The Teacher or the Teaching? Kierkegaard and Wright on History and Epistemology

In this chapter, we consider two responses to G.E. Lessing’s so-called “broad ugly ditch,” which examines the relationship between history and Christian faith. According to Wright, Lessing’s ditch is a category mistake; Lessing adopts the wrong understanding of history. By developing his epistemology of love, an account which Wright claims “transcends the ‘critical realism’ required for history,” the task of history is more than sufficient for leading a person to the truths of Christian faith. Contrastingly, Kierkegaard affirms Lessing’s ditch, but instead seeks to show how, by becoming contemporary with Christ, a person can traverse the broad ugly ditch. Drawing the two thinkers into conversation, we argue that Kierkegaard puts pressure on Wright’s theological epistemology in important ways. Wright’s confidence in history moves the focus of faith from the person of Christ onto an event—the resurrection—which can be shown to be true by the right kind of historical reasoning, conceived through an epistemology of love.