The Enlightenment thinker Gotthold Lessing famously wrote of the “ugly ditch” of history. According to Bernard Ramm, to Lessing “events of the past were forever gone and could never be retrieved.”26 Ramm helpfully illustrates the implication of Lessing’s idea.27 In the eighteenth century, George Washington defeated the British. He is a hero to the American psyche to this day. He is revered. However, no contemporary American has a personal
Page 267