Introduction

Kierkegaard’s work contains rich discussions of several virtue terms: faith; courage; trust; patience; gratitude; humility; hope. Several recent interpretations of Fear and Trembling have connected Abraham’s faith with some such related terms; for instance, a series of recent articles by John J. Davenport has treated faith as “eschatological trust,” while Clare Carlisle places courage center stage. I find myself increasingly attracted to the “faith as eschatological trust” reading. My purpose here is to try to complement Davenport’s account, by putting more emphasis than is typical on the role of hope in Abraham’s faith. (Although it plays a significant role in the eschatological trust interpretation, Davenport does not discuss hope in detail.) I aim to flesh this out by reading Fear and Trembling against the background of the 1843 discourse “The expectancy of faith,” one of the discourses in which – as both Robert C. Roberts and William McDonald have noted – Kierkegaard discusses the concept of hope in most detail. Then, after a brief outline of the “eschatological trust” reading of Fear and Trembling, I will discuss two possible objections thereto, arising from “The expectancy of faith.” Both, I will suggest, can be resisted. The second can be addressed by comparing Abraham’s hope with the “radical hope” discussed by Jonathan Lear in his book of that title. This reading will, I hope(!), clarify, in more detail than hitherto, the importance of hope in existential faith. It will also throw some light on what Johannes de silentio calls “the courage of faith,” and why he describes that courage as “humble.”

Hope does not exactly leap off the page as an important theme in Fear and Trembling, and at one point Johannes contrasts faith with a “paltry [usle] hope” (FT 30/SKS 4, 132). The hope that plays a key role in Abraham’s faith must be hope of a particular kind. I shall argue that it is akin to what Kierkegaard in the discourses calls “expectancy” [Forventning].