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

Abstract

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 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.