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Empathy and divine union in Kierkegaard: solving the faith/history problem in Philosophical Fragments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 May 2015

JOSHUA COCKAYNE
JOSHUA COCKAYNE*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of York, York, YO10 5DD, UK e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Søren Kierkegaard's account of faith in Philosophical Fragments claims that the historical Incarnation is necessary for faith, but that historical evidence for the Incarnation is neither necessary nor sufficient for faith. It has been argued that the defence of these two claims gives rise to a faith/history problem for Kierkegaard and that it is incoherent to defend an account of faith which affirms both the necessity of the historical Incarnation and rejects the necessity and sufficiency of the historical evidence for the Incarnation. I argue that this problem can be solved by applying Eleonore Stump's (2013) account of divine–human union. I argue that the Incarnation is necessary because it allows us to enjoy a kind of mutual empathy with Christ which is the basis of divine–human union and that the historical evidence is neither necessary nor sufficient since faith is grounded in a second-person experience of Christ. I claim that this solves the faith/history problem and offers a way of defending Kierkegaard's account of faith as coherent.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 51 , Issue 4 , December 2015 , pp. 455 - 476
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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