We have yet to understand our own search for purpose and meaning in life. We see ourselves go through a very rigorous and tormenting mental exercise as we attempt to comprehend what faith really means. We lack the necessary wisdom to provide a very compelling reason about what faith really means because we still continue to wrestle with our own faith and morals.
Furthermore, when some of us decide to leave a certain faith and pursue a more liberal way of accepting our existence as almost significant, we (are able to) separate our ethics from our morals. But this proves to be a little more difficult than one hoped it would be.
Oftentimes, we see ourselves clamor for a much deeper understanding of our own transition. Hence, we turn to the story of Abraham and his sacrifice of Isaac to understand this transition.
His story is perhaps one of the most significant examples of the test of faith because Abraham is seen as a great figurehead of faith and whose example should be followed by all men. In the story, Abraham reasoned carefully about the sacrifice; and as a result, Abraham gained a greater understanding of his mind and will and as well as God’s.
We see Abraham’s struggle similar to what we go through every day. But Abraham’s reasoning far outweighs our own because he strengthened his own faith; and God rewarded him with Isaac in the end. Abraham’s sacrifice, in this case, showed an overriding love for God. His trust in the moral holiness and trustworthiness of God persevered and fulfilled a remarkable promise of greatness no matter how morally suspect the exercise of that will may be.
For some, this mental exercise would appear as doubt, but it was the contemplation of the sacrifice that God required of Abraham. Abraham, while contemplating, “did not act out of a resignation that God must always be obeyed but rather out of faith that God would not do something that was ethically wrong.” (Kierkegaard,). At this instance, Abraham demonstrated the importance of a teleological suspension of the ethical by discounting his ethical standards and went ahead with what God has asked him to do not out of obedience but of trust and faith in God, who will not actually allow Isaac to die.
The true faith of Abraham, in this case, was a faith that God wouldn’t make Abraham kill Isaac.
Is this the same faith that is required of us today?
The mere consideration of this kind of faith could produce anxiety for most of us. The same anxiety that causes us to question our own existence in a world with ethical systems that apparently promotes the welfare of large groups of people. Yet, these ethical systems only achieve certain ends and no one could be certain how to reach those ends; hence, the struggles that one faces in his lifetime.
Faith in God removes uncertainties because it also removes the burden of wrestling with our thoughts alone.
Finally, we could finally accept the idea that we could never really completely grasp our own existence without relying on some form of belief system. Although we have a set of ethical systems that we adhere to, those are firmly grounded on the faith that exists solely between us and our own versions of God.
Reference withheld for Intellectual Property Rights purposes.
No comments:
Post a Comment