Daniel Nica
Abstract
In this paper, I will compare Kant’s and Kierkegaard’s reflections on faith as they
are articulated in the particular analyses of Abraham’s sacrifice. Kant’s prosecution of
Abraham, which commences from the idea of “natural religion”, rests on two
interrelated lines of attack, an epistemological one and ethical one, which deem
Abraham’s action to be morally reprehensible. For Kant, the primacy of the practical
reason leaves no special room for divine duties that are not ethical at the same time. On
the other hand, Kierkegaard’s defence of the sacrifice is orbiting around the possibility of
a teleological suspension of the ethical. If such a suspension is possible, then faith is a
paradox according to which the single individual is higher than the universal. As such,
an absolute duty to god is possible, but such a duty is not rationally justifiable or
publicly communicable. My paper ends with to some considerations about the
protestant inheritance of both, Kant and Kierkegaard.