INTRODUCTION 965
Yet Abraham had faith in God, rather than Agamemnon’s resignation to the gods,
and continued to believe that God would return his son to him. Abraham per-
formed a “teleological [i.e., considering the end or goal] suspension of the ethical,”
giving up what was most dear to him, and by virtue of the absurd, God gave it all
back. It is interesting to note that Kierkegaard wrote this work right after he had
given up to God what was most dear to him: Regine Olsen. Apparently believing
that God would give her back to him, Kierkegaard was shocked when she became
engaged to another man.
In the selection from Concluding Unscientific Postscript,reprinted here in the
Howard and Edna Hong translation, Kierkegaard argues that whereas a logical sys-
tem is possible, an existential system is not. Hegel’s entire systematic enterprise is
misguided because it assumes a finality that lived existence never has. When it
comes to the important issues of life, such as knowledge of God, no system, no set
of objective truths will give any real guidance. According to Kierkegaard, only
subjective truth, “An objective uncertainty, held fast through appropriation with
the most passionate inwardness,” can be the truth for an existing person. Whereas
one can never have objective certainty that God exists, one can make it true in
one’s own life by committing oneself completely and living as if it were true.
Written in Danish and presenting a pessimistic view of objective reason that was
out of touch with the spirit of his time, it is not surprising that Kierkegaard’s works
were ignored for decades. The horror of World War I, together with the work done by
Martin Heidegger in philosophy and Karl Barth in theology, brought Kierkegaard’s
pessimistic assessment of objectivism to prominence. Today Kierkegaard is
acknowledged as the “father of existentialism” and is studied widely.
For representative collections of Kierkegaard’s writings, see A Kierkegaard
Anthology,edited by Robert Bretall (New York: Modern Library, 1936) and Walter
A. Kaufmann, ed.,Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre(New York: Meridian
Books, 1956). For biographies of Kierkegaard, see Walter Lowrie,Kierkegaard
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1938) for comprehensive coverage, or Walter
Lowrie,A Short Life of Kierkegaard(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1942) for a more succinct study; Bruce H. Kirmmse, ed.,Encounters with
Kierkegaard,(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996) for descriptions of
Kierkegaard by his contemporaries; Alastair Hannay,Kierkegaard: A Biography
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); and Joakim Garff, Søren
Kierkegaard: A Biography,translated by Bruce H. Kirmmse (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 2005) for recent studies. There are a number of general
overviews of Kierkegaard’s thought, including H. Diem, Kierkegaard: An
Introduction,translated by David Green (Richmond, VA: John Knox Press, 1966);
Josiah Thompson,Kierkegaard(New York: Knopf, 1973); Alastair Hannay,
Kierkegaard(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982); Diogenes Allen,Three
Outsiders: Pascal, Kierkegaard, Simone Weil(Cambridge, MA: Cowley, 1983);
Patrick Gardiner,Kierkegaard(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988); George
Pattison,The Philosophy of Kierkegaard(Montreal: McGill–Queen’s University
Press, 2005); and Clare Carlisle,Kierkegaard: A Guide for the Perplexed (London:
Continuum, 2007). For studies of specific aspects of Kierkegaard’s thought, see
Louis K. Dupre,Kierkegaard as Theologian(New York: Sheed and Ward, 1964);