Teleological Suspension, Abraham, and Existentialism

Introduction: Abraham's Sacrifice and the Ethical Dilemma

The story of Abraham and Isaac is known throughout the world. It raises profound questions that continue to challenge philosophers and theologians alike: Why was Abraham willing to sacrifice Isaac? Was this act of obedience tantamount to murder? How could God command Abraham to take the life of his own son? And, underlying all of these questions, what is the essence of existentialism?

As Kierkegaard once stated, "The story of Abraham contains a teleological suspension of the ethical" (McMahon 1). The story of Abraham and Isaac is fundamentally one of sacrifice. Abraham was willing to offer his son's life because God commanded him to do so. Abraham consented to the act — yet God ultimately intervened, providing a lamb in Isaac's place. These circumstances raise urgent ethical questions: Was Abraham committing murder? How could a moral man consent to kill an innocent child on divine command?

These questions can be meaningfully explored through the lens of existentialism. God's dilemma — placed upon Abraham — challenges us to ask whether the command was ethical and whether Abraham could justifiably take a life. Abraham was, by all accounts, a moral man. He believed in God and desired to follow divine orders. Yet how could he be willing to consider ending his son's life? "Is there a higher 'law' above that which the ethical stage may procure?" (McMahon 1).

Kierkegaard's Teleological Suspension of the Ethical

Søren Kierkegaard addressed his works to "that individual" and used a very personal and impassioned tone to communicate with his reader, "thereby hoping to edify or 'build up' the reader's own sense of his individuality and spiritual fortitude" (Little Blue 1). His underlying belief was the desire to become a truly existing individual — one who turns away from the external world and reflects inward. "This universal that he strives to escape consists primarily of the objective world and, more specifically, objective Christianity" (Seung-Kee 1).

In the story of Abraham, Kierkegaard saw a man who looked past himself and yielded entirely to what God commanded. Abraham was willing to examine the inward self. Kierkegaard believed that those who rejected Christianity on the grounds of conventional ethics were mistaken. In the story of Abraham, he argued that the patriarch "suspended the ethical and became greater than the universal and the traditional morality" (Seung-Kee 1). Abraham's faith led him to offer to sacrifice his son not because he evaluated an "outward task," but because he acted with "constant passionate faith" (Seung-Kee 1). Abraham was not torn between two competing ethical judgments; rather, he set aside conventional ethics entirely and chose to follow the will of his Higher Power.

There is, in this reading, no ethical suspension so much as an ethical revelation on the part of God toward man. Abraham knew the command had come from God, and in that knowledge he obeyed divine authority rather than his own ethical reasoning — recognizing that the ethics of God stand far above the ethics of man (McMahon 2).

Sartre's Existentialism and Human Freedom

Jean-Paul Sartre always held that there are at least two choices available at every moment: life and death. Abraham chose to obey God, willing to surrender his son's life in that obedience. Knowing an all-powerful God, Abraham understood that God could have intervened at any moment; yet he continued to fulfill the divine command, trusting in God's promises.

One of Sartre's core philosophical statements speaks directly to this situation: an act of freedom is any act for which the necessary and sufficient conditions did not exist in the events preceding the action. By offering the sacrifice of Isaac, Abraham may have liberated both himself and his son through the very extremity of the act. Once the offer was made, God was able to set them free — in both a physical and a scriptural sense.

Sartre believed the major problem for humankind was a lack of purpose. He held that human beings should seek to reach beyond themselves toward the divine. Abraham exemplified this striving when he was willing to sacrifice Isaac. As Sartre wrote, "To be a man means to reach toward being God. Or if you prefer, man fundamentally is the desire to be God" (Sartre 14). In this sense, Abraham's act of radical obedience can be read as the ultimate existentialist gesture — a reaching toward the absolute.

Conclusion: Kierkegaard and Sartre on the Inner Self

Kierkegaard's philosophy consistently emphasized turning inward as the path toward authentic selfhood. Abraham, in his willingness to obey God at the cost of every conventional moral standard, embodied this inward turn completely. He did not consult tradition or social consensus; he listened to what his faith demanded. Both Kierkegaard and Sartre, despite the differences in their philosophical frameworks, converged on the importance of individual reflection as the foundation of genuine human existence.

Both Kierkegaard and Sartre believed it was essential to know the inner person and to allow that inner knowledge to guide the search for one's higher purpose. Whether approached through the lens of Christian faith or secular existentialism, the message is consistent: authentic existence requires turning away from external conformity, embracing the depth of individual experience, and recognizing that true meaning is found not in the judgments of others, but within oneself.

"Existentialism and Jean-Paul Sartre." Tameri Guide for Writers.

McMahon, C. Matthew. "Teleological Suspensions?" A Puritan's Mind.

Seung-Kee, Lee. "Nietzsche and Kierkegaard." Drew University.

"Soren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Philosopher." Little Blue Light.

Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness. Trans. Hazel E. Barnes. New York: Philosophical Library, 1956.