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Journal of the American Academy of Religion Advance Access originally published online on April 6, 2006
Journal of the American Academy of Religion 2006 74(2):446-468; doi:10.1093/jaarel/lfj057
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press, on behalf of the American Academy of Religion. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

A Secret both Sinister and Salvific: Secrecy and Normativity in Light of Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling

Jonathan Malesic

Jonathan Malesic is Assistant Professor of Theology, King’s College, 133 North River St., Wilkes-Barre, PA 18711.

Kantian philosophy and revealed religion stand at odds over secrecy’s normative status: philosophy condemns secrecy and religion approves of it. These rival evaluations of secrecy are explored in Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, with reference to Abraham’s secret plan to sacrifice Isaac. Kierkegaard’s dialectic shows that religion’s commitment to the possibility of particular revelation—something I characterize as an "unsayable" secret—is the source both of secrecy’s condemnation on the universalistic grounds of Kantian ethics and of its approval on particularist religious grounds. For Kierkegaard, the site of Abraham’s call is the very inwardness that enables Abraham to violate ethics by keeping a secret from Isaac. This unsayable secret, however, also opens up the possibility for Abraham and other religious individuals to take on a radical responsibility for the other, which Kantianism would not permit. If Kierkegaard’s claim that acknowledging revelation necessarily entails acknowledging inwardness is correct, then attention to secrecy is imperative for the study of revealed religion.


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