In Fear and Trembling , the Protestant theologian Soren Kierkegaard reflected on a question that has troubled Jews for two millennia: How could Abraham have possibly gone along with God\u2019s command to sacrifice Isaac? He argued with God about the fate of Sodom; how could he fail to question a command that contradicted the most fundamental moral principles?<\/p>\n
Kierkegaard\u2019s famous answer: to be a \u201cknight of faith,\u201d to maintain his relationship with God, Abraham was willing to engage in a \u201cteleological suspension of the ethical.\u201d Even in theological morality, it seems, the end can justify the means.<\/p>\n
To say the least, this is a dangerous stance, because not only valued relationships but also one\u2019s spiritual integrity are at risk. You have to be very sure that it is God, not just a voice in your head, urging you to make the sacrifice. And if you get it wrong, you pay a huge price.<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
“Has Trump caused white Evangelicals to change their tune on morality?” by William A. Galston, Brookings Institute, October 19, 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In Fear and Trembling , the Protestant theologian Soren Kierkegaard reflected on a question that has troubled Jews for two millennia: How could Abraham have possibly gone along with God\u2019s command to sacrifice Isaac? He argued with God about the fate of Sodom; how could he fail to question a command that contradicted the most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1054,1055,324,592,1057,1053,1056],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7972"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7972\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}