Between God & Divinity: What place for ethics?

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Between God & Divinity: What place for ethics?

Genesis 22 as examined by Immanuel Kant, Martin Luther, & Søren Kierkegaard

By Muna Adil

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Table of Contents

Page Aim

……………………..……………………………………………………………….. 3

Introduction

…………………………………………………...……………….…… 4

Genesis 22

..……………………………………………………………….………… 7

Immanuel Kant Martin Luther

…….…….………………….….…………………………………. 10 ………………………………………………………………………. 13

Soren Kierkegaard

……………………………………………………………….. 15

Conclusion

…………………………………………………………………………….. 19

References

…………………………………………………………………………….. 20

Appendix

..…………………………………………………………………………….. 23

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Aim

The following report is an attempt to explore and analyse Genesis 22 through a variety of interpretations and assessments.

First, the report will first give a brief overview of Genesis 22, some of its debated elements, and a variety of questions raised after a critical reading of the story.

Then, the report will explore the views of Immanuel Kant, Martin Luther, and Søren Kierkegaard on the sacrifice of Isaac and how to harmonise this seemingly cruel demand with a faith that claims a benevolent God.

In conclusion, the report will aim to come to some semblance of an understanding of Genesis 22 and its diverse, and often times controversial, readings that shed light on the familiar story of Abraham, Isaac, and divine sacrifice.

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Introduction

Genesis 22 has long been one of the most widely known and well-read of biblical stories. Besides being a story to show God’s love and mercy, many believe Genesis 22 to be central to the larger debate of where morality stands when pitted against religious doctrine and divine commands.

Behind the exploration of the contents of Genesis 22 below lies the greater implication of what rules absolute: unquestionable moral certainty or the word of the Supreme Being who is capable of no evil. Delving deeper still, this chapter of the Bible lays the foundations for the age-old question of how the existence of a benevolent, kind, and merciful God can be compatible with the existence of evil and suffering in the world, especially where innocent lives are concerned.

How could a loving God allow someone to suffer in some of the unimaginable ways we see in our world today? Moreover, and taking this question to its logical extreme, how could a loving God command His own prophet to rip apart his own heart and sacrifice his young, innocent, and sprightly son all for the seemingly supercilious end of demonstrating His mercy at the last second?

This report will view these questions and dilemmas through the lens of three dynamic historic figures: Immanuel Kant, Martin Luther, and Soren Kierkegaard.

But before we do so, it is imperative to briefly speak of each of these three commentators in order to contextualise their views.

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Immanuel Kant has authored perhaps some of the most riveting and engaging philosophical work that has formed an essential part of the foundations of historical and modern philosophical discussion. Kant began his foray into the philosophy of religion in the mid 1750s, with his primary concern being where religious belief stood in the realm of human thought and action.1

Initially, Kant was a strong proponent of rationalism in conjunction with his continued attention to matters of faith and religion. With time, however, he subjected his views to intense critique and his position evolved and changed. Near the end of his life, Kant took on a more radical approach to religion and wrote perhaps his most famous words: “I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith.”2

Theologian Martin Luther is most known for his profound impact on the Christian faith by inspiring the Protestant Reformation in 16th-century Europe.3 A doctor of Theology, Luther rejected the Roman Catholic Church in 1517 on the grounds of rampant corruption within the religious elite classes. The opulence and grandiose of the church repulsed him, and he dedicated his life to making faith accessible to the people and “radically changing the relationship between church leaders and their followers.”4

Pomerleau, Wayne P., “Immanuel Kant: Philosophy of Religion”, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Available on http://www.iep.utm.edu/kant-rel/ [Accessed 05/07/2016].

2 Ibid., quote from Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Pure Reason.

3 “Martin Luther Biography”, Biography.com website, Available on http://www.biography.com/people/martin-luther-9389283#related-video-gallery [Accessed 08/07/2016].

4 Ibid.

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Soren Kierkegaard is widely known to be the first existentialist philosopher, and wrote critical works on the philosophy of religion, especially where the relationship between abstract notions and the individual’s reality was concerned. Kierkegaard, like Luther, took extreme issue with Christianity as a state religion, and instead chose to focus on the individual’s subjective relationship with God.5

Much of his early work, including Fear & Trembling, which this report will discuss in more detail below, was written under various pseudonyms in order to easily present a variety of distinct views, including the concept of “Truth as Subjectivity.”6 Throughout the mid-20th century, Kierkegaard held much influence over the fields of philosophy and theology.

Hong, Howard V. and Edna H., eds., 1993. Søren Kierkegaard’s Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 225-226.

6 Hong, Howard V. and Edna H., eds., 1975. "Subjectivity/Objectivity" in Søren Kierkegaard's Journals and Papers. Vol. 4., Indiana: Indiana University Press, p. 712-713.

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Genesis 227

The following excerpt is from the Holy Bible.8

22 Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied.

2 Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”

3 Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. 4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5 He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”

6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, 7 Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”

For an alternative reading of Genesis 22 by Woody Allen, see Appendix A. Genesis 22, Holy Bible, as presented on Bible Gateway, Available on https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+22 [Accessed 02/07/2016].

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“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.

“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”

8 Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.

9 When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham!

Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied.

12 “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”

13 Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram[a] caught by its horns.

He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”

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15 The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time 16 and said, “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore.

Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, 18 and through your offspring[b] all nations on earth will be blessed,[c] because you have obeyed me.�

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Genesis 22 as seen by Immanuel Kant

“This is the case with respect to all historical and visionary faith; that is the possibility ever remains that an error may be discovered in it. Hence it is unconscientious to follow such a faith with the possibility that perhaps what it commands or permits may be wrong, i.e. with the danger of disobedience to a human duty which is certain in and of itself.” 9

– Immanuel Kant, in Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone

According to Kant, the account of Genesis 22 in the Bible is peppered with logical fallacies. Firstly, Kant takes issue with the notion of God conversing with Abraham, claiming that the latter could never have known whether it was actually God’s voice that he was hearing. There is no litmus determine what is God’s command and what is not, and for Abraham to take any voice that he heard as the Lord’s word, especially when the task given was as unimaginable as sacrificing your own child, would be bizarre and incongruous.

On the contrary, in Kant’s view, this “myth of sacrifice that Abraham was going to make by butchering and burning his only son at God’s command” is just that: a myth.

Logic demands that one can be sure that the voice Abraham heard was anyone but

Greene, Theodore M. and Hudson, Hoyt H., eds., 1960. Immanuel Kant’s Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, New York: Harper & Row. 9

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God, and in his view, any command from such a voice should have been questioned, scrutinised, and ultimately rejected.

“That I ought not to kill my good son is quite certain. But that you, this apparition, are God – of that I am not certain, and never can be, not even if this voice rings down to me from (visible) heaven.”10

For Kant, the moral law is certain, fixed, and immovable at least where killing one’s innocent son is in question. On the other hand, divine commands and receiving orders from the Lord is profoundly the opposite: uncertain, fluid, and movable. Kant says:

“In some cases man can be sure that the voice he hears is not God’s; for if the voice commands him to do something contrary to moral law, then no matter how majestic the apparition may be, and no matter how it may seem to surpass the whole of nature, he must consider it an illusion.”11

For Kant, this is not simply a question of whether one believes the events of Genesis 22 to be true, but a larger question of how one views the justice (or injustice) of killing innocent human beings on the grounds of religious code.

Gregor, Mary J. and Anchor, Robert, eds., 1996. Immanuel Kant’s “The Conflict of the Faculties” in Religion and Rational Theology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 283.

11 De Vries, Hent, 2001. Religion and Violence: Philosophical Perspectives from Kant to Derrida, Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press, p. 154.

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In Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, Kant speaks of “an inquisitor, who clings fast to the uniqueness of his statutory faith even to the point of [imposing] martyrdom, and who has to pass judgement upon so-called heretic (otherwise a good citizen) charged with unbelief.”12

“That it is wrong to deprive a man of his life because of his religious faith is certain, unless (to allow for the most remote possibility) a Divine Will, made known in extraordinary fashion, has ordered it otherwise. But that God has ever uttered this terrible injunction can be asserted only on the basis of historical documents and is never apodictically certain.”13

Thus, Kant is of the view that any person who thinks they receive commands from God is delusional at best, and tyrannical at worst.

Kant, Immanuel, 1960. Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, New York: Harper & Brothers, p. 174.

13 Ibid., p. 175.

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Genesis 22 as seen by Martin Luther

“Even though He slays me, yet will I hope”

– Job, in Isaiah (28:21)

Similarly to Kant, Martin Luther too is of the opinion that this command should have been met with distrust, though his reasoning is unique. Luther points to the fact that the chapter prior to Genesis 22 promises Abraham that “it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned,”14 and therefore the command to then slay Isaac with his own hands should have come as somewhat of a shock.

“In this situation, then, would he not murmur against God and think: “This is not a command of God; it’s a trick of Satan. For God’s promise is sure, clear, and beyond doubt: ‘From Isaac you will have descendants.’ Why, then, does God command that he should be killed? Undoubtedly, God is repenting of His promise. Otherwise He would not contradict Himself. Or I have committed some extraordinary sin, with which I have deeply offended God, so that He is withdrawing the promise?”15

Genesis 21:12, Holy Bible, as presented on Bible Gateway, Available on https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2021&version=NIV [Accessed 02/07/2016].

15 Pelikan, Jaroslav, ed., 1964. Luther’s Works Volume 4: Lectures on Genesis Chapters 21-25, Missouri: Concordia Publishing House, Chapter Twenty-Two. 14

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For Luther, the only answer to these questions is to have faith in the promise and not doubt the Lord’s intentions. God’s seemingly ludicrous orders are “not because He really wants this, but because He wants to find out whether we love Him above all things and are able to bear Him when He is angry as we gladly bear Him when He is beneficient and makes promises.”16

Luther equates God’s demand for sacrifice with parents who sometimes “take away a treat or something of that sort which they soon return to them.”17 Thus, God, rather than a cruel enemy is transformed into a parental figure that aims to employ methods of punishment and reward in order to shape His subjects into idyllic beings.

In this way, Luther believes these events are recorded for our comfort and solace to show that no matter how utterly bleak the outlook, the Lord will not allow those who hold faith in Him to despair.

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Ibid.

Ibid.

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Genesis 22 as seen by Soren Kierkegaard

“If there were no eternal consciousness in a man, if at the bottom of everything there were only a wild ferment, a power that twisting in dark passions produced everything great or inconsequential; if an unfathomable, insatiable emptiness lay hid beneath everything, what would life be but despair?”

– Soren Kierkegaard, in Fear & Trembling

Kierkegaard’s view of Genesis 22 can perhaps be seen to lie somewhere between those of Kant and Luther. For Kierkegaard, what is of interest, more than the command itself, is Abraham’s role in the story. Abraham’s lack of questioning, complaining, or mourning and his incomprehensible willingness to sacrifice Isaac deeply disturbed Kierkegaard.

In his writing, Kierkegaard suggests several alternative options that Abraham could have chosen that might have made his actions more understandable, while simultaneously asserting that any other course of action would have rendered him something less than the father of faith.

“Venerable Father Abraham! Second father to the human race! You who first saw and bore witness to that tremendous passion, the sacred, pure, and humble expression of the divine madness which the pagans admired – forgive him who would speak in your praise if he did not do it correctly. He spoke humbly, seeing it is his heart’s desire; he spoke briefly, as is fitting; but he will never forget that

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you needed a hundred years to get the son of your old age, against every expectation, that you had to draw the knife before keeping Isaac; he will never forget that in one hundred and thirty years you got no further than faith.”18

Kierkegaard makes the distinction of two personas within Abraham: one of the tragic hero, and the other of the knight of faith. The tragic hero is Abraham, the loving father to a son whom he received after much trial and tribulation. The tragic hero is the man caught between his faith and his moral guidelines, that dictate the killing of a young, innocent soul to be a sin of the highest order.

The knight of the faith is also Abraham, but unlike the tragic hero who is subject to universal ethics and morality, this persona is ruled by religiosity. The knight of faith holds religious law and command above all other forces. In the case of Abraham, when his divinity compels his hand to commit an act that goes against his moral code, the knight of faith is forced to take a leap of faith.

While we can understand, empathise, and sympathise with the tragic hero, in Kierkegaard’s view, it is beyond the realm of common human understanding to comprehend the compulsions of the knight of faith. The only means by which one may be able to explain Abraham’s actions is if there is a “teleological suspension of the ethical.”19

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Kierkegaard, Soren, 2005. Fear & Trembling, London: Penguin Books, p. 24.

Ibid., p. 65.

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Kierkegaard proposes three problems that this story creates. The first is that, according to the universal ethical code, what Abraham attempted was murder. Thus, the only reasonable lens through which one can view this story and still appreciate Abraham as the ‘father of faith’ is to understand his actions as a religious man who had temporarily suspended his obligation to the universal in order to fulfil a divine duty.

“When a person sets out on the tragic hero’s admittedly hard path there are many who could lend him advice; but he who walks the narrow path of faith no one can advise, no one understand. Faith is a marvel, and yet no human being is excluded from it; for that in which all human life is united is passion, and faith is a passion.”20

The second problem raised by Kierkegaard suggests that the individual has an absolute duty to obey divine commands. This is contrary to Kantian ethics, that emphasise the certainty of universal morality as having an upper hand over apparent divine commands that may contain errors or may be incorrectly interpreted by individuals. For Kierkegaard, this entanglement with a universal code is simply a distraction and temptation that misleads from the veritable path of faith.

“The true knight of faith is a witness, never a teacher, and in this lies the deep humanity in him which is more worth than this foolish concern for others’ weal

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Ibid., p. 79.

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and woe which is honoured under the name of sympathy, but which is really nothing but vanity.”21

The third and final problem is concerned with whether Abraham’s secrecy regarding his intentions can be deemed to be in accordance with the ethical code. To Kierkegaard, Abraham’s admission of his intentions would have been in accordance with the universal, whereas his isolation, silence, and reserve was a sign of associating with the individual. In any case, Kierkegaard asserts that even if Abraham had attempted to convey his intentions, there could be no appropriate explanation for what he had committed to do.

“In so far as there is any question of an analogy [here], the circumstances of the death of Pythagoras provide one. In his last moments Pythagoras had to consummate the silence he had always maintained, and so he said, ‘It’s better to be killed than to speak.’”22

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Ibid., p. 96.

Ibid., the unnumbered footnote on p. 145.

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Conclusion

Ultimately, it is clear from this brief exploration of Genesis 22 that the answers to the dilemmas raised within the text are anything but simple or easy. Where Kant sees Abraham as having violated the supreme moral code, Luther finds divine deliverance in absolute obedience, and Kierkegaard adopts the belief that the story contained within Genesis 22 cannot be explained, only experienced.

To conclude, I would like to end on an altogether different reading of Genesis 22.

Though not considering this episode to be a hoax, Eliezer Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate who recently passed away at 87, had his own unique perspective on the event.

For Wiesel, Abraham, in listening to God’s absurd command, had actually twisted God’s arm and instead forced the test back on Him as if to say: “I defy You, Lord. I shall submit to Your will, but let us see whether You shall go to the end, whether You shall remain passive and remain silent when the life of my son – who is also Your son – is at stake!”23

In Wiesel’s view, ultimately, God failed the test that Abraham had pushed upon Him and gave in at the last second before Isaac’s innocent life was sacrificed.

Wiesel, Elie, 1994. Messengers of God: Biblical Portraits and Legends, New York: Touchstone, p.

91.

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References

1. Biography.com website, “Martin Luther Biography”, Available on http://www.biography.com/people/martin-luther-9389283#related-videogallery [Accessed 08/07/2016].

2. Contreras, Francisco J., 2013. The Threads of Natural Law: Unravelling a Philosophical Tradition, New York and London: Springer.

3. De Vries, Hent, 2001. Religion and Violence: Philosophical Perspectives from Kant to Derrida, Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press.

4. Erlewine, Robert, 2010. Monotheism and Tolerance: Recovering a Religion of Reason, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

5. Greene, Theodore M. and Hudson, Hoyt H., eds., 1960. Immanuel Kant’s Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, New York: Harper & Row.

6. Gregor, Mary J. and Anchor, Robert, eds., 1996. Immanuel Kant’s “The Conflict of the Faculties” in Religion and Rational Theology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

7. Hampson, Daphne, 2013. Kierkegaard: Exposition and Critique, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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8. Holy Bible, Genesis 21:12, as presented on Bible Gateway, Available on https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2021&version=NI V [Accessed 02/07/2016].

9. Holy Bible, Genesis 22, as presented on Bible Gateway, Available on https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+22 [Accessed 02/07/2016].

10. Hong, Howard V. and Edna H., eds., 1975. "Subjectivity/Objectivity" in Søren Kierkegaard's Journals and Papers. Vol. 4., Indiana: Indiana University Press.

11. Hong, Howard V. and Edna H., eds., 1993. Søren Kierkegaard’s Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

12. Kant, Immanuel, 1960. Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, New York: Harper & Brothers.

13. Kierkegaard, Soren, 2005. Fear & Trembling, London: Penguin Books.

14. Lazareth, William H., 2001. Reading the Bible in Faith: Theological Voices from the Pastorate, Michigan and Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

15. Pelikan, Jaroslav, ed., 1964. Luther’s Works Volume 4: Lectures on Genesis Chapters 21-25, Missouri: Concordia Publishing House.

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16. Pomerleau, Wayne P., “Immanuel Kant: Philosophy of Religion”, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Available on http://www.iep.utm.edu/kant-rel/ [Accessed 05/07/2016].

17. Wiesel, Elie, 1994. Messengers of God: Biblical Portraits and Legends, New York: Touchstone.

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Appendix

Appendix A

Genesis 22, as imagined by Woody Allen:

And Abraham awoke in the middle of the night and said to his only son, Isaac, “I have had a dream where the voice of the Lord sayeth that I must sacrifice my only son, so put your pants on.”

And Isaac trembled and said, “So what did you say? I mean when He brought this whole thing up?”

“What am I going to say?” Abraham said. “I’m standing there at two a.m. in my underwear with the Creator of the Universe. Should I argue…?”

And Sarah, who heard Abraham’s plan, grew vexed and said, “How doth thou know it was the Lord and not, say, thy friend who loveth practical jokes…?”

And Abraham answered, “Because … it was a deep, resonant voice, well-modulated, and nobody in the desert can get a rumble in it like that.”

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And so he took Isaac to a certain place and prepared to sacrifice him, but at the last minute the Lord stayed Abraham’s hand and said, “How could thou doest such a thing?”

And Abraham said, “But thou said –“

“Never mind what I said,” the Lord spake. “Doth thou listen to every crazy idea that comes thy way?”

And Abraham grew ashamed. “Er – not really… no.”

“I jokingly suggest thou sacrifice Isaac and thou immediately runs out to do it.”

And Abraham fell to his knees. “See, I never know when you’re kidding.”

And the Lord thundered, “No sense of humour. I can’t believe it.”

“But doth this not prove I love thee, that I was willing to donate mine only son on thy whim?”

And the Lord said, “It proves that some men will follow any order no matter how asinine as long as it comes from a resonant, well-modulated voice.”

And with that, the Lord bid Abraham get some rest and check with him tomorrow.