Page 26 - The Drucker Lectures

How Is Human Existence Possible? [ 7

despair, as existence not in tragedy—it is possible as existence in
faith. The opposite of Sin—to use the traditional term for exis-
tence purely in society—is not virtue; it is faith.
Faith is the belief that in God the impossible is possible, that
in Him time and eternity are one, that both life and death are
meaningful. In my favorite among Kierkegaard’s books, a little
volume called Fear and Trembling [published in 1843], Kierkeg-
aard raises the question: What is it that distinguishes Abraham’s
willingness to sacrifice his son, Isaac, from ordinary murder?
If the distinction would be that Abraham never intended to
go through with the sacrifice but intended all the time only to
make a show of his obedience to God, then Abraham indeed
would not have been a murderer, but he would have been some-
thing more despicable: a fraud and a cheat. If he had not loved
Isaac but had been indifferent, he would have been willing to be
a murderer. But Abraham was a holy man, and God’s command
was for him an absolute command to be executed without reser-
vation. And we are told that he loved Isaac more than himself.
But Abraham had faith. He believed that in God the impossible
would become possible, that he could execute God’s order and
yet retain Isaac.
If you looked into this little volume on Fear and Trembling, you
may have seen from the introduction of the translator that it deals
symbolically with Kierkegaard’s innermost secret, his great and
tragic love. When he talks of himself, then he talks of Abraham.
But this meaning as a symbolic autobiography is only incidental.
The true, the universal meaning is that human existence is pos-
sible, only possible, in faith. In faith, the individual becomes the
universal, ceases to be isolated, becomes meaningful and abso-
lute; hence in faith there is a true ethic. And in faith existence in
society becomes meaningful too as existence in true charity.
This faith is not what today so often is called a “mystical
experience”—something that can apparently be induced by the