Carlson, Kierkegaard

7/27/2019 Carlson, Kierkegaard

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Journal of the American Academy of Religion LX1I/2Possibility and Passivity inKierkegaardThe Anxieties of Don Giovanni andAbrahamThomas A. Carlson

. . . for the disciple of possibility received infinity, and the soul ofthe other expired in the finite.-S.K.

1 HE FOLLOWING ESSAY will examine the dynam ics of desireand anxiety in the figures of Don Giovanni and Abraham as theyare sketched in Kierkegaard's pseudonymous writings, Either/Orand Fear and Trembling. Rather than envision Don Giovanni andAbraham as opposite extremes in a spectrum of personality typesthat is, the aesthetic and the religious, respectivelythe essay willfocus on their central common trait: both stand in a relation ofincommensurability to the universal realm of the ethical.Using insights from The Concept of Anxiety, we will elucidatethe roles of desire and anxiety in such relations of incommensura-bility. As stylized by the pen s of Victor Eremita a nd Joha nn es deSilentio, Don Giovanni and Abraham will be seen to embodydesires and anxieties that occur through differing con figuratio nsof place and time. In our comparative analysis of such configura-tions, we will show that topicality and temporality themselves aredetermined through their relations to language and it s limits. Suchrelations both condition and are conditioned by the passions ofdesire and anxiety.In Either/Or an d Fear and Trembling, we encounter a peculiarbrilliance of Kierkegaard's pseudonymous authorship, whichdem ands th at Don Giovanni and Abraham differ m ost there w hereThomas A. Carlson is a Ph.D. candidate in Theology at the University of Chicago, The Divin-ity School, 1025 E. 58th Street, Chicago, IL 60637.

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462 Journal of the American Academy of Religiontheir simila rities prove greatest. These po int s of differing-similar-ity center precisely around the dynamics of desire and anxiety.Thus, our distinctions between these figures of the aesthetic andthe religious will be only as strong as, on the one ha nd, o ur demar-cation of their similarities and, on the other hand, our analyses ofdesire and anxiety. In this essay, we seek to draw out those simi-larities in order to free the play of such difference and, thereby, todefine m ore clearly the multiple roles of desire an d an xiety in sp iri-tual existence.

As their names suggest, Eremita an d de Silentio meditate uponthe desolate, the solitary, the secret, and the silent. In fascin ationand horror, each is transfixed before a figure who eludes the medi-ation of language, who defies the ethical demand for disclosure ofthe inward, and who resists translation of the individual into theuniversal. While Don Giovanni and Abraham equally defy thereflective realm of the ethical, they do so along two differentangles. Nevertheless, these different relations of incommensurabil-ity occur in conjunction with a common anxiety: Don Giovanniand Abraham alike suffer the infinity of freedom's possibility, theanxiety of being able.

In our a nalysis, such possibility will be seen as radical: itsessence is not to exhaust itself in the passage to actuality, butrathe r to remain ever possible. This redoubled possibilitythe pos-sibility of possibi lity itselfinsinuates the "object" of anx iety. Theobject of anxiety, as opposed to that of fear, cannot be fixed ordefined. Strictly speaking, it remains infinite; it marks a "noth ing"that by definition ca nnot be secured or tied dow n. At the sametime, the object of anxiety is integral to spiritual existence as such,and it signals the irreducible restlessness thereof. Undoing ties ofsecurity, such a nothing creates a double-bind: it hollows thespace of desire within which one cannot restfully dwell and out ofwhich one cannot fully pass.The desires of Don Giovanni and of Abraham are passionate:they engender suffering and attest a fundamental passivity thatindw ells every pow er. The finite object of Don Giov anni's desirethe seduc tion of womendemands infinite repetition. Infinitelymultiplying the objects of his desire, Don Giovanni finally attestshis fundamental failure to secure those objects. Don Giovanni'sdesire is disordered to the extent that he infinitely desires thefinite. By con trast, Abraham finitely de sires the infinite. His de sireissues in the concrete relation of himself, a finite individual, to the


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46 4 Journal of the American Academy of Religionchaos, a dreadful nothing" (EO:49; my stress). The anxiety thatunderlies the aesthete's lyrical thought springs from his relation tothat power which is excluded from the field of language, or fromthe realm of mediation. Precisely because anxiety issues in a rela-tion of exclusion, the "object" of anxiety is impossible to locate.The horr or, fascination and anxiety engendered in Johann es deSilentio's relation to Abraham are no less gripping . Significantly,de Silentio approaches this singular individual, whose very exist-ence sha tters systematic thought, via a "Dialectical Lyric" the subti-tle of Fear and Trembling. Luce "The Immediate Erotic Stages" inEither/Or, Fear and Trembling stages an impossible relationbetween language and the lyrical; die lyrical eludes language anddevastates dialectical reflection. This relation, in turn, enrapturesthe observer and leaves him to shudder. The one who hears thestory of Abraham and who craves to accompany him en route toMoriah is absorbed with "the shudder of die idea" (FT:9). As inthe aesthete's ecstatic lyrical thought, in the dialectical lyric of Fearand Trembling, the quaking of the idea remains outside thought,unstable and uncontainable.

The stages elaborated in the diree Problemata of Fear an d Trem-bling approach Abraham only tangentially, by analogy, precisely inorder not to comprehend him. Indeed, highlighting Abraham'sincomprehensibility, diey offer the measure of a deviation: "theywere described, while being demonstrated each within its ownsphere, only that in their moment of deviation they could, as itwere, indicate the boundary of the unknow n territory" (FT: 112).Abraham eludes his observer jus t as Don Giovanni eludes the aes-thete. From within the language of thought, one can only (fail to)speak the boundary, margin or limit where Don Giovanni andAbraham deviate from speech and conceptualization.As noted above, Don Giovanni and Abraham both suffer theanxiety of the possibility of being able. Our interpretation of suchanxiety is grounded upon two simple observations whose signifi-cance will unfold in what follows. First, contrary to what the cas-ual glance might discern, for Don Giovanni, incarnation of thesensuous principle itself, the sexual relation does not take place.This fact indicates what might be termed die impossibility of diepossible. The objects of Don Giovanni's desire are multiplied infi-nitely: in die measure that he finds each and every woman desira-ble, he sees all as possible. However, to die extent diat relation bydefinition must concretize and finitize itself, such an infinite exten-


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Carlson: Possibility and Passivity 465sion of the possible defers any actual relation. This obse rvationwill call for con textual definitions of relation and place, and it willrequire that we show in what way Don Giovanni's temporality, top-icality, and language disallow any concrete relation.Secondly, concerning Abraham: on Mount M oriah, the cu t doesnot take place. This observation points to what might b e called thepossibility of the impossible. The impossibility that Abrahm mightat one and the same time sacrifice Isaac and receive him backbecomes possible. The impossibility of Abraham's desire becom espossible in and through his absolute relation to the absolute. Thisobservation will demand attention to the temporality, topicality,and language of Abraham and an elaboration of how these are tiedto his absolute relation widi the absolute.Now, for Abraham "faith is a passion (FT:67). Abraham enacts"the power to concentrate the whole substance of his life and themeaning of actuality into on e single desire" (FT:42-43; my stress).Unlike Don Giovanni's desire, which is dissipated in multiplicity,the desire of Abraham is singular and decisive. His temporality iscorresp ondin gly concrete. By contrast to Don Giovanni, wh o fliesfrom conquest to conquest, Abraham "only creeps along slowly"(FT: 77). These are the elements of Abraham 's anxiety: the pa ssionof faith, the sing ularity of desire, and the utterly con crete tem poral-ity of a lifetime's waiting, a three day walk, and the decisivemoment where Abraham must draw the knife.

In his sketch of Abraham, de Silentio seeks to criticize andamend the interpretation wherein "what is omitted from Abra-ham 's story is the anxiety" (FT:28). His anxiety is no t incid ental toAbra ham 's religious experience, it is essential. Ab raha m's is not afaith that renders his task a light one but rather "the faith thatmakes it difficult for him" (FT:30). To forget his anx iety is to loseAbraham altogether. We lose him when "We do not kn ow anythingabou t the anxiety, the distress, the paradox" (FT :63). Only in rec-ognizing Abraham's particular anxiety can de Silentio's outlineaccommodate the religious contours of Abraham's dilemmawhichis to live a contradiction. It is precisely such con tradic tion thatcharacterizes spiritual existence and its essential anxiety. Thos ewho would deny Abraham's anxiety would render him spiritlessand thereby fall into ethical misunderstanding or "aesthetic flirta-tion with the result" (FT:63).

To rush straightaway to the result of Abraham's life, to breath asigh of relief and reiterate that one was certain all along that he


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Carlson: Possibility and Passivity 467spiritual trial [Anfoegtelse], for he has no higher expression of theuniversal that ranks above the universal he violates. (FT:60)Before the universal, Abraham stands without app eal. UnlikeAgamemnon's sacrifice of Iphigenia, Abraham's sacrifice of Isaacserves no purpose within a higher ethical teleology: "The differ-

ence between the tragic hero and Abraham is very obvious. Thetragic hero is still w ithin the ethical. He allows an expression ofthe ethical to have its telos in a higher expression of the ethical"(FT:59). Ethically, Abraham is not a hero but a murderer. "By hisac t he transgressed the ethical altogether and had a higher telosoutside it, in relation to which he suspended it" (FT:59). Therebeing no higher ethical purpose by which Abraham might justifyhis transgression of the universal, the murder of Isaac appearspurely gratuitous.To explain himself ethically becomes for Abraham the greatesttemptation. Such temptation marks the very tension of his life.And from such tension, Abraham knows no relief, for "the reliefprovided by speaking is that it translates me into the universal"

(FT: 113). In this light, Abraham's anxiety can be seen as untrans-latableor more precisely, as the dilemma of the untranslatableitself. It is not simply lack of disclosure, but the impossibility ofdisclosure that engenders anxiety. Abraham's life spells a cryptictext, it is "like a book under divine confiscation and never becomespublice juris [public property]" (FT:77). Abraham is radically soli-tary, irreducibly private. The interiority of his rela tion to the Abso-lute does not and cannot have disclosure as its greater end andconsummation. Abraham does not stand as a "model" of faith thatenthusiastic observers m ight seek to follow. Much rath er, he indi-cates that each and every movement of faith can be undertakenonly by the particular individual as particular.In tracing the parallels and divergences betw een the anxieties ofAbraham and of Don Giovanni, one must juxtapose two differentforms of inwardness. While Abraham suffers the passion of beingunable to speak, Don Giovanni cannot speak the passion he suf-fers. The "total infinitude of passion" (EO:107) in Don Giovannicannot be heard as articulate speech, but only immediately inmusic, the sole medium adequate to the power of sensuousness.Immediate by definition, Don Juan's power can bear no articula-tion, externalization, or reflection in language. To this extent hispower remains an inwardness: "Don Juan is an inner qualificationand thus cannot become visible or appear in bodily configura-


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46 8 Journal oj the American Academy of Religiontions" (EO:10 6). Unlike that of Abraham, however, the inw ardnessof Don Juan is not the concrete inwardness of an individual, butthe abs tract in ward ness of a power. "In its lyricism, it is a force, awind, impatience, passion, etc." (EO:56). An impatient passion,the inwardness of Don Juan issues in the quickness of his tempo,the flight of the mom ent. His immediacy only come s to expressionin the force of mus ic. A passion ate patien ce, Abraham 's inward-ness issues in the length of his waiting, the slowness of his walk,and the sing ular presence of the momen t he draws the knife. Hissolitude comes to expression only in silence. Thus Don Giovanniand Abraham mark two inward qualifications, two temporalities ofthe moment, two instances of anxiety whose similarities highlighttheir difference.

Overwhelm ing sound and overwhelming silence, Don G iovanniand Abraham both defy formulation in the universal language ofthe ethical. To this extent, they border up on th e demonic . As deSilentio remarks, to come up against the paradox that cannot bemediated ethically is to come up against "the divine and thedemonic, for silence is both" (FT:88). From without, silence canappear either as entrapmen t by the demon or as "divinity's mutu alunderstanding with the single individual" (FT:88). The observercann ot distin guis h one silence from the other. Like Ab raham 'ssilence, Don Giovanni's music can be seen as demonic, for musicappears "as the art Christianity posits in excluding it from itself, asthe medium for that which Christianity excludes from itself [thesensuous] and thereby posits. In other words, music is thedemonic" (EO:63-64). Abraham's silence can figure as demonic inthat it defies transposition within the universality of language; DonGiovanni's musical sensuousness figures as demonic because it isconstituted in and through its very exclusion from the realm ofspirit.

The demonic in both cases indicates an ambiguous force thatrelates to the universal only as excluded therefrom. As theexcluded, the demonic would always stand in a relation of anxietybefore the unive rsal, the ediical, the realm of spirit, the good. Theanxious force of the demonic consists precisely in the tensionbegotten by this relation/exclusion. The ambiguity of the relatio n/exclusion signals the present absence and the absent presence ofanxiety . For Abraham , the anxiety of his paradox ical relation tothe divine lies in the silence which th at relation imposes. Don Gio-vann i is also essentially characterized by anxiety. His life is "the


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Carlson: Possibility an d Passivity 469full force of the sensuous, which is born in anxiety; and Don Gio-vanni himself is this anxiety, but this anxiety is precisely thedemonic zest for life" (EO:129; my stress). The anxieties of Abra-ham and of Don Giovanni clearly tend toward opposite extremes ofthe spiritual synthesis that is man. In order further to un ders tandthese anxieties, we turn to an analysis of that synthesis.

Insofar as anxiety inevitably engenders sleeplessness, it wouldbe appropriate to juxtapose the anxieties of Don Giovanni and ofAbraham according to the wakeful perspective of VigiliusHaufniensis, author of The Concept of Anxiety. According toVigilius, the experience of anxiety arises integrally with the syn-thetic constitution of man, and from the manner in which, consti-tuted as such, man relates to himself.That anxiety makes its appearance is the pivot upon which every-thing tu rns. Man is a synthesis of the psychical and the physical;however, a synthesis is unthinkable if the two are not united in athird. This third is spirit. (C:43)

Man experiences anxiety because he consists in a synthesis ofbody a nd psyche mediated by spirit. Insofar as m an is ma n on lythrough such a synthesis, he cannot but experience anxiety. Themore forceful the movements of spirit, the more intense the anxi-ety, for anxiety is the very mode of spirit's self-relation: "How d oesspir it relate itself to itself and to its conditionality? It relate s itselfas anxiety" (C:44). Anxiety issues in the gaps of tension betweenthe elements of this synthesis. To order the relatio n of these ele-ments is the very task of the synthesis, and as suchas a task thatturns on a contradictionthe movements of the synthesis open thespaces of possibility that are the spaces of anxiety.The psychic-somatic synthesis is further''defined throu gh its

transposition into the synthesis of the temporal and the eternalwhich also characterizes spiritual existence. "The syn thes is of thetemporal and the eternal is not another synthesis bu t is the expres-sion of the first synthesis, according to which man is a synthesis ofpsyche and bod y that is sustained by spirit" (C:88). In wh at way isthe synthesis of the temporal and the eternal a second, and neces-sary, expression of the psychic-somatic synthesis? Precise ly in th atit is a synthesis mediated by spirit. That the synthesis of psycheand body occurs via the work of spirit introduces the concept ofeternity into that synthesis:


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47 0 Journal of the American Academy of ReligionThe synthesis of the psychical and the physical is to be posited byspirit; but spirit is eternal, and the synthesis is, dierefore, onlywhe n s pirit posits die first syndiesis along widi die second syndie-sis of die temporal and die eternal. (C:90)

To recognize diat man's existence is spiritual is to recognize notonly that he consists in both m ind and body, but also that, as such ,he necessarily emb odies the very contradiction of the temporal anddie eternal.A passage from a draft of the Concept clarifies the relationbetween body-psyche, on the one hand, and time-eternity on theodier: "The individ ual is sensuou sly qualified, and as such he isalso qualified by time in time; but he is also spirit, i.e., he is tobecome spirit, and as such, the eternal" (C : 196-97). For the con-cerns of this essay, the temporal-eternal aspect of man's syntheticexistence becomes significant precisely to the extent that the intro-duction of eternity marks the introduction of future-oriented possi-bility, of which the primary coordinate is anxiety:

Whenever die eternal touches die temporal, die future is diere, for,as stated, this is die first expression of the eternal. Just as in diepreceding, spiritsince it was established in die syndiesis, or,radier , since it was abou t to be establishedappeared a s freedom'spossibility, expressed in the individual's anxiety, so the future isnow die eternal's possibility and is expressed in die individual asanxiety. (C : 196-97)In distinguishing Don Giovanni and Abraham, it is not a questionsimply of posing sensuous aestheticism against spiritual religion,for both Don Giovanni and Abraham are qualified in relation tospirit. Dis tinction s between the two must be made at the level oftheir respective relations to the psychic-somatic synthesis, and inturn , to that of the temporal and the eternal. This mean s that dis-tinctions must be made concerning the modes of their respectiveanxieties with regard to possibility.Because spirit is syndietic, one cannot speak of die sensuouswithout setting it in dynamic tension with die psychic and viceversa. To app roac h Don Giovanni, clearly, one m ust stres s die sen-suous aspects of his existence. As die aesthete points out, DonGiovanni's love "is sensuous, not psychical, and, according to itsconcept, sensuous love is not faithful, but totally faithless; it lovesnot one but allthat is, it seduces all" (EO:94; my stress). Abra-ham's love, by contrast, tends toward the psychical, which loves theindividual. To approach Abraham, one should bear in mind the


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472 Journal of the American Academy of Religiontory and co incide ntal. Of man qualified as spirit Vigilius writes:"Flee from anxiety, he cannot, for he loves it; really love it, he can-not, for he flees from it" (C:44). The ambiguity of anxiety's rela-tion to its "object" (or lack thereof) also informs desire's relation toits object.

Desire's double-bind assumes inverted forms in Don Giovanniand in Abrah am. Don Giovanni can love wom en only in sacrific-ing their concrete individuality; Abraham can sacrifice the concreteindividu al Isaac only in loving him. The ostensible victory of DonGiovanni over "all" women "is actually destitution" (EO:94),whereas Abraham's imminent loss is actually his infinite gain.However, insofar as the desires both of Don Giovanni and ofAbraham remain bound with the force of anxiety, what is simulta-neously feared and loved in either case cannot be a definite object.To repeat Vigilius' distinction between anxiety and fear, anxiety "isaltogether different from fear and similar concepts that refer tosomething definite, whereas anxiety is freedom's actuality as thepossibility of possibility" (C:42). This redoubling of possibility

the possibility not of a particular act or actuality, but of possibilityitselfenfolds a space wherein we might imagine the nothing thatbegets anxiety. Precisely this nothing would open the con dition ofpossibility for possibility itself. In precisely this sense one mightsee that "Freedom is infinite and arises out of nothing" (C:112).While Don Giovanni's furious movements mark an infiniteexpectation within the finite realm of the possible, they in factattest the human impossibility of consummating a desire such ashis. To this extent, Don Giovanni's passion signifies the impossi-bility of the possible. Abraham's passion issues in a nearly perfectinversion of Don Giovanni's relation to the possible/impossible.Abraham hopes within a hope according to which the impossible

itself is expected as possible: "One became great by expecting thepossible, another by expecting the eternal; but he wh o expected theimpossible became greatest of all" (FT: 16). Don Giovanni's mad-ness would b e his infinite pursuit of earthly delights; his conq uestsare propelled by the sheer power of the sensuous. Abraham 's mad-ness would be the singular struggle with himself; he confronts Godin his own powerlessness: "Thus did they struggle on earth: therewas one who conquered everything by his power, and there wasone who conqu ered God by his powerlessness. [. . .] Abraham wasthe greatest of all by that power whose strength is powerlessness. . ." (FT: 16). Abraham's power rests in that powerlessness which


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Carlson: Possibility and Passivity 473believes the impossible to be possible; Don Giovanni's powerless-ness rests in that power which believes the possible to be possible.In the end, Don Giovanni's power betrays an impo tence: DonGiovanni cannot no t seduce, for by essence he is nothing other thanthe pu re force of seduction. Abraham 's power, on the oth er handthe power by which he can sacrifice Isaac in absolute relation tothe absoluteis inverse to that of Don Giovanni, for it rests upon afundamental capacity not to exercise his power, the capacity not tosacrifice Isaac: "At every moment, Abraham can stop" (FT: 115).Abraham's power rests at every moment upon the capacity no t topa ss to the act. The horror of Abraham 's power lies not in the factthat he is able to do, but more fundamentally in the fact that he isable not to do that task which beckons, and which he steadilyapproaches. The horror of Don Giovanni's power is that he is notable not to do that which beckons, and which he can onlyapproach in flight. Don Giovanni and Abraham m ark two powersand two modes of impotence. Don Giovanni's power is his impo-tence, "Abraham's impotence his power. Don Giovan ni em bod iesthe infinite impossibility of the possible; Abraham executes theinfinite possibility of the impossible. The temporal determinationfor both these modes of possibility can be situated in the moment,where time and eternity touch.

In juxtaposing Don Giovanni and Abraham, we attempt toapproach their anxieties via the relations thereof to possibility.Vigilius Haufniensis insists that the nothing of anxiety is awakenedin Adam and in every subsequent individual as "the anxiou s possi-bility of being able" (C:44). This possibility is anxious in the verymea sure th at it has no object. In the first stirrings of possibility,the individual "has no conception of wh at he is able to do " (C:44),he simply knows that he can. The middle term by which onepasses from this "can" to its actualization is anxiety (C:49).In Abraham's case, we see that it is indeed his awareness ofpossibility that engenders anxiety. Abraham can, in one and thesame movement, offer sacrifice to God and commit the murder ofhis son. Again, this ability only stands out against the ability no t togo to Moriah, the capacity no t to draw the knife. The power ofAbraham, issuing from the capacity not to exercise his power,stan ds in relation to God's omnipotence. It is only in relation toGod th at Abraham believes that all is possible. Thi s belief, how-ever, includes n o assurance that all will be well: "No , in po ssibilityall things are equally possible, and whoever has truly been brought


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474 Journal of the American Academy of Religionup by possibility has grasped the terrible as well as the joyful"(C:156; my stress). God can demand Isaac's sacrifice, and at thesame tim e he can give Isaac back. But to see only one side of Go d'spower by assum ing from the beginning that Isaac will be retu rnedis to eliminate the anxiety that all truly is possible. Abraham's anx-iety lies in the acute awareness that, indeed, all things are equallypossible.Don Giovanni's anxiety, by contrast, remains substantial, neverattaining the degree of self-reflexivity that does Abraham's. DonGiovanni nevertheless does suffer the anxiety of possibility. Themultiplicity of Don Giovanni's conquests indicates that he doesnot desire individual women, nor their concrete love; rather, hedesires the desire of women as suchboth his desire for womenand wo men 's desire for him. Don Giovanni desires not any partic-ular seduction, but the endless possibility of seduction as such. Tothis extent, his infinite desire remains undefinedendless but notabsolute. The possibility according to which Don Giovanni orientshimself does not take place in the fullness of time.

To repea t: "The possibility is to be able" (C:49). In his critiqueof Hegelian logic, Vigilius contends that die one unquestioned pre-supposition of the system is transition, die very driving force of thesystem for which the system itself cannot account.. . . there is no embarrassment at all over the use in Hegelianthought of the terms "transition," "negation," "mediation," i.e., theprinciples of motion, in such a way that they do not find theirplace in the systematic progression. If this is not a presuppo sition,I do not know what a presupposition is. (C:81)

In an effort to account explicidy and concretely for the category oftransition, Vigilius evokes anxiety as the middle term between pos-sibility and actuality. The move from possibility to actuality is nota quantitative logical progression, but a qualitative existential leapfrom one state to the next, a leap whose precondition is anxiety.Anxiety neither necessitates nor explains the leap causally, butremains nonetheless diat widiout which the leap does not takeplace.

As the precondition of transition, anxiety is a category neitherof freedom nor of necessity:In a logical system it is convenient to say that possibility passesover into actuality. However, in actuality it is no t so conv enient,and an interm ediate term is required. The intermed iate term is


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Carlson: Possibility and Passivity 475anxiety, but it no more explains the qualitative leap than it canjustify it ethically. (C:49)

From this text, one might understand the middle term, anxiety, toindicate a possibility whose potential conserves itself in the passageto actuality: it is the cond ition of possibility for every new actual-ity that itself does not become actual. In this sense, it bot h is andis not (see C:45). Always present as the possibility of a new state, itis a precondition but not a cause, and die new state that it allowscann ot be derived from it (see C: 114-115). To this extent, prop erlyspeaking, anxiety does not take place. In other words, the co nditionof possibility for that which takes place does not itself take place.Since the "object" of anxiety can not b e placed or loc ated, it is, liter-ally, atopos: out of place, put of the way, it is strange, od d, absurd.The atopia of the "object" of anxiety renders lyrical thoughtecstatic.

As the third term in the passage from possibility to actuality,anxiety has its own extra-temporal temporality, the m om ent. Theanxiety engendered by the psychic-somatic synthesis finds its tem-poral counterpart in the moment, where time and eternity touch."In the individual life, anxiety is the mo ment . . ." (C:81 ). Thepsychic-somatic synthesis and the synthesis of the temporal andthe eternal are connected in the moment. The extra-temp oral cate-gory of the moment is crucial to the distinction between logicaltransition from possibility to actuality and transition for the partic-ular individual within the realm of historical freedom. "Therefore,"notes Vigilius, "when Aristotle says that the transition from possi-bility to actuality is kinesis [movement], it is not to be understoodlogically but with reference to historical freedom" (C:82 ). A pas-sage deleted from the final copy of the Concept indicates the man-ner in which the moment of transition between possibility andactuality can itself be located neither in possibility nor in actuality:"Aristotle himself defines kinesis more precisely: It belongs neitherto possibility nor to actuality" (C:195). That which rests betweenpossibility and actuality is the quasi-temporal moment, whichremains atopos.Vigilius looks to the "imaginatively constructing dialectic" ofPlato's Parmenides to illuminate this uncanny precondition ofmovement that itself does not "take place:"It is assumed both that the one (to hen) is and that [it] is not, andthen the consequences for it and for the rest are pointed ou t. As aresult, the moment appears to be this strange entity (atopon [that


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47 6 Journal of the American Academy of Religionwhich has no place), die Greek word is especially appropriate) tha tlies between motion and rest without occupying any time, and intothis and out from this that which is in motion changes into rest,and that which is at rest changes into motion. (C:83; my stress).

Vigilius emphasizes the strangeness of this entity that has no placeby indicating the particular appropriateness of the Greek atoposwh ich itself links the place-less or the out of place with th e stran ge,the absurd, the marvelous, the disgusting, etc. Importantly, thatwhich does not take place likewise occupies no time. It cannot beconceived within the successions of present presence.Why does Vigilius take such pains to recall the thought of theGreeks? Simply, and im portan tly, because he finds in the Greeksan estimation of non-being which the mode rns have lost, and suchnon-being is related integrally to this spatio-temporal oddity of themom ent. Temporally construed, non-being would fall und er thecategory of the moment ". . . one should keep in mind that themom ent is non-being unde r the category of time. Non-being (to meon; to henon [that which is not; the empty] of the Pythagoreans)occupied the interest of ancient philosophers more than it doesmodern philosophers" (C:82). Not only is the thought of non-being essential to an understanding of the moment, but it alsounderlies (though often being forgotten) fundamental Christianconceptions of genesis, history and ontology.Around die category of non-being and its temporal qualifica-tion in the moment are bound the cluster of affectspassion,desire, and anxietythat remain fundamental to any characteriza-tion of Don Giovanni and Abraham.

The Christian view takes the position that non-being is presenteverywhere as the nothing from which things were created, as sem-blance and vanity, as sin, as sensuousness removed from spirit, asthe temporal forgotten by the eternal; consequently the task is todo away with it in order to bring forth being. (C:83)To appreciate the marvel that creation issues from nothing is torecognize the irreducibility of non-being in human life, and hencethe inevitability of desire, anxiety, and every possibility that thesewould imply or allow. In human terms, the task of bringing forthbeing is always yet to be effected. In this light one mig ht u nde r-stand diat anxiety is not simply an anxiety of possibility orientedtoward the future, but equally an anxiety abo ut the past. Because"subjectivity is not completed all at once" (C:197), the incomplete,fragmented subject is necessarily the anxious subject indwelt by


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Carlson: Possibility and Passivity 477non-being. The emptiness of non-being allows that future-orientedanxiety may also be past-oriented, and this emptiness is figured interms of possibility:

The past about which I am supposed to be anxious must stand in arelation of possibility to me. If I am anxious about a past misfor-tune, then it is not because it is in the past but because it may berepeated, i.e., become future. (C:91)The incompletion of the past is inevitably repeated in the future.The possibility of repetitionboth repetition's possibility and thepossibility that necessitates repetitionsignals the future-orienta-tion of anxiety abou t the past. The non-being ou t of wh ich pastcreation springs returns in the future as the nothing of anxiety.In the Concept, the eternal is to be understood not so much inits opposition to time in general but more specifically in its opp osi-tion to the moment. "Here again the importance of the mom entbecomes apparent, because only with this category is it possible togive eternity its proper significance, for eternity and the momentbecome the extreme opposites ..." (C:84). The significant differ-ence between the eternal and the moment, however, only appearsthrough the parallels between the two. Both the moment and theeternal are abstracted from the framework of time as a successionof past, present, future. The difference between the two arises inthe connection of sensuousness with the moment and of spiritwith the eternal:

The moment signifies the present as that which has no past and nofuture, and precisely in this lies the imperfection of the sensuouslife. The eternal also signifies the present as that which has nopast and no future, and this is the perfection of the eternal. (C:87)The moment is the paradox of the instant: it neith er is nor is not(present), but presents itself in already having fled. The p resen tpresence of the instan t cannot be sustained in time. Like the blinkof an eye (oiblikkef), the moment is no sooner present than gone;indeed, it presents itself only insofar as it is gone. He nce the para-doxical character of the moment: it is never fully p rese nt, and yet,like the eternal, it has n o regard for past or future. "No thing is asswift as the blink of an eye, and yet it is commensurable with thecontent of the eternal" (C:87).

The moment coincides with the positing of spirit: "As soon asspirit is posited, the moment is present" (C:88). The positing ofspirit, in turn, is integrally bound with the positing/exclusion of


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478 Journal of the American Academy of Religionsensuousness as sin, and hence with the positing of history as aspiritual rather than a natural category of time:

The moment is that ambiguity in which time and eternity toucheach other, and widi diis die concept of temporality is posited,whereby time constandy intersects eternity and eternity constandypervades time. (C:89)Only within spiritually posited temporality do eternity and themo men t attain th eir true significance. The force of spirit s pring sfrom the conflict of time and eternity. "A blink is therefore adesign ation of time, bu t mark well, of time in die fateful conflictwhen it is touched by eternity" (C:87). The positing of spirit coin-cides with th e concretio n of its vehiclelanguage. The m arginalrelations to language of the two figures we are attempting toapproach thus help to define their relations to spirit and to themoment.Vigilius's elaboration of the moment as atopos resonates withthe extra-temporal temporality of Don Giovanni's music, which"has an element of time in itself but nevertheless does not take placein time except metap horically" (EO:57; my stress). Preciselybecause it does not take place in time, music, the exquisite realm ofthe sensuous, can only flee from moment to moment, ever markingthat which is atopos. To this the aesdiete explicitly refers:

In the Middle Ages, much was told about a mountain that is notfound on any map; it is called Mount Venus. There sensuousnesshas its home [. . .]. In diis kingdom, language has no home, northe collectedness of thought, nor die laborious achievements ofreflection; there is heard only the elemental voice of passion, theplay of desires, die wild noise of intoxication. (EO:90)This sensuous no-place defies localization widiin the integral conti-nuities of a narrative temporality grounded in present presence. Itsextra-temporal temporality is radically discontinuous and non-localizable, dius remaining in a relation of marginality vis-a-visspirit. W idi respect to temporality, one sees again that Abrahamand Don Giovanni fall at opposite extremes of die spiritualsynthesis.Don Giovanni literally does not have die time to commit to alove in continuity or faidifulness. He has but die mom ent, wh oseinfinite repetitions can only betray die inessential, die indifferent.By definition faithless, Don Giovanni is barred from any concreterelation. Thu s, nume rous as his seductions may be, for Don Gio-


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Carlson: Possibility and Passivity 479vanni, the sexual relation does not take place. On the other hand,in his love for Isaac, and in his absolute relation to the ab solute, thefaithful Abraham has nothing but time. Abraham is essentiallybound to the concrete time of a ninety year wait, a three day walk,and the single moment when he draws the knife. Abraham demon-strates diat "psychical love is continuance in time" while Don Gio-vanni shows that "sensuous love is disappearance in time . . ."(EO:95). Don Giovanni's life "is the sum of repellerende moments[Momenter] that have no coherence . . ." (EO:96). Don G iovannilacks the time that Abraham has for reflective waiting, he lacks thepatien ce for a three day walk: "He does not have tha t kin d of con-tinuance [as has the reflective individual] at all but hurries on inan eternal vanishing, just like the music, which is over as soon asthe sound has stopped and comes into existence again only whenit sound s once again" (EO:102). The speechless, imm ediate, unre-flective inwardness of Don Giovanni stands at the somatic extremeof the synthesis at whose other end we find the equally speechless,bu t intensely reflective inwardness of Abraham . The multiple, ines-sential moments of Don Giovanni transpire in a time outside oftime, while the single, decisive moment for Abraham arises in thefullness of time.

The restlessness of Don Giovanni transpires in the flight of pas-sion, the light play of desire, while the knight of faith, heavily,"only creeps along slowly" (FT:77). The temporality of Abraham'slife becomes madness precisely in that the whole of his patienceleads to one single moment in which he is called to sacrifice all heha s awaited: "This is the content of 130 years. W ho can endure it?Would not his contempo raries, if such may be assum ed, have said,'What an everlasting procrastination this is; Abraham finallyreceived a son, it took long enough, and now he wants to sacrificehimis he not mad?' " (FT:77). The madness is redoubled in thatAbraham cannot speak his patience. Hence the pathos: his pas-sion eludes all language, and increases thereby. The madness ofAbraham's temporality is that Abraham fights time within time.Unlike the moments of Don Giovanni, which are multiple andfleeting, Abraham's moment is utterly singular, it occurs in the full-ness of time, and it marks at the same time the sacrifice of all thattoward which Abraham's lifetime was directed: "he had foughtwith time an d kept his faith. Now all the frightfulness of the strug-gle was concentrated in one moment" (FT: 19).


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480 Journal of the American Academy of ReligionThe intensification of Abraham's time in the concrete, singularmoment ends a lifetime of waiting, and it is tied in turn to a singu-lar, localizable, necessary place Moriah, the place designated byGod. " 'And God tempted \fristede] Abraham and said to him, takeIsaac, your only son, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriahand offer him as a burnt offering on a mountain that I will showyou' " (FT: 19). And yet, upon this place, this singular site desig-nated by God, and in diis time, the utterly present moment inwhich Abraham m ust decide, the cut does not take place. Here, inthe space an d time of what does not take place, Abraham's poten-tial goes unexhausted.The M ount of Venus or Mo unt Moriah. Two topics: a non-localizable atopos or the sacrificial altar designated by God. Twotempo ralities: an atemporal sens uou s time or the concrete spiri-tual movemen ts of a lifetime. Two mo men ts: multiple and fleetingor singular and decisive. Two desires: infinitely desiring or desir-ing the infinite. Two anxieties: the sexual relation or the cut,neither of which takes place.Don Giovanni and Abrahama power and an individualareessentially related in anxiety. Nothing engenders their anxiety, forthis is anxiety's very definition. Noth ing issues from it: Don Gio-vanni's infinitely multiplied seductions constitute nothing but alist, an emp ty, endless quantity. Abraha m's lifetime wait, and theinfinity of his qualitative leap, culminate in a sacrifice, a cut, thatdoes not take place. The aesthetic and the religious anxieties areinfinitely distinct, and yet equally tied to an object that is nothing.Perhaps the greatest anxiety would lie at that point where two suchnoth ings prove indistin guish able. Between the anx ious desires ofthe aesthe tic an d the religious, the differences are great, as we haveshow n. And yet the greatness of the difference issu es there whereit is mo st slight. This slightness wo uld be as subtle as a sliver, a

splinter, a shiveras slight as the space of a trembling.

ABBREVIATIONSC The Concept of Anxiety

EO Either/OrFT Fear and Trembling


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Carlson: Possibility and Passivity 481REFERENCES

Kierkegaard, Soren1980 Th e Concept of Anxiety. Ed. and Trans, by ReidarThomte, in collaboration with Albert B. Anderson.Princeton: Princeton University Press.1983 Fear an d Trembling. Ed. and Trans, by Howard V.Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press.1987 Either/Or. Ed. and Trans, by Howard V. Hong andEdna H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress.


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Carlson, Kierkegaard