Dumbledore and Abraham: The Greater Good
An older man guides a younger man, based upon information only he knows, toward sacrificing their life toward a greater purpose.
Who am I talking about, here?
I assume, given where we are, that we are all familiar with Dumbledore- so I’m going to start with Abraham, and double back later. Not everyone simply has a knowledge of these things.
The simple story, is that God, several years after gifting Abraham with a miraculous child, asks Abraham to sacrifice this son to God at a location of His choosing, several days journey away. The next day, Abraham gathers everything necessary for the sacrifice and sets off. A couple days into the journey, Isaac asks his father where the lamb is for the altar- and Abraham replies that God will provide one when they get there. They arrive at the location, build the altar, and Isaac gets tied to the altar by Abrham. Abraham pulls out the sacrificial knife and starts to approach Isaac, but just before he takes action an Angel shows up. The Angel tells Abraham that God didn’t actually want him to sacrifice his son- he just wanted to know that he would if God asked him to. The Angel leaves, a ram pops out of some nearby bushes to make Abraham not a liar that one time he told ISaac that God would provide the sacrifice, they do the ritual, and they go home.
Now, unfortunately for us, the Bible doesn’t actually give us any real insight as to what Abraham was thinking/feeling throughout this ordeal- but that’s okay, because Kierkegaard does.
Kierkegaard was a philosopher who argued that life was only worth living if you had total Faith in God and made distinctions between Belief and Faith.
Belief was based upon evidence and proof.
Faith was specifically for things that had no evidence at all.
Kierkegaard has a collection of writings that featured a breakdown of Abraham in these moments. He had four main ideas of what Abraham went through in these gaps that the BIbles’ text leaves, but I want to draw our focus to the third.
In this portion, Kierkegaard thinks that, after the ordeal is done and Iaac is home safe, Abraham goes back to the site of the altar and begs forgiveness. He does it often, and never truly forgives himself. He believes that the only thing that kept his willingness to sacrifice Isaac from being unforgivable was his love of his son- and isn’t that familiar reasoning?
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Dumbledore kept information close to his chest up to and even past his death. Every time that Harry asked about Voldemort, or why he was being targeted, Dumbledore either denied or delayed answers until the very last moment, Even once he told Harry ‘I’m giving you everything’ in Order of the Phoenix, he only gave the things that were undeniable, and nothing beyond that. None of his theories or the bits of evidence that he had no conclusion for yet- just what was solid and undeniable.
Dumbledore heard the Prophecy directly, Snape went directly to him to beg some kind of protection for the Potters, and anything the Order did was obviously done at his suggestion. He was a hero, the defeater of Grindelwald and defender of the Wizarding World, so his knowledge and suggestions were likely not questioned much before being acted on.
Both Dumbledore and Voldemort had Faith in Prophecy, though Voldemort thought he could prevent it from coming to fruition. But through Voldemort’s actions, Dummbledore had the evidence to go from Faith to Belief in the Prophecy.
So Dumbledore’s actions with Harry, from his defeat of Quirrel onwards are all based on this Belief.
Unlike the Bible’s Abraham, we do have some insight into Dumbledore’s thought process when it comes to Harry- and love is once again the crux of it all.
After Sirius’ death, Dumbledore explains the full Prophecy. And his actions/reasons for those actions in the wake of that information.
He admits to knowing that the Dursleys wouldn’t treat him well, he tells Harry that he had to make his decisions based around his Belief that Voldemort would return, and wouldn’t rest until he’d killed Harry. Dumbledore admits that he thought eleven was too young for such a burden, and says he should have known he was too happy about coming to that conclusion. He talks his way through each time Harry asked for answers, those first two years, and tells Harry that he fell into a trap he’d long forseen and known to avoid: he loved Harry too much. He did not want to give Harry the burden of Voldemort, but by Prophecyhe knew that he had to do so. At the end of that chapter, Dumbledore is crying- a tear trickling into his beard.
At King’s Cross, Dumbledore openly begs for forgiveness for not explaining everything; the Hallows, the Horcruxes, everything. He shares his fears that held him back and begs forgiveness, much in the way Kierkegaard thought Abraham would.
Abraham followed the word of his God that only he heard.
Dumbledore followed the word of the Prophecy only he knew the full context of.
But both Isaac and Harry survive their stories.
Isaac, going by the Biblical text, asks his father about the sacrificial lamb, accepts his father’s answer, and listens to his father as he binds him to the altar they built together for their God. One of Kierkegaard’s explanations suggests that, seeing his father’s struggle and despair while wielding the knife, Isaac lost all Faith in his God. He couldn’t reconcile the anguish his father was put through with the caring God he’s known before.
Harry asks repeatedly about Voldemort’s obsession with him, and accepts the things Dumbledore told him almost blindly until The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore called the things he thought he knew into question. But, Dumbledore’s eventual sharing of information about the Horcruxes directed Harry’s focus from his confusion/betrayal with the revelations about Dumbledore’s character to the Prophecy that had guided the man he knew. By the time Harry obtains the memories from Snape with the very last pieces of Dumbledore’s plan, in the midst of all the death and loss, he’s all but ready to give himself up if it would save the rest of those fighting. Harry is determined to destroy Voldemort, and is able to use his love to both shield those he cares for and fulfil the Prophecy that had directed his life via the actions (both terrible and commendable) of Voldemort and Dumbledore.
Both Abraham and Duumbledore were doing what they thought was right, and that gives reason to their actions- but does it excuse them?