Kierkegaard's Four Noble Truths

The puzzling distinction between the temporal and infinite serves as one major aspect of Kierkegaard’s work. Those dividing lines serve as the basis for Religiousness A and Religiousness B. In attempting to distinguish between these two concepts, Kierkegaard utilizes two analogies to flesh out some of the intricate details associated with the two. The definition and distinction between the two forms of Religiousness, and the veracity of those ideas, require further examination.
Before this exploration can be possible, it is important to set the logical paradigm with which Kierkegaard operates. The foundation of that paradigm stems from Kierkegaard’s Four Noble Truths. First, life is naturally unfulfilling. Second, life is in constant conflict

The first of which deals with a knight pursuing a princess, the second with the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac. In his illustration of the young man loving the princess, Kierkegaard explains the characteristics of a knight of faith. Before becoming a knight, the young man had fallen deeply in love with the princess. In his pursuit of love, he decided to become a knight as a means of continuing his pursuits towards the princess. However, it is precisely because of his knighthood that the ability to pursue any romantic interests are forfeited. Kierkegaard speaks to the absurdity and impossibility of the situation as critical to its existence. It is not because the knight is foolish, but because of his faith. Kierkegaard has the knight articulate, “I believe nevertheless that I shall get her, in virtue, that is, of the absurd, in virtue of the fact that with God all things are possible” (50). Insofar as the man becomes the knight as a means of sacrificing the temporal for the infinite, he falls under the Righteousness A expression of resignation. But, on the contrary, his hardline dedication to faith in the absurd would qualify him as Righteousness B. Both actions appear identical and could both fall under the same logical conclusion. Kierkegaard, then, may argue more for the context of an action than the pure rationality of evaluating actions in a vacuum to determine

Abraham’s fervent love for his child is met with his faith in God when he is instructed to sacrifice his son. Without faith, in following through with God’s orders would have made Abraham a mad man. In the temporal world, natural reason would push Abraham away from harming his own child. Abraham’s love for his son should have been enough to abandon any inclination towards harming him. Yet, Abraham is a revered figure in the Christian tradition because of his faithfulness. Here the temporal and infinite worlds clash in a spectacular way. As Kierkegaard puts it, “Abraham contains therefore a teleological suspension of the ethical. As the individual, he became higher than the universal” (65). In this analogy, goodness cannot be a universal, but rather must be subject to the context of the individual. Through faith, all that is good is the God of Truth, rather than the human understanding of goodness. Humans, therefore, can surpass the finite with faith and can become the microphone of their own universal