A famous biblical story that centers on faith is the story of Abraham and Isaac. Søren Kierkegaard argues that Abraham’s faith involves the teleological suspension of the ethical, or the disregard of ethics for the sake of some outcome. Abraham disregarded the ethical concern of killing his son for the sake of proving his faith in God. If that doesn’t make you uncomfortable, then…Consider this: faith is more common that you may think. You have faith included in religion, relationships, salaries, science, and so much more. For example, you have faith that the food you ate to survive today won’t make you sick and kill you. At the same time, a teleological suspension of the ethical is not so obvious—you do not need to be conscious of your disregard for ethics. Back to the example: It is not particularly ethical to kill yourself by eating absolutely terrible food, yet you unconsciously disregard this concern when you eat food to survive anyway. Likewise, Abraham was not conscious about the ethical. He did not take a moment to consider the ethics of killing his son. Sure, he really didn’t want to end up killing his son, but not necessarily because he reasoned that it was unethical to do so. Unbeknownst to him, he was suspending the ethical. This unobvious conflict between doing something per your prerogative and the easy-to-miss ethical concerns that surround it is troubling. If you think enough about it, then it might make you uncomfortable because of how often it happens. We have faith that science is consistent, we have faith that our romantic partners are loyal, and we have faith that we’ll get a reasonable check every week. If we look close enough, we can uncover all the ethical concerns we are disregarding when we have faith in these situations. When reading Kierkegaard, it may not be immediately clear where the existentialism is. But here it is: there is a problem with the daily act of having faith. Unless you are conscious about it, we are somehow not disturbed by these daily acts of disregarding ethics. How do we feel comfortable with ourselves knowing this?
