by

Jeff Sands
New York University
May 1, 1996
JeffS@Springer-NY.com





Yes, we are first united by that institution that the spectacle is, but we are more deeply
united by the same myths, the same themes that govern us without our admitting it, by the
same spontaneously lived ideology.
-Louis Althusser


        In Fear and Trembling, Søren Kierkegaard conducts an ideological struggle with
the system of thought that was in power. This system believed it could provide concise
and direct solutions for the fundamental  questions of its day. The question Kierkegaard
brings up in Fear and Trembling   is one of how to achieve faith.  He conducts this
investigation through the very story the system in power used to prove that faith was an
obvious and easy task to accomplish. This is the story of God's trial of Abraham's faith in
which Abraham is faced with the test of sacrificing his son, Isaac.  Kierkegaard not only
struggles with the beliefs of the people around him but also with the actual story and the
interpretations that could be taken from it. The Althusserian theory of ideology reveals
not only the levels of beliefs Kierkegaard was up against but also the ways in which Fear
and Trembling   provides him with the means to accomplish his goals. In so doing, Fear
and Trembling   reveals the power of the story through the way it is interpreted and the
way those interpretations are presented. By taking the reader on a path of individual
questioning, Kierkegaard teaches his reader how to interpret concepts for themselves and
to apply those same lessons towards the meaning of faith. To understand this struggle it is
imperative to not only understand Kierkegaards' goals and his ways of achieving them,
but also the actual story of the trial of Abraham's faith and the roles its various
interpretations can play in an ideological struggle. Through this Kierkegaard reveals the
importance of the both role of the interpretor and his interpretation in the way one
conducts his life.

        In the biblical version of God's trial of Abraham, God chose to test Abraham's
faith. God commanded Abraham to take his only son, Isaac, to the mountain of Moriah
and to sacrifice him there. Abraham silently obeyed God and took Isaac on the three days
journey to Moriah. Never once was a word spoken among them until Isaac asked his
father "where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" (Genesis 22:7). Abraham replied "God
will provide himself a lamb" (Genesis 22:8). Abraham prepared Isaac for sacrifice, and
raised his knife in to sacrifice Isaac according to God's command. At that very moment,
the angel of the Lord appeared and said "Lay not thine hand upon the lad . . . I know that
thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me"
(Genesis 22:12). As Abraham stopped the sacrifice, he saw a ram caught in a bush and
sacrificed the ram instead. Again the angel of the Lord spoke to Abraham and said
"because thou hast done this thing, and hast not witheld thy son, thine only son: that in
blessing I will bless thee, an in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of
heaven" (Genesis 22:16-17). The factual story is filled with the silence of Abraham,
leaving the reader to decipher the meaning of Abraham's faith. The reader can recognize
what Abraham did, but the text does not reveal how Abraham came to make his choice.
From a historical perspective of Abraham's life, the reader can get an idea of his
greatness. Well into old age without an heir, God told Abraham "Sarah, thy wife shall
bear thee a  son indeed: and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my
covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him"(Genesis
17:19). Abraham waited diligently for 100 years before Sarah gave birth, never once
questioning God's command. Then as God said, a son was born. Then God commanded
Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Abraham obeyed without speaking a word, without a
moments hesitation even though he waited a 100 years for this son. He raised the knife to
kill Isaac even though God had said through Isaac's seed the generations of mankind
would come forth. He believed God's word that Isaac would populate the world yet he
followed God's command to kill Isaac. He believed that God would keep Isaac with him
even if he had to kill Isaac. Abraham's faith is great because he believed he would enjoy
Isaac within this lifetime not only in the after-life. Faced with this paradox he believed
that God could make possible what his human mind only deemed impossible. Abraham
had faith, he followed God's command, and his faith was rewarded. The reader
recognizes that if you have faith in God, as Abraham did, God will reward you. Still the
reader is left without an understanding of how Abraham came to faith. The lack of factual
information in the text allows the reader to formulate various interpretations of this story;
from a simple reading of obeying God brings prosperity to the difficult aspect that faith,
in the case of Abraham, was based on absurd circumstances.

        Even though Abraham's faith is not defined, this very faith has become the very
foundation of faith for the judaeo-christian tradition. It has become a since it is utilized as
an example of the example of faith. The lack of factual information gives a reader the
freedom to draw upon the story his own conclusions and associations, and thus the ability
to present it to an audience in a way that achieves his desired results. In his book
Structural Anthropology, Claude Levi-Strauss defines the role of a myth as one that
intends to express "fundamental feelings to the whole of mankind, such as love, hate or
revenge or that they try to provide some kind of explanations for phenomena which they
cannot otherwise understand . . . mythology reflects the social structure and the social
relations" (SA, 207). If the audience believes in the presentation of the myth they will act
upon it accordingly. Louis Althusser defines the power of the myth with the above quote
from For Marx (FM, 131). According to this definition, readers are first united by the
spectacle of God's trial of Abraham.  The actual events of the story unite us, and those
events are God asking a father to sacrifice his son. Readers identify with both the anguish
this command causes a father and how great the love for God must be to actually intend
to follow the order. Althusser says we are more deeply united with the myth behind the
spectacle. The myth is the faith of Abraham. On the surface, the reader may not be able to
explain the reason behind Abraham's faith or even define it, but the myth he takes with
and within him is that Abraham was great, his faith was strong, and God rewarded him.
The myth tells the reader to have faith in God and in so doing God will reward such faith.
The reader will now believe in God and act accordingly. If asked if God's trial of
Abraham has affected his actions the reader would not admit it. He cannot see a direct
link from the story to his unconscious; from a myth of faith to his underlying perceptions.
This is the relationship Althusser calls ideology.

        Althusser defines his general theory of ideology in Lenin and Philosophy, as one
which "represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of
existence"(LP,162). This definition defines ideology not only as a simple description of
the thoughts of man, but also his thoughts pertaining on how he should act in accordance
with the role he believes he occupies. Related to the story of Abraham, he believed that
his role was one of a servant, which is based in the belief that true obedience would bring
prosperity. This informs Abraham what his actions should be in relation to that role.
Althusser further defines ideology as "a matter of the lived relation between men and
their world. This relation that only appears as 'conscious' on the condition that it is
unconscious" (FM, 233). This advanced definition gets confusing but Paul Ricoeur
attempts to shed some light in his essay "Althusser's Theory of Ideology" which appears
in Althusser: A Critical Reader.  In it Ricoeur interprets Althusser's definition as one in
which "ideology reflects in the form of an imaginary relation something which is already
an existing relation, that is human being's relation to their world" (ACR, 54). In his
conscious Abraham believes that he is a servant because in his unconscious that is what
he is. This imaginary relation is man's unconscious and is represented in the external
world through action. Thus Abraham's ideology as a role of a servant is revealed in his
action of obedience; but he does not say I am the servant of God and my role in this
world is to to obey God, he just obeys. This relates to the above quote from "Bertolazzi
and Brecht" in which these "themes govern us with our admitting it". These ideologies
become not only why we act but become our actions without our evening knowing it.

        The reader finds it easy to to put Abraham's role in its place but it is not so easy
for Abraham. Abraham only obeys God, he does not see the ways in which he became a
servant. Neither does he see the role ideology played in the actions he committed during
his trial.  The reader theoretically analyzes the events which reveals the ideology as a
system of representations consisting of Abraham's representation of himself as a servant
and God representing Abraham as a servant. This does not reveal the true power of
ideology as Althusser sees it for "we can say that ideology, as a system of representations,
is distinguished from science in that in it the practico-social function is more important
than the theoretical function (function as knowledge)" (FM, 231). A theory of Abraham's
ideology does not do that ideology justice for Abraham's ideology is empowered through
the act of obeying. Therein lies the power of ideology, it is important to understand how
it acts as a function of knowledge especially on the individual level; but it is far more
important to realize that this same ideology will make men act according to their
particular ideology.  In the case of Abraham, his ideology led him to the brink of killing
his only son without a single instance of hesitancy.

        We can see the power of ideology on an individual level in making men act
without them realizing the ideology enforcing it, but as this ideology is acted out in the
external it can be influenced by the external. Althusser described this outside force as the
State which "is a `machine' of repression, which enables the ruling classses (in the
nineteenth century the bourgeois class and the `class' of big landowners) to ensure their
domination over the working class" (LP, 137). The state can be seen as a representation
of the individuals in power who use this power with the explicit purpose of reproducing
said power. Althusser terms the state as one whose action is repressive. It is repressive for
they want to maintain their power, and this can only be acheived by having its power
properly executed (LP, 144). The action of the state reveals its ideology which is its role
of oppressor and ruler. In the story of Abraham the repressive power would be seen as
God. His power is repressive because he places Abraham in the role of servant and uses
his power to keep Abraham in obedience. This can be seen as one interpretation of the
trial of his faith. By forcing Abraham to choose between his son and his obedience to
God, God ensures the role of obedience will continue since Abraham chooses to obey and
has his subservience is rewarded.  For Althusser the repressive power is the state but in
the Bible it is God, so it can be either the individual or a group of individuals behind the
enforcement of an ideology that express the power in an ideological system. It can be
seen that men act according to their beliefs of how they should act, and these beliefs can
be manipulated for the gain of a specific state or group power.  Besides repression the
state affects the ideology of the individual through the use of what Althusser calls the
ideological apparatus. Althusser categorizes these apparatuses as religious, educational,
the family, the legal,the political, trade-union, communications and cultural (LP,143).
The ideological apparatus is "the realization of an ideology (the unity of these different
regional ideologies - religious, ethical, legal, political, aesthetic, etc. - being assured by
their subjection to the ruling ideology) . . . an ideology always exists in an apparatus, and
its practice" (LP, 166).  The ideology of the individual makes him act in accordance with
that ideology without him ever fully realizing it as in the case of Abraham's
unquestioning obedience to God. The ideological apparatus has a greater power in that it
can aid in the prodcution and reproduction of specific ideologiesIt does this by utilizing
that ideology for both persuasive and manipulative purposes.  The designation of the term
apparatus is a mechanical one (CR, 53) which implies the role of the apparatus as a
"practico-social function". This function shows how the myth of God's trial of Abraham
gains influence on an ideological level. As the factual vacany of the story reveals the
potential for multiple interpretations the apparatuses of education and/or religion are able
to use their interpretations of the meaning of the story to influence their audience. In
citing the origin of the system of ideology Althusser states that in the first instance of
ideology "Priests and Despots are responsible. They `forged ` the Beautiful Lies so that,
in the belief that they were obeying Gods, men would in fact obey the Priests and
Despots"(Lp,163). Through this belief men would act as the priests requested.

        In Fear and Trembling  , Søren Kierkegaard too presents the myth of the trial of
Abraham's faith to his audience. Kierkegaard described his society as one in which "not
just in commerce but in the world of ideas too our age is putting on a veritable clearance
sale. Everything can be had so dirt cheap that one begins to wonder whether in the end
anyone will want to make a bid"(FT,41). The depiction in which no one "will want to
make a bid" says that no one will make an effort. By placing his example of society in
economic terms, he is showing that they will accept what is presented to them whether it
be commerce or ideas as long as it is both pleasing and easy to obtain. Soren Kierkegaard
saw the story of Abraham's trial as the eptiome of obedience to God's will and thus a
representation of faith. Kierkegaard chose a story that through its lack of factual
information on the surface left all the interpretation to the reader. The danger of this is
shown through Althusser's theory of a state powers use of an ideological apparatus to
persuade and motivate an audience. If the persuasion of the apparatus is successful then
the ideology of the audience will be motivated to be in line with ideology of that state
power. Through ideology a "society lives the inadequacy/adequacy of the relation
between it and the world, it is in it and by it that it transforms men's 'consciousness', that
is, their attitudes and behaviour so as to raise them to the levels of their tasks and the
conditions of their existence" (FM, 235). By affecting the ideology of its audience
through the use of apparatuses, the state or group power can mold the tasks of that
audience the way it chooses. If it is a true ideology then the auidence will be governed
without ever admitting it. Kierkegaard fully recognized the susceptibility of his audience
to these forms of coercion. He understood how easily the story of the trial of Abraham
could be interpreted to any desired end. A story that leaves the reader in such awe over
the circumstances that it becomes easier to just call Abraham the `father of faith' instead
of trying to interpret what that statement really means. A story that leaves so much to the
reader through its silence that it becomes easier to accept anothers interpretation as being
correct.  The trial was a perfect example of how the society around Kierkegaard could
take the myth for granted and accept the the simple interpretation, which says that if we
obey god we will be rewarded as was Abraham. But this reading reveals faith as simple
servitude not belief. It shows that faith could be accomplished through simple daily
servitude, which means faith could easily be obtained.  Kierkegaard tells the reader his
purpose in choosing the myth of faith as the product he believes has been undervalued in
the market place: "Today nobody will stop with faith; they all go further . . . In those old
days it was different. For then faith was a task for a whole lifetime, not a skill thought to
be acquired in either days or weeks" (FT, 42).  Faith has been cheapened as the consumer
believes he can obtain faith within a moments pondering. Kierkegaard sees faith as no
longer a goal in his day, but an assumption. The statement "faith was a task of a whole
lifetime" in relation to Althusser's defintion of ideology transforming men's "attitudes and
behaviour so as to raise them to the levels of their tasks and the conditions of their
existence" (FM, 235) reveals Kierkegaard's intention with Fear and Trembling  . That is
to return faith to its rightful role as the task of man. The question becomes one of how to
make this a desired goal for his society especially when it is deemed a clearing sale
society with faith available after only days of investigation. Kierkegaard wants his reader
to make a bid on faith, to try to come to their own understanding of the trial of.
Kierkegaard wants his reader to question the myth on their own terms.

        Kierkegaard intends to have the reader read the myth, then interpret the myth, and
then understand the myth in regards to themselves, Only this way could the reader
discover their own meaning of faith rather than one presented to them. Kierkegaard wants
the reader to develop their own ideology, to discover their own relation to the meaning of
faith, not a one that was presented to them which they chose to accept. For in accepting
an outside presentation of faith they are accepting the apparatus utilized to present that
version. As Althusser stated once the ideological apparatus has altered the ideology of the
individual to become in line with its own, the need for the role of the apparatus as well as
the ideology itself is produced and reproduced (LP, 183). In choosing to use the myth of
the trial in attempt to confront the existing ideology in regards to that myth, Kierkegaard
is undertaking what Althusser calls an ideological struggle. In his book Philosophy and
the Spontaneous Philosophy of the Scientists describes this struggle as one that "implies
the intervention of people's `consciousness'; every struggle involves a conflict between
convictions, beliefs, and representations of the world" (PSP, 36).  These are the terms
Althusser used to define an ideology so "it is the ideology of the working class that
directly governs its conceptions of its economic and political [ these are ideological
apparatuses as is religion for Althusser] struggles, of their relations, and thus the manner
in which it conducts its struggle" (PSP, 37). Kierkeaard utilizes the myth of Abraham's
trial in an ideological struggle with his audiences concept of faith. He decides to conduct
this ideological struggle through presentation of the myth on the level the individual
reader can best understand, and that is one in which the reader needs to be there at "the
moment he left the asses behind and went up the mountain alone with Isaac. For what
occupied him was not the finely wrought fabric of imagination, but the shudder of
thought" (FT,44). No longer accepting the story at a surface representation but rather as
one in which the reader himself would have been tested. In so doing, the reader will
attempt to discover the test of faith on a personal level. The only way make this
identification is if Kierkegaard remains absent from the text. It is tempting to aid his
reader but then he would just be giving a cursory overview with a simple, cleanly
presented interpretation that would be the same as the system he attacks in the preface for
its provocation of "an age where passion has been done away with for the sake of
science" (FT, 43). No, he cannot describe the story and its meaning in the simple point A
to point B framework of science. He must bring individual passion back into the reading
of the story. The goal of passion in the reader is achieved by the opposite route of
science. There can be no easy answers, the solution must not be obvious. Leaving the
reader alone he leaves the reader to interpret the story on a personal level and thus come
to an understanding through their own passions. With their passions aiding them, the
understanding they come to becomes their ideology,  in other words their relation to the
meaning of faith.

        Removing himself from the text, Kierkegaard takes the guise of a psuedonym
called Johannes de silentio. The very name of the pseudonym reveals Kierkegaard's
strategy as one of silence. The same silence he saw in Abraham's three day ride to
Moriah. The interpretation is be left to the reader; only in this way will the reader come to
his own interpretation of the meaning of faith which will beome his own ideology faith. If
he used his real name, Kierkegaard would have to face a reader that has representations of
what Kierkegaard the man represents. This can influence the reading to the point where
whenever the narrator makes a statement it could be interpreted as Kierkegaards.
Kierkegaard did not want to conduct a struggle of ideologies of his readers perception of
what Kierkegard's role would be in context to Fear and Trembling  . The pseudonym of
Johannes de silentio is an Althusserian ideological apparatus for Kierkegaard. Althusser
defines the existence of ideas as one in which it "has emerged that their existence is
inscribed in the actions of practices governed by rituals defined in the last instance by an
ideological apparatus" (LP, 170); meaning one "exists in different modalities , all rooted
in the last instance in `physical matter'" (LP, 166). If ideology is our relation to our
imagined relation to our real relation of our existence in the world and this ideology
becomes material in the last instance through an ideological apparatus; then this apparatus
must itself be founded in physical matter. The pseudonym of Johannes de silentio is a
physical matter that under the pretense of its name produces the physical matter of
silence. In being forced to relate with silence the reader is forced to interpret the myth of
the trial on their own. With the apparatus having the intention of persuading and
motivating the ideologies of its audience, the lack of a narrator furthers Kierkegaard's
ideology of the reader questioning the story of the trial on their own and coming to their
own ideology concerning the meaning of that faith. The reader cannot attach his
interpretations of the author onto the work. In so doing, it furthers the chance that the
reader will confront the discourse on a personal level. By the very name Johannes de
silentio, the reader understands that the author will be as silent as Abraham leaving the
reader to discover an interpretation of the events that are unique to himself.

        Through the use of a silent pseudonym and bringing the story of the trial of
Abraham into the present age, Kierkegaard attempts the Althusserian "ideological
recognition function"(LP, 172). Althusser defines this type of recognition as one in which
"you and I are always already subjects, and as such constantly practice the rituals of
ideological recognition, which gaurantee for us that we are indeed concrete, individual,
distinguishable and (naturally) irreplaceable subjects" (LP, 172-3). By recognizing the
ideology we become part of it by becoming its subjects. By the word subject Althusser
not only means subject but also subjection. Recognizing that we are the subjects of the
ideology we are subjecting ourselves to the ideology. The importance of this is that "the
category of the `subject' is constitutive of ideology, which only exists by constituting
concrete subjects as subjects" (LP, 173).  This relates with Kierkegaard's style of
discourse for Althusser's next statement identifies the recognition with reading: "The
writing I am currently executing and the reading your are currently performing are also in
this respect rituals of ideological recognition, including the `obviousness' with which the
`truth' or `error' of my reflections may impose itself on you" (LP, 173). Throughout the
process of reading, the reader recognizes himself as the subject. The written words of
Fear and Trembling   hail the reader as subjects. Althusser desrcibes this process of the
ideological recognition function as one of interpellating individuals as subjects. By
interpellating, Althusser means hailing for "all ideology hails or interpellates concrete
individuals as subjects" (LP, 173). Althusser uses the example of religious ideology to
represent the use of interpellating. "All this is clearly written in what is rightly called the
Scriptures. . .'And the Lord cried to Moses, "Moses!" And Moses replied :It is (really)I! I
am Moses thy servant, speak and I shall listen!" And the Lord spoke to Moses and said to
him, "I am that I am" (LP, 179). Althusser describes God defining himself as the
"Subject par excellence" by stating "I am that I am" and he interpellates or hails Moses
thus making Moses the subject of the ideological recognition function because Moses
recognizes that it is he who is being called so he becomes the subject. By recognizing his
role in this ideological interpellation he is subjecting himself to this role. His relation to
his role in existence becomes one of Moses the servant of God. This is identical with
when God commands Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. By the very statement and the
adjoining recognition of that hailing by Abraham, Abraham has placed himself in the role
of servant to God's command. Kierkegaard follows the system of interpellating
individuals as subjects by continuously addressing the reader through questions as
"Would it not be better, then, were he not God's chosen? What is it to be God's chosen?"
(FT, 50). Addressing the reader on a personal level forces him to subject to an individual
interpretation. Kierkegaard does not provide the answers; he provokes the reader to
discern them for himself. The goal of having the reader develop an ideology of
questioning is that  he will go farther with the questions than the narrator has posed. With
the narrator being silent, the reader's questions are steered at the myth of the trial not at
the intention of the author.

        Understanding the techniques Kierkegaard will use in his ideological struggle
with the reader, it is important to discover what Kierkegaard faces in this struggle. In the
beginning of the Preface Kierkegaard depicts the society that is not only not willing to
make a bid anymore, but one that believes faith can be acheived in days. He is not only
describing the ideology he wants to change through Fear and Trembling  , but also the
power of the ideology he is up against. Kierkegaard's goal for the reader is to come to his
own understanding of faith and in so doing discover that since Abraham waited 100 years
for Isaac to be born that the lesson is that faith is the goal of a lifetime.His desire is to
raise the value of faith by having it realized on a personal level, not a universal one which
is presented by an outside state or group power. To increase the value he must not have
his readers "suppose that faith is something inferior or that it is an easy matter, when in
fact it is the greatest and most difficult task of all" (FT, 81). Not only is it the most
diffiuclt task of all it is also the task of a lifetime as it was for Abraham. To discover this,
Kierkegaard needed to have his reader do all the work of interpretation but he well
understood that he was "in an age when an author who wants readers must be careful to
write in a way that can be comfortably leafed through during the after-dinner nap" (FT,
43). With the intention of circumventing these obstacles, Kierkegaard chose to present the
trial of Abraham in the context of his age. "It is against my nature to do what people so
often do, talk inhumanly about the great as though some thousands of years were a huge
distance; I prefer to talk about it humanly as though it happened yesterday and let only
the greatness itself be the distance that either exalts or condemns it" (FT, 64). Through
this presentation he must attract the reader who requires the comfortable "after-dinner
nap" reading yet at the same time persuade them into doing a throrough interpretation of
the myth. Through these devices Kierkegaard intends to have the ideology of the reader
be one that  "expresses a will (conservative, conformist, reformist or revolutionary), a
hope or a nostalgia" (FM, 234) that leads towards a personal perception of faith. He wants
man to "express a will" that longs for faith. He is basing his intention on the fact that men
will act on the ideology they believe and as a result repoduce this ideology through their
actions. In this way the ideology Kierkegaard sees prevalent in the society around him
can be changed by changing the ideology of its participants.

        Kierkegaard follows the Preface with a section entitled the Attunement. He begins
with decribing a "man" that in the generality of the word becomes universal. The man
first encounters the story of Abraham as a child in which he can recite exactly what the
story told "God tried Abraham, how he withstood the test, kept his faith and for the
second time received a son against every expectation" (FT, 44). The purpose of the
universal man is to interpellate the reader so he recognizes himself as being in the role of
that man. Kierkegaard is both enticing the reader and revealing the insufficeincy of a
factual reading. The statement "children's tale" gives the reader the belief that he is not
about to be engaged in a philosophical discourse.  Kierkegaard's ideological apparatus
presents his ideology in a non-threatening manner. Yet at the same time, Kierkegaard is
telling the reader that he should want a more thorough reading as does the man the reader
is interpellated with for"When he became older he read the same story with  even greater
admiration, for life had divided what had been united in the child's pious simplicity. . .
his enthusiasm became stronger and stronger, and yet less and less could he understand
it" (FT, 44).  The goal of the man presented in the Attunement is not to just be told the
meaning of this tale as when he was a child but "to be there at that moment when
Abraham . . . went on up the mountain alone with Isaac. For what occupied him was not
the finely wrought fabric of imagination, but the shudder of thought" (FT,44). The man
does not want his childhood imagination relived; he wants to live the story, but not
through the eyes of Abraham but through his own. Kierkegaard, through use of his
apparatus (discourse), is persuading the reader to identify with the man and thus choose
to understand Abraham's trial on a personal level. The power of the interpellation of
individuals as subjects is that they never know they are subjects. They never know that
"what really takes place in ideology seems therefore to take place outside of it. That is
why those who are in ideology believe themselves by definition outside of ideology" (LP,
175). Through the interpellation via the term man, the reader believes he is just re-
examining a childhood tale not being coerced into the ideology of Kierkegaard. The term
"shudderof thought" could make the reader imagine that the task of understanding the
trial could be too much of an effort or that they might be too inadequate for the task. Here
Kierkegaard addresses the reader again through identification with the man by saying
"this man was no thinker . . . This man was no learned exegete, he knew no Hebrew"
(Ft,44). The reader does not have to be a philosopher to want to make the attempt to gain
a further understanding of this childhood tale, he does not have to be able to read the
scriptures in their original language. The reader can be like the man described in the
Attunement who wants to know more. Through this presentation of the the trial,
Kierkegaard coerces the reader into a false sense of security in which he feels comfortable
enough to leave behind any ideologies he has brought with him. He is presenting Fear
and Trembling  as that writing he chastises in the preface which can "comfortably be
leafed through during the after-dinner nap" (FT, 43). He is persuading and motivating the
reader to exactly the relation to the meaning of faith that Kierkegaard holds dear, and that
is a personal interpretation so valuable that it should never be monopolized and thus
defined by a state or group power. With the narrator as a pseudonym and the reader living
the story the only climactic ending the reader arrives at is the one he comes to himself. To
face what he faced and to try to understand what Abraham himself had to choose
between. Placed in the role of Abraham, the reader will have to make his own choice and
thus his own interpretation of the meaning of faith.

        With the readers role cast, Kierkegaard introduces four vignettes depiciting
separate outcomes of the myth of the trial of Abraham. Through the four different
vignettes, Kierkegaard continues to persuade the reader to look at the myth from a
personal level. For now it is no longer the straight ahead factual version he was told in
childhood. No longer being shown the only the facts, the reader is shown what could have
occurred below the surface to Abraham while he was on his three day journey. Through
his continued use of interpellating the reader as a subject the vignettes represent possible
ways that the reader might have expereinced the trial. This is intended to have the reader
come to his own conclusion on how to approach faith. To make sure that his reader does
expereince the four versions on a personal level, Kierkegaard depicts a story about a
mother attempting to wean her child from breast feeding. Each weaning segment
correlates with the vignette it is attached to. The reader is able to identify as the subject of
a weaning story for they have experienced it first hand. The weaning segments are not
only intended to show God's weaning of Abraham, they also represent Kierkegaard's
weaning of the reader from the way he read the myth of the trial of Abraham's faith as a
child. Weaning represents a coming into adult hood , when the child is no longer fed. It is
a cause for celebration as can be seen when Isaac was weaned for "the child grew, and
was weaned: and Abraham made a great feast the same  day Isaac was weaned" (Genesis
21:8). All along Kierkegaard's intention has been one that the reader should arrive at a
knowledge of faith on his own, not to accept it being fed to him as with the society
presented in the Preface. Weaning is never an easy process and there are many different
ways to come to it as it is with the developing a meaning of faith. The vignettes will
interact the reader in the proces of weaning but all along make the reader realize that it is
a fruitful process and a necessary one as with the child  being weaned. Once the reader is
weaned he is ready to confront the journey Abraham did during his trial.

        In the first vignette Kierkegaard describes the trial of Abraham in which
"Abraham said to himself: `I will not conceal Isaac from where this way is leading him'"
(FT, 45). The reader to interpets this re-telling and in so doing discovers that more could
have occured in the story than what they heard in a child's tale. In the biblical story
Abraham does not speak for three days, in this version the reader becomes party to his
thoughts concerning the circumstance. This grants the reader the opportunity to look back
at the biblical version and try to imagine what Abraham was thinking. Abraham chooses
to tell Isaac of his fate, in so doing Isaac "clung to Abraham's knees, pleaded at his feet,
begged for his life" (FT, 45). The reader is persuaded to associate this response with one
in which he had to sacrifice his own son. It is natural for the reader to want to inform him
of his fate, and very likely that the reader's son would beg for mercy. Abraham's love for
Isaac was great but so was his love for God and God's order which he must obey. In this
version, Abraham screams at Isaac "Foolish boy, do you believe I am your father? I am
an idolater. Do you believe this is God's command? No it is my own desire" (FT, 45). He
strikes Isaac with a wrath that would divert Isaac's anger and disillusionment from God to
his father. This is the result of his love for both Isaac and God being equal, he would
rather have Isaac hate himself than hate God. The reader identifies with these events by
imagining themselves feeling the strife of Abraham. They see that love is good but it is
not faith, for with faith no words would be needed to be spoken to Isaac as God would
give him his son back according to his earlier prophecy that through the seed of Isaac
generations would be born. In this version, Kierkegaard is introducing the stage of
aesthetics. Kierkegaard believed aesthetics was when man listens only to his sense
perceptions with his focus being on the temporal and the immediate. Without faith, the
reality that Isaac would be gone from the temporal world makes Abraham commit the act
in violence. He can only act this way if he does not believe Isaac will survive the trial.
The weaning segment that follows tells of a mother who "blackens her breast, for it
would be a shame were the breast to look pleasing when the child is not to have it" (FT,
46). Through the weaning segment the reader is brought to understand this version on a
personal level and understand that through the love of the child and the mother the breast
must be made evil, as Abraham made himself evil. Kierkegaard does not explicitly define
the stage of aesthetics for he has placed the reader in the role of interpreting the
circumstances involved. The reader must discover for himself the error of Abrahams
ways in the first stage.

        The next vignette portrays a transition between stages of man's existence.
Abraham willingly follows God's command but here his silence is perceived as
something other than faith. As he arrives at the mountain of Moriah "Abraham . . . turned
his gaze toward the ground" (FT, 46).  The reader identifies that Abraham has
reservations about God's commandment, he does not have faith. Abraham is between the
stage of aesthetics and the next stage called ethics. His love for Isaac is so great that he
perceives God's commandment as wrong in terms of the father-son relationship. Ethics
represents the universal, the eternal and this is represented in a moral code for
Kierkegaard. Here Abraham is torn between his love for Isaac and the his belief that he is
committing a wrong in the eyes of morality. This sets up a relation between these stages
towards faith for they are not completely separate rather there is a constant tension
between them. In the aftermath Abraham has no joy because he has become disillusioned
with God for placing him in a situation where he comes face to face with the realization
of losing the son he loves through the immoral act of his own hand. The reader envisions
himself hesitating in committing such an act in the same ways Abraham did. Here the
weaning segment has "the mother virginally cover her breast" (FT, 46). Kierkegaard
attempts to persuade the reader into recognizing the split between the perception of the
breast as the lvoe between a mother and child and the morality behind the breast in
regards to sexuality. When the reader compares the first two vignettes he can see the
movement from one of love and anger to one of love and despair. Here Abraham feels
despair for the love he will lose if Isaac is taken away.

        The third vignette has Abraham thinking of his other son Hagar "the son whom he
had driven out in the desert" (FT, 47). The reader associates with the sense of guilt in
banishing a son. The story continues with Abraham riding to Moriah alone and "begging
God to forgive his sin at having willing to sacrifice Isaaac, at his father's having forgotten
his duty to his son" (FT, 47). Isaac has been removed from the story, so the connection to
aesthetic love is removed. The reader recognizes the guilt of a father who turns his back
on his duty to his son as in the case of Abraham and Hagar, which makes the ending
where Abraham does not obey God believable for he does not want to dismiss his duty
twice. This stage is one of moral duty and the relation to a societal code of ethics. This is
different from the first stage for Abraham is relating to the universal laws that would find
such an order of God as a sin. In the terms of universal law, Abraham would be
committing a crime and if he believes in this stage more than his belief in God's ability to
not kill Isaac he is faced with guilt. For which ever action he chooses he is doing wrong
by one of two standards he intended to live by. Abraham is torn between this ethical stage
and the religious stage of faith. He cannot reconcile the two for "If it was a sin . . . he
could not understand how it could be forgiven". He is left in despair for he loves God, but
he disobeys God. In the eyes of God he failed but in the eyes of society he succeeds.
Which is correct. Abraham cannot comprehend the bridge between the two. The reader
can understand the conflict for the command of God is a sin in the eyes of man, but than
again it is considered faith in the eyes of God. In the weaning segment "the mother too is
not without sorrow, that she and the child grow more and more apart . . . Thus together
they suffer this brief sorrow" (FT, 47). Kierkegaard has the reader recognize the sense of
community between the mother and child. They are filled with sorrow because they must
as the child is weaned. The mother's sense of duty to the child through providing
nourishment must end, but it is not without remorse. On the path to faith man must leave
behind the aesthetic and the ethical but it is not without a sense of tension and loss.

        As there is no clean movement from the stage of aesthetics to the stage of ethics,
so there is no clean movement from the stage of ethics to faith. In the last vignette,
Abraham is portrayed as being closer to faith as he "made everything ready for the
sacrifice, calmly and quietly" (FT, 47) as he does in the biblical account. The reader
recognizes the similarities, but suddenly Isaac saw that "Abraham's left hand was
clenched in anguish" (FT, 47). Abraham followed through with God's commandment but
not by faith but rather by resignation. He resigned himself to whatever outcome might
arise, but he did not truly believe God would spare Isaac. In this vignette Abraham has
arrived at the paradox of faith. He knows that he has to obey God's command which is
sacrificng Isaac and he knows that God prophecized that generations will be born from
Isaac's seed he just can not reconcile the two. For those two commandments predict
opposite actions that a human cannot see being possible. He does not have faith in God's
ability to make possible what a man knows is impossible, and so he is resigned to God's
command. Resignation occurs on a personal level as "Isaac told no one what he had seen,
and Abraham never suspected that anyone had seen it" (FT, 48). The reader recognizes
the resignation in Abraham and the solitary way he copes with it. The weaning segment
reinforces the vignette for the reader by having the mother having "more solid food at
hand, so that the child will not perish" (FT, 48). The reader recognizes that the mother
knows that the child will be fine and that she has to wean him but she is not so certain for
she has solid food on hand. She does not have faith in the belief that the child will get
nourishment.

        The reader leaves the four vignettes with the understanding of what a difficult
experience Abraham went through. Each vignette ends with Abraham having to have
faith in the fact that God will bring Isaac back. The reader recognizes the importance of a
careful reading of the myth, for he has learned that so much more can be read from the
story thanthe one he heard in childhood. Through the interpellation of the reader as a
subject in the accompanying weaning segments, he can see the various outcomes that
could arise through the trial. The four different readings help the reader recognize that
they themselves could re-tell the story in a multitude of ways once they become the
subject of the trial and investigate it in further detail. The vignettes describe four different
ways that men "can live the relation between them and their conditions of existence"
(FM, 233). The conditions of Abraham's existence is that he is a loving father who loves
his son more than himself, but at the same time he is the believer in God's almighty
power. Seeing these two relations, God demands Abraham to make a choice, for his faith
in God must be above everything else. Those are the two conflicting roles Abraham
perceives himself to be in; loving father and faithful servant. The reality of the trial is that
Abraham has to choose, how Abraham relates to this reality is imaginary. By imaginary
Althusser means not Abarahm's real relation but what he believes his real relation to his
role in existence. This imaginary relation consisting of his thoughts "expresses a will" as
he decides which way to act. Not until the final physical act in the last instance do we
attain the material existence of his ideology. Connecting the fact that the biblical story
reveals nothing except faith in the final physical moment with the various possible
interpretations of the vignette reveals the illusiveness of ideology. Abraham acted through
his ideology, but until we look at the events theoretically we cannot begin to discover his
ideology. In the practico-social function of ideology the ideology becomes indescernable
from the action itself. Through theorizing the factual events of the trial we are left with
Abraham's choice of faith. Still, the reader does not know how he came to believe in that
decision. The Attunement section concludes with a return to the universal man saying
"Yet no one was as great as Abraham; who is able to understand him?" (FT, 49). Through
identification with Abraham, the reader discovers that both his options and his
accompanying decisions are deeply personal. The conclusion of the trial could have been
anyone of the vignettes presented for the explicit reason that they were how Abraham
chose to act. No one guided him in his decisions as no one is guiding the reader in theirs.
The reader comes away from the Attunement with the impression that the trial was much
more difficult than described in the biblical version and occurred on an internal level for
Abraham. The reader is left trying to bridge the gap between the vignettes and the biblical
version. This struggle of the reader relates to the struggle of Abraham for they are both
personal and undefineable.

        The reader is left facing the paradox of Abraham's faith which constitutes the
paradox of faith itself. That is to believe God will not have Isaac killed, though he has
commanded Abraham to kill him. To have both statements become true is not deemed
possible by mankind. Everything that Abraham and the reader know as true points to the
fact that it is not humanly possible for these two events to coincide. Yet Abraham
believed in the absurd and in so doing it became true. That is what his faith is based on.
Kierekgaard and the reader are left in the dark on how Abraham made his decision. They
just know he had faith and made the choice. All Kierkegaard can do is proceed to a
section entitled Speech In Praise Of Abraham. Kierkegaard hails the reader again for he
does not want him to get scared off by the paradox of faith. He says "if at the bottom of
everything there were only a wild ferment, a power that twisting in dark passions
produced everything great or inconsequential; if an unfathomable, insatiable emptiness
lay hid beneath everything, what would life be but despair?" (FT, 49). In being hailed, the
reader is forced to confront the question. Through the tone of the question, Kierkegaard
makes the choice of no God so terrifyingly unappealing that faith is made enticing for the
reader. This leaves the reader little choice other than agreing that there must be a reason
behind everything. If  the reader agrees that there is a reason, then he must believe in that
reason or he would respond to the question negatively. The reader is realizing the
necessity of faith. This brief depiction of a fatalistic world void of God and thus void of
reason is an example of the Christian Ideology Althusser describes when he says "It
emerges that the interpellation of individuals as subjects presupposes the "existence" of a
Unique and central Other Subject, in whose name the religious ideology interpellates all
individuals as subjects" (LP,178-179). Accepting the necessity of faith does not
relinquish the reader from the paradox he faces. For he excepts that there is a reason
behind everything but he cannot explain that reason yet he still chooses to believe in that
reason. Kierkegaard has once again placed the reader in the role of Abraham.

        Once again the reader sees the need for faith and through the vignettes has been
transformed into the role of a searcher for faith. Still he is left facing the paradox of
Abraham.  Since the reader is accustomed to percieving Avbarahma as having the greates
faith of all, Kierkegaard decides to present characteristics that would fall unde the term of
greatness. He does not name Abraham in these examples leaving a void that enables the
reader to imagine himself in that role. Kierkegaard does not want the reader to identify
greatness only with Abraham. Kierkegaard proceeds to define four aspects of greatness.
The first aspect follows the pattern of  "he who loved himself became great in himself,
and he who loved others became great in his devotion, but he loved God became greater
than all" (FT, 50). This relates to the set up of the Attunement. For one can become great
in loving himself which reveals the personal and temporal cahracteristics of the aesthetic
stage. He who loved others relates to the eternal and communal aspects of the ethics
stage. He who loves God relates to the final stage of faith in God. All three stages can be
great but only one is the greatest, Kierkegaard is utilizing repetition to have the reader
recognize the greatness of the final stage of faith. Fueled by the repetition, the
consistency of the order of the stages persuades the reader to recognize that these are
indeed the stages one goes through on his way to faith. The reader is again faced with the
conflict at the end of the Attunement as  the one who is greates is Abraham for he was
"great with that power whose strength is powerlessness, great in that wisdom whose
secret is folly, great in that hope whose outward form is insanity, great in that love which
is hatred of the self" (FT, 50).  The paradox is played over and over again but here
through the analyzation of a spectator. The spectator knows that Abraham was great but
all his actions do not relate to greatness as far as an audience can discern.

        Kierkegaard continues leading his reader along the path of faith as he once again
repeats the story of Abraham, but this time in the ocntext of his whole life so the
greatness of the paradox is revealed.  When he gets to the point of Abraham's trial after
waiting 100 years for a son, Kierkegaard hails the reader by exclaiming " So all was lost,
more terrible than if it had never been! So the Lord was only making sport of Abraham!
Through a miracle he had made the preposterous come true, now he would see it again
brought to nothing. Foolery indeed" (FT, 53). The reader's role is one of questioning the
readings and looking for his own interpretation, so in this instance he should disagree
with Kierkegaard. Just as God is testing Abraham's faith, Kierkegaard is testing the faith
of the reader in coming to his own conclusions on the matter. Having the reader in his
specific role, Kierkegaard realizes that int he face of this paradox, he  may come to the
conclusion that Abraham will be reunited with Isaac in the after-life. Kierkegaard regards
that belief as not worthy of faith for then man would only be waiting for rewards in the
after-life which would mean he would disregard the temporal world. He coerces his
reader by stating "a faith like that is not really faith but only its remotest possibility, a
faith that has some inkling of its object at the very edge of the field of vision but remains
separated from it by a yawning abyss in which despair plays its pranks" (FT, 54).
Kierkegaard returns to repetition and depicts several more outcomes that could have
occured during the trial of faith. Throughout these versions, the reader is continupously
hailed: "You, to whom my speech is addressed, was that the case with you? . . . When
you were called, did you answer, or did you not? Perhaps softly and in a whisper?" (FT,
54-55). The interpellation has altered because the questions now place the reader in the
role of Abraham. It is not would you not have acted like that but now did you or didn't
you. The interpellation of the reader has altered the reader's role. Althusser describes this
as a double action in which  "the existence of ideology and the hailing or interpellating of
the individuals as subjects are one and the same thing" (LP, 175). Now Kierkegaard is
asking the reader to define faith for him.The reader again comes to the paradox of
Abraham's choice, but now the reader is persuaded to draw his own conclusions in
regards to the trial, since the previous interpellation of the reader revealed that the author
does not know the answer. The Speech ends with Abraham's faith in tact and the trial
overcome but Kierkegaard has one final persuasion for his readers and that is that "he will
never forget that in one hundred and thirty years you got no further than faith" (FT, 56).
The reader is reminded that faith is not to be assumed it is to be striven for and it is the
ultimate goal worth any price for those who have it.

        In the Preface and the Epilogue to Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard addresses
how his society values faith in the terms of economics. The ideological apparatuses that
present faith at once become the salesman while the rest of society becomes the
consumers. "When the spice market in Holland was a little slack, the merchants had some
cargoes dumped at sea to force up the porice. . . Is it something similar we need in the
world of spirit?" (FT, 145). The economic analogy reveals the power of the ideology and
that of its ideological apparatuses that are in place, for it becomes a market in which the
product is faith and the consumers must be enticed to purchase that particular brand of
faith. Kierkegaard must attract a consumer that believes he can that believes he
canpurchase faith through both an affordable price and a comfortable undertaking. With
such a market place, the value of faith has diminished. In Fear and Trembling,
Kierkegaard raises the cost of faith and, at the same time, increasing its value but in no
way diminishing its supply. With the text functioning as his ideological apparatus,
Kierkegaard interpellates the reader as the subject in the trial of Abraham. Participating in
Althusser's two-fold definition of the subject, the reader is becomes both the subject and
the subjected. The reader is placed in the role of Abraham and must confront the same
choice as Abraham. Through the pseudonym of Johannes de Silentio and the illusion of
an absent narrator, the reader journeys through Fear and Trembling  as Abraham
journeyed to Moriah, alone. along the same path, the reader learns how to come to faith in
the same manner as Abraham. This makes the bond of faith a unique one for it is between
the individual and God. Faith becomes valuable and available but not reproducible on a
grand scale as Kierkegaard's competitin wouldlike the consumer to believe. Through this
ideological struggle, Kierkegaard transforms his reader's ideology into the on he has  and
that is one of the individual interpretor. As with faith no two ideologies are exact, yet
they are equally valuable to the individual.



WORKS CITED

Althusser, Louis. For Marx. New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1970.

Althusser, Louis. Lenin and Philosophy and other Essays. New York, NY: Monthly
        Review Press,   1971.

Althusser, Louis. Philosophy and the Spontaneous Philosophy of the Scientists.
        London, UK:     Verso, 1990.

Elliot, Gregory, ed.  Althusser: A Critical Reader. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers,
        1994.

The Holy Bible. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1977.

Kierkegaard, Søren. Either/Or Volume II. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
        1944.

Kierkegaard, Søren. Fear and Trembling. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1985.

Levi-Strauss, Claude. Structural Anthropology. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1963.