Handling Snakes with Fear and Trembling
ROBERTO SIRVENT AND CALEB ACTON
Billy St. Cyr should be a top contender for the prestigious Darwin Awards, joining such ranks as “Low Flying Drunks,” “Crutch, meet crotch,” and “Firecracker Chainsaw Massacre.” These winners, by their called vocations, are “improving the human genome” as they “accidentally remove themselves from it.”
Coming from a lineage of street corner, snake, and salvation-slinging preachers, Billy distinguishes himself as preacher of the Last Chance Salvation Church. His charisma draws a crowd of drug addicts, prostitutes, and other spirit-seeking townsfolk who flock to the backwoods tent to see a show that defies reason and hear a message that does the same.
Is Billy crazy to allow poisonous snakes to slither up and down his arms while preaching about freedom from oppression? Does he preach to a particular client base because he hopes to save them, or does he choose this specific audience because he trusts their gullibility?
When Billy’s conversion of Harlan County starts cutting into Boyd Crowder’s Oxycontin sales, Billy and Boyd face off in a match of wits. Unbeknownst to them, they’re not fighting in the same ring. Though Billy and Boyd lock eyes and (seemingly) speak the same language, they exist in different realms. One speaks in a way that makes sense and the other seems certifiably crazy.
With the help of Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) we’re going to try to make sense of what doesn’t seem to make that much sense. We want to see if it’s even possible to understand Billy’s crazed faith, or whether he’s completely out of line.
Best Leave This One Alone
In the episode “Hole in the Wall,” we find Billy St. Cyr brandishing a rattlesnake above his head as he begins his nightly ministry. Loud guitars, banging tambourines, and stomping feet set the stage as he walks among the people, preaching and blessing with a certainty that is almost eerie. His confidence in his own actions and words derive from his relationship to the divine, but it’s a relationship that can’t be questioned by others because it’s entirely subjective. It’s all a matter of faith—a faith that has been passed down from his grandfather, to his father, and now to him. Billy’s faith-initiated, subjective certainty leaves Boyd Crowder with too many questions and not enough answers. But should we call Billy crazy just because he can’t provide adequate reasons for his actions?
Perhaps a little philosophy could shed some light on why Boyd Crowder (and maybe you, too) thinks that Billy’s faith makes him plumb crazy. Of course, the type of philosophy that might help us out in this instance would be a systematic, rational philosophy, like the kind used by German philosopher Georg Hegel (1770–1831).
Hegel recognized that faith existed as a part of human experience, but he suggested that there came a point that people should go further than faith. Hegel acknowledged that faith could provide Billy with a way to have a relationship with God, but if this faith were genuine, it would have to be tested against some objective principles of knowledge. For faith to be true, it could not contradict reasonable experience, and if it did, then faith must be abandoned for a reasonable, objective certainty. By Boyd’s assessment, “there are some men who choose to stay in the dark, but there are some men who choose to come out into the light” (“Truth and Consequences”). Boyd made his own move past faith to an objective, rational certainty, because in his past preaching experience, his congregation’s “faith was not rewarded and his was shattered.”
But who needs objective certainty when you just know? Billy sees no need to prove his faith through reasonable tests because he doesn’t think that faith needs to give way to reason. Believing this, he’s in good company with Søren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard departed from Hegel’s view of philosophy as systematic, rational thought that united all ideas into an ultimate truth. Instead, he approached philosophy as an exploration that began with the individual—the beginnings of existentialism—a philosophical approach that is much more comfortable with the paradoxes, tensions, and mystery of human existence.
According to Kierkegaard, Hegel’s understanding of philosophy can only take us so far. Reason reaches its limits when it approaches the matter of faith. In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard maintained that reason “should understand itself and know just what it has indeed to offer.” But in recognizing itself, it should recognize its boundaries. Faith can’t be reflected upon through rationalization; it can only be understood when jumped into with passion. To borrow a phrase from Boyd Crowder, when dealing with matters of faith, reason had best leave this one alone.
As with many of his works, Kierkegaard wrote Fear and Trembling under a false name so that he could later critique or offer contrasting perspectives to his own ideas. In Fear and Trembling the supposed author, Johannes de Silentio (John of Silence) attempts to paint a picture of what faith looks like in the modern world, and it is almost successful. However, since de Silentio insists that words cannot be used to accurately describe faith, Fear and Trembling uses the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac to give the closest approximation to what faith is. In the Bible, God tells Abraham to travel to Mount Moriah and sacrifice his son. Abraham, unquestioningly, ties down Isaac and is about to kill him when God halts the execution and provides a ram to be killed instead.
De Silentio uses this story to critique Hegel’s concept of the ethical as the universal, and he uses Hegelian categories to force the reader to answer questions about Abraham and faith. Ultimately, the reader has to choose between understanding Abraham as a crazy, illogical murderer, or as a loving, faithful father. Either faith exists in a different realm than ethics and reason, or faith needs to know its place when it’s time for reason to take over. We must choose!
Speaking the Same Tongue?
It’s obvious why Boyd Crowder becomes maddeningly frustrated when trying to deal with Billy. Boyd wants to bargain with someone who’s reasonable, but he finds no one like that at home in Billy. He tries to bribe Billy and his sister Cassie to leave town, but money isn’t enough to dismantle their ministry. Referring to the failed bribe, Boyd saunters up Billy’s aisle and says to the congregation, “It turns out he’s a true believer.” But after paying Cassie a visit, Boyd comes to the refreshing realization that she is the ‘brains’ behind the operation.
Boyd’s interactions with the siblings have shown him that they don’t really share the same world. To use de Silentio’s terms, Billy exists in the religious realm and his sister in the ethical. He knows Cassie can be bought with the right price, and tells her it’s “good to know we both speak the same tongue.” But Billy is another story, and this drives Boyd nuts. He can’t comprehend why someone could refuse a free ticket out of town with a generous severance package. It doesn’t make sense.
Boyd’s offer doesn’t appeal to Billy because he speaks a different language. Fear and Trembling shows how difficult it is to explain faith because of the subjective nature of a relationship with God. The person of faith exists in a realm that de Silentio calls the religious, and in this realm normal language rules don’t apply because they are part of the rational, ethical realm. In the non-rational, religious realm where Billy exists, faith can only be expressed as a tension. This tension exists because faith is an interaction between a finite creature and an infinite God.
For Kierkegaard, faith exists not inside the rational realm but in the paradoxical realms of “eternal happiness by suffering, the certitude of faith by uncertainty, easiness by difficulty, truth by absurdity.” It simply doesn’t make rational sense. But the difficulty in talking about faith doesn’t stop de Silentio from at least trying to give us a snapshot of the life of faith.
Faith is absurd. At least, that’s how de Silentio describes the internal, contradictory, movement of faith. Abraham believes with certainty that God demands Isaac’s life, but at the very same time, he believes that God will spare his life. Abraham’s internal action is a “double movement” because he first gives up Isaac then he takes a leap of faith to get Isaac back. It’s an internal, paradoxical movement—one that doesn’t make sense—a movement that is absurd. To accomplish this movement of faith, Abraham had to submit himself to God’s demand, even though by doing so he gave up his son Isaac—the most important thing in his life.
Billy’s insanity—or fearlessness—might make a little bit more sense if we look at it in light of Abraham’s movements of faith. Billy dangles snakes because he has fully resigned himself to giving up his own life. Even though he’s ready to have venom coursing through his veins, he believes at the very same time, that his life will not be taken from him. His outward expression of fearlessness comes from this paradoxical absurdity. But this fearlessness doesn’t make sense to Boyd. It doesn’t logically make sense to believe at the same time that you can die and not die.
Hegel approached faith as a matter that needed to be reflected upon through disinterested, intellectual, rationalization. True faith for Hegel involved believing in a logical system, a system with facts and information piled up to the point where faith just happens as a matter of course. Faith is just belief in accumulated knowledge. Kierkegaard disagreed strongly with this Hegelian approach to faith, which was shared by many Christian philosophers, theologians, and pastors of his day.
For Kierkegaard, it was silly to try to prove Christianity’s claim about Jesus: “Can any more foolish contradiction be imagined than this, to want to demonstrate . . . that an individual human being is God?” Faith is not knowledge. Faith is passion. To experience it you must passionately, wholeheartedly fling oneself upon it. You cannot, according to Kierkegaard, wait until it ‘makes sense’. Even more, the person of faith cannot expect that the movement of faith will be a one-time event, a one-time leap; rather, it will be lifelong task.
Temptation to Do What’s ‘Right’
It’s one thing for faith to not make rational sense, but Billy’s behavior brings up even more questions about the relationship between faith and moral responsibilities. Billy seems to have no regard for his own life, and in a more extreme scenario, Abraham is willing to risk his own son’s life. Both men’s actions show little to no concern for their communities’ social morality. Such an approach to ethics chafed Hegel, who insisted on a universal, objective morality that existed within social institutions. This ethical structure was the highest that people could appeal to when deciding between right and wrong, and reaching this universal, ethical realm was considered the goal for all humanity. Hegel’s ethical system did not have room for exceptions that could justify Billy and Abraham’s actions.
Billy acknowledges that he has a calling to a higher power or duty. In “Hole in the Wall,” he claims that “it was the Lord who saw fit to have me continue my ministry” after surviving two previous snakebites. Billy understands his survival to be a confirmation that God approves of his ministry. It’s because of this duty to God that Billy chooses to make unethical decisions that do not serve his best, personal interest. His passionate duty to God allows him to forego safety in exchange for recklessness. Preserving and caring for one’s life would be the “ethical” thing to do. However, for Billy, the preservation of his life takes a back seat to his snake-handling calling.
Abraham has a similar experience when he chooses obedience to God over the ethical decision of not killing his son. De Silentio forces the reader to make a decision: if you try to understand Abraham in Hegelian categories and judge him against an objective, ethical standard, then you will have to conclude that Abraham is a crazy murderer. However, de Silentio strongly suggests that Abraham is not a murderer, but is a respectable man of faith because of his obedience to God. But why isn’t Abraham considered a murderer? What makes Abraham different from some crazy dude who just plans to murder his child? Did “wrong” become “right,” just because God requested Abraham to do this task? Was morality thrown out the window? Not exactly. De Silentio suggests that there was a teleological suspension of the ethical. In this suspension, the most important concern for the person of faith is not the end result of an ethical decision. Rather, it’s your obedience to the higher power that trumps your ethical goal.
Because the person of faith still exists in an earthly community, she is aware of and pressured by the ethical mandates of her world. However, because she has a duty to something higher than the ethical realm, she is tempted to make the ethical choice if it conflicts with the duty to a higher calling. Abraham’s temptation was to do the ethical choice of not sacrificing his son. Billy is likewise tempted to make the rational, ethical choice by skipping town and saying goodbye to his snakes.
Part of the private, subjective experience of faith exists in the hidden realm of the temptation to do what is ethical. Abraham can’t tell anyone about his temptation to spare Isaac. He must keep that as a private matter between himself and God, for by disclosing it to other people, he would move from the religious to the ethical—he would move it from a private matter between himself and God to a matter that involved a whole community.
De Silentio insists that keeping mum about Abraham’s decision to sacrifice Isaac makes him great, but it’s extremely difficult to do. Does Billy also feel pressure to keep quiet about his own temptation to stop handling snakes and take better care of his life? Maybe this is why we’re told in the episode “Truth and Consequences” that his sister must “sing hymns over him until his brain’s quiet enough to rest.” If he were to disclose his temptation to stop cheating death with snakes, would his ministry be discredited? Would his faith be genuine?
Game On
Regardless of the similarities that we’ve seen between Abraham and Billy, at the end of the day Billy doesn’t share the same stage as Abraham as a father of faith because he departs from Abraham’s example in some significant ways. If Billy’s recklessness and Abraham’s premeditated murder can be justified by faith, can everything be justified by faith? Are religious extremists who justify their actions by claiming a personal, subjective vision from God in the same category as these two? Might someone, following in the footsteps of Abraham, murder his child and somehow be exonerated on some level (or in some realm) because he claims it was in obedience to God or a duty to a higher power?
In “Truth and Consequences” Boyd Crowder shows up for a final showdown with Billy. He comes armed with a snake and the always-reliable weapon of truth. Since his appeal to a reasonable buyout backfired, his new plan is directed toward the congregation as a “gift that ain’t money, it’s knowledge.” Upon discovering that Billy’s snakes are milked of their venom, Boyd decides to undermine Billy’s ministry by exposing his faith and certainty as a farce.
Boyd’s counting on Billy to choose the rational option—preserve his life by admitting that he doesn’t have the faith to hold an un-milked rattlesnake—but he once again underestimates the radical nature of Billy’s faith, and he is genuinely shocked when Billy calls his bluff. In a last ditch effort to convince him to admit defeat Boyd says, “You know what, son? I once stood where you’re standing now, mistaking my own hubris for God’s touch. That ain’t religion, son. That’s called self-glorification. Best you’d leave this one alone.”
Billy’s response to Boyd’s challenge makes a striking departure from the person of faith described in Fear and Trembling. De Silentio insists that humility is required to demand God’s help through the movements of faith, and this can only happen when an absolute trust in God comes from an absolute devotion to God, not out of some fatalistic tendency, or self-centered motive. The pseudonymous author even warns against the narcissism that accompanies a false faith. How arrogant it is, de Silentio writes, to be “convinced that God troubles himself about the smallest thing”?
Kierkegaard doesn’t necessarily believe that God actually spoke directly to Abraham in the way depicted in Fear and Trembling. In fact, Kierkegaard would be pretty skeptical of anyone who claimed to have a direct line to God. Fear and Trembling is not meant to provide a historical account of Abraham’s confrontation with God, but a picture of the life of faith. So, does the Billy St. Cyr storyline provide a similarly accurate picture?
In the eyes of his congregation, and in a crisis of questioning his own faith in God’s protective powers, Billy says, “Alright, Mr. Crowder, I will indulge in your sideshow. For it is not with words that I preach, but with a demonstration of the spirit’s power. You may have started this game, but you do not get to say when it is over.” Boyd’s diagnosis of Billy’s hubris proves to be accurate. When challenged, we see that Billy’s demand for God’s protection doesn’t come from a humble, absolute devotion to God. What may have began as an expression of faith has now turned into a game he must win. The sprit of hubris, not God, now possesses Billy.
So Billy is not Abraham. But what about those crazy cult leaders who organize mass suicides? De Silentio anticipates an objection to religious extremism based on someone who would read the story of Abraham and “go off the rails and do likewise.” He compares the motives of those who would commit murder on the pretense of having faith, and those who actually have faith. Three main differences stand out between a person of faith and a radical extremist. First, true faith requires love, humility, and selfless obedience in fear and trembling, things you don’t find in violent extremists.
Abraham expressed all three of these aspects in his relationship with Isaac and with God. In a radical way, Abraham “must love Isaac with his whole soul,” and “since God claims Isaac, he must, if possible, love him even more, and only then can he sacrifice him.” A violent fanatic has no love in his heart, only hatred. A second difference is that the violent extremist tries to advocate or impose a cause or lesson upon others. The person of faith, on the other hand, “feels the pain of being unable to make himself understandable to others,” but at the same time “has no vain desire to instruct others.” Abraham’s difference from the violent extremist is quite drastic in that he has no desire for others to emulate him. Finally, in the second half of the double movement of faith, we notice that Abraham’s desire is that Isaac will be fully restored and returned to him in this world, but a fanatic has no hope of worldly restoration, only destruction.
Tread Lightly
For Kierkegaard, reason plays a role in life, but its scope is limited. It’s not that facts don’t play a role in faith. And it’s not that faith and reason are opposed to each other. They’re not enemies. Faith and reason are just different. According to Kierkegaard, faith doesn’t make sense not because it’s against reason, but because it doesn’t have to make sense. And because it can’t. When it comes to faith, we cannot reason our way there. “This, then, is the paradox of thought,” Kierkegaard writes, “to want to discover something that thinking itself cannot think.”
It’s only outside the realm of reason that faith is able to exist—in a place removed from the thinkable, the ordinary, and even the certain. Faith kicks in at this point, and a collision ensues between reason and faith: between the known and unknown, between the probable and the improbable, and between the possible and the impossible.
We may never be able to make sense of Billy’s actions. If Kierkegaard’s right, then faith should not have to surrender to the category of reason. Billy’s demise doesn’t require us to take a Hegelian approach and “transpose the whole content of faith into conceptual form.” But neither should we uncritically accept a finite human being’s claim to have encountered the divine.
If anything, Billy’s case makes us pause to reflect on the motives of a person who lives his life in a constant, subjective experience of faith. Our attempts to understand this person will be shaky at best. But regardless of how or when faith kicks in, in our own lives or in others, it’d be wise to proceed with fear and trembling.