A Panegyric Upon Abraham - From "Fear and Trembling" by Soren Kierkegaard

"Panegyric - a public speech or published text in praise of someone or something." (Oxford Dictionary)

A Panegyric Upon Abraham

His panegyric begins with a lament similar to his preface. He talks about [at least what seems to me to reflect the Naturalism of the 19th century] how if there is no soul to man, if he is just a mess of natural powers and emotions throbbing away underneath it all, then life means nothing. It means no more than the other natural processes that go on in nature. But this is not the case, human life does have meaning, and thus we have the "... hero and the poet or orator..." to show us. The poet writes his best self into a hero and shares this hero with others to preserve what is best about him. 1 This preservation is not only in the poet's lifetime but can take place throughout history. Heroes are remembered; but they are also remembered for that which they loved as hero. "For he who loved himself became great by himself, and he who loved other men became great by his selfless devotion, but he who loved God became greater than all." 

These heroes are understood and praised accordingly as they overcame their own fleshly desires, or the difficulties of the world, or even ascended to virtue and love ... but the highest still must be the one who chose God in all these. For it is in choosing God, and following a path where conventional logic breaks down that true goodness lies. "... Abraham was greater than all, great by reason of his power whole strength is impotence, great by reason of his wisdom whose secret is foolishness, great by reason of his hope whose form if madness, great by reason of the love which is hatred of oneself." 

And so the greatest thing that Abraham, our hero, took with him when God called him to journey out, was that of his faith and suspension of the reasonable. "...he left his earthly understanding behind and took faith with him-- otherwise he would not have wandered forth but would have thought this unreasonable." 2 And Abraham must have been sad, an exile from his home land in an undeveloped place. Too, there is no one to record his songs of weeping as was done during the later exile in Babylon. But, it is Abraham's faith that is worth more than this. 

Again, he is told that he is going to the father of many nations, but it was not happening. Time and year went by and nothing was happening. Again he may have been led into sorrow, but he did not lose faith. They were mocked, but he did not take it out on Sarah, nor let his faith waiver. "What is it to be God's elect? It is to be denied in youth the wishes of youth, so as with great paints to get them fulfilled in old age." 3 And so Abraham remained a youth, so to speak, in that he name gave up his hope. And so they were blessed with Isaac. But his testing was not done. "He had fought with that cunning power which invents everything, with that alert enemy which never slumbers, with that old man who outlives all things - he had fought with Time and preserved with faith. Now all the terror of the strife was concentrated in one instant." ... God called him to give up his son. 4 

But who would do this? Who would destroy what 70 years of faithful waiting provided? Who would take away their comfort in old age? What about the nations of descendants? But it was God who did this to his elect, Abraham. "Yet Abraham believed, and believed for this life. Yea, if his faith had been only for a future life, he surely would have cast everything away in order to hasten out of this world to which he did not belong." 5 Abraham had everything of this life to lose, most especially the son whom he had deeply loved. 

If Abraham had doubted at all, he would have plunged the knife into his own breast and have become famous nonetheless, sparing Isaac and giving himself. And yet that is not what God asked of him, and he chose to do not what would give him fame, but what would inspire faith in all following generations. 6 Abraham took the harder route. He responded to God in haste, not able to share the burden with anyone that God had put on him. He was not just losing his future, but the future of all generations that had been prophesied about. And it was not God who was taking his son, as with all people in natural death, but it had to be by the very own hands of a father. "But he did not doubt, he did not look anxiously to the right or to the left, he did not challenge heaven with his prayers. He knew that it was God the Almighty who was trying him, he knew that it was the hardest sacrifice that could be required of him; but he knew also that no sacrifice was too hard when God required it -- and he drew the knife." How did he do this? How did he bear this? 7 

It could have been no other way, for if God had not tested him such he could not have evoked the faith that was needed from Abraham. And in Abraham dying, so to speak, he gained all. He gained faith and retained his son. 

Kierkegaard concludes addressing Abraham. 8

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1 - Kierkegaard, Soren. Fear and Trembling and The Sickness Unto Death. trans. Walter Lowrie. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973. Pg. 30

2 - 31

3 - 32

4 - 33

5 - 34

6 - 35

7 - 36

8 - 37