Kierkegaard: Abraham and the Knight of Faith (Fear and Trembling — Week 2)
- Feb 11
- 3 min read
Obedience Without Explanation, Standing Alone Before God
Just now, I am trusting the Lord for healing of restless legs and sleeplessness.
In answer to prayer, God healed me of both last week. It was wonderful and I rejoiced.
A short time after, the symptoms showed up again, in force.
I was tempted to doubt the healing and complain. Then I got this verse:
in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: (Isaiah 30:15)
Like Abraham, I am standing in the obedience of faith, because I turst the One who promised.
*******************************
Last week, we entered the unease of Genesis 22 and asked why the story of Abraham and Isaac continues to disturb us. We resisted the temptation to hurry to the ending.
We stayed with the fear. That was necessary. Without it, faith becomes sentimental, and obedience becomes theoretical.
This week, Søren Kierkegaard presses further. In Fear and Trembling, he introduces one of his most searching ideas: the knight of faith.
It is not a heroic title in the usual sense. There is no applause attached to it. No banner. No crowd.
The knight of faith walks alone.
Abraham’s Silence
Genesis 22 is marked by what Abraham does not say.
He offers no explanation to Sarah. He gives no justification to Isaac. He makes no appeal to public reason.
When Isaac asks, “Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb?” Abraham replies with the only words he can honestly speak:
“God will provide himself a lamb.” (Genesis 22:8, KJV)
Kierkegaard lingers here. Abraham does not speak as a philosopher or an ethicist. He speaks as a man who trusts God without knowing how that trust will be vindicated.
This silence is not indifference. It is faith.
The Single Individual Before God
Kierkegaard insists that Abraham cannot be understood as a moral example in the ordinary sense.
Morality depends on what can be explained, defended, and justified before others. Abraham can do none of these things.
From the outside, his obedience appears incomprehensible—even horrifying. From the inside, it is a matter of absolute trust in God.
This is why Kierkegaard says that Abraham stands as the single individual before God.
No crowd accompanies him up Mount Moriah. No committee advises him. No consensus reassures him.
Faith, Kierkegaard argues, is never a group activity at its deepest point. Others may walk with us for a time, but obedience itself cannot be delegated.
Obedience Without Explanation
Here, Kierkegaard is often misunderstood. He is not teaching that faith excuses moral chaos, nor that God contradicts His own character. The Bible itself places firm boundaries on such thinking.
What Kierkegaard is showing us is something narrower and more demanding: true faith sometimes requires obedience before understanding.
Abraham does not obey because he sees the outcome. He obeys because he trusts the One who commands.
This is not blind faith. It is faith grounded in relationship—faith that knows who God is, even when it does not know what God will do.
The Hidden Life of Faith
Kierkegaard’s knight of faith does not look extraordinary. He may appear ordinary, even dull.
He does not announce his sacrifice. He does not dramatize his obedience. He does not explain himself to those who would misunderstand.
This is why Kierkegaard says the knight of faith is often invisible.
And this, too, is unsettling.
We prefer faith that can be displayed, defended, and admired. Kierkegaard points instead to a faith that is quiet, costly, and unseen—a faith lived out in decisions that others may never notice.
A Closing Reflection
Abraham walks up the mountain with no assurance except the character of God. That is the path of faith as Kierkegaard understands it: not certainty, not clarity, but trust.
Faith does not always explain itself. Faith obeys.
“By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac…”— Hebrews 11:17 (KJV)
Next week, we will see why this story does not end with the knife—and why, for Christians, it never could.
*************************
TRUST and OBEY
When we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word,
What a glory He sheds on our way!
While we do His good will, He abides with us still,
And with all who will trust and obey.
Refrain
Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.
---John Henry Sammis..1846-1919
Comments