By Cynthia R. Nielsen
As a poet, Silentio does a magnificent job of portraying Abraham as a hero of faith; however, Abraham’s spiritual journey was one of both successes and failings. In fact, twice in the Genesis account we read that Abraham instructed Sarah to lie so as to protect his own well-being. Then in Genesis 16, we read of Abraham and Sarah failing to trust God as to the promise regarding Isaac. The result of this lack of faith is that the two concoct a plan for Hagar to “help” God’s plan transpire. This of course results in the birth of Ishmael, as well as a multitude of sufferings issuing from that event. The point of citing these instances is neither to degrade Abraham nor to deny his place as the father of faith; rather, it is to highlight that Abraham’s relationship with God took time to develop, grow, and mature. In other words, by the time we get to Genesis 22 when Abraham is commanded by God to sacrifice Isaac, Abraham has grown tremendously in his relationship with God and has learned through his failings to trust God. This growth in faith is strangely absent in Silentio’s account and suggests that Silentio’s understanding of faith is incomplete.
Furthermore, in Johannes’ rendition, Abraham’s faith is never described as a “gift from God, not resulting from works” (Eph. 2:8-9), but instead comes across as just the opposite, viz., as that for which one must passionately strive over the course of one’s entire life [1]. This is not to say that faith does not involve passion or that living by faith is not a lifetime struggle (as both are certainly the case). Yet, it is to say that Johannes’ account fails to inform the reader of the origin of faith, which St. Paul states is “from above” and given by God. Moreover, Johannes’ understanding of faith is emphatically this world-centered, i.e., it is faith in this life and this life only. Again, this is not to suggest that genuine faith should be merely “other-world” focused. In fact, faith driven by a strict “other-world” focus has more in common with Plato, than with biblical faith. In Scripture, those that have been re-created as image bearers of Christ (i.e., believers) are made co-participants in God’s work of renewal in the this world. This means that believers are to be actively involved in all aspects of society—whether in the arts, medicine, environmental studies or public education—believers are called to engage the world, not to withdraw. Whether one opts for Silentio’s “this-world-only” account or chooses instead an “other-world” focus (as do many Protestant evangelicals today), both represent a distortion of the biblical picture. Rather than emphasizing one aspect over another, Scripture accentuates both aspects and is content in allowing tensions to remain.
Another significant silence in Silentio’s account can be illumined by a passage in the epistle to the Hebrews. Though Silentio alludes to the possibility of Isaac being resurrected, he fails to grasp the full-orbed significance of what a resurrected life in this life entails. In Heb 11:17-19, we read,
“By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back” (Heb. 11:17-19, English Standard Version).
Here we read that Abraham’s faith was in a God whom he knew to be so powerful that he could raise Isaac from the dead. The passage goes on to say, “figuratively speaking, he [Abraham] did receive him back.” As noted earlier, Silentio does mention the possibility of Isaac being resurrected when he says, “God could give him a new Isaac, [he] could restore to life the one sacrificed.” Yet, Silentio’s silence as to the meaning of this restoration to new life in this life is perplexing. Silentio prefaces his statement by saying that “He [Abraham] did not have faith that he would be blessed in a future life but that he would be blessed here in the world.” Given this statement, we can conclude that the restoration to new life of which Silentio speaks is life in the here and now. Yet, again we wonder why Silentio fails to explicate the Scriptural import of this new life when a discussion along these lines would have naturally arisen given the context. The Scriptures, however, are not silent on this crucial point and provide the missing piece that Silentio’s account lacks. In Eph 2:4-5, St. Paul informs us that all apart from Christ are “dead in trespasses,” yet by God’s mercy and love demonstrated to us in sending his Son, “we are made alive together with Christ” (ESV). In other words, both St. Paul and the author of Hebrews are describing not a physical death, but a spiritual death and a resurrection into new life in Christ. Without this “resurrection,” one can only, as was the case with Silentio, remain an outsider who looks at Abraham with awe, yet cannot himself embrace Abraham’s God who is the giver of faith that results in a spiritual birth out of spiritual death.
A third tension between Silentio’s account and Scripture results from Silentio’s failure to grasp the already-not-yet nature of Abraham’s faith. For example, the author of Hebrews seems to indicate that Abraham, though joyfully embracing in the present life the blessings resulting from his relationship with God (the “already” aspect), also grasped in some imperfect way that this life was not the end of the story (the “not-yet” aspect). In other words, according to the author of Hebrews, Abraham understood that God is directing all things toward an eschatological end and that this life is filled with dissonance that will not reach resolution until all things have been brought to their final consummation in Christ. Thus, we read that Abraham, though experiencing spiritual growth in his “already” relationship with God, still seeks “a better country, that is, a heavenly one.” Here we see that Abraham’s faith went beyond “this-world-only,” for he was also looking forward in the hope of eschatological fulfillment to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God” (Heb. 11: 10, 16). Again, we encounter a tension with which Scripture is content, though one with which we are tempted to force into an either/or.
As we have seen, when we enter into a more full-orbed interaction with the biblical text, Silentio’s lack of speech at crucial moments is difficult to understand unless we suppose the silence was purposed. That is, perhaps Kierkegaard in developing the persona of Johannes de Silentio as an “outsider” who speaks about faith is employing irony in having Silentio remain silent in just those places where (from an historical Christian point of view) speech is most needed. Viewing things from this perspective, Silentio’s inability to speak accurately about Abraham’s faith makes perfect sense because he himself lacks faith and cannot be expected to properly instruct others on matters with which he is ignorant. For Silentio, Abraham could only be seen from a distance as awe-inspiring and exhibiting an “absurd” faith. Because Silentio himself had never experienced God’s grace and gift of faith, he could not conceive of a struggling and weak Abraham. Yet, the Scriptural account makes emphatically clear that walking by faith includes spiritual growth and never presupposes perfection; it involves failing, confessing, and continually clinging to the One who did live a perfect life and gave Himself for us while we were enemies (Rom 5:8-10).
Notes
[1] Kierkegaard, in contrast to Johannes, in the editor’s preface to Training in Christianity provides a more Scripturally accurate view of Christian faith as that which is received by grace (not by works) and which as a result exhibits itself through deeds (“[…] that I might learn to take refuge in ‘grace,’ but to take refuge in such a way as to make use of ‘grace.’ Soren Kierkegaard. Training in Christianity. (New York: Vintage, 2004), no page number given.
[2] Nietzsche in fact presents a very instructive critique of Christianity that errs on the “other-wordly” side.
[3] Soren Kierkegaard. Fear and Trembling. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983, p. 36.
[4] Ibid., Kierkegaard, p. 36.
According to Johhanes Climacus, though the ethical is not absent from the religious person’s concerns, what separates the two spheres is the manner in which the religious person (in particular, the Christian) relates to God. As C. Stephen Evans explains,