Kierkegaard’s Abraham has a penchant for eliciting criticism from his readers. It is said that Abraham is not true to form, according to the objections. Abraham objects against God’s intended actions towards the Sodomites, but no such objection is noted when God commands that he murder his son Isaac in a sacrifice to himself.
The objections counter the argument that Abraham is a righteous man because he did not refrain from sacrificing Isaac to God when God commanded that he do so. Robert Gordis expands this argument quite well in his paper “Abraham the Father, at Mount Moriah”. Gordis relates the general argument made by many Christian and Judaism faith adherents, Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, exemplified his own faith in God and the nature of his own obedience towards God. However he discounts Abraham’s faith on the account that in at least two other stories taken from the Old Testament Abraham does not act so quickly in regards to a command by God. In Gordis’s version of the story, God tells Abraham about his intents towards the people of Sodom. Contrary to his reaction regarding his son Isaac and God’s command for him to sacrifice him, Abraham attempts to steer God away from this particular action. Abraham upon learning of God’s plans, attempts to convince God to refrain from acting out his intended course of action. Gordis cites Abraham’s pleas towards God in this manner as proof that Abraham is not always the paragon of obedience that many religious authors have made him out to be based on his willingness to sacrifice Isaac. He states that this is proof that Abraham has not always been the obedient paragon of faith that traditional Christian thought has made him out to be.
Gordis was a brilliant intellectual and religious commentator. He devoted his life to social justices and the development of those around him in a way I could only hope to begin to truly understand. Not to mention his knowledge of the Jewish law out shined many of his contemporaries earning him a reputation held in high esteem among many to this day. However, I could not help but notice that it seemed that there were some missing components to this story that I feel should have some significance attached to them. Whether Gordis intentionally left out these details because they were truly unimportant and I am mistaken, I am not sure. However, in my limited vantage, they seem important enough for me at least to mention in the form of a question and hopefully, a poignant one to boot. Therefore I will leave you to determine their supposed importance.
Abraham learned of God’s plans to destroy Sodom from three men who visited Abraham at one of his temporary homesteads. The biblical text is unclear on who these men were, but we know that through some type of relation with them, Abraham had communion with God. The text says that God appeared to Abraham while he sat “at the entrance of his tent”. We are then told that Abraham looked up and saw three men standing near him. When Abraham addresses these men, he calls one of them lord, but it is not capitalized which means that the man whom he spoke to was not God. However, as Abraham is attending to these men, one of them says to him that he will return, and that Abraham’s wife will have a son. At this Sarah laughs to herself at which point the Lord, this time with a capital L takes notice. At this point, the men begin to leave when the Lord, again capital L, asks the other men whether or not he should inform Abraham of his intended actions. His purpose in potentially telling Abraham appears to have to do with Abraham’s future significance. God intends to make Abraham into somewhat of a significant character and therefore he debates whether or not he should include Abraham in on these particular plans. I think that it is important to note that so far, at least in regards to Sodom, there has not been any command uttered. Ultimately, God develops his case to Abraham, but here, it is important to note that God has not specified any course of action yet. He merely tells Abraham that he has concerns for various sins the population of Sodom is committing. He never once tells Abraham that he will destroy the city. The only hint that we get that something might take place concerning Sodom is what God says to the other men. He asks, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do…..?” It is very easy to confuse our knowledge of the events about to take place in Sodom and Abraham’s knowledge. We know what is getting ready to happen in Sodom, but at the time that Abraham makes his plea to God, I personally do not think that Abraham knows. In fact, I am not altogether sure that God himself is committed to any particular course of action. In verse 21, God determines that he must “go and see” whether the situation on the ground is what he thinks it to be.
Another way that we could, I believe, interpret Abraham’s pleas toward God, is in a manner that supposes that Abraham is naively asking God what will happen to the city of Sodom if their sin turns out to be a great as God thinks it might be. It is more plausible that instead of Abraham knowing explicitly what God intends to do to Sodom, he knows what God probably would do if the city’s situation is a bad as it appears to be. Abraham is asking God that if the city turns out to be not as bad as it sounds, what would be God’s next move. In this interpretation, Abraham is asking God to clarify his criteria of what would constitute which actions.
Gordis attempted to show that even Abraham has questioned God’s intentions and that therefore Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac has nothing to do with commandments from God, but rather there must be some other explanation to this story. It would seem to me, that there might be a belief out there that says “if I can call Abraham’s faith into question, then there is much greater justification for doubting my own faith”. This is a good first step into what one might call legitimate doubt regarding belief in God. However what I believe that I have shown here is that this particular question asked by Gordis can be interpreted in another light.
I acknowledge that my version of the story is difficult to not find some objection to it. In the west, we never fail to ascribe to God the trait of omnipotence and so a God that travels about the earth in an attempt to clarify rumors and gather evidence or information is difficult to swallow. I am not attempting to change this perception of God in any way. I honestly do not know how to interpret this portion of the text. I do not know precisely what it means by stating that God is out traveling with two or three other men and that their next stop is going to be to confirm or deny rumors they heard about a particular area. At the same time however, I do know that it is a bit presumptuous to call into question Abraham’s character based on Gordis’s version of this story, making Abraham out to be this rebellious fellow who questions God’s intended actions.
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