anguish of Abraham

is the notion that abraham had to determine how he might know that the angel was real and that he was really being addressed and not that he was like a crazy woman who hears voices from God.

This is the anguish that Kierkegaard called 'the anguish of Abraham.' You know the story: An angel commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son... and obedience was obligatory, if it really was an angel who had appeared and said, 'Thou, Abraham, shalt sacrifice thy son.' But anyone in such a case would wonder, first, whether it was indeed an angel and secondly, whether I am really Abraham. Where are the proofs' A certain mad woman who suffered from hallucinations said that people were telephoning to her, and giving her orders. The doctor asked, 'But who is it that speaks to you'' She replied: 'He says it is God.' And what, indeed, could prove to her that it was God' If an angel appears to me, what is the proof that it is an angel... or, if I hear voices, who can prove that they proceed from heaven and not from hell, or from my own subconsciousness or some pathological condition' Who can prove that they are really addressed to me' (sartre 'existentialism is humanism' .pdf)

anguish of abraham, n.All

anguish of abraham