Philosophical Fragments

Abstract

This chapter offers a reading of Søren Kierkegaard's book Philosophical Fragments to illuminate his ideas about the nature of Christian claims, and thus also the validity of Christianity given the epistemological context of the modern world. It first examines Kierkegaard's views about what Christianity must claim if it is to be true to itself, along with the contradiction to modernity that this represents. It then expounds Kierkegaard's Christology within the context of modernity and biblical criticism as well as his views about God, epistemology, causality, particularity, and incarnation. Finally, it discusses Kierkegaard's leap of faith that allowed him to bridge the gap between the eternal and that which exists in time, and its implications for Gotthold Lessing's ditch: that it is impossible to predicate the existence of absolute and eternal truths on contingent truths of history.