ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on 19th-century philosopher – Soren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard's biography is reflected in his philosophical quest to establish what it means to be an individual. In such works as Either/Or, Stages on Life's Way, and Fear and Trembling, he describes a process of self-actualization through three stages in life: the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. The horror of World War I, together with the work done by Martin Heidegger in philosophy and Karl Barth in theology, brought Kierkegaard's pessimistic assessment of objectivism to prominence. Today Kierkegaard is acknowledged as the “father of existentialism” and is studied widely. The story of Abraham contains just such a teleological suspension of the ethical. In ethical terms, Abraham's relation to Isaac is quite simply this: the father shall love the son more than himself.
