505 - The Nuclear Dilemma, With a Nod To Kierkegaard

The Nuclear Dilemma, With a Nod To Kierkegaard
By Robert McFadden

If one will examine closely the account of the Exodus, he will discover that a strong cast wind drove the waters back and allowed the Israelites to cross in safety before the Egyptian troops, ordered out to bring back the fleeing slaves, drowned in their attempt to follow. Their escape, seen in this perspective, was a coincidence of history. But to those who saw the governance of God, the awesomeness and unbelievable nature of what was taking place could not be thus described; rather, the Holy One was bringing about that event the consequences of which could not be understood at the time and the logic of which could never have been deduced from preceding events. Such is the dimension of the miraculous divine activity.

When Hosea's wife could not be faithful to him, the sociologists of the day said that it could be understood in the light of her background as a "priestess" at the high places. But to one who saw the divine governance, the former occupation of Gomer had passed judgment upon itself, and the God of Israel was breaking through to Teveal his love and suffering over his unfaithful covenant people.

To any modern psychiatrist, whose ultimate concern is the new knowledge he has recently discovered, religion is "pleasing father." And no one better illustrates the validity of his proposition than Soren Kierkegaard. But to any who believe in the governance of God, Soren Kierkegaard has etched into history the importance of the individual's faith, the ultimate significance of decision, and the precedence of the vertical dimension of duty.

The Christian faith proclaims that God is ever present and active in the life of the Church, the history of mankind, and the created order. Consciously or unconsciously, every Christian affirms his belief in the divine governance when he asks, What is the will of God for my life and the issues of my epoch?

Most of us are not creative geniuses; we ride on the coat-tails of

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those who have spearheaded the way. The cutting-edge belongs to the few. Often we do not even see the issues involved and would be only too happy if our grandchildren were rightly taught in historical perspective the important issues decided by their forefathers.

Yet whenever we are placed in a situation that calls for decision we are obligated as Christians to respond "for the glory of God and our neighbor's good." When the issue is most crucial, we are the more earnestly commanded to seek the will of God in the spirit of Christ. The events of recent years demand of us that we reconsider an historical perplexity to the Christian Church in the new dimension of the Atomic Age. Some answers are possible now which have been impossible until the present time.

It is the popular assumption of our generation that the existing balance of power between the USA and the USSR preserves peace and prevents war. CORVAIR advertised on the back cover of Time magazine for July 20, 1959, that the Strategic Air Command was the "Underwriter of American Security" and its beneficiaries were "Free People Everywhere." We have learned that "airpower is peace power" and that the airmen of SAC have established that "peace is their profession." Many Christians believe that only as we are militarily powerful shall we be entitled to hold off tyranny and save the freedom of peaceful change.

But at the same time throughout the Church of Jesus Christ there are those who are saying, "The prospect of a future war to be waged with the use of modern means of annihilation has created a new situation, in the face of which the Church cannot remain neutral. . . . Atomic war is incapable of being used for the resolution Of political conflicts because it destroys every presupposition of political resolution."¹- Indeed, only a week before the Time magazine appeared on the newsstands one Christian theologian, L. Harold DeWolf, who in the past has taken a traditional attitude toward war, was saying "The story of blind Samson's suicidal revenge presents a shockingly close parallel to the present defense strategy of the United States. . . . The beginning of a return to sanity can come only when we face the plain fact that nothing can be defended by nuclear bombs, for annihilation is not defense. It is only insane, unchristian, suicidal vengeance. . . . If martyrdom must be endured, we can choose

¹ Documents of the Contemporary German Church Struggle, edited by John H. Yoder (New York: Church Peace Mission, 1959), p.11.

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the forgiving, reconciling love of Christ on the cross, rather than the mad revenge of blind Samson."²

Christians are once again called by God to witness to his power and never-ending activity in the history of his children. The context of the decisions called for is illuminated by Soren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling. His arguments concerning the nature of faith, exemplified in the story of Abraham and Isaac, seem to make the issues raised in the "nuclear dilemma" ring in the reader's ears with more clarity and urgency. The main body of the essay which follows is in its format a serious parody of Soren Kierkegaard's outline for Fear and Trembling.

I. PRELUDE

God said, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains of which I shall tell you."
And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.

(from Genesis, chap. 22.)

The interpretation of Genesis 22 has undergone a radical change in the past century. The historic-cultural method of interpreting the Bible and the accumulating evidence of archeology have brought about significant differences in our understanding of the Scriptures. Our understanding of God's "testing" of Abraham is significantly different from the way in which Soren Kierkegaard understood the story. S. K. took the story at its face value; but for us the exposition by Walter Russell Bowie in the Interpreter's Bible forms the basis for any further interpretation.

Here in the story of Abraham and Isaac there is imbedded the fact that once men not only practiced human sacrifice, but did it at what they thought was divine command. Suppose they did that now? Any man who thought of it, if his thoughts were detected, would be put in a mental hospital. Any man who actually carried it out would be convicted of murder and executed. . . . Why did this story of what was planned to be a human sacrifice get into the Bible? Because it was desired to show that Abraham's devotion to the God he worshiped was capable of going to the farthest point religion could reach. Human sacrifice was an actual custom among some of the

² "Blind Samson or Christ," Lecture given by Dr. L. Harold DeWolf at Garrett Biblical Institute, July 8, 1959, passim.

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Canaanite tribes. It was practiced for centuries. In the time of Elisha, ca. 800 B.C., in a crisis of battles for his capital, the king of Moab "took his eldest son . . . and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall" (II Kings 3: 27).³ If men worshiping pagan deities could carry their religion to that terrific cost, how could Abraham show that his religion meant as much to him? Only by being, willing to go as far as they did. So, in representing what went on in the mind of Abraham, the story has a deep and dramatic authenticity. Here was a great soul living in a crude age. He saw people around him offering up their children to show their faith and their obedience to false gods. In spite of the torment to his human love he could not help hearing an inward voice asking him why he should not do as much; and because that thought seemed to press upon his conscience he thought it was the voice of God. The climax of the story is the revelation that what the voice of God would ultimately say was something completely different from what Abraham in his first agony of acceptance had supposed. The climax is not the sacrifice of Isaac but the word from God that Isaac shall not be sacrificed. . . .⁴

II. A PANEGYRIC UPON ABRAHAM

Surely Abraham must have thought for a long time about what was involved before he actually set out for Mount Moriah. If the Canaanites could sacrifice their first-born to their gods, could Abraham do less for his? Perhaps even Abraham's forefathers, in their polytheistic worship. had sacrificed their eldest children. But the question was now Abraham's.

A familiar hymn reads, "God works in a mysterious way his wonders to perform......... In the intense struggle within Abraham, God was at work. The conflict of loyalty to God and love of his son produced suffering. But in suffering, when all our powers of mind and body are concentrated at one point, especially in the crisis of life and death decisions, God can make himself known to us. And so to Abraham. in the midst of struggle, He spoke.

On the one hand was the obligation Abraham felt to render to God the same degree of devotion evidenced by others around him. On the other hand was his love for Isaac, his only son, born to him in his old age. At the culmination of the struggle on Mount Moriah, the still small voice of God was speaking to him.

³ Dr. Bowie could also have cited Manasseh's sacrifice of his son (II Kings 21: 6), the same deed by Ahaz (II Kings 16: 3), and the sacrifice of Hiel of Bethel, who laid the foundation of Jericho "at the cost of his first-born" according to the prophecy of Joshua (I Kings 16: 34 and Joshua 6: 26).
⁴ George A. Buttrick (ed.), The Interpreter's Bible (New York-Nashville: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1952), Volume 1, pp. 642-646.

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Abraham had gone up on Mount Moriah a believer in human sacrifice; he came down no longer believing that God required human sacrifice of men. His understanding of the value of human life had changed. Surely God was with Abraham on Mount Moriah!

Our human experience too requires us to make decisions. How fortunate we would be and how great would be the measure of faith given by God's grace if we could say after the struggles on our "Mount Moriahs," Surely God was with us. Becoming a Christian involves looking to the example of Abraham in hopes that we too can discern the voice of God.

III. PROBLEMATA: PRELIMINARY EXPECTORATION

Kierkegaard sought to exalt faith, not to dismiss man's ability to think. He thought that faith went beyond or transcended what the thinking of man could prove or demonstrate, but this does not mean that he thought faith was in opposition to man's thought. It was not "believing what isn't true!"

So the believing Christian not only possesses but uses his understanding, respects the universal human, does not put it down to lack of understanding if somebody is not a Christian; but in relation to Christianity he believes against the understanding and in this case also uses understanding . . . to make sure that he believes against the understanding. Nonsense therefore he cannot believe against the understanding, for precisely the understanding will discern that it is nonsense and will prevent him from believing it; but he makes so much use of the understanding that he becomes aware of the incomprehensible, and then he holds to this, believing against the understanding.⁵

The last sentence-paragraph of SK's "preliminary expectoration" also seems to follow this trend of thought: "It is now my intention to draw out from the story of Abraham the dialectical consequences inherent in it, expressing them in the form of problemata, in order to see what a tremendous paradox faith is, a paradox which is capable of transforming a murder into a holy act well-pleasing to God, a paradox which gives Isaac back to Abraham, which no thought can master, because faith begins precisely there where thinking leaves off."⁶

On the other hand, Kierkegaard was very disparaging of Hegelian

⁵ Søren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. by David F. Swenson (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1941), p. 504.
⁶ Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, trans. by Walter Lowrie (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Co., 1954), p. 64. (Underlining mine.)

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philosophy, the dominant "system" of his day. He considered it an obstacle to the Christian faith. It may well be that some of his most cutting remarks against "reason" were directed at what he considered to be Hegel's abstract, unrelated to reality philosophy. One sentence in the early pages of Fear and Trembling reveals here, as elsewhere, his controversy with philosophy (naturally that which he knew in his own day): "Philosophy cannot and should not give faith, but it should understand itself and know what it has to offer and take nothing away, and least of all should fool people out of something as if it were nothing. "⁷

In this same vein of thought, Walter Lowrie comments on the Postscript by writing, " 'The infinitely interested subjective thinker' is contrasted by Climacus with the speculative philosopher who, as he is proud to claim, disinterestedly seeks to ascertain objective truth without any concern about his relation to it."⁸ He later states: "The leap is indeed a decisive choice, and as such it is an expression of the will. But this does not imply an antithesis between the intellect and the will, for the whole man, intellect, feeling and will, is involved in the choice."⁹

The above quotations may modify or mitigate Kierkegaard's position too much; that is quite possible. It is in this spirit, however, that the rest of this paper will be understood.

To attempt to relate the "nuclear dilemma" to SK's paradox of faith may seem slightly ridiculous, but to some I feel sure that the decision to reject nuclear warfare will appear quite irrational. To the extent that this is true, I feel justified in discussing the choice involved within the context of Kierkegaard's paradox of faith. It will be obvious to the reader, however, that a modern interpretation of SK's exegesis of the story of Abraham and Isaac also modifies and Puts into different perspective the "paradox of faith."

In the material that follows, each of the three problems as phrased by Kierkegaard is discussed in three different sections. First, there is a summary of what Kierkegaard himself has said. Secondly, there is an attempt to interpret the problem according to the contemporary exegesis of the story of Abraham and Isaac. Third, there is the attempt to illuminate the choice necessary in the "nuclear dilemma" in a modified framework of Kierkegaard's "paradox of faith."

⁷ Ibid., p. 44.
⁸ Walter Lowrie, A Short Life of Kierkegaard (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1942), p. 171.
⁹ Ibid, p. 174.

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IV. PROBLEM 1: "IS THERE A TELEOLOGICAL SUSPENSION OF THE ETHICAL?"

Kierkegaard answers in the affirmative to each of the three problem-questions that he poses. To understand his answers, some definition of terms is in order.

The ethical as such is the universal, and as the universal it applies to everyone, which may be expressed from another point of view by saying that it applies every instant.¹⁰
As soon as the individual would assert himself in his particularity over against the universal he sins, and only by recognizing this can he again reconcile himself with the universal."¹¹

But this mode of thought does not account for faith as SK has understood it to exist in Abraham. The universal is, "you shall love your son," yet Abraham is commanded to kill his son. Is he thus a murderer? Has he not fallen into sin by asserting his particularity over against the universal? No, for:

Faith is precisely this paradox, that the individual as the particular is higher than the universal, is justified over against it, is not subordinate but superior-yet in such a way, be it observed, that it is the particular individual who, after he has been subordinated as the particular to the universal, now through the universal becomes the individual who as the particular is superior to the universal, for the fact that the individual as the particular stands in an absolute relation to the absolute.¹²

Abraham is absolutely responsible to God. This is his first obedience. The individual takes priority over the universal. This can only mean for SK that "the story of Abraham contains therefore a teleological suspension of the ethical."¹³ And Kierkegaard is anxious to point out to the reader that Abraham was not simply another hero in Greek tragedy.

The tragic hero still remains within the ethical. He lets one expression of the ethical find its telos in a higher expression of the ethical. . . . With Abraham the situation was different. By his act he overstepped the ethical entirely and possessed a higher telos outside of it, in relation to which he suspended the former. For I should very much like to know how one would bring Abraham's act into relation with the universal, and whether it is possible to discover

¹⁰ Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, p. 64.
¹¹ Ibid, p. 65.
¹² Ibid., p. 66.
¹³ Ibid., p. 77.

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any connection whatever between what Abraham did and the universal . . . except the fact that he transgressed it. It was not for the sake of saving a people, not to maintain the idea of the state, that Abraham did this, and not in order to reconcile angry deities.¹⁴

In Canaan it was the "universal" practice to sacrifice one's eldest son as the highest testimony of one's devotion to his god. The author of 2 Kings gives witness to the widespread custom. "He even burned his son as an offering, according to the abominable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel" (II Kings 16: 3).

Was not Abraham the chief patriarch of the Hebrews? Did not he, more than anyone else, have a duty to sacrifice his son to show that his tribe's devotion to their God was equal to the devotion of other tribes?

For Abraham not to sacrifice Isaac, to believe that God speaks differently to him, is to sin against the universal. And to his contemporaries it must have appeared that he had violated the judgment of the race, had gone against the universally accepted rite of religious devotion, and had subjected himself, his tribe, and his God to ridicule and shame.

Yet in our contemporary understanding, this is the only way we can meaningfully describe the paradox of faith for Abraham. More precisely, in his absolute relation to God, Abraham is called to stand over against the universal. That which other men have seen to constitute their highest duty, he finds to violate what God has now disclosed to him. Can the transition be logically deduced? Can the new be understood in light of the past?

Perhaps we need here to speak of "emergence" rather than "paradox," but regardless of semantics, the individual's relation to God remains the primary consideration. Perhaps we need to say that the universal has been transcended rather than suspended, but in either case, Abraham's action reflects his faith in God, and the rationalism of his contemporaries is shown to be void.

Consider the position taken by L. Harold DeWolf. He declares that engagement in or preparation for nuclear war is sin. To say this is to stand against the recognized universal ethic. Has he not "suspended" the universal, the ethical? Or has he fallen into sin by asserting his particularity over against the universal?

¹⁴ Ibid, pp. 69 f.

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Chiseled into the foundation of the Christian-democratic heritage is Patrick Henry's famed declaration in St. John's Church of Richmond, "Give me liberty or give me death!"¹⁵ And in symbolic poetry the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" declares, "As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free. . . ." To die in the defense of one's loved ones, to respond to the call of duty to country, to be willing to sacrifice for good when evil makes that necessary this is the universal.

But when Dr. DeWolf renounces nuclear war and the "Underwriters of American Security" (the USAF Strategic Air Command), he renounces the "unequalled instrument of our national policy to maintain world peace" (from the back cover of Time). Does not this seem in direct opposition to the cherished values and accepted norms of Christian citizenship?

Dr. DeWolf would accept tyranny before he would drop the Bomb on Moscow. He would trust God's activity in the historical process before he would defend freedom in the traditional pattern of his forefathers. He would regard the words of Patrick Henry now to mean sin rather than virtue and courage.

Perhaps this is the meaning of the suspension of the ethical: that each generation must make its response to God and not to the universal. Perhaps this is the paradox: that faith appears utterly ridiculous to the unfaithful.¹⁶

V. PROBLEM II: "Is THERE AN ABSOLUTE DUTY TOWARD GOD?"

For Kierkegaard, if the ethical is universal (binding on all at every instant), and that divine, then every duty would be a duty toward God. But in this usage of terms, "God" signifies the universal ethic and as such is only a tautology. On the other hand:

The paradox of faith is this, that the individual is higher than the universal, that the individual . . . determines his relation to the universal by his relation to the absolute, not his relation to the absolute by his relation to the universal. The paradox can also be expressed by saying that there is an absolute duty toward God; for in this relationship of duty the individual as an individual stands related absolutely to the absolute. So when in this connection it is said that it is a duty to love God, something different is said from

¹⁵ Richmond, Virginia, March 23, 1775, at the second Virginia convention.
^l6 "Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad with power." (One of four lessons of history attributed to Charles Beard, American historian.)

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that in the foregoing; for if this duty is absolute, the ethical is reduced to a position of relativity. From this, however, it does not follow that the ethical is to be abolished, but it acquires an entirely different expression, the paradoxical expression-that, for example, love to God may cause the knight of faith to give his love to his neighbor the opposite expression to that which, ethically speaking, is required by duty.¹⁷

For SK, the story of Abraham and Isaac illustrates this. Ethically expressed, the father should love the son. But the "absolute relation" to God makes the ethical expression relative to the absolute duty of God's command-"sacrifice your son." The absolute duty takes precedence over the universal ethic.

In terms of the universal, Abraham would be a murderer, but in terms of the paradox his act is a sacrifice-because Abraham does not cease to love, although paradoxically his love of God and his love of Isaac are in opposition.

How different is a modern exegesis of Genesis 22! The tension the conflicting pulls-the "paradox"-are all still present. But the duties are reversed! The universally recognized ethic requires that Abraham kill his son as a sacrificial offering. The command of God calls to Abraham to transcend the universal-to emerge to a new understanding to stand forth in opposition to the universal. It is an absolute duty, a duty to God alone; the universally recognized demands are rejected.

The journey to Mount Moriah is one of conflict and struggle. The words to Isaac (that God will provide the sacrifice) are ambiguous, uncertain in their depth, and full of anxious reflection and meditation. Undoubtedly, as 'OK notes, most of the trip was in silence. On Mount Moriah the knife is raised-but never lowered. A ram appears in the thicket-the governance of God-and Abraham, in faith, offers it as the sacrifice instead of his son.

Abraham understands God in a new light. This relationship takes precedence over the unanimous consent of men that human sacrifice is demanded of the gods. (We shall cite the Aztecs and others if we need to prove our point about the "universal ethic!") Abraham can only respond that this is his duty to God, for he does not yet know how history or God shall judge his action. He responded in faith-and if you please, "over 70,000 fathoms!"

Footnote: Have not the presuppositions of this section changed

¹⁷ Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, p. 80.

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from the presuppositions of the first section in the discussion of this second problem? In light of the modern understanding of the story of Abraham, can we say and mean what SK meant when he said that there is a teleological suspension of the ethical? Has not his thesis, at least as it applies to Abraham, been shown now to be in error? Was not the universal superseded rather than suspended?

It would seem that Dr. DeWolf speaks "in faith"-"against the universal"-"of an absolute duty" when he says that engagement in or preparation for nuclear war is sin. The crucial point is not that this is a "vocation pacifism," but that by intention he makes his choice binding on every Christian. And his position has the characteristics of an absolute relation to God, superseding the recognized universal rationale.

The universal declares that any political ethic must be relevant to the situation and responsible to mankind in its implications. One must work within the compromises and the ambiguities of the political structure. Is the situation now reversed? Does our absolute duty to God require that we "draw a line" beyond which we separate ourselves from God?

Dr. DeWolf says that now in the name of justice, love of neighbor and law and order, that we are called upon to cease our involvement as Christians in the preparation for nuclear war. Are we called upon to lay down the very weapons by which our security has been guaranteed (according to some) and by which we have defended the free world? Is justice and civilization according to law now upheld by some other means?

If I understand Dr. DeWolf correctly, he is saying that we cannot be loyal to God as revealed in Jesus Christ and at the same time threaten any of the children of God with "massive retaliation" -regardless of the circumstances. "Love" and "massive retaliation" are not two prongs of a paradox, they are a contradiction-both to men and to God. Thus there is involved an absolute duty to God by temporal or "universal" considerations. The absolute duty requires our faith in God's activity in history in all men, but especially in the Church, and calls us to reject our faith in nuclear weapons as our ultimate source of strength.

Footnote: Although the contemporary existential situation of Dr. DeWolf may look as precarious as the contemporary existential situation of Abraham, I feel sure that Dr. DeWolf would not believe

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that there has been a teleological suspension of the ethical. I think he would say rather that "New occasions teach new duties; time makes ancient good uncouth"-that a new dimension in our understanding of God is emerging on the historic scene and that it supersedes the old.

VI. PROBLEM III: "WAS ABRAHAM ETHICALLY DEFENSIBLE
SARAH, BEFORE ELEAZAR, BEFORE ISAAC?

When we consider again that the ethical is the universal, and that the universal is manifest and revealed, it is evident that concealment involves either sin or a temptation in this frame of reference.

If there is not a concealment which has its ground in the fact that the individual as the individual is higher than the universal, then Abraham's conduct is indefensible. . .¹⁸

Hegelian philosophy would demand that the individual come out of his particularity and identify himself with the universal. But if this is so, Abraham is indefensible.

Examples from Greek tragedy and modern drama are used by Kierkegaard to show that concealment is a common motif in these, but also to show that there is an absolute distinction between concealment in aesthetics and ethics, and concealment in the paradox of faith. In Greek tragedy, fate conceals its workings from the tragic heroes, revealing its purposes in the universal ethic which through suffering the tragic hero comes to recognize. In modern drama which has given up the notion of fate, "When the hero ensnared in the aesthetic illusion thinks by his silence to save another man, then it (aesthetics) requires silence and rewards it. On the other hand, when the hero by his action intervenes disturbingly in another man's life, then it requires revelation."¹⁹

But in both Greek and modern drama, concealment takes place in light of the universal ethic. However, Abraham stands in an absolute relation to the absolute; his action is not that of a tragic hero in an aesthetic role.

Aesthetics permitted, yea, required of the individual silence, when he knew that by keeping silent he could save another. This is already sufficient proof that Abraham does not lie within the circum-

¹⁸ Ibid, p. 91.
¹⁹ Ibid, P. 96.

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ference of aesthetics. His silence has by no means the intention of saving Isaac, and in general his whole task of sacrificing Isaac for his own sake and for God's sake is an offense to aesthetics, for aesthetics can well understand that I sacrifice myself, but not that I sacrifice another for my own sake.²⁰

Abraham's action is defensible only in the paradox of faith. He stands in an absolute relation to God, and this particularity is higher than the universal. He has made the infinite movement of resignation by renouncing his claim to Isaac. "We see then that after making this movement he made every instant the next movement, the movement of faith by virtue of the absurd,"²¹ thus being willing to sacrifice Isaac because of God's demand. Abraham's silence was defensible because only he and he alone could act in obedience to God's demand upon him and no other.

If the crucial issue was human sacrifice, then it is doubtful that Abraham was silent in the way which SK ascribes to him. Perhaps he was silent most of the time-in deep agony over the situation. And perhaps Sarah did share his agony. Perhaps he was relatively silent until he reached Mount Moriah because he himself did not know what the final outcome would be; and his words of "irony" contained no real answer to Isaac's question because he himself did not know what the answer would be. The command of the Canaanite gods was evident: no one could expect prosperity, posterity, and protection (as well as recognition by his neighbors) in this land of milk and honey who did not show his supreme devotion to the gods.

The real solitude of Abraham came after his descent from Mount Moriah; it was the anxiety of trying to communicate to his family, his tribe, and his neighbors the truth and validity of the course of action which he did pursue on Mount Moriah. For on one side, his action has the appearance of extreme egoism, and on the other side his action is in obedience to God's will.²² "The demoniacal has the same characteristic as the divine inasmuch as the individual can enter into an absolute relation to it."²³

The Canaanites (as well as the Hebrews) could well argue that Abraham's action was out of selfishness and not out of obedience to God. One needs only examine the Biblical record to realize how long the proponents of human sacrifice continued to state their case!

²⁰ Ibid., pp. 121 f.
²¹ Ibid., p. 128.
²² Ibid., p. 81.
²³ Ibid., p. 106.

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Demonic or prophetic? It was that question which "silenced" for many years Abraham's ability to communicate.

Christians cannot engage in or prepare for nuclear warfare. Does this arise as the result of selfishness in the face of possible destruction, a sort of last minute grasping for security, or does it arise out of the love of God for his children in which he sheds the light of a new perspective on the context of international events and world history?

The silence (if we may use SK's terminology with different meaning) of Dr. DeWolf is similar to the silence of Abraham after Mount Moriah according to our contemporary understanding: it is the solitude of a position spelled out as a result of obedience to Deity and not obedience to the recognized norm; it is a solitude arising out of the desire to communicate, which desire is thwarted because the action has the ambiguity of being either demoniacal or obedience to the Absolute; it is the solitude of the prophet, the silence of the misunderstood.

The silence is broken only by the Spirit which witnesses within, "Resolve no more to cancel your testimony to Christ by trust in the vengeful bomb."²⁴

VII. EPILOGUE: "IS THERE A TELEOLOGICAL SUSPENSION OF THE ETHICAL?"

The logic of SK's interpretation of Abraham's action leads to an affirmative conclusion.

A contemporary interpretation of Abraham's action destroys the historical foundation of SK's interpretation.

The existential basis of SK's answer no longer exists; we cannot think of other examples to take its place.

An examination of Abraham's action rightly understood and an examination of a contemporary ethical-faith decision leads to a different conclusion in regard to SK's original question.

While the universally recognized ethic is superseded as a result of God's continuing activity in human history, it is never suspended.

There is a leap of faith and a primary duty toward God in crucial choices; these are most evident when the struggle for decision is most intense.

In the nuclear dilemma has appeared the kairos for our epoch; there is only faith or unfaith in response.

²⁴ L. Harold DeWolf, lecture cited, p. 5.