Fear and Trembling

Abraham is commanded to sacrifice his son Isaac. He obeys. Kierkegaard spends 160 pages asking: what kind of faith makes that possible, and what does it mean for the rest of us? The answer founded existentialism.

Why Start Here

Fear and Trembling is the best entry point to Kierkegaard because it is short, focused, and built around a single story everyone knows. The biblical story of Abraham and Isaac becomes a lens through which Kierkegaard examines the nature of faith: not comfortable Sunday-morning faith, but the terrifying, absurd faith that demands you act against everything reason and ethics tell you is right.

The “knight of faith,” Kierkegaard’s term for the person who makes the leap, is not a saint but an ordinary person who lives in the full awareness of the absurd and chooses to believe anyway. This idea, that authentic existence requires a leap beyond what reason can justify, is the foundation of existentialist thought.

What to Expect

A short philosophical work written under a pseudonym. The prose is more literary than academic, with narrative retellings and passionate argument. Some knowledge of the Abraham and Isaac story helps but is provided in the text. The Penguin Classics translation by Alastair Hannay is recommended.