Reading Kierkegaard I: Fear and Trembling (Cascade Companions)

In his posthumously published Journals and Papers Kierkegaard boldly claimed Oh once I am dead Fear and Trembling alone will be enough for an imperishable name as an author. Then it will be read translated into foreign languages as well. The reader will almost shrink from the frightful pathos in the book. Certainly Fear and Trembling has been translated into foreign languages and its fame has ensured Kierkegaards place in the pantheon of Western philosophy. Today however most shrink from the book not because of its frightful pathos but because of its fearsome impenetrability. In this first volume of a Reading Kierkegaard miniseries Martens carefully unfolds the form and content of Kierkegaards celebrated pseudonymous text guiding and inviting the reader to embrace the challenge of wrestling with it to the end. Throughout Martens demonstrates that Fear and Trembling is not merely a book that contains frightful pathos; it is also an entree into Kierkegaards vibrant and polyphonic corpus that is nearly as restless as the faith it commends. A brief overview and helpful introduction to what is probably Kierkegaards most read and most puzzling text. It wisely locates this telling of the Abraham story within Kierekgaards larger attack upon Christendom his critique of the Danish church for making faith too easy and the closely related Hegelian philosophy for making faith too reasonable. It nicely specifies the distinctive way in which biblical faith is absurd or paradoxical. --Merold Westphal Distinguished Professor of Philosophy Emeritus Fordham University Paul Martens volume performs a colossal feat: it simultaneously clarifies Kierkegaards elusive text while it preserves its unsettling passion and mystery. Reading Kierkegaard I both orients new readers to Kierkegaards provocative understanding of faith and offers novel insights to seasoned scholars. Most significantly Martens shows how Fear and Trembling consistently distinguishes authentic faith from conformity to societal norms and how faith paradoxically combines the resignation of earthly well-being and the joyful acceptance of earthly blessings. --Lee C. Barrett The Henry and Mary Stager Professor of Systematic Theology Lancaster Theological Seminary Fear and Trembling is often the first of Kierkegaards famous books a non-specialist reader encounters but it is also famously daunting. Paul Martens proves himself a wise guide to Fear and Trembling for he accomplishes what may seem impossible: removing intellectual obstacles to understanding the internal logic of Kierkegaards reflection on Abrahams near-sacrifice of Isaac but at the same time never minimizing the books daunting challenge to the gift and task that is faith. --David J. Gouwens Brite Divinity School As a Kierkegaard scholar I am all too aware that many students first encounter Kierkegaard through Fear and Trembling a pseudonymous text that is not only difficult to read but disquieting in its conclusions. What distinguishes Paul Martens new commentary on Fear and Trembling is that it confronts these challenges head-on while never forgetting that Kierkegaards masterwork is meant to be provocative perhaps even (as Kierkegaard himself put it) terrifying. --Christopher B. Barnett Associate Professor Department of Theology & Religious Studies Villanova University Paul Martens is Associate Professor of Religion (Christian Ethics) at Baylor University.