I have been reading Fear and Trembling more. I am surprised (pleasantly) by the repeating of the phrase “paradox of faith” by SK. Ultimately for SK the issue is a question of right ordered relationship. Maybe in Augustinian terms, order love vs disordered love? For SK, the single individual stands before God alone without appeal to the universal (morality). The single individual’s relationship with God is absolute – there is nothing above it, nothing that defines it in terms of action.

So here is a quote:

The paradox of faith then is this, that the single individual is higher than the universal, that the single individual, to recall a now rather rare theological distinction, determines his relation to the universal by his relation to the absolute, not his relation to the absolute by his relation to the universal.

Fear and Trembling

Not by doing the right thing does one become a follower of Jesus but a follower of Jesus does the right thing. And that is the paradox of faith – to live in the tension of absolute relationship.