Is faith above ethics?

Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling is a challenging read, but gripping when you’re in the mood for that sort of thing.  The main thesis has something to do with faith being the greatest passion of human beings, that faith reaches beyond rational ethical doctrines, and that modern society is wrong to think that it can go beyond faith.  The faith exemplar is the biblical Abraham, who is asked by God to sacrifice his son, Isaac.  Abraham’s faith leads him to comply with God’s command, except that God stops Abraham from sacrificing Isaac at the last second.

Kierkegaard tries all sorts of psychological tricks to get us on board with his thesis.  He asserts repeatedly that he cannot understand Abraham, because Abraham is superior to him by virtue of his faith.  The implication is that if we think we understand Abraham, we are wrong, because not even Kierkegaard understands Abraham.  He asserts that if faith is not beyond ethics, then faith is nothing.  And if faith is nothing, then the story of Abraham is pointless.  So if we want to believe that faith is something special and that the story of Abraham is something special, then we must follow and agree with Kierkegaard that faith is above ethics.  Resorting to tricks like these raises red flags.  It suggests that the author knows something about the weakness of his thesis when it is presented straight and sober.

Another challenge is we are dealing with an analysis of stories, stories that explicitly defy the parameters of regular experience.  Why should we care about a world where God commands human beings to do unethical things, when we live in a world where God is silent?  Can faith be understood to be beyond ethics without the Abraham story?  If it can’t, and the Abraham story is pure fantasy, then who cares about Kierkegaard’s argument that faith is above and beyond rational ethics?

Nevertheless, I admit that there seems to be something important in this writing.  Is it possible that God might want mankind to go beyond ethics?  The idea itself creates fear and trembling.  Obviously, any attempt to go beyond ethics could very likely amount to falling below ethics.  But isn’t it an attractive idea that the universal rules of ethics are too clunky and cumbersome for the full color and vibrancy of the human spirit to emerge?  Not that we should be allowed to cheat the ethical rules, but that there are available extraordinary purposes in life that demand we hate ourselves, that we hate those we are expected to love, and concentrate our love in something higher?  For Kierkegaard, this seems to be in part what the Abraham story is suggesting (and echoed in Luke 14).  And this higher purpose is that we love only God and serve Him, setting aside our rational ethical obligations to our nation, our family, and ourselves.

I am aware of the semantical pitfalls in this presentation.  If a thing is contrary to what God wants of us, how could it be called ethical in the first place?  Kierkegaard works around this by distinguishing the universal from the absolute.  It seems just as well to say that one can think of a lower ethics and a higher ethics.  The lower ethics involve calculation, and include those rules that were everyone to live by, the world would be harmonious and just.  The higher ethics call on us not only to be compatible with a world that might be just, but to suspend all worldly calculation in service to God.

But there is a final piece to this, in order to account for the emphatic distinction Kierkegaard makes between Abraham, who is described as a knight of faith, and those others who are praised but would be better described as tragic heroes.  It is not faith, but tragic heroism, to sacrifice in order to save a nation.  It is not faith, but tragic heroism, to calculate and act for the sake of the outcome.  So what is faith, and why is it higher?  Faith is a personal, not a public or civic, virtue.  It is faith to believe that regardless of the immediate consequences, and regardless of public opinion, that God keeps His promises to those that trust, love, and serve Him.  Also, that these promises are kept in this world, not exclusively or primarily in the afterlife.  God promised Abraham Isaac in this world, and though God commands Abraham to sacrifice Isaac in this world, Abraham continues to believe that in obeying God, he will still have Isaac in this world, because this is God’s promise to him for his faith.  Abraham thus lets go of everything as it appears in the world, and in so doing proves his faith.

But does Abraham’s faith put him closer to God by leaving him willing to abandon rational ethics and sacrifice his son?  Are we all called by God to surpass our ethical inclinations?  Is it really not better to be a tragic hero, or even just a regular-old-good-person, than to have (this) faith?

Needing a (Way of) Life

Many of us have a sort of nagging restlessness that we’re frequently in need of escaping.  We need to be fully immersed in something, but nothing seems sufficiently appealing.  There is a deep trepidation that trying to immerse in the wrong thing will only intensify the restlessness, turning it into desperation.

Others of us are lucky enough to already be immersed.  We have a way of getting through the day that fully absorbs our attention and energies to a sufficiently satisfying degree.  We feel invested and are comfortable with the expected returns on that investment.  We don’t understand people that seem to feel so alienated from everything.  Why can’t they just live their life?  How difficult is it?

If we look at the different ways people immerse themselves, some patterns begin to emerge.  Some are very much into some sort of close-knit community, the members of which all have a thick sense of their common identity.  The group is strong, protective, and exclusive — maybe its just family, just friends (as in a fraternity or sorority), or some mixture of the two.  When these communities are big enough, functional, and healthy, they offer so many sources of stimulation and various social sensations that being actively in them can be fully immersing and satisfying.  Desperation only seeps in when too many of the members are too busy to congregate as a group.

An opposite way of experiencing immersion is through competition.  We see this sometimes with people who lose their community and instantly transition from a cooperative and loving posture to a competitive and hateful posture (as in bitter divorcees).  Competition is inherently stimulating, as you have to not only beat your opponents but also do so in a way that is viewed as legitimate.  The hate that is motivating the competition has to be channeled into virtues like focus, determination, perseverance without showing the vices of nastiness, weakness, and foolishness.  Executed correctly, though, hate for a person or group can be as fully immersive as thrivingly fraternal community.

I don’t know why we have this need for immersion, but we can see it everywhere.  Those lacking a community to join or oppose turn to other things.  Religious faith has unique qualities suitable for a deeply immersive experience.  Contemplation of an infinite being, with qualities of perfection exceeding human comprehension, to which we owe gratitude exceeding our capacity, from which we receive endless and unfailing love, can completely overwhelm the mind’s intellect and emotions.  And of course there are the immersive effects of drugs, alcohol, sex, pornography, food, gaming, and all the other addictions we see people all around us completely absorbed in.

Perhaps becoming more aware of the need for immersion can help us understand our attachments and our anxieties.  Less clear is what the best form of immersion is — it certainly can’t be hate and competition.  If the answer is community, then most of us are dependent on others to provide it, and the good fortune that there will be chemistry between ourselves and that community — common tastes, sense of humor, interests, values, etc.  If the answer is faith (which happens to be my answer) and we aren’t faithful already, then the road to be travelled is perhaps just as difficult.  If the answer is addiction, then we have a lot of pain ahead of us, and we have essentially given up on the fullness that life seemed to promise us as children.

Twas the night before..





Loosening the Grip of Anxiety

We are thrown across the ground, and some of us land in good spots, others in bad spots.  We are scattered.  Where we find ourselves is not often where we want to be.  We would rather be somewhere else, somewhere much better.  Failing that, we would like to escape from where we are.  Escape away.  Unplug, unhook, and float away.

You could call this frustration, or anxiety.  The feeling itself can be dull and then spike.  Duration has a multiplying, paralyzing effect.  Each added moment contains a loud, screaming assertion of the unbearable now.

You feel caught, and it is easy to lose faith in a way out.  There usually is one.  But when you’re paralyzed, you need a pivot thought.  Something that creates some space to move.  For me, that thought is that this is how things are (temporarily) supposed to be, that the good I want is blinding me to the good that is available.

Your soul needs pleasure, but pleasure is a delicate mystery, always dancing within us and around us.  Your soul will lead you to it, help you unlock it, access it, if you can muscle out some thought on the opportunity of your situation — this strange spot you landed in when you were thrown across the ground.  If you lose faith in the presence of opportunity, you can fall into the trap of desperation.  Then we get forceful in indulgence, destructive of ourselves, welcoming of a quick escape, a joy pulse, and a subsequent numbed recovery.

We need to worry more about the trap than the relative apparent advantages of where we have fallen to and come to rest.  Embrace the freedom of denial and confusion.  It is just a transition, a uniquely human transition, to a uniquely human moment of insight into this mysterious existence.  There is special pleasure there, and it’s waiting for you.









GUEST BLOG: By Margarita Ramirez, “Let’s Talk? Why Some Traditional Relationship Habits Still Make Sense”

Communication. The art of expressing to others your ideas and thoughts. It seems so easy, yet I bet there are hundreds of books written about improving communication skills, good communication practices. What appears as something completely straight forward as talking, is for me a struggled. Sometimes I feel it is an ability I plainly missed. Maybe it is just a “me” thing, as I do not have blue eyes I do not know how to communicate, yet I believe it is also a way in which we women are programmed in traditional families.


I have the hardest time communicating about issues when there is a tension between what the traditional role should be and the modern. i.e.: house keeping, ways to handle our daughter, weekend plans… As a consequence, I have a hard time asking for favors that involve these tasks. Traditionally, it is either “his” role and I am not supposed to get involved, or it is mine. When it is “my” role, I should have all the jurisdiction and say about it. So being brought up in a traditional family, I find it unnatural to communicate. I feel anxious when something arises that I will have to bring up. I would rather not have any new thoughts or information so I do not have to say anything, especially when I feel the issue might have the potential to create a traditional vs. modern clash.

I personally find the structure of the traditional family in this sense very handy. Here is why. In a traditional family everyone has their roles. This means that all the members of the household know what are their duties, what to do and when. As a consequence, each member does their own thing, and the house runs smoothly (for the purpose of this exercise lets suppose that all the members do their part without shirking). It’s like a soccer team, the “James” knows that he has to make a goal when he sees the opportunity. When he has the ball, he does not slow down and stop to talk about it with his team members. So why bother talking? Shouldn’t little cues here and there be enough?

As I see it, the need to communicate in a modern family structure is too cumbersome. If roles are not clear, of course there is need to speak in order to communicate. But, wouldn’t it make more sense to talk beforehand, set the roles, and from then one save time and potential problems? And this is only with regards to household things. Yet, I also find problematic the need to share every experience or feeling. Sometimes I just want to hold the feelings to myself. I follow that sharing one’s mind creates intimacy. Yet maybe in sharing one’s mind you end up opening up a pandora’s box of contents that now are out on the loose. That is very scary to me. Again, maybe it is just a “me” thing, maybe not. I can remember my mom saying “there is no need to tell your husband all your personal things or all your family matters.” I do not exactly know what is the rationale behind it. I will ask her.

Side note: One of the things that surprised me the most from my previous guest post was to see that those that identified with my thoughts were mostly Latin women that had lived outside of Latin America. In addition, while I have such a hard time with the stiffness of the status quo in my mind, and the way I am programmed, there are other women for which the tension between traditional and modern family roles is non-existent. I find this fascinating!

Response to Ms. Ramirez’ “My Family Roles”

I love the topic of family roles for my blog because the family unit is such a fundamental element of society.  Outside of public institutions, the family is primarily where good neighbors, voters, and future parents are formed.  What came through in a conversation with Margarita after she posted “Family Roles” is that the clash between traditional and modern is really a clash over who knows best.  Modern culture suggests that we know what is best for ourselves as individuals.  Traditional culture suggests that what is best for everyone is revealed in the patterns of common experience.  So whereas Margarita’s experience is real and concrete, I just want to offer a couple of thoughts, viewing the issue somewhat more abstractly.

First of all, there should be no denying that older people are more experienced, that they have learned lessons we have yet to learn, and that the knowledge that age brings with it is invaluable.  Yet we often do deny it, and the main reason why is because we younger, more modern, generations believe that their knowledge is unimportant for several reasons.  We think much of their knowledge is circumstantial, and that what worked in the 1970s is not necessarily going to work in the 2010s, yet they push it on us anyways.  Their views are seen as prejudicial, rooted in an older worldview that is insufficiently appreciative of diversity, tolerance, and authenticity.  And they understand life itself incorrectly when they mock the necessary explorations and experimentations individuals must all personally engage in if they are to discover what truly makes them happy.

On the other hand, while these critiques certainly matter, it all comes back to the value of experience.  Yes, experience has to be properly interpreted, and there are quite enough of “old fools” out there to prove that age does not automatically bestow a crown of wisdom and virtue.  But the present also has to be properly interpreted, and there should be little argument that it is the here and now that is harder to understand correctly than is the past, if only because we have had less time to think about it.

The other overwhelmingly important consideration is that in the here and now, our passions rule.  Before the expression “love is love” became so popular, I used to hear “love is blind” far more often.  And there is a tension between the two sayings.  If love is blind, then sometimes love is headed in the right direction, and sometimes it is not.  If love is love, then the implication is either the neutral claim that love has no “right and wrong” to it, or the more optimistic view that love always moves us in the right direction.  Both of these seem off to me.

What our traditional culture is trying to do when it pushes its wisdom regarding love and relationships on us is to impart sight into a largely blind force.  It is to reject the often misleading thought that “love is love.”  It is to save us from our near-sighted, impassioned selves.  And, even if sometimes misguided, it makes sense why it is trying to do so.  It is itself an act of love, an expression of the hopes and sympathies felt by the older for the younger, and especially the good will, concern and protective instincts of parents for their children both young and old.