest admires of Kierkegarrd is Barth and he definantly affirmed the absolute freedom of God
> ...



Thanks, that clarifies things.


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