And the Lord spake unto the philosopher, ‘I am the Lord thy God, and I command thee to sacrifice thy only son.’
The philosopher replied, ‘There’s something not right here. Your commandments say, “Thou shalt not kill”.’
‘The Lord giveth the rules and the Lord taketh away,’ replied God.
‘But how do I know you are God?’ insisted the philosopher. ‘Perhaps you are the devil trying to fool me?’
‘You must have faith,’ replied God.
‘Faith – or insanity? Perhaps my mind is playing tricks? Or maybe you’re testing me in a cunning way. You want to see if I have so little moral fibre that at the command of a deep voice booming through the clouds, I commit infanticide.’
‘Me almighty!’ exclaimed the Lord. ‘What you’re saying is that it is reasonable for you, a mere mortal, to refuse to do what I, the Lord thy God, commands.’
‘I guess so,’ said the philosopher, ‘and you’ve given me no good reasons to change my mind.’
Source: Fear and Trembling by Søren Kierkegaard (1843)
In the book of Genesis, God found a more compliant servant in Abraham, who went along with the instruction to sacrifice his son, until the last minute, when, knife in hand, he was stopped from going ahead by an angel. Abraham has been presented as a paradigm of faith ever since.
What on earth was Abraham thinking? Let us assume that Abraham firmly believed in God and that God exists – this is not an atheist critique of his actions. Abraham then receives the instruction to kill his son. But wouldn’t he be mad simply to go ahead and do so? All the problems raised by the philosopher in our version of the tale apply. It might not be God talking, but the devil; Abraham might be mad; the test might be to see if he refuses. All three of these possibilities seem more plausible than the idea that God wants his son dead, since what kind of loving God would command such a barbaric act?
In the book of Genesis, the human characters seem to have a much more direct relationship with their maker than believers do today. God talks to people like Abraham as though they were literally sitting side by side. In such a world, the identity of the being instructing the murder would not be in doubt. In the world we know, no one can be so sure that they have actually heard God’s word. And even if they could, there is still some uncertainty as to whether the test is to see if Abraham would refuse.
So if this really is a story about the nature of faith, what is its message? It is not simply that a person of faith will do God’s bidding, however unpleasant. It is that a person of faith can never know for sure what God’s bidding is. Faith does not just enter the picture when action is called for; faith is required to believe in the first place, despite the lack of evidence. Indeed, faith sometimes needs the devout to go beyond the evidence and believe what is contrary to all they previously thought was right and true; for instance, that God does not approve of pointless killing.
This is not the faith that is often preached from the pulpits. That faith is a secure rock which provides the believer with a kind of calm, inner certainty. But if Abraham was prepared to kill his son serene in his own faith, then he couldn’t have realised just what a risk he was taking with his leap of faith.
If you remain unpersuaded, consider for a moment the people who believe that God wishes them to become suicide bombers, to murder prostitutes or to persecute an ethnic minority. Before you say that God could never command such wicked things, remember that the God of the three Abrahamic faiths not only ordered the sacrifice of Isaac, but also condoned the rape of a wife as punishment to the husband (2 Samuel 12), ordered the killing of followers of other religions (Deuteronomy 13) and sentenced blasphemers to death by stoning (Leviticus 24). It seems there are no limits to what God might ask, and some people of faith will do.
See also
| 8. | Good God |
| 18. | Rationality demands |
| 34. | Don’t blame me |
| 95. | The problem of evil |