Can someone please explain to me the concepts of the Knight of Infinite Resignation, and the Knight of Faith?

a knight of infinite resignation is a faggot like camus

Oh the irony. It kills. It selectively chooses to remake a youthful society by killing the unwanted, and declares itself justified. It kills me.

Infinite resignation is the acknowledgment that something is impossible.

>There is no way Isaac will survive, because I have absolutely decided to kill him.

The knight of faith takes that step, but goes on further. He knows something to be impossible, but (this is the paradox) believes it to be yet possible, because God's power is infinite. The paradox is "This is undeniably impossible, but I believe it is possible."

>There is no way Isaac will survive, because I have absolutely decided to kill him. But I believe Isaac can survive.

Resignation can be reached logically. "I know this is impossible." Faith requires impossibility as a prior step, but then moves beyond/against logic; it's absurd: "I know this impossible. I believe it's possible."

But could anyone please help me understand the recurring comment in F&T:

>"Either there is a paradox, that the single individual as the single individual stands in absolute relation to the absolute, or Abraham is lost."

What is the meaning of "absolute relation"? What is the paradox? I suspect that the first half of the quote means that "there must be incomprehensible circumstances which make an apparent sin an act of obedience to God, when one acts through faith," with the alternative being that "there are no such extenuating circumstances, and Abraham was motivated only as a worldly murderer, and should be judged as such."

trips gives the best answer

>What is the meaning of "absolute relation"?

I'm not sure where that is in the text, but I believe the paradox is about the nature of being an individual and all that entails when the absolute is seemingly pervasive. Faith having no integrity if personified in god or no meaning in the world when the individual is in absolute relation. I'm probably wrong.

...

I take 'absolute relation' to mean 'equality' or 'identity'. An individual, i.e. a particular, that nevertheless was identical with the absolute, i.e. the universal or infinite. The particular, logically, cannot be identical with the universal, so for it to be, i.e. for the individual to resolve himself to the absolute, is paradoxical. Abraham must himself to the infinite, even though it is impossible, because absurd, or he will lose his son and himself.

The gesture of the infinite resignation is to illustrate that their is no meaningful consolidation for the knight of faith in the face of hardship. As an illustrative example, Abraham doesn't say 'I am not murdering Isaac, I am sacrificing him', or 'my actions were the will of god'. He makes an infinite resignation on all meaning in his life.

The true believer is basically jumping off a cliff into complete meaningless absurdity. And the miracle according to Kierkegaard is that God will redeem him. This is the meaning of the idea of faith through absurdity. That you can live in the world of finitude, the world of the fall with its void of meaning and still be blissfully content through the grace of God. (And NOT through rational consolidation).

The infinite resignation is one very much misread moment in Kierkegaard - 'if it's God's will, it's ok to murder. So it's basically a defense of fanatics'. But this is such a vulgar reading that has nothing to do with what Kierk actually say.

t. have studied Kierkegaard for years, have been tutored from some of my country's leading K scholars.

It is also important to note that the movement of infinite resignation is not a forgetting of the ethical. As it says:
"Ridderen gjor da Bevægelsen, men hvilken? Vil han glemme det Hele; thi også deri ligger jo en slags Concentration? Nei! Thi Ridderen modsiger ikke sig selv, og det er en Modsigelse at forglemme hele sit Livs Indhold og dog blive den Samme. At blive en Anden, foler han ingen Drift til, og anseer det ingenlunde for det Store. Kun de lavere Naturer glemme sig selv og blive noget Nyt. Saaledes har Sommerfuglen aldeles glemt, at den var Kaalorm, maaske kan den igjen glemme, at den var Sommerfugl saa aldeles, at den kan blive en Fisk. De dybere naturer glemme aldrig sig selv og blive aldrig til Andet end hvad de vare. Ridderen vil da erindre Alt."
This is interesting as a contrast to Æstetikeren in Either/Or, who emphasizes the importance of the art of forgetting in existence and in a constant movement is forgetting 'det almene' so he can be completely and intensely occupied with the particular/the moment that becomes place for a poetic transfiguration.

It's been a while since I read the text, but as far as I remember absolute relation ('et absolut forhold') denotes that the knight of faith through infinite resignation is in a relation to God that is not mediated through the ethical. This is also why the 'truth' of Abraham/the knight of faith can not be meaningfully mediated/conveyed.

Also, when I use the word 'ethical', I am not using it in a 'contemporary' technical sense but how Kierk uses it; to denote the general realm of horizontality in relations between the individual and his Other.

In many ways Kierkegaard connects this realm, or atleast its most stark expression, with modernity (see first half of 'The Reflex of Greek Tragedy in the Modern Tragedy' in Either/Or).

this guy is correct

Thanks for the help, I think I'm still very much out of my depth with Kierkegaard.

>The infinite resignation is one very much misread moment in Kierkegaard - 'if it's God's will, it's ok to murder. So it's basically a defense of fanatics'.

Is this a misreading of Kierkegaard because F&T uses the otherwise unparalleled example of Abraham, i.e., God directly demanding death?

Or is it not even that, but rather does it hinge on the absurdity of faith? i.e., it is NOT ok to murder, but even while Abraham travelled to the mountain to sacrifice (murder) his son, he (absurdly, paradoxically, through faith) knew that his son would not be killed, and so that he himself would not kill. Am I on the right track?

You're definitely helping, but my lack of background with Kierkegaard is really holding me back here, so please bear with me.

So this "absolute" relationship is the individual undergoing the process of suspending the ethical? i.e., he is related to/interacting with God "directly" rather than being "mediated through the ethical"?

>the 'truth' of Abraham/the knight of faith can not be meaningfully mediated

What do you mean by this? Are you referring to Kierkegaard's repeated admission of his own inability to understand Abraham, in spite of (or due to) his infinite admiration of Abraham?

Also as for the definition of the ethical
>to denote the general realm of horizontality in relations between the individual and his Other.

What is "horizontality" and what is an individual's "Other"? If you don't feel like defining them, I'd be happy to read more Kierkegaard to find out for myself, if you could tell me where to look. Which leads to my final and most general questions, in light of your background in Kierkegaard:

How would you recommend a new reader approach him? I read F&T just to see what it was like, and because a friend was also reading it, but there was definitely a lot going on that I didn't understand. Should he be read chronologically? Are the difficulties I'm having with definitions like "absolute" and "ethical" because of an Aristotelian style structure wherein he rapidly builds on his earlier works, and assumes that a reader is familiar with those already?

I think what I've been wondering most of all for the longest time is: How extensively would you recommend him to be read? Either/Or, F&T, Concept of Anxiety get recommended fairly often, but are his other works "worth it"? Does it just boil down to a subjective, personal question of how much time a reader wants to spend with him? Any other by/about him you would particularly recommend?

Thanks very much for the help; I hope I'm not overburdening you with questions. This is my first foray into modern philosophy (read a lot of Greek shit) and it's very different from what I expected, and surprisingly tough. I enjoyed F&T but will probably enjoy it even more if I can understand it better.

Thanks again!

Solomon wouldn't qualify as another Biblical figure who embodies this concept? Ecclesiastes seems like a prototypical meditation on the same idea.

unironically, christianity

No prob. Just take your time and remember you can always come back to it.

>what do you mean by the 'truth' of Abraham can not be meaningfully mediated?
It means that the paradox of faith rests on a complete and infinite resignation of meaning and yes, an unmediated relation to divinity. Thus it (faith) is entirely uncommunicable. This also shows in Kierkegaard's disdain for the run-off-the-mill churchgoer and most 'christians'.

>Is the absolute relation to God the process of suspending the ethical
No, it is not the 'process', it is a relation to god that is unmediated, e.g. it arises as the ethical has been suspended.

>definition of the ethical
The 'Other' can mean many things in philosophy, here it refers to other people, the given world as 'other' than you, your life as an ethical question. A horizontal relation is opposed to a vertical (e.g. christianity; God has created Man, Man is given prefigured existential 'meaning' or purpose). Generally critiques of modernity will say that the movement from pre-modern to modern is the 'liberation' of the individual from pre-given frames of meaning and thus the individual must relate to the question of his relation to his own existence, his ethos in life in face with the world of the 'other', other people, circumstances etc. Kierkegaard has a similar diagnosis, although this is not the particular language Kierk would use.

I think Either/Or, F/T and Concept of Anxiety are good places to start with him. You can always read more if you really like him. You are not 'required' to read anything, really. My personal favorite is Kjerlighedens Gerninger/Works of Love. Also, no he is not a systematic/aristotelian writer, rather he very much bridges the philosopher/poet gap, which gets lost in translation. Also you will find that his works don't form a coherent system, but are written under different pseudonyms that reflect a particular existential stance in modernity. E.g. f/t is the religious, first book of Either/Or is the aesthetic, second is the ethical.

Have fun.

You can say that the 'liberation' of the individual in modernity opens up a 'horizontal' space for different ways of relating to the Other, if that makes sense. Nietzsche has a similar type of metaphor in Genealogy of Morals.

This of course raises the question of HOW to relate and thus births the existential choice, which is what Kierkegaard's entire oeuvre is concerned with; either, or.

Are you suggesting God only demands death in the story of Abraham? That's retarded. Read Isaiah, and 1 and 2
Samuel.