ABSTRACT
The relation to God is structured by the disruptive effect of infinite ethical otherness. God is transcendence who defies representation, and thus defies reduction to being a cipher for the ethical relationship to the other person. The idea of infinity breaks through the orders of objective knowledge and representation, and suggests another dynamic: The idea of infinity is revealed, in the strong sense of the term. We have seen that, for Soren Kierkegaard, the ethical is a category under dispute. The phrase 'ethical realism' invokes the tension. On the one hand, the ethical is the indispensable system of universal norms which constitute our duty. On the other hand, the ethical is the respect for the absolute individuality and otherness of each person, a relationship which cannot be encompassed or determined by rules. Kierkegaard's ethical realism breaks open such pretensions, because it relies neither on a logic of representation nor on one of projection.
