So, what if the most profound acts of faith,
the ones that truly define belief, are the very
ones that can never, ever be explained? Today,
we're going to jump into the mind of philosopher
Soren Kierkegaard and take a fresh look at one
of history's most troubling stories. And in doing
so, we might just uncover a powerful truth about
the limits of our own words. Okay, let's just
get right to the heart of it, the question that
kicks this whole thing off. So you've got the
story of Abraham, commanded by God to sacrifice
his son Isaac. And on that long three -day journey
to the mountain, he says nothing. Not a word
to his wife, not a word to his son walking right
beside him. I mean, why? That's silence. That's
the real puzzle here. For ages, right, the debate
among scholars has always been about what Abraham
must have been thinking. The general idea was
that the real problem, the big paradox of faith,
had to be some kind of massive contradiction
happening inside his head. Yeah, the traditional
view is that this is a paradox of knowledge,
of belief. I mean, think about it. How could
Abraham possibly believe two completely opposite
things at the exact same time? Number one, God
told me to kill my son. And number two, God promised
that this same son would make me the father of
nations. It just doesn't compute, right? It feels
like a logical impossibility. But what if that
whole debate is just a distraction? What if we've
been focusing on the wrong thing this entire
time? While a really fascinating new analysis
by philosopher Alexei Proshashin suggests that's
exactly what's been happening. And here's the
big shift. The real defining feature of Abraham's
faith isn't what he believes. It's what he can't
communicate. The paradox isn't happening in his
mind. It's happening in his silence. And this
is the crucial part. He doesn't just choose to
be quiet. He fundamentally, literally cannot
explain himself. To really get our heads around
this, we need to look at Kierkegaard's big idea
about human experience. He called them the three
spheres of existence. And, as it turns out, each
sphere has its own unique kind of silence. So,
you can see here how it all breaks down. We've
got the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious
spheres. And just look at how silence evolves.
In the aesthetic sphere, silence is a choice.
It's a secret you could tell if you wanted to.
Move up to the ethical, and silence is a temporary
problem that you must eventually explain. But
when you hit the religious sphere, the silence
becomes absolute. It's something that is fundamentally
incommunicable. Let's start with aesthetic silence.
The best way to think about this is like holding
a winning hand in poker. You're keeping it a
secret to create mystery, maybe a little intrigue.
You could show your cards at any moment. The
power is in the choice to stay silent. Now, when
we get to the ethical sphere, the rules totally
change. Silence here isn't a strategy. It's more
like being a witness on the stand. It's a temporary
state because eventually you are required to
speak up and justify yourself. Think of a tragic
hero like Agamemnon who sacrifices his daughter.
It's a horrible choice, but he can and he must
explain his reasoning to the community using
shared ethical principles. But for Abraham, who
Kierkegaard calls the knight of faith, the silence
is something else entirely. It's not a choice,
and it's not temporary. It's more like a radio
that's definitely picking up a signal from a
faraway station, but all we can hear on our end
is static. The message is real for him, but for
the rest of us, it's completely untranslatable.
This whole idea of an experience that just can't
be translated, well, it has some massive consequences
for how we understand what faith even is. I mean,
Kierkegaard really drives this home. He says
that even if Abraham knew every single language
in the world, he still couldn't talk about this.
It's not about not having the right words. He's
operating in a totally different communicative
reality. He's speaking, as Kierkegaard says,
in tongues. And here's where that contrast just
becomes crystal clear. The tragic hero, Agamemnon,
is great because we can understand him. We can
debate his choice, sympathize with his dilemma.
But the knight of faith, Abraham? He is great
for the exact opposite reason. He is great because
he is beyond our ethical system. His greatness
is found in that singular, private, and totally
silent relationship with the divine. So let's
be really clear. This inability to communicate
isn't a bug, it's a feature. The fact that Abraham's
experience can't be put into words is the very
sign that it's a genuine, profound religious
experience, one that has stepped outside the
boundaries of our normal, everyday world. Okay,
so this is all some pretty heavy 19th century
philosophy. But why does it matter for us today?
Well, it might just completely reframe how we
think about something as modern as interfaith
dialogue. And you know, this isn't just a Kierkegaard
thing. You see this idea pop up across so many
of the world's religions. In Sufism, you have
the concept of fauna, the annihilation of the
self and God. In Kabbalah, there's Devakut, this
intense cleaving to the divine. In Christianity,
there's a whole tradition of prayer that focuses
on what can't be said about God. All of these
point to core experiences that people insist
are ultimately beyond words. This kind of blows
up a key assumption in a lot of interfaith work,
doesn't it? The idea that if we just talk enough,
if we just find the right words, we can explain
everything to each other. But what if the most
essential, the most vital parts of a person's
faith are precisely the parts that can never
be explained in a dialogue? So maybe this points
to a new kind of approach, you know, one that
starts with humility, just acknowledging that
our explanations have real limits, one that values
shared contemplative silence instead of always
needing to talk, and maybe one that focuses more
on action, on witnessing how a faith is lived,
not just how it's described. And all of this
brings us to one final and pretty provocative
distinction that this analysis raises. It's a
potential clash between two ideals that we all
hold in really high regard. Take a look at this
difference between how wisdom and faith get passed
on. Wisdom, you know, it's like a craft. Think
of the ancient Taoist wheelwright. It's hard
to explain in words, but an apprentice can learn
by doing, by watching, by feeling it out. It
can be taught. But Abraham's faith, there's no
apprenticeship program for that. It's a path
that can't be taught or followed. It's one you
have to walk utterly alone. And if we needed
one final clue. Kierkegaard himself published
this book under a pseudonym, Johannes de Silencio,
which literally means John of Silence. It's almost
like he was leaving us a little wink, a hint
that the most important lesson in the book is
the one that could never be written down. And
so this leaves us with a really tough final question
to think about. If wisdom is something that can
be shared and learned by others, but this kind
of faith is absolutely singular and cannot be
communicated, do we ultimately have to choose
one over the other? This whole analysis is based
on a really fantastic article by Alexei Prozheshin
in the journal Sophia. If you want to go deeper
down this rabbit hole, we absolutely recommend
you check it out. Thanks for joining us.