The story of Abraham was...
Illustration
The story of Abraham was one of the paradigms the writer to the Hebrews used to illustrate the faith. The same story captivated the mind of Søren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher and theologian regarded as the father of the philosophical movement called existentialism. A generalized understanding of that philosophic stance is to say that one gets meaning for one's life out of one's own existence. However, to truly understand Kierkegaard one would have to realize that his real mission was to expose the ineptitude of the Lutheran church in his day in Denmark. He was highly critical of the church because of its failure to teach faith adequately. He saw the legalism, the formality and the rationalism of the church as the signs of the lack of faith. Kierkegaard wrote prolifically about faith. His call for the "leap of faith" made that expression a household word. The last of seven children, he was born to wealth and the leisure for the study of theology and a life of writing. Early in his life Kierkegaard's father had cursed God, and Søren was dominated by a sense of involvement in his father's guilt. His writings reveal his personal struggle with faith, his complicated personality and his intentional stirring of the church to the necessity of faith. He emphasized this need for faith in what he termed a panegyric, an eulogistic essay of praise, on Abraham's faith. -- Huxhold
