b. Is there an absolute duty to God?
In Problema II, Soren Kierkegaard discusses whether or not the tragic hero or the knight of
faith have an absolute duty to God. While analyzing the ethical, which he calls the
universal, Kierkegaard comes to two different conclusions.
For the tragic hero, we see that initially, Kierkegaard explains that there is a duty to God.
This, in part, is due to the fact that what is ethical falls within the realm of divinity. When
the tragic hero is acting ethically, he or she is pleasing God. This can be seen as his simple
explanation. He then moves on to explain his idea that the tragic hero’s duty to God comes
with settling for a God that would accept this as a suitable duty. He brings up the simple
rule of loving thy neighbor as you love yourself. By fulfilling this rule, you are acting
ethically and only indirectly relating to God. He gives his opinion on exteriority and
interiority by describing that what is exterior, or expressed publicly, is universal. However,
true faith is interior. Therefore, if a tragic hero is to speak of his ethical actions, he has lost
faith. So the only way that a tragic hero has an absolute duty to God, is if they are
accepting of a God that relies only on the execution of ethical actions to show their faith.
As previously mentioned, Kierkegaard believes that the knight of faith has an absolute