Selections from the Writings of Kierkegaard
busy with the thought that if it really came to the point he
would unquestionably have the means wherewithal at his disposal.
Now he is lying on his elbows in the window and looking over
the square on which he lives. All that happens there, if it be
only a rat creeping into a gutter-hole, or children playing
together--everything engages his attention, and yet his mind
is at rest as though it were the mind of a girl of sixteen. He
smokes his pipe in the evening, and to look at him you would
swear it was the green-grocer from across the street who is
lounging at the window in the evening twilight. Thus he shows
as much unconcern as any worthless happy-go-lucky fellow; and
yet, every moment he lives he purchases his leisure at the highest
price, for he makes not the least movement except by virtue of
the absurd; and yet, yet--indeed, I might become furious with
anger, if for no other reason than that of envy--and yet, this
man has performed, and is performing every moment, the movement
of infinity... He has resigned everything absolutely, and then
again seized hold of it all on the strength of the absurd...
But this miracle may so easily deceive one that it will be best
if I describe the movements in a given case which may illustrate
their aspect in contact with reality; and that is the important
point. Suppose, then, a young swain falls in love with a princess,
and all his life is bound up in this love. But circumstances are
such that it is out of the question to think of marrying her, an
impossibility to translate his dreams into reality. The slaves of
paltriness, the frogs in the sloughs of life, they will shout, of
course: "Such a love is folly, the rich brewer's widow is quite
as good and solid a match." Let them but croak. The knight of
infinite resignation does not follow their advice, he does not
surrender his love, not for all the riches in the world. He is
no fool, he first makes sure that this love really is the contents
of his life, for his soul is too sound and too proud to waste
itself on a mere intoxication. He is no coward, he is not afraid
to let his love insinuate itself into his most secret and most
remote thoughts, to let it wind itself in innumerable coils about
every fiber of his consciousness--if he is disappointed in his
love he will never be able to extricate himself again. He feels
a delicious pleasure in letting love thrill his every nerve, and
yet his soul is solemn as is that of him who has drained a cup
of poison and who now feels the virus mingle with every drop of
his blood, poised in that moment between life and death.
Having thus imbibed love, and being wholly absorbed in it, he
does not lack the courage to try and dare all. He surveys the
whole situation, he calls together his swift thoughts which like
tame pigeons obey his every beck, he gives the signal, and they
dart in all directions. But when they return, every one bearing
a message of sorrow, and explain to him that it is impossible,
then he becomes silent, he dismisses them, he remains alone;
and then he makes the movement. Now if what I say here is to
have any significance, it is of prime importance that the movement
be made in a normal fashion. The knight of resignation is supposed
to have sufficient energy to concentrate the entire contents
of his life and the realization of existing conditions into
one single wish. But if one lacks this concentration, this devotion
to a single thought; if his soul from the very beginning is
scattered on a number of objects, he will never be able to make
the movement--he will be as worldly-wise in the conduct of his
life as the financier who invests his capital in a number of
securities to win on the one if he should lose on the other;
that is, he is no knight. Furthermore, the knight is supposed
to possess sufficient energy to concentrate all his thought into
a single act of consciousness. If he lacks this concentration he
will only run errands in life and will never be able to assume
the attitude of infinite resignation; for the very minute he
approaches it he will suddenly discover that he forgot something
so that he must remain behind. The next minute, thinks he, it
will be attainable again, and so it is; but such inhibitions
will never allow him to make the movement but will, rather,
tend to let him sink ever deeper into the mire.
Our knight, then, performs the movement--which movement? Is he
intent on forgetting the whole affair, which, too, would presuppose
much concentration? No, for the knight does not contradict himself,
and it is a contradiction to forget the main contents of one's
life and still remain the same person. And he has no desire to
become another person; neither does he consider such a desire to
smack of greatness. Only lower natures forget themselves and become
something different. Thus the butterfly has forgotten that it
once was a caterpillar--who knows but it may forget altogether
that it once was a butterfly, and turn into a fish! Deeper natures
never forget themselves and never change their essential qualities.
So the knight remembers all; but precisely this remembrance is
painful. Nevertheless, in his infinite resignation he has become
reconciled with existence. His love for the princess has become
for him the expression of an eternal love, has assumed a religious
character, has been transfigured into a love for the eternal being
which, to be sure, denied him the fulfillment of his love, yet
reconciled him again by presenting him with the abiding consciousness
of his love's being preserved in an everlasting form of which no
reality can rob him....
Now, he is no longer interested in what the princess may do, and
precisely this proves that he has made the movement of infinite
resignation correctly. In fact, this is a good criterion for
detecting whether a person's movement is sincere or just make-believe.
Take a person who believes that he too has resigned, but lo!
time passed, the princess did something on her part, for example,
married a prince, and then his soul lost the elasticity of its
resignation. This ought to show him that he did not make the
movement correctly, for he who has resigned absolutely is sufficient
unto himself. The knight does not cancel his resignation, but
preserves his love as fresh and young as it was at the first
moment, he never lets go of it just because his resignation is
absolute. Whatever the princess does, cannot disturb him, for it
is only the lower natures who have the law for their actions in
some other person, i.e. have the premises of their actions outside
of themselves....
Infinite resignation is the last stage which goes before faith,
so that every one who has not made the movement of infinite
resignation cannot have faith; for only through absolute resignation
do I become conscious of my eternal worth, and only then can
there arise the problem of again grasping hold of this world by
virtue of faith.
We will now suppose the knight of faith in the same case. He
does precisely as the other knight, he absolutely resigns the
love which is the contents of his life, he is reconciled to the
pain; but then the miraculous happens, he makes one more movement,
strange beyond comparison, saying: "And still I believe that I
shall marry her--marry her by virtue of the absurd, by virtue of
the act that to God nothing is impossible." Now the absurd is not
one of the categories which belong to the understanding proper.
It is not identical with the improbable, the unforeseen, the
unexpected. The very moment our knight resigned himself he made
sure of the absolute impossibility, in any human sense, of his
love. This was the result reached by his reflections, and he had
sufficient energy to make them. In a transcendent sense, however,
by his very resignation, the attainment of his end is not impossible;
but this very act of again taking possession of his love is at
the same time a relinquishment of it. Nevertheless this kind of
possession is by no means an absurdity to the intellect; for the
intellect all the while continues to be right, as it is aware
that in the world of finalities, in which reason rules, his
love was and is, an impossibility. The knight of faith realizes
this fully as well. Hence the only thing which can save him is
recourse to the absurd, and this recourse he has through his
faith. That is, he clearly recognizes the impossibility, and
in the same moment he believes the absurd; for if he imagined he
had faith, without at the same time recognizing, with all the
passion his soul is capable of, that his love is impossible,
he would be merely deceiving himself, and his testimony would
be of no value, since he had not arrived even at the stage of
absolute resignation....
This last movement, the paradoxical movement of faith, I cannot
make, whether or no it be my duty, although I desire nothing
more ardently than to be able to make it. It must be left to
a person's discretion whether he cares to make this confession;
and at any rate, it is a matter between him and the Eternal Being,
who is the object of his faith, whether an amicable adjustment
can be affected. But what every person can do is to make the
movement of absolute resignation, and I for my part would not
hesitate to declare him a coward who imagines he cannot perform
it. It is a different matter with faith. But what no person has
a right to, is to delude others into the belief that faith is
something of no great significance, or that it is an easy matter,
whereas it is the greatest and most difficult of all things.
But the story of Abraham is generally interpreted in a different
way. God's mercy is praised which restored Isaac to him--it
was but a trial! A trial. This word may mean much or little,
and yet the whole of it passes off as quickly as the story is
told: one mounts a winged horse, in the same instant one arrives
on Mount Moriah, and _presto_ one sees the ram. It is not remembered
that Abraham only rode on an ass which travels but slowly, that
it was a three days' journey for him, and that he required some
additional time to collect the firewood, to bind Isaac, and to
whet his knife.
And yet one extols Abraham. He who is to preach the sermon may
sleep comfortably until a quarter of an hour before he is to
preach it, and the listener may comfortably sleep during the
sermon, for everything is made easy enough, without much exertion
either to preacher or listener. But now suppose a man was present
who suffered with sleeplessness and who went home and sat in a
corner and reflected as follows: "The whole lasted but a minute,
you need only wait a little while, and then the ram will be shown
and the trial will be over." Now if the preacher should find
him in this frame of mind, I believe he would confront him
in all his dignity and say to him: "Wretch that thou art, to
let thy soul lapse into such folly; miracles do not happen, all
life is a trial." And as he proceeded he would grow more and
more passionate, and would become ever more satisfied with himself;
and whereas he had not noticed any congestion in his head whilst
preaching about Abraham, he now feels the veins on his forehead
swell. Yet who knows but he would stand aghast if the sinner
should answer him in a quiet and dignified manner that it was
precisely this about which he preached the Sunday before.
Let us then either waive the whole story of Abraham, or else
learn to stand in awe of the enormous paradox which constitutes
his significance for us, so that we may learn to understand that
our age, like every age, may rejoice if it has faith. If the
story of Abraham is not a mere nothing, an illusion, or if it
is just used for show and as a pastime, the mistake cannot by
any means be in the sinner's wishing to do likewise; but it is