Hegel: The Great Philosophers (The Great Philosophers Series) [1 ed.] 0415923824, 9780415923828

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THE GREAT PHILOSOPHERS

HEGEL Raymond

Plant

Digitized by the Internet Archive in

i

2014

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THE GREAT PHILOSOPHERS Consulting Editors

Ray Monk and Frederic Raphael

BOOKS IN THE GREAT PHILOSOPHERS SERIES Aristotle

Ayer Berkeley

R.G. Collingwood Democritus

Derrida Descartes

Hegel Heidegger

Hume Kant Locke

Marx Neitzsche

Pascal Plato

Popper

Bertrand Russell Schopenhauer Socrates

Spinoza

Turing Voltaire

Wittgenstein

HEGEL Raymond Plant

ROUTLEDGE New

York

Published in 1999 by

Routledge

29 West 35th

New

Street

NY

York,

10001 1997 by

First published in

Phoenix

A

Division of the Orion Publishing

Group

Ltd.

Orion House 5

Upper

London

Saint Martin's Lane

WC2H

Copyright

©

9EA

1999 by Raymond

Plant.

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper.

No

All rights reserved.

reproduced or utilized

now

other means,

and recording or

in

part of this

book may be reprinted or

any form or by any electronic, mechanical,

or hereafter invented, including photocopying in

without permission

any information storage or retrieval system, in writing

from the publisher.

987654321

10

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Plant,

Raymond. Hegel p.

/

cm.

Raymond

—(The

Plant.

great philosophers

:

11)

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 0-415-92382-4 1.

(pbk.)

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Fnednch, 1770-1831

Religion. Series:

2.

Religion

—

Philosophy.

I.

Title.

Great Philosophers (Routledge (Firm))

B2949.R3P57 1999 210'.92—dc21

—

II. :

1 1.

99-21675

CIP

For

Iris

Murdoch

Philosophers

are

patiently at the

doomed

to

find

Hegel waiting

end of whatever road we

travel.

(Richard Porty)

Hegelianism only extends finally

unfolding

without obstacle.

its

its

historical

domination,

immense enveloping

resources

(Jacques Derrida)

HEGEL On

Philosophy and Religion

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author and publishers wish

to

thank the following

for

permission to use copyright material:

Oxford University Press for excerpts from Phenomenology of Spirit, trans.

©

AV

W

G

F Hegel,

Miller (1977). Copyright

Oxford University Press 1977;

Routledge for excerpts from Nature, trans.

&

ed.

The University of

MJ

G

W F Hegel, The Philosophy of

Petry, Allen

& Unwin

California Press for excerpts

(1970);

from

G

WF

Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion. Vol 1: Introduction

and

the Concept

Copyright

©

of Religion, trans.

&

ed. Peter

Hodgson.

1984 The Regents of the University of

California;

Every effort has been

but

if

ers will

the

made

to trace the copyright holders

any have been inadvertently overlooked the publish-

first

be pleased to make the necessary arrangement opportunity.

at

THE IMPORTANCE OF HEGEL

Hegel

is

a pivotally important figure in the history of

western philosophy and his work was immensely wide-ranging.

It

was and

wide number of itself;

is still

pervasively influential in a

fields:

in the central areas of philosophy

and

social theory; in aesthetics; in the

in political

philosophy of history; and in theology and the philosophy of religion,

which

is

the basic

phers working in these

theme

fields are,

involved in taking stock of Hegel's articulating their

own thought

of this book. Philoso-

even today, very often

own

thinking and in

in relation to his.

Major

thinkers in this century from a wide range of traditions in

philosophy are scarcely comprehensible without understanding their relation to Hegel. This

is

true of Sartre,

Heidegger, Merleau Ponty, Kojeve (whose thought has been

reworked by Francis Fukuyama in his writing on the 'end of history'), Derrida, Lacan, Rorty, Royce, Althusser, Charles

Taylor, Adorno, Marcuse,

Fromm, and many

others. In the

nineteenth century, F.C. Baur Feuerbach, Strauss, Marx, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, T.H. Green -

shadow

all

worked

in the

of Hegel.

In this book, however,

we

shall

be concerned mainly

with Hegel's contribution to religious thought and again here his influence Nietzsche:

is

profound. Karl Lowith in From Hegel

The Revolution

to

Nineteenth Century Thought,

in

described Hegel as the philosopher of the bourgeois Christian world

and while,

as Karl Barth

3

argued in Nineteenth

Century Religious Thought, he did not quite

become the

Aquinas of Protestantism, nevertheless his thought exer-

profound influence on those

cised a

immediate followers,

who

followed him. His

example Strauss in The Life of Jesus

for

and Feuerbach in The Essence of Christianity, took up and radicalized Hegelian themes. Marx was deeply indebted to Hegel even though he became a stern

we

Kierkegaard

critic.

In the

work of

impact of a severe reaction to

see the

Hegel's philosophy of religion particularly in Either/Or,

and

in Nietzsche too, particularly in his reflections

on the

and Nietzsche

in very

'death of God'. Marx, Kierkegaard different

ways destroyed the idea of unity between God and

humanity which had been

the centre of Hegel's thought.

at

In Britain his religious thought in the

work of the

became profoundly

British Idealists

salient

such as T. H. Green,

Sir

Henry Jones, Bernard Bosanquet, and John and Edward

who

wrote Lux

Mundi edited by Charles Gore, one of the most

significant

Caird.

They

works of

in their turn influenced those

late

nineteenth-century theology. Gore himself, a

bishop in the Anglican Church, was profoundly influenced

by Hegel, both in general and in Eucharist, as his book,

his understanding of the

The Body of

Christ,

shows. In this

century Hegel's work was a major influence on the 'Death of God' theologians such as

Hamilton and

Altizer;

on the

post-modern theology of Mark Taylor, and on the work of J.

Moltmann and Dorothee gians. Equally, Hegel has

of

the

greatest

theologians

Pannenberg, whose book Hegel's

Solle,

important German theolo-

been a profound influence on two

Jesus:

of

this

century:

Wolfhart

God and Man grapples with

thought on Christology, and Hans Kling, the

Tubingen theologian,

who

wrote The Incarnation of God

4

which

is

devoted to an examination of Hegel's theology. So

there can be

work

no doubting the enormous impact

in a wide range of fields including theology

religious thought. Indeed,

it is

about Hegel that he saw his

whole and

it

is

one of the daunting

own work

work

and facts

as a systematic

not possible to detach the meaning and

impact of his religious thought from his

of Hegel's

all

the other areas of

in philosophy, political theory, aesthetics

history. So, while

we

shall concentrate

on

and

religious issues,

these were not for Hegel a detachable part of his thought

which has

to be taken as a whole. As

attempt to explain

how

his religious

these other works.

5

we go along

I

shall

thought impacts on

LIFE

AND DEVELOPMENT

eorge William Frederick Hegel was born in Stuttgart in

where

for his

his father

was

a

minor

Duke of Wiirttemberg. His

court of the

son and he was educated

sium and then the Tubingen theological seminary,

at

father

the

official in

was ambitious

the Stuttgart

Gymna-

the famous Swabian

Stift,

which he duly entered

in 1788 with a

view to studying theology and becoming either a Lutheran or

pastor

a

member

administer the

who would

of the Honorationen

state.

At the Tubingen

Stift,

on room with the poet Schelling whose develop-

situated in idyllic surroundings

the bank of the Neckar, he shared a Holderlin and with the mercurial

ment

as a

small

philosopher was precocious. At the seminary this

band studied the usual range

philosophical subjects. tion

by planting a

of theological

liberty tree

on the

outskirts of the

Indeed the degree of political radicalism in the the

Duke who made formal

theme

visitations,

in Peter Weiss's play Holderlin.

their later

and

They welcomed the French Revolu-

development, they

all

Stift

town.

alarmed

one of which was

More importantly

a

for

shared a sense of the

fragmentation and divisions which they believed afflicted

modern

culture. In particular they

division or bifurcation nature,

and

man and

were concerned with the

between God and man; society.

It

vision that the ideas of alienation

so characterized not only their

6

was in

this

man and

developing

and estrangement which

own

subsequent work, but

also influenced

such

Marx and subsequent humanistic Marxists

Fromm and

as

After graduating

Marcuse, were

from the

Stift

to be found.

first

Hegel declined to go into

the ministry of the church or the Duke and took a post as

house tutor in Bern. Hegel was very miserable in Bern although he enjoyed walking around the

lake, as

had done, but he was oppressed by the tedium life

and he was delighted,

move

Bern, by a

we

as

where

basis of

his friend Holderlin

he wrote more than he did in Bern and,

shall see, those writings,

form the

time in

after a relatively short

to Frankfurt

lived. In Frankfurt

Rousseau

of bourgeois

along with those in Bern,

what have been published

as his Early

on The

Theological Writings. These include extended essays Positivity

of

the Christian Religion;

of Christianity and

Its Fate;

The

The

Life of Jesus;

Spirit

On

together with a short essay

Love and the profoundly interesting, albeit fragmentary,

- Programme of German Idealism.

Earliest System

The death

of Hegel's father in 1799

legacy which enabled

him

was

a

Professor of Philosophy.

unsalaried and he depended until

on student

fees

a

his friend,

The post was and

it

w as r

not

Goethe intervened, having received representations

from Hegel, that he was eventually given Nevertheless, his

a small

becoming

where

Privatdocent at the University of Jena Schelling,

him with

left

to contemplate

it

was in Jena that Hegel was able to bring

thought together

lectures

which were

which he was

for the first

to

to refine

also able to write

a salaried post.

time and he produced

form the system of

and develop more

fully later.

The Phenomenology of Spirit

form an introduction to

his systematic

philosophy

his

7

philosophy and

one of the most profoundly important books

7

He was

w hich was in

to is

modem

western philosophy. The book was completed in trying circumstances. Napoleon

had

laid siege to

Jena and the

manuscript of the book was carried to his publisher in

Bamberg by a

rider

this stage of his life

we

saw, he

who went through

the French

had welcomed the French Revolution with

friends in the

Tubingen

but had become very

Stift

sioned with the advent of the Terror.

embodying the

rational

arrival of

his

disillu-

He saw Napoleon

and modernizing

as

principles of the

Revolution while at the same time curbing

The

At

lines.

Hegel was an admirer of Napoleon. As

its

excesses.

Napoleon, however, spelled the end of

Hegel's career in Jena since the university closed

and he had

to look for another post; he became editor of the Bamberg Gazette, a Catholic paper.

Although Hegel seems to have

enjoyed his period as editor during this politically pivotal time, friend

he was not destined to

last

long in the position. His

and patron Niethammer had become an important

figure in Bavarian education

charged with the duty of

transforming the curriculum of the schools into a modern

humanistic form and reducing the dominance of the Catholic Church in education. In 1808 he offered Hegel the post of Rector of the

Grammar School

was a post that Hegel was to hold

in Nuremberg. This

until 1816.

During

this

period he wrote The Philosophical Propaedeutic which was in

some ways

a simplified version of his system

developed in Jena so that

it

which he had

could be used as a basis for

philosophical instruction in the school. This Propaedeutic

covered Logic; the Philosophy of Nature; the Philosophy of

Mind, or what he called Subjective

Spirit;

the Philosophy of

Objective Spirit - the science of law, morals and religion;

8

and the Philosophy of Absolute

which was con-

Spirit,

cerned with the relationship between philosophy,

art

and

During the time he spent in Nuremberg he wrote

religion.

The Science of Logic, one of the few books he was actually to publish himself. This book, together with The Phenomenology of Spirit, led to Hegel being offered a chair in philosophy in Heidelberg in 1816. In Heidelberg his greatest achieve-

ment was

to write

Philosophical Sciences

and

his Encyclopaedia of the

which further enhanced

his reputa-

Jena and Nuremberg drafts had not been

tion, since his

published,

and publish

for the

first

time the

German

literary public

could see and understand his systematic approach to philosophy. In 1818 Hegel finally

He was

moved

to the University of Berlin.

called to Berlin at the instigation of

Sigmund von

Altenstein,

newly founded ministry medical

affairs.

who was for

the

Baron Karl

minister in the

first

educational,

religious

and

Altenstein was close to the Chancellor

Prince Karl August

von Hardenberg and together they

formed a strong reformist group within the Prussian administration. Hegel was appointed not only to the chair in philosophy but also to the Board of Examiners of the

Royal Academic Board of Brandenberg and his mission was to carry out the

same kind of reform of the educational

curriculum in secondary schools as he had at

first

undertaken

Niethammer's instigation in Nuremberg. Accusations

levelled since that Hegel

became, in some sense, the

official

state

philosopher of Prussia have to be treated with some

care.

The

institutions of Prussia

which he defended

after his

appointment were those that had emerged through the reforms of Altenstein and Hardenberg.

9

It

is

equally true,

however, that by the time Hegel arrived in Berlin, the

movement which had transformed Prussian society was under some pressure from the rise of Prussian nationalreform

ism. Hegel

saw

form of resurgent subjective

romanticism of which he was severely subjectivism

is

works of

this nationalism, particularly in the

Jacob Friedrich Fries, as a

criticized in

critical.

This kind of

The Philosophy of Right which

Hegel published during his Berlin professorship and which deals with the central issues of political philosophy: the

nature of rights, property, morality, the development of the

market economy, the role of marriage and the family in civil society,

state

the role of corporations, the function of the

and the

role of constitutional

monarchy within

it.

There was a period of reaction that set in after 1821 and Hegel did have to accommodate himself to

employee of the

state. Equally,

there

is

it

no doubt

own

intellectual conviction

state

which Hardenberg and Altenstein had

as

an

that his

was in favour of the kind of tried to

develop

before the reaction.

Hegel died suddenly in November 1831 of either cholera or possibly

stomach cancer and

is

buried alongside Fichte in

the Dorotheenstadt Friedhof, a place of great peace and beauty.

10

FRAGMENTATION

FEARS OF

As

pointed out in the

I

the Tubingen

last section,

during his time at

Hegel, Holderlin

Stift,

and Schelling

were preoccupied with what they saw as deep problems of division

and fragmentation

modern

in

life

and

in particular

man and God; between man and man and nature, and indeed the division individual's own personality between reason,

the bifurcation between society,

between

within the

imagination and feeling, and they gave their diagnosis of these forms of bifurcation basis. Before

and fragmentation

a religious

turning to their account of these forms of

estrangement, however,

it is

worth saying something about

the intellectual context in which these fears arose. In the late

eighteenth century there had been a major rediscovery

of the importance of classical Greece in

This rediscovery covered

German

aspects of Greek

all

particular the culture of the city state or polis in

moral,

artistic

and poetic forms.

city state exhibited

It

life

and

in

its religious,

seemed that the Greek

an ideal of the unity of

integrated into the daily

culture.

life

life:

of the society

religion

and the

was

family;

the religion was not over-intellectualized - the performance of religious duties involved the emotions as well as the intellect; the society

common purpose and

a sense of

in

religious beliefs;

harmony - and again

men and

it

11

this

was

was integrated by

nature lived more fully

was in

this

a sense of

community - and

again partly due to the fact that

common

and imagination

embodied

large part

due to the

ways in which

religion coloured attitudes to nature.

good examples of

this idealization of the

Two

Greek polis are to

be found in two very influential figures in the generation before Hegel,

namely

Schiller

and Herder.

Gods of Greece, Schiller points out

how

In his

poem The

closely the different

life were interwoven and how crucial a common religious life was to securing this common life and

aspects of Greek

sense of community. These themes were set out even fully in his Letters

work the unity

of Greek

to the diagnosis of

opposite trends in is

more

on the Aesthetic Education of Man. In this life

what

and experience

modern German

made by Herder in

his

is

used as a

foil

took to be the almost

Schiller

culture.

The same point

monumental Auch

eine Philosophie

der Geschichte zur Bildung der Menschheit published in 1774.

In this

book Herder dwelled on the ways

forms of experience had enabled potentialities

his

own

and powers,

times seemed to

to be a

him

man

which Greek

in

to

maximize

whole man. In

his

contrast,

to have lost sight of

some

of

human qualities. Greece was the the human race; now society was

the most valuable of glorious

youth of

fragmented. In his Denkmal Johann Winckelmans he argues for

what he

calls

'the

rebirth

of the Greek Spirit in

Germany'. Hegel and Holderlin were inspired by this vision of the unity of

all

things within the ancient polis and were equally

convinced of the multiple types of fragmentation in

modern European and

in particular

German

culture. This

was a major theme in Holderlin's Hyperion which he began to write at the

Stift.

The forms of bifurcation with which

they were concerned, though, went

was the divorce between

far

man and God 12

beyond

this.

There

to be found, as they

saw

in conventional Christianity in

it,

Judaeo/Christian tradition,

and thus

rather indifferent to the

societies

(as

making

ways of

of particular

life

Christianity inimical to the social

and the unity of

spirit

society).

Unlike the Greek, the

home was not of this world.

Indeed the impetus

for the Judaeo/Christian tradition starting

with Abraham

the father of the Jewish nation was a snapping of

bonds of

book

family, society

and rootedness

when God

all

as

the

to place. In the

of Genesis, in Hegel's view, this trend

very starkly

in the

Rousseau had pointed out in The Social

Contract, thus

Christian's

which God,

wholly other and universal

is

was revealed

Abraham: 'Get thee out of

said to

thy country, from thy kindred, and from thy father's house,

unto a land that ing

on

I

will

shew

thee.'

As Hegel

says,

comment-

these passages:

With

herds

his

Abraham wandered

hither

and

thither

over a boundless territory without bringing parts of nearer to

was

him by

cultivating

a stranger to soil

Abraham regarded nullity

was

alien to

any part mastery.

and men

in

it.

alike

his opposite;

he looked upon

be a

and improving them

Nothing

in

it

if

...

...

it

he

The whole world

he did not take

as sustained

by

a

it

to

God who

nature was supposed to have

God; everything was simply under God's

1

These ideas had an impact on Christianity, growing as

it

did out of these Jewish ideas. The Christian for St Peter was like 'a

pilgrim in a foreign land',

which

is

not a sentiment

that could have occurred in Greek religion in his view. As

Hegel says in an essay not published until 1907: 'our religion wishes to educate

men 13

to be citizens of

heaven

who always look on high and this makes them strangers to human feeling.' 2 Christianity was a private religion, concerned with personal salvation, not with social and moral

community

unity in the

'Private religion

he says again in the same

as

essay:

forms the morality of the individual man,

but the religion of the people as well as the political circumstances forms the tian religion

was highly

which

doctrines

spirit

of the people/

intellectualized

3

The

Chris-

with theology and

turn divided Christians, but more

in

importantly caused dissonance in religious

life

since the

imagination and the heart, Hegel argued, are 'sent empty away'.

It

was therefore

essential to

have the engagement of

the emotions and the imagination in religion. Christianity also led to a distancing of

man from nature. As Schiller had

argued in The Gods of Greece, the Greek gods were seen by their devotees to

be actively involved in the natural order.

The gods were not transcendent and

distant

from the

world. Because the divine entered into every part of their lives

they were deeply

at

home in the natural world and the

very pervasiveness of their divinities gave a unity to their social

and natural

lives.

But, according to Schiller, this

golden age has fled from the world.

From an

early age, therefore, Hegel

was deeply concerned

with the question of the relationship between religion and a

common

life

in society

religion in securing ity,

to

and with the potential

role of

an integration of the human personal-

overcome what in The Phenomenology of Spirit he was unhappy consciousness' and to have a sense of

to call 'the

'being at

home

in the world'.

Some

of the thinkers

I

have

mentioned

called for a restoration of

values in

Germany and while Hegel was sympathetic 14

something

like

Greek

enough of

to that, envisaging as

community and

it

did a restoration of a sense

of the unity of the personality, he was

equally clear that there could be

no going back to Greece

changing the religious dimension of modern straightforward Greek model.

something

like

It

was not possible

life

or

to a

to import

Greek religion into Germany; equally there

was no hope of going behind Christianity and reinstating

Germanic forms of

pre-Christian

religion

which may have

played more of a part than Christianity in securing a

common

as

life

some had

suggested. There could be

Greek experience of

direct resurrection of the

no

religion,

it

was divorced from the nature of modern

religious culture

but also because the modern world had

experienced the

rise

partly because

had

also led to

ence.

had

of individualism. This individualism

certainly fractured the unity of the

Any

many

community but had

gains in the character of

human

community and

restored sense of

experi-

integration

to take full account of the role of individualism. Greek

society

had

a sense of

what Hegel, following

Schiller, called

unmediated unity; any restored sense of community would have to become a form of mediated unity; that

is

to say,

one which recognized and sought to reintegrate the modern sense of individualism.

As Hegel

says,

while 'Achea cannot be the Tueton's

fatherland',

can Judea? That

interpreted

and disseminated

become what religion,

religion

one that

Christianity

is

will

self,

to say, can Christianity be in such a

way

that

was to the Greeks, namely form the

basis of a

what we have and

become again the focus of the

is

a

common

if

can

a folk

common

religion

life

it

life?

can ever

and the unity of

then the Christian religion has to be transformed,

15

and

it

was

this transformation to

his writings in Bern

though, that

and

which he

Frankfurt.

at this stage

he

is

It is

hand

set his

in

important to notice,

not writing as a philosopher,

seeking to set Christianity into a wider interpretation of

human existence

as

he was

later to do; rather

a kind of cultural critic seeing

he

acting as

is

what scope there might be

for

the transformation of Christianity.

and Frankfurt he wrote two

In Bern

themes: The Life of Jesus and The Destiny.

What

Christianity

within

is

the

is

Spirit

essays

on

these

of Christianity and

Its

necessary to secure this transformation of

a recognition of the divine within

and

life

world which orthodox Christianity

social

neglects. In Hegel's

view in Das Leben Jesu

it is

perfectly

possible to interpret the message of Jesus in this way.

points out the inadequacy of the Jews' conception of

He

God

that led to their baneful experience of alienation. Their divinity life

was outside them, 'unseen and

of Jesus

makes

tangible relationship with

nious

community

God

of believers

that is

'if

whereas the

must

the divine

is

exist

if

a

is

...

so that there

to appear, the invisible spirit

may be

a

is

absolutely critical

be united with something visible so that the whole unified

harmo-

to be established. This

the impact of the Incarnation which for Hegel:

unfelt',

articulate in a particular case that visible,

must

may be

completed synthesis, a

perfected harmony.' 4 This was the real message of Jesus in

which the Divine Father and the 'simply modifications of the

tangible, palpable

same

life'.

message that Jesus came to teach, that the 'Word off

Son

are

This was the

but nigh'; in the Incarnation the divine

is

is

not

far

united to

human life, human form, to history and to nature. In his own terms, though, Jesus's message was a failure. In Hegel's 16

view, in The Spirit of Christianity and

Its

Destiny, Jesus

was

faced with two choices, given the weight of the alternative

Jewish tradition and

its

conception of God. Jesus's concep-

tion of the relationship between unintelligible to the Jews.

from the

religious beliefs

challenge

It

them from the

more and more, and

as

human and

divine was

was impossible to reform inside; the alternative

outside

and

this

is

their

was to

what he did

such his message was purely ideal

and Utopian. This meant that the understood the nature of

disciples,

God and man

who were Jews, much

in Jesus too

in the context of Jewish theistic ideas. Instead of following

Jesus in teaching a general message about the reconciliation

of the divine

and the human

was understood

in

this reconciliation

all life,

to be achieved in Jesus alone. So instead of

the Incarnation becoming a symbol within Christianity for

an achieved reconciliation between God and the divine and the one

As

I

all

humanity,

human were understood to be linked only in

life.

have argued, Hegel did not approach these

issues in

terms of having a fully developed philosophical account of

human

existence within

which

to situate his account of

Christianity. Nevertheless, these early theological writings

importance for understanding the nature

are of the greatest

of Hegel's mature approach to the philosophy of religion.

The unity of the divine and the world was, religious intuition

which he struggled

at this stage, a

to express in

ways

common life and restored humanity. Some of these ideas may seem rather strange to twentieth-century eyes, particularly to those who

that could

make

it

the basis of such a

do not follow theological debate, this stage briefly to indicate

so

it is

how some 17

worth stopping

at

of these ideas are

regarded as salient by one recent well-respected philoso-

pher of religion. In The Borderlands of Theology Donald

Mackinnon produces the following remarkable paragraph which bears

We

on

closely

Hegel's preoccupations at this point:

have to reckon with elements

the tradition [of

in

which seem to encourage us to

Christianity] itself

free

our religious imaginations from too tight a bondage to Jesus in the days of his flesh.

theology of the Paraclete,

There

the )ohannine

is

and above

perhaps that

all

obscure saying of St Paul which has so baffled exegetes (in

II

Corinthians) of 'knowing Christ

sarka' (after the flesh).

construing the Noli

Mary Magdalene

in

me

the record of the fourth Gospel as a

bondage

to a

way

of

life

demand

of a false

details of a particular history,

selves

that Christi-

attachment to the

and adhere within them-

which they must

circumstances altogether strange to those listened to Jesus?

in

tangere of the risen Christ to

concrete mythical expression of the ans discard the

no longer kata

Were not the Hegelians justified

realise

who

in

first

5

This provides us with a deep insight into

what Hegel was

getting at as his thought developed in these early theological writings.

of

That the message of Jesus of the reconciliation

God and humanity

has to be detached from his

person ('do not touch me') and that the

embodying

this reconciliation

men and women

to

of

18

own

of Jesus

has to be appropriated by

become the

community and new kind

spirit

basis of a

human

nature.

new form

of

TOWARDS PHILOSOPHY

As

his

thought matured, however, Hegel moved towards

setting this reinterpretation of Christianity in a

much

wider and dauntingly complex conceptual scheme which shall try to outline shortly. Before

moving

I

to that task,

however, one potential paradox has to be resolved in this

move towards of

common

a

life

philosophy which could provide the basis

and the unity of the person.

After

all,

had

not Hegel argued that rational thought had been partly the

problem with Christianity?

had been turned into

It

how will

ogy and doctrine. So

such a conceptual framework help? trine 'send the imagination

theology and doc-

If

and heart empty away',

philosophy do the same? In so resolving this paradox,

theol-

situating Christianity within

far as there is a

will

not

way

of

has to be found in Hegel's

it

fragmentary work The Earliest System - Programme of German Idealism, in

Here

I

which he argues

shall discuss

as follows:

an kiea which, as

not occurred to anyone else -

mythology, but the Ideas,

it

this

far as

mythology must be

must be

a

I

in

i.e.

a

Until

mythology it.

must

Thus

is

in

we

mythologically, they

have no interest for the people, and conversely

of

has

new

the service of

mythology of Reason.

express the Ideas aesthetically,

know

we must have

rational the philosopher

until

must be ashamed

the end enlightened and unenlightened

clasp hands,

mythology must become philosophi-

19

cal in

make the people

order to

must become mythological phers

sensible

among

(sinnlicti).

No more

us.

order to

in

Then

down on

Then

to

universal

peculiar to each

is

religion

among

mankind.

A new

common

us.

It

will

be the

'mythology'

but

life,

is

all

philosophy

believe that

is

spirits will

must found

last

all

common for

A

reign this

new

and greatest work

it

can,

is

it

of

common

basis of a

understandings

is

must combine both reason and

it

to

and heart

combine both reason and

in a

not sent empty Hegel comes to

new idiom which

will

lived experience. This remains

the case whether that experience basic psychological states

are

fulfil this role, as

must speak

identity, of one's rooted

form the

essential to

this set of

if

feeling so that imagination If

men and

6

to be available to

away.

wise

any longer be suppressed

shall

sent from heaven

spirit

its

and what

freedom and equality of

higher

unity

awaits us equal development of

first

No power

all.

philoso-

eternal

the mob, no more the

blind trembling of the people before priests.

make

reigns

the look of scorn of the enlightened

philosopher looking

powers, of what

and philosophy

rational

and

is

religious, of one's

own

instincts, of one's historical

moral experience, of one's dealings

with nature, or of one's aesthetic and poetic sense. All of these have to be incorporated into a

phy by which they to

make the

life.

will

basis of a

new

kind of philoso-

be reinterpreted and transformed,

new 'mythology' and

of

common

Hegel wrote this piece in 1796 and by 1801 he had

made

considerable progress in developing a

20

new philosophi-

cal perspective.

essay

on The

By that time he was able to

Systems of Philosophy, that 'bifurcation

need

for

write, in his

Difference between Fichte's and Schelling's

philosophy/

for the basis of a

It is

is

the source of the

to philosophy that

he

now looks

harmonious interpretation of experience

within which some of the ideas about religion which he

had developed

in Bern

and Frankfurt

will

be

set into a

new

context.

What

conditions does philosophy have to meet in order

to provide this interpretation of

existence of

which

religion

is

has to deal with

it

experience and

a part? First of

comprehensive and systematic. in that

human

all

It

all it

has to be

has to be comprehensive

human

the major forms of

experience and activity and with the basic psychological structures of the selves

who engage in such

activities.

These

cannot be separated off in a clear-cut way. The nature of the

and

be understood,

at least in part,

in relation to the basic forms of activity in

which humans

self

its

capacities has to

engage: familial, economic, political, philosophical. While structures of

human

it

is

artistic, religious

and

possible to describe the basic

psychology and the components of

selfhood, he argues that such a theory of

mind

separated

from an account of the major forms of experience and activity in

which human

selves develop their

powers

will

be

one-sided and rationalistic in the ways that he criticized in the passage from The Earliest System - Programme of German Idealism.

As he

approach to the nature of the formal identity

criticizing a purely abstract

later argues,

...

self:

'the

Ego

is

by

itself

only a

Consciousness appears differently modi-

fied according to the difference of the given object

21

and the

gradual specification of consciousness appears as a variation in the characteristics of the objects/

Human

beings only develop a rich sense of selfhood in

common

relation to

tion from others natural relate

7

and

activities.

There they achieve recogni-

and by engagement with the world both So a unified theory of the mind has to

social.

an account of the basic structures of mentality with

the types of activities in which people engage. This point

modern idiom by

has been put in a

Hampshire in

Stuart

Thought and Action, a brilliant book within the analytical tradition of philosophy

which has often showed deep

antipathy for Hegel, but which illustrates the salience of the

we

views of Hegel

are

philosophy of mind

now will

discussing:

be a theory of the order of the

development of human powers with virtues tion.

and not

a theory of their

may be

Metaphysical deduction

study of the successive forms of social processes by which

one form

corresponding moral ideas another.

is

corresponding

their

unchanging constitu-

life

replaced by a

and the

of social

life,

8

modes

demands

of

for

the different

economic,

mind and

its

realization will satisfy

systematic.

one of Hegel's

philosophy to be closer to actual experience in

modes

of social

life:

religious, familial, social,

political, artistic.

Their second requirement

modes

its

typically transformed into

This necessary link between an account of the the

typical

with

It

is

that philosophy should be

has to provide an account of

of social

life

a unified society

and their inconnectedness

and

a unified conception of

22

all if

the basic

the ideal of

humanity is to

be attained.

It is

Hegel's firm view, in his mature writings,

that beneath the surface differences between the various activities in

which human beings

are

engaged there

an

is

underlying connectedness which can be brought to the surface

In

.this,

by philosophy his

approach

in a systematic, conceptual is

fundamentally different from that

who

of post-modern philosophers discontinuities

manner.

not only recognize the

and forms of diremption which Hegel saw

as his mission to

it

overcome, but actually revel in these

view of Lyotard

discontinuities. In the

and can be no philosophical 'meta provide an interpretation of experience and locate the development of

them

all

for

example, there

narrative'

which

the forms of

is

will

human

in their appropriate place in

human

powers. In this sense, the

approach of post-modern thinkers

who

indeed celebrate, the fragmentation of

emphasize, and

human

life

and

thought are profoundly anti-Hegelian. In adopting this systematic view, Hegel equally poses a

major challenge to those philosophers in the analytical tradition nurtured

on

Wittgenstein.

They argue that we

are

faced with a range of different language games, each with its

own

ests.

logic

and each embodying

no overarching conception and

different

human

inter-

These language games are incommensurable. There of reason since

what

irrational is internal to specific language

specific

human

interests

the unity of the

self

is

rational

games and the

they embody. The cost of this sort

of fragmentation of reason for Hegel

becomes dissipated in

is

is

and the unity

the loss of a sense of of society.

a set of different

and

The

self

irreconcilable

language games or first-order narratives. For Hegel philosophy also has to be historical. Given that

23

the nature of the

human mind and its development have to

be considered in relation to the modes of social existence, these

modes cannot

ment has

be taken as given. Their develop-

just

to be understood along with the evolution of the

powers of the mind. The concepts in terms of which we characterize our religious, aesthetic, social are

not

just abstract

these elements.

and

They

and political

universal, although they

lives

do have

are also to be understood in develop-

mental terms, too. So

Hegel

for

The

concept assumes in the course of

its

shapes that the actualisation are

indispensable for the knowledge of the concept itself/ This historical

development

is

rational process towards

attainment of what he state attained

both their

teleological - that

is

to say

an overarching end which Absolute Knowledge. This

calls

when all the shapes of human life,

historical

development and

is

a

the the

in terms of

their interconnect-

edness, are fully understood. This historical process difficulties

it is is

and contingencies which have

to be

is full

of

compre-

hended. Hegel, in The Phenomenology of Spirit, compares

this

development to the Via Dolorosa and Golgotha, but,

as

with the agony, death and resurrection of Christ, there

is

redemption

The

this process is fully

goal, Absolute

Spirit, is,

when

has for

its

Knowing, or

that

knows

path the recollection of the

the different forms of

and

spirit

comprehended:

human

itself

as

Spirits (that

experience

in history

their organising principles or ethos RP) as they are in

themselves and as they accomplish the organisation of their realm. Their preservation, their free existence (that

is,

regarded from the side of

not set within a structure of

philosophical explanation RP) appearing

24

in

the form of

contingency,

is

History; but regarded

comprehended

their philosophically

the science of Knowing

from the side

organisation,

form

History,

inwardising and the Calvary of absolute

human

is

the sphere of appearance: the

in

two together, comprehended

When we

of

it

alike

Spirit.

the

9

understand this history of the basic modes of

we have reached

experience

the level of Absolute

Knowledge, but there are two further elements to the picture

which need

to be addressed. Both have to

do with

the nature of the teleological development at stake here. History for Hegel, as

'one

damn

obvious from the above,

is

thing after another', a

contingent events. There Part of this structure

is

is

series of

not

is

discontinuous

a structure to this development.

given by the idea of dialectic. This

is

a

concept in Hegel on which a very great deal of ink has been

and

spilled

this

is

appraisal. Suffice

it

process in

not the place

to say that the process of dialectic

ethos.

the

social

life,

whether

is

religious, political,

or social, have organizing principles or forms of

The process

human

is

and

which an account of how forms of life develop

embodied. Forms of artistic

for a full analysis

history

of dialectical development

shows

how in

one form turns into another because

contradictions are revealed in previous forms. Previous

forms are not

lost in

the dialectical development. Rather

some

what

is

basic

human capacity or meeting some basic need, is carried

true in them, in the sense of the realization of

over into a richer and deeper form of incorporates and transcends and goes

gone

before. This process

is

life

which both

beyond what has

not accidental or contingent,

but can be understood and grasped philosophically.

25

We

often do not

manage

we remain

this because

the level of what Hegel

what they

things are looked at for

are in themselves

not in relationship to each other. The standing (Vorstellung)

transcended to arrive full

conceptual

ness.

So

life

level of the

indispensable, but

at the level of

at

it

and

Under-

has to be

Reason, where there

is

a

grasp of things in their interrelated-

(Begriff)

dialectic, in

forms of

is

stranded

the 'Understanding', in which

calls

recording the internal development of

from one to the

other,

is

also the passage

from

the Understanding to Reason, but going back to Hegel's

on the

earlier strictures

rates history

role of Reason, because

and experience,

is

it

incorpo-

not a kind of universalist

abstraction.

The second philosophically important point about the development of accidental. There

edge. This rationality

is

whose action I

that

is

on the road

it

is

not

work which

to Absolute Knowl-

secured because there

analogous to the action of

process.

is

rather a deep rationality at

the philosopher uncovers

history

experience

historical is

is

something

God united with human life and

the basis for the rationality of the

said 'something analogous to

God' because in

his

philosophical work, particularly in The Science of Logic,

Hegel the

calls this

organizing

conception the Absolute Idea, that

history

of

principle

becomes concrete

human

and human

society

and is

religion

and philoso-

embodied in

diverse but

in

art,

comprehensibly connected forms of

it is

Spirit.

to say

existence which

in the world of nature, in the world of

phy. As the Absolute Idea

becomes

is

When

fully

human

experience,

it

comprehended philosophically

Absolute Spirit At the level of the Understanding, or in

everyday experience in a Christian society, this process

26

is

understood

God creating the world and Jesus as God being God identified with human

as

incarnate son of

The

Knowledge

of Absolute

level

the life.

the philosophical

is

transcription of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit mediating in religious terms

between the Father and the Son. At the

Absolute level of Knowledge this

interpreted in concep-

is

tual terms as carrying within us, in a public

defensible way,

human

and experience. So

life

and

rationally

an understanding of the deep unity of to put

it

simply:

God

in himself before the foundation of the world

formed by Hegel into the Absolute

Idea.

understanding of the rationality of

human

history

equivalent to the incarnate

is

embodiment

human edge

as

he

is

trans-

is

The philosophical

life

experience and of God, or the

of the Absolute Idea, linking the divine to the

in everyday

life

and experience. Absolute Knowl-

the transcription of the religious idea of the role of

is

when we have a comprehensive understandindwelling of God in this process. Hegel's

the Holy Spirit ing of the

philosophy therefore provides a deep interpretation of the Trinity:

The

first

itself,

moment

is

the idea

in its

simple universality for

self-enclosed, having not yet progressed to the

primal division, to otherness - the Father. The second

the particular, the idea idea in is

its

externality,

in

appearance - the Son.

It is

is

the

such that the external appearance

converted back to the

first

[moment] and

is

known

as

the divine idea, the identity of the divine and the

human. The

God is

third element, then,

as the Spirit.

The

the community.

is

this

Spirit as existing

10

27

consciousness -

and

realizing itself

is

It

Hegel's claim that his philosophy embodies this

we can

standpoint. So, as

context of a

full

account of

see,

which depends

religion

by philosophy.

open not

to

human all

for

authority

its

itself in

on

subjective faith

the ways that

existence which, because

to understand

Absolute Knowledge, but

it is

anity life

history,

it

does have to be transcended by is

that his

us back to the point

philosophy

the message of Jesus from his

although

that universal message

So,

is

a true transcription of the essence of Christi-

when we detach

and

rational,

and depends upon Reason and

philosophy. At the same time, Hegel's claim is

we

an indispensable stepping stone to

faith. Religion is

philosophy

away

favour of a rational system of under-

at earlier, in

standing

gets

It

parables, the picture thinking of

and which has misrepresented looked

the

sets religion in

human life and existence and in

so doing transcends religion

from the symbols, the

Hegel

is

we

by that

made

life

and

earlier

own

an understanding of

are led to

history,

which

takes

by Donald Mackinnon.

rooted in but transcends beliefs widely

held in society but at the level of common-sense understanding. In the final section

I

shall dwell shortly

on

several

themes from Hegel's account of the nature of Christianity

which he

believes

makes

this

claim plausible however

much it leads him away from orthodoxy. We can, however, see why it is salient to see Hegel as a great Christian philosopher because Christianity

is

the heart of his

at

philosophy, albeit in this transcribed way, and in this transcribed

way

Christianity

is

turned from something that

he had believed was inimical to a

common

thing that could underpin and sustain sense, does

not

tell

us anything new.

28

it.

It

life

to some-

Philosophy, in a

provides, rather, a

deep account of the forms of experience and the tions

we

inhabit. This vision

who was

was well captured by T.

instituS. Eliot

profoundly influenced by the British Hegelian

philosopher,

We

F.

H. Bradley:

shall

not cease from exploration,

And the end Shall

be to

of our exploring

arrive

And know the

where we

place for the

29

started first

time.

11

RELIGION

I

how central religion was in now turn to some specific

have attempted to show Hegel's concerns

issues in his

and

philosophy of religion which are

the accompanying texts. cept of

shall

I

God and

Incarnation; the

I

illustrated in

shall concentrate on: the con-

our knowledge of God; the creation; the Fall;

and

religion

and philosophy.

The Concept of God There are two things of fundamental importance in the texts in relation to this issue.

He

rejects the idea that

it is

impossible to say something determinate and true about the nature of

God

because of our

infinity. In rejecting this

criticizing Kant, Jacobi

own

finitude

and God's

view in the text quoted, he

and

macher. In

the

rational

principal role

is

theology of more recent times the played by this

bringing reason into the ting philosophy

lists

way

of looking at things,

against

itself

and combat-

on the grounds that reason can have no

cognition of God. The consequence

is

that

no meaning

for the expression 'God' remains in theology

than

in

any more

philosophy, save only the representation, defini-

tion, or abstraction of

abstraction,

a

the supreme being - a

vacuum

is

his Berlin colleague Schleier-

of 'the

vacuum

beyond'. Such

is

of

the

overall result of rational theology, this generally negative

30

tendency toward any content nature of God. The 'reason' of in fact

at

in

all

under the name of reason,

ventured as

far

this

in

one only knows

general

in

otherwise this supreme being It is

has

it

The

itself.

is

but

is:

empty and

God, as concrete

living

not to be grasped as

result

God

that

inwardly

is

not to be grasped as a

and

has the reason that

as

field

claimed the possibility of cognition for

dead.

theology has

been nothing but abstract understanding mas-

querading

that

regard to the

this kind of

'spirit' is

not

an empty word, then God must [be grasped] under

this

content;

it is

God was

the nature of

what he

is

called 'triune'. This

spirit

explicated.

is

is

God

this object,

God

the key by which is

for himself within himself;

makes himself an object

If

church theology of former

characteristic, just as in the

times

spirit.

thus grasped as

God

[the Father]

for himself (the Son), then, in

remains the undivided essence within

this differentiation of himself within himself,

of himself loves

differentiation

-

identical with himself

are to speak of this

God

this

is

as spirit,

himself,

mode

by the church tion

But

if

it is

tions

of

God

within

God

is

in this

himself,

it

God

is

not yet

and

spirit

is

an empty

determination.

we cannot have

has no further determina-

knows only that God

31

God

the concrete determina-

theology says that

or that

we

with

in this

just this definition of

as spirit;

not grasped

when modern

cognition of

it is

as a Trinity that

and nature

word

Thus

if

the relationship

as

between father and son - a representation that a matter of concept.

remains

i.e.,

the church

in

representation

of

in this

God as Spirit. Hence we must grasp God

very definition, which exists

childlike

and

is

as

something abstract without content, and

God

reduced to

is

God

know

[only]

of

God

that

is,

God

when [God

is]

is

God

we

the abstractum. To

is

is

something

we

cognized, however,

representation with a content.

the effect that

God,

to have a definite, concrete concept

God. As merely having being, God

abstract;

of

only a supreme being. Inasmuch as

is

God means

cognize

the

all

is

It

same whether we say we cannot have cognition or that

way

this

in

hollow abstraction.

this

If

have a

the representation to

not to be cognized were substanti-

ated through biblical exegesis, then precisely on that

account

we would have

to turn to another source in

order to arrive at a content

The argument of the say

in

critics as

regard to God.

Hegel sees

no more about God's nature than

this sense of the

being of

God

is

it is

that he

12

that is,

we can

and that

immediately present to

consciousness. Hegel, however, rejects this view for two closely interconnected reasons. First of all

think and speak of

God

what do we mean by consciousness? consciousness to

God

we can only

existing as a conscious being. But

We

can only ascribe

based on our understanding of

ourselves as conscious beings and, as for Hegel consciousness involves

I

pointed out

earlier,

encounter with otherness;

engagement with and recognition by what

that

is

to say

one

is

not. So God, as a conscious being, has this inner

necessity, as all conscious beings do, to externalize himself

in nature

and in human

and through

life

- that

is

to say in otherness -

this process of externalization to

come

to full

consciousness. As Hegel puts the point in The Philosophy of Nature:

The divine Idea is just this: to disclose itself, 32

to posit

the Other outside

and

itself

to take

and

in order to be subjectivity

it

back again into

spirit.'

itself

13

Given that consciousness, including the consciousness of God, requires

engagement with otherness

this

it

follows

that an understanding of the 'other' in

which God

embodied, namely the world of nature and

human

in

its

manifold forms,

Then God or

spirit

and is

a study of the nature of God.

is itself

is

judgment

this

expressed concretely, this

is

Its

[or primal division];

the creation of the world

which God

of the subjective spirit for

an absolute manifesting.

manifesting

is

object. Spirit

a positing of

is

determination and a being for an other. 'Manifesting'

means

an

'creating

subjective spirit for

other',

and indeed the creating

which the absolute

creation of the world revealing. In a further

is.

and

we

later definition

creates

God

himself

is,

that in general

the determinateness of an other, that tion of his

own

self,

that

God

is

it

will

self-

have

what God

manifestation in the higher form that

this

of

The making or

God's self-manifesting,

is

does not have

God

is

for himself

manifesta-

- the other

(which has the empty semblance of [being] an other but is

immediately reconciled), the Son of

God

or

human

being according to the divine image. Here for the

time

we have

spirit for

From

cognised, for

first

consciousness, the subjectively knowing

which God this

it

it

manifest. Those

is

follows is

object.

that

God can be known

or

God's nature to reveal himself, to be

who

say that

God

is

not revelatory do

not speak from the [standpoint of the] Christian religion at

any

rate,

for

is

history

the Christian

33

religion

is

called

the

revealed religion.

human

As Hegel says: 'God that

is

content

Its

beings, that they

is

is

that

not possible. One knows of

ness as

we

all

is

revealed to 14 is.

not to be considered in isolation, for

God

with consciousness', and, as he also manifesting'. This

God

know what God

only in connection

says, that spirit is 'self

follows from the nature of conscious-

experience

it

and

ourselves

this experience

is

linked to that of externalization and engagement with 'otherness'.

Creation The inner

necessity of consciousness to

manifest and

externalize itself in the 'other' leads us fairly naturally to

one of the

Hegel's account of creation. In Hegel's view defects of classical theism

separate

is

that

from the world and that

it

all

does treat

God

as

his attributes are as

they are independent of the world. This point was well

made in this century by Karl Barth in Church Dogmatics, vol. 3, when he argued that 'God would be no less God even if the work of creation had never been, if there were no creatures

...

Hence, there can be no place for this doctrine

view since

in that of the Being of God.' Hegel rejects such a it

makes

it

very difficult to understand creation as other

than an entirely whimsical

had no need necessity for create the it

in his

If

God

act

on the

to create the world, it

for the nature of

if

part of God.

there was

God, then

why

world other than through whimsy? Or

own is

all

If

God

no inner

as

did he

he puts

inimitable style in The Philosophy of Nature: sufficient

and

lacks nothing,

34

how

does He

come

to

something so

Himself into

release

unequal to Him? The divine Idea the

expulsion

of

acceptance of

and

of return, for

which overcomes the renders to This then

by which

it

lies

division of nature

its

infinite

good

disposes

what

in

as

self,

and

was to

is

Philo.

we

men.

form of

its

itself,

and

is

itself

the

as the divine totality.

three forms;

in

the singular; firstly

the it

is

extreme

of this

is

finite spirit. Singularity, as return

certainly spirit,

but as otherness to the it is

or

finite

human

spirit,

are not concerned with finite spirits other than

In

so far as the individual

man

is

demand

that

is

form with which

object of

him. Nature

we are concerned it

is

the most tremendous

may be made upon

Idea in particularity,

same time

at the

received into the unity of divine essence, he

the Christian religion, which

third

and

nature.

remaining

while

moments

The other

exclusion of everything else, for

in

the eternal unity of the Idea, the eternal son

it

singularity, the

into

spirit,

provides for this

it

therefore,

can be grasped

universal, the particular,

God,

and

essence

its

in its indivisibility,

and must be posited

Idea,

Distinctiveness

preserved

this

the self-determination of the

entire content in

God

otherness.

in

equal to Himself; each of these

of

belongs to

posits difference, another, within

whole maintaining

whole

itself

the philosophy of nature

is

the position of nature within the whole;

is

imparting

of nature

it

the recognition of

spirit

determinateness Idea,

and the

itself,

again, in order to constitute subjectivity

it

The philosophy

spirit.

pathway

is

out of

other

this

clearly

just this self-release,

here,

and

is

the

as the

stands between both extremes.

35

form

This

Spirit

is

there

is

its

is

in

freedom and

in

appears

nature only as an implicit contradiction, or as a

posited and

is

resurrection. Nature

Son however, but divine Idea

is

fast for a

self-alienated spirit; spirit, a

it;

in

and

bacchan-

reflection has

merely

nature, the unity of the Notion

15

is

and what he is

which the

of restraint

The world, which

free

passion

the Son of God, not as the

itself.

of God, for Hegel

history,

life,

and held

loose into

conceals

is

Christ the

In

as

as abiding in otherness, in

is

god innocent let

is

overcome

alienated from love

moment. Nature

been

that otherness

in

the Idea as a stable form.

in

contradiction

tic

in

the form of singularity, which

contradiction which has being for us

and

for

itself,

an objective contradiction between the Idea

infinite

occurs

the most congenial to the understanding.

posited as contradiction existing for

also free.

the Idea that, in

is

part of the self-disclosure of the love

also the

embodiment

posits himself in, 'It

its

of freedom.

God

namely the world

act of determining

releases the other to exist as a free

and

dividing,

disclosure of

God

The doctrine

in otherness

is

it

and independent being.

This other, released as something free and independent the world as such.'

of

belongs to the absolute freedom of

of creation as the

is

self-

linked by Hegel to the

Incarnation, as the following passage from his Philosophy of

Nature emphasizes:

God

has

two

revelations, as nature

and

as

both manifestations are temples which He

which He

is

present.

God

as

36

spirit, fills,

an abstraction

is

and

and

in

not the

true

God;

His truth

is

process, the world,

hended

the positing of His other, the living

which

God

divine form.

in its

with His other

in

Son when

His

is

is

subject only

should find

its

own

essence,

is

the liberation of what belongs to in

is

nature

another, but to nature,

which

in

itself.

in itself

spirit

so far as This is

unity

therefore that

counterpart,

its

Notion within nature. The study of nature

spirit

in

The determination and the

spirit.

purpose of the philosophy of nature spirit

compre-

it is

i.e.

the

therefore

within nature, for

relates

it

is

itself

not to

likewise the liberation of

is

reason;

it is

only through

spirit

however, that reason as such comes forth from nature into existence. Spirit has the certainty

when he beheld bone

of

my

espoused by

Eve. This

bones.' Nature spirit.

flesh of

is

is,

which

my

Adam had

flesh, this

is

so to speak, the bride

16

Incarnation These ideas throw light upon Hegel's concept of the Incarnation in Christian thought, which he sees as a representation in religious form of the conceptual truth

about the nature of

God

The Incarnation of God

as consciousness

in Christ

is

and

subjectivity.

for Hegel a historical

and experimental representation of the necessity for God be externalized in otherness in

and with

human

a history:

This implicit being, this implicitly subsisting unity of

divine in

and human nature, must come to consciousness

infinite

anguish - but only

in

accord with implicit

being, with substantiality, so that finitude, weakness,

37

to

form, with a body

and otherness can do no harm to the

substantial unity of

the two. Or expressed differently, the substantiality of

human

the unity of divine and

nature comes to con-

way

sciousness for humanity in such a

appears

being

appears to

need

it

consciousness

to

human

as

as

being. This

is

that a

human

God, and Cod the necessity and

an appearance.

for such

Furthermore, the consciousness of the absolute idea that

we have

philosophy

in

be brought forth not

in

the form of thinking

to

is

for the standpoint of philosophical

speculation or speculative thinking but in the form of

The necessity

certainty. shall

appear]

thinking; rather

words,

this

not

is

it

intuition

It is

be before

and external existence

for

something that has been

essential to this

consciousness that

humanity. For

of

it

me

it is

-

it

us;

must become

only what exists is

in

it

must essen-

a certainty for

an immediate way,

certain. In order for

it

divine-human unity] to become a certainty for

humanity, [cf.

form of nonspeculative

must be before

inner or outer intuition, that

[this

obtaining

appears as something that has

the world,

in

experienced.

it

human

the form

certainty,

humankind, so that

been seen

of

a certainty for humanity. In other

is

immediate sensible

in

apprehended by means

content - the unity of divine and

nature - achieves

tially

divine-human unity

[that the

first

john

1

the world

God had :14]. in

to

appear

in the

The necessity that God

the flesh

is

necessary deduction from

demonstrated by

it

an

world [has]

essential characteristic

what has been

- for only

38

in the flesh

appeared

in this

in

-

a

said previously,

way can

it

become

a

certainty for humanity; only in this

the form of

way

the truth

is it

in

certainty.

At the same time there

this precise specification to

is

be added, namely, that the unity of divine and human nature must appear in

as such

itself

in

one human being. Humanity

just

the universal, or the thought of

is

humanity. From the present standpoint, however,

it

is

not a question of the thought of humanity but of sensible certainty; thus

whom in

this unity

it

one human being

just

is

envisaged - humanity as singular, or

is

determinacy of singularity and

the

Moreover,

it is

not

just a

particularity.

matter of singularity

for singularity in general

in general,

something universal once

is

more. But from the present standpoint, singularity

something

universal;

universal singularity

abstract thinking as such. Here, however,

unity [of

God and humanity]

hence

it

is

is

beyond

consciousness,

knowledge. Hence

it

lies

ordinary

sciousness and

is

human

but only

Thus

must appear

being set apart; in

this

humanity

one from

it

consciousness

itself

whom

all

subjective

is

exactly

is

in

the others,

the others are excluded.

- a single individual [who

as the soil of certainty.

why the

for others as a singular

one stands over against the others

implicitly

and

as ordinary con-

not present

is

implicitly

beyond immediate

defined as such. That

unity in question

substantial

must stand over against

consciousness, which relates to

in

a question

what humanity

something that

not

is

found

is

it is

and sensing. The

of the certainty of intuiting

is;

in

what

as is

there]

17

But this representation

is

misunderstood

39

if it is

seen as

only a single event which Rather the Incarnation

and human history Kiing says: 'Jesus

is

is

is

confined to Jesus himself.

a represenation of

how

are part of the nature of

the revelation of that

the world

God. As Hans

God man which is

the hidden, true nature of every person/ This point

is

emphasized by Hegel: The

man

substantial relationship of

to

in its

truth a beyond, but the love of

man

to

God overcomes

the 'Now' from what eternal

is

to

be

man and

of

the separation of the 'Here' and

represented as a Beyond and

is

intuited in Christ As the

the Son of God. For the

beyond. He counts not as universal history

God

to

is

life.

This identity

he

is

God seems

man,

as true

Son

God-man

there

this single individual

man. The external

must be distinguished from the

Man,

of

no

is

but as

side of his

religious side.

He

has passed through the actual world, through lowliness,

ignominy, has died. His pain was the depth of unity of the divine and the

human

nature

in living suffering.

The

blessed gods of the heathens were represented as in a

world

beyond;

through

Christ,

world, this lowliness which

is

the

ordinary

not contemptible,

actual is

itself

hallowed?*

Indeed Hegel uses the term Lebenslaufoi

what he means

here: that

God

'career' to indicate

develops subjectivity and

consciousness through Incarnation in otherness generally,

not

just

in

Christ,

and that

this

understood and comprehended in historical detail in

insight all

its

when natural

it

is

and

philosophy leads to Absolute Knowing

40

or Absolute Spirit,

which again

represented in religious

is

terms by the doctrine of the Holy

man, then, which absolute Being has

This individual

revealed

itself

individual the

Spirit:

to

accomplishes

be,

movement

himself as an

in

of sensuous Being.

immediately present God; consequently,

He

the

is

'being'

his

passes over into 'having been'. Consciousness, for which

God

thus sensuously present, ceases to see and to hear

is

Him;

it

has seen and heard Him; and

has seen and heard Him that spiritual

consciousness.

formerly

He

existence,

rose

up

now He

Or,

it is

because

first

it

becomes

other words,

in

for consciousness as a

has

arisen

the

in

a merely

itself

but not

as

sensuous

Spirit.

For

a

Him

is

immediate consciousness, which has not disparity of objectivity, has not taken

back into pure thought: ual,

itself

just

consciousness that sensuously sees and hears

overcome the

only

it

itself,

knows

it

as Spirit.

In

it

this objective individ-

the vanishing of the

immediate existence known to be absolute Being the

immediacy

receives

its

negative

moment;

Spirit

remains

the immediate Self of actuality, but as the universal self-

consciousness of the [religious] community, a self-consciousness which reposes in it

this

Substance

is

its

own

substance, just as

in

a universal Subject: not the individual

by himself, but together with the consciousness of the

community and what he

is

for this

complete whole of the individual as Spirit

is

thus posited

self-consciousness;

in

community, Spirit.

the third element,

it is its

is

the

19

in

universal

community. The movement of

41

community

the

guished

itself

what has been

Man

as self-consciousness that has distin-

from

its

picture-thought

explicit

himself the universal

in

is

make

to

The dead divine

implicitly established.

human God

or

is

self-

consciousness. Or, since this self-consciousness constitutes

one

The

side

side of the antithesis in picture-thought, viz.

of

which

for

evil,

natural

individual self-consciousness count as essence -

which

is

through its

pictured as independent, not yet as a

on account

has

own

of

independence to

its

its

own

nature to

self

the

movement

Spirit, i.e.

of Spirit.

it

and

existence

this side

moment,

raise

itself

has to exhibit

in

20

So Hegel regards his philosophy as providing an interpretation of the doctrine of the Trinity, a point

made

is

following passage from the Philosophy of

in the

clear

which

Religion.

The

first

itself,

moment

is

the idea

in its

simple universality for

self-enclosed, having not yet progressed to the

primal division, to otherness - the Father.

the particular, the idea idea in is

its

externality,

in

The second

appearance - the Son.

It is

is

the

such that the external appearance

converted back to the

first

[moment] and

is

known

as

the divine idea, the identity of the divine and the

human. The

God is

third element, then,

as the Spirit.

The

the community.

is

this

Spirit as existing

many

realizing itself

21

This idea, that the doctrine of the Trinity the notion of

consciousness -

and

community

is

closely linked to

in Christian belief,

is

theologians after Hegel have developed.

42

one which

The

Fall

Again Hegel gives a philosophical transcription of the

man in the Garden

religious representation of the Fall of

Eden which, Hegel holds,

human

nature of

This accordingly

which

existence.

the

is

mode and manner of the shape

tational^ as a story and in

represented for consciousness

is

an intuitable or sensible mode, so that

something that happened.

The

Genesis. his

in

own

gist of

image:

Humankind

being.

in

conceptual determination appears represen-

this

it is

that

this

It

is

God

created

regarded as

human

we

lived in Paradise;

zoological garden. This

it is

the familiar story in

the concept of the

is

life

is

can

beings

human call

it

a

called the state of inno-

cence. The story says, too, that the tree of the knowl-

edge

of

good and

evil

stood

in Paradise,

and that human

On command by eating of it is formally set down that this eating was

beings disobeyed God's the one hand,

it.

commandment. The

the transgression of a

however,

is

content,

the essential thing, namely, that the sin

consisted in having eaten of the tree of knowledge of

good and

evil,

and

connection there comes about

in this

the pretense of the serpent that humanity

God when It is

tree.

the

it

fruit

human

clear, as far as is

an outward image -

What

has elevated

to the

and

itself

it

be

really

it

is

concerned, that

belongs only to the

means

is

that humanity

knowledge of good and

this cognition, this distinction,

43

like

evil.

beings have eaten of this

the content

sensible portrayal.

will

good and

has the knowledge of

said, then, that

It is

of

us a deep truth about the

tells

is

the source of

evil;

evil, is

Being

evil itself.

consciousness.

being

And

means

the act of cognition,

in

we

certainly, as

resides in the cognitive

evil

the source of

is

located

evil is

already said

in

earlier,

knowledge; cognition

For cognition or consciousness

evil.

general a judging or dividing, a self-distin-

in

guishing within oneself. Animals have no consciousness,

they are unable to

make

distinctions within themselves,

they have no free being-for-self

in

generally. The cleavage, however,

contradiction.

Only

Therefore are

evil

The

first

this

the expression 'the ity

itself

first

being

represented

is

Here again

fall.

first

human

have

is

cognition.

only one

having

as

this sensible

some

single,

humanity enters

when

the

its

concept.

it is

precisely

into this cleavage,

it is

further specified,

But inasmuch as universal humanity

represented as a

first

man, he

who

has done

is

good

among many, but

is

is

represented as distin-

guished from others. Hence the question is

it

being' signifies 'human-

conscious being;

into the consciousness that,

the evil.

of view of thought,

one, humanity according to

for that reason that

is

we

From the point

being as such

it is

good and

or 'humanity as such' - not

absolutely

evil;

consciousness.

in

contingent individual, not one

Human

sides:

is

entirely correct to say that

it is

of expression.

what

contained, and hence

evil

is

two

to be found

human

first

brought about

mode

contains the

cleavage

in this

itself evil.

and

It

the face of objectivity is

this,

how

arises: is

if

there

that deed

transmitted to others? Here the notion of inheritance of sin that

is

passed on to

means the

all

others

deficiency involved

44

comes in

into play. By this

viewing humanity as

man

The

such representationally as a

first

one-sidedness involved

representing the cleavage

in

is

corrected.

belonging to the concept of

human

the act of a single individual

absorbed by

a

communicated

is

being generally as this

notion of

or inherited sin. Neither the original

representation nor the correction are really necessary; for it is

humanity

into this cleavage.

The Garden humanity and with aware of

whole

as a

that, as consciousness, enters

22

Eden

story represents the innocence of

in a kind of

unmediated unity with the divine

of

humanity in such circumstances

nature, but its

own

knowledge gives

subjectivity

and

spirit.

man knowledge

of

is

not

Eating of the tree of

good and

evil, it

gives

own path.

him

a sense that for

It is

the birth of individualism and personal responsibility.

good or

This unmediated unity

the

modes

he can follow

broken and

of experience

philosophy to ways.

is

ill

his

man seeks through all

which Hegel

describes in his

realize his individual nature in

many diverse

But again, the Christian religion represents the

possibility of redemption, of a return state of

not to a prelapsarian

innocence and unmediated unity, but, philosophi-

cally understood, to a

new kind

of mediated unity

when we

understand things from the point of view of Absolute

Knowledge in which

all

the gains of

which would not have been

human

possible

if

individuality,

humanity had

stayed in the mythological Garden of Eden, are preserved

and integrated into

we

this

new philosophical

vision.

So again

have to transcend the representational in the story in

Genesis and transcribe the story into a philosophical form, that reintegration of

humanity

45

is

possible but only

by the

comprehension of

struggle entailed in the philosophical

the totality of our historical experience as

From the point first

human

human

beings:

of view of thought, the expression 'the

being'

signifies

'humanity

itself

in

or

'humanity as such' not some single contingent individual

Adam

(i.e.

absolutely

Human

first

not one

RP),

being as such

...

But

the

in

same way

also the

is

it

a conscious being;

is

humanity enters

for that reason that

evil,

is

also sublated.

but the

its

concept.

it is

precisely

into this cleavage

as this cleavage

mid point

consciousness contains within

age

among many,

one, humanity according to

is

the source of

of the conversion that

whereby

itself

this cleav-

23

Individual consciousness thus leads for Hegel to the capacity for right

and wrong but because consciousness

also

has the primordial desire for unity as Hegel has maintained

throughout his work, the possibility for overcoming the Fall,

and the diremption that

by consciousness cleavage

is

itself

and

it

causes, could be

thus,

overcome

in his language 'this

sublated'.

Redemption comes through the philosophical grasp of the totality of

human

experience which would not have

been possible without the

Fall.

Redemption does not

restore

'innocence to the fallen' as the Praeconium Paschale says

because there can be no return to innocence.

now

is

for

experience

is

gathered together, but this

says in Phenomenology of Spirit -

Absolute

What we

seek

Hegel a mediated unity in which the totality of

Spirit'.

46

it

is

is

a struggle - as he

the 'Golgotha of

and Philosophy

Religion

more remains

Little

to be said about the relationship

between religion and philosophy. They

are

both modes of

Absolute Knowledge but philosophy transcends religion

which

gets caught

up on

and representation which

stories

can lead to the forms of bifurcation which, as we saw, were central concerns at the

Since

what

Stift:

at issue

is

we

reconciliation,

is

the consciousness of absolute

new new religion. Through it new actuality, a different

are here in the presence of a

consciousness of humanity or a a

new world

is

constituted, a

world-condition, because [humanity's] outward deter-

minate being, its

[its]

polemical, being ity in

now

natural existence,

substantiality. This

is

the aspect that

has religion as

is

the consciousness of humanity. The

expresses

itself

negative and

opposed to the subsistence

new

precisely as a

of external-

new

religion

consciousness, the

consciousness of a reconciliation of humanity with God. This reconciliation, expressed as a state of

kingdom

The

of God, an actuality.

individuals] are reconciled with

who So

rules in the heart

if

we

religion,

say

now

which they stand

it is

[of

God

its

it

in

in

must be

need and

a relationship

opposition to one said that the

interest,

is

wholly

with that of religion. The object of religion,

that of philosophy,

the

that philosophy ought to consider

content of philosophy,

God

is

and has attained dominion. 24

another. But on the contrary

common

affairs,

and hearts

God, and thus

then these two are likewise set

of distinction in

but

souls

is

the eternal truth,

God and nothing

and the explication of God. Philosophy

47

in

like

is

only

explicating itself when explicates spirit

is

itself it

is

it

explicates religion,

and when

it

explicating religion. For the thinking

what penetrates

this

the truth;

object,

it

is

thinking that enjoys the truth and purifies the subjective

consciousness. Thus religion and philosophy coincide

one.

religion. is

philosophy

In fact

is

itself

the service of God, as

the service of

God

in a

way

to be said).

peculiar to

They

differ

it

(about which

in

character of their concern with God. This difficulties lie it

is

But each of them, religion as well as philosophy,

more needs

and

in

that

the peculiar

impede philosophy's grasp

two

often appears impossible for the

be united. The apprehensive attitude of

where the

is

of religion;

of

them

religion

to

toward

philosophy and the hostile stance of each toward the other arise from

this.

It

seems,

the theologians

as

frequently suggest, that philosophy works to corrupt the

content of religion, destroying and profaning

it.

This old

antipathy stands before our eyes as something admitted

and acknowledged, more generally acknowledged than their unity.

The time seems to have

when philosophy can

however,

arrived,

deal with religion

more

impartially

on the one hand, and more fruitfully and auspiciously on the other.

The

25

fact that the religious content

the form of representation earlier,

that religion

truth in the it

is

way that

is

it

found primarily

is

is

present primarily

connected with what

said

the consciousness of absolute

occurs for in

all

human

beings. Thus

the form of representation.

Philosophy has the same content, the truth; of the

I

in

it is

the

world generally and not the particular

48

spirit spirit.

Philosophy does nothing but transform our representa-

The content remains always the

tions into concepts.

same.

26

Philosophy

as

is,

Hegel says in his Lectures on the Philosophy

of Religion, 'Gottes dienst - the service of God. The transcrip-

human

tion of

and

and history into philosophical concepts

within a total explanation which

set

Knowledge God.

life

is

puts the content of religion in a

It

new way so that we

do not apprehend the deep truths of our stories

and representations but

structure

which

is

also

Absolute

is

and history of

a transcription of the nature

only through

lives

through a conceptual

publicly available to

all,

and

as a shared

understanding of experience can form the basis of a

common

life.

This reconciliation

extent theology.

philosophy. Philosophy

is

It

is

to this

presents the reconciliation of

God

with himself and with nature, showing that nature, otherness, itself

implicitly divine,

is

to reconciliation

spirit implicitly

is,

'surpass

reason

what

is

all

is

is

first

raising of

brings

it

forth, in

it

finite

arrives at

world

history.

the peace of God, which does not

reason', but

true.

and that the

on the other hand what

while on the other hand

this reconciliation, or

This reconciliation

is

is

rather the peace that through

known and thought and

27

49

is

recognized as

CONCLUSION

For

Hegel, therefore, the philosophy of religion

just a specific

not

is

branch of philosophy dealing with a

problems within

specific set of intellectual

much more profound and pervasive than

religion.

The

that.

It

an

tian religion, properly understood, provides us with

integrated account of

and

in the

modern

humanity when

human

world.

it is

It is

is

Chris-

existence both historically for Hegel the basis for a

new

philosophically transcribed and com-

prehended. As he says in The Phenomenology of

Spirit,

philosophy becomes the foundation for an 'accomplished

community

of consciousness'

common life.

and thus the

basis for a

For Hegel, then, the task of philosophy

just the elaboration of sets of general principles,

is

not

but

is

rooted in our personal, social and cultural experience,

providing an interpretation of what interpretation transforming

and

is

and through

transfiguring

sive part of this experience

is

and that which may appear

at the level of the

it.

A

this

perva-

directly involved in religion

Understand-

ing not to be can be seen from the standpoint of Absolute

Knowledge to be capable of being understood

in terms of

appropriately rethought Christian categories. Thus, having

seen Christianity initially as part of the problem of frag-

mentation in the modern world,

it

becomes

thought the basic part of the solution and

in his mature

it

does this by

changing and developing our understanding of the nature of God, Incarnation, Holy Spirit

50

and the

Trinity.

Hegel's theology

theism'

which

is

by the term 'panen-

best characterized

pantheism and orthodox theism. Hegel enlightenment deism in terms of which universe, but has

no

further role within

from the pantheism of Spinoza identified

from deism,

usefully distinguishes his views

with the world

clearly

God

It is

it.

rejects

creates the

different

whose work God

in

as a whole. This

is

is

because for

we cannot treat the given world as identical with God any more than we can treat a person as identical with a list Hegel

The world,

of his bodily parts. political

of

God

and

cultural,

within

it.

is

natural, personal, social,

transfigured

by the

self-revelation

So as a person has a body and could not be

a person without one, nevertheless a person

is

not reducible

to a description of the body. Hegel's philosophy

pantheistic because

we do have

a conception of

is

in himself (the Absolute Idea) but this

is

abstract

God

in

not

is

God

as

he

knowledge of God

without an understanding of the self-positing of

the world which has to occur

consciousness and already given,

Spirit. Equally, for

Hegel's

work

is

at

if

God

reasons that

to

is I

have

odds with orthodox

Christian theism. Against Hegel's claim that without the

world

God would not

be God, the world of orthodoxy

would take the contrary view that the being and nature of

God

has to be understood independently of the world. For

Hegel, however,

God

is

not

just 'in

himself but also

'for

himself as embodied in the world. So panentheism, which

was a term coined by Krause, a philosophical contemporary of Hegel's, seems to be the best

way

of categorizing Hegel's

understanding of religion. Panentheism

Greek words: pan meaning theos

meaning God and

all

it is

is

made up

or everything, en

of three

meaning

in,

intended to convey precisely

51

what Hegel meant: that God is

more than the sum

immanent

is

in the world but

of the parts of the world.

Hegel's religious thought, as

have described

I

it,

became

very influential in the latter part of the nineteenth century, particularly in Britain

through

its

impact on T.H. Green,

Henry Jones and John and Edward Caird. influential for

two

related reasons. First of

all

It

Sir

was so

Green and

his

colleagues were very taken with the idea that Hegel's

philosophy, providing as

common

life

it

how human common under-

did an account of

could be achieved by this

standing of the Christian basis of civilization. This was a point

made

Word

is

If

is

particularly well

by Green

in his

sermon The

Nigh Thee':

there

is

an essence within the essence of Christianity,

the thought embodied

thought of God not as but as father; not as

the text

in

far off

terrible

but

I

it

have read; the

'nigh';

not as master

outward power forcing us

we know not whither, but as one whom we may say that we are reason of his reason, and spirit of his spirit, who lives in our moral life and for whom we live in living for the brethren and in so living we live freely. 28 Understood in basis of a

way, Christianity could become the

this

common

life.

The second reason why it

it

became

so influential was that

was thought that Hegel's philosophy of

materials

for

the

religion provided

defence of Christianity against two

intellectual currents of the generations

which followed

Hegel, namely: the historical critique of the

life

of Jesus,

and the development of the theory of evolution. The development of the

historical critique of the life of Jesus,

52

particularly in the

hands of

Strauss

who was much

enced by Hegel, posed major problems

influ-

for later nineteenth-

century Christian thinkers and yet Hegel's philosophy, just

because

it

detached a proper understanding of the nature of

Christianity

from the

made

particular figure of Jesus,

it

mount a defence of Christianity which was immune from this kind of historical critique. As

possible to largely

Green wrote: At a time

when

man accustomed

every thoughtful is

origins

its

call

asking the faith he professes for

himself a Christian

some account

of

to

and

authority,

it is

a pity the

answer should be confused by the habit of identifying Christianity with the set of written propositions

constitute the

New

which

Testament.

Since Christianity could be understood philosophically,

could be cally

the

made

relatively

immune

to this

form of

it

histori-

based attack on the details of the Gospels' account of

life

of Jesus.

In addition, because Hegel

mental of

God

had

stressed the self-develop-

in the world of nature

thought by some

British Hegelians,

and

culture,

it

was

particularly J. R. Illing-

worth, that a Hegelianized form of Christianity could be

made compatible with

the theory of evolution as a develop-

mental account of nature. This

is

not the place to go into

the extent to which this kind of account of Christianity

could achieve these goals, but certainly the possibility

seemed

to be there for those

who

were influenced by

this

work. Hegel's

work poses

thought in several

a considerable challenge to

respects.

modern

To the Christian thinker

53

it

raises

the question of the nature of orthodoxy and whether

God and

his account of the nature of

that flow from that can be

accommodated within some-

thing recognizably Christian and,

might be rethought in

who have made the one

hand the some

are

if it

how these

can,

more contemporary idiom. Those

a

Process theologians

who

and

account of

how

follow in the

Whitehead and C. Hatshorne. Although between Process

differences

significant

philosophers and Hegel, nevertheless there of overlap

ideas

the most progress on this are probably on

footsteps of A. N.

there

the other doctrines

their

is

a large degree

thought provides the best modern

a developmental metaphysic of the sort

adopted by Hegel might be made salient to modern Hegel also poses a general challenge for

sensibilities.

contemporary

religious

incarnation provides

about

thought in the sense that

and one holds that Christianity

Christian

human

some

existence,

one

is

a

general and universal truths

how

are these truths to be under-

stood in detail in relation to the world as

by modern natural and

if

as a religion of

social science

it is

shown

to be

and history? Modern

theologians have sometimes paid lip service to the need for a

comprehensive account of

but there

is

precious

little

religious

in detail to

providing a unifying perspective

way

thought in

show for it

on human

this religion

in terms of

existence in the

that Hegel thought was indispensable

struggled to achieve. Yet

this sense,

and which he

from a Christian perspective,

makes universal claims not

just

if

about private

and personal relationships but about the natural world in

which we

culture

and community

which we build to make sense of that

existence, then

exist

and the forms of

54

however flawed Hegel's own vision may be the demand

for

comprehensiveness which he

an

intellectual

a

common

not

just as

demand, but one which could form the life,

basis of

remains to be met in our age.

The other major challenge

modern

articulated,

that Hegel's

work poses

to

Christian theology can perhaps best be thought of

in terms of the contrast with the currently popular narrative theology. Narrative

theology shares with a good deal of

post-modern philosophy a scepticism about the

role of

reason and metaphysics within religion. There

general

no

is

form of reason which could yield the comprehensive system which Hegel's thought embodies. Reason to specific

communities which

are

is

internal

shaped by narrative,

common interests and common traditions. What is rational and

irrational

is

internal to different narratives

whether

these be the narratives of Christianity or something

There

is,

else.

however, no general, comprehensive, rational

system or meta narrative which could,

through his account of

as

Hegel tried to do

dialectic, place particular narratives

within a more general framework. The narrative theologies associated with

S.

Hauerwas and

J.

MacLendon not only

share the scepticism of a general account of reason that

is

not related to narrative and tradition, they also believe that

from a Christian perspective such

a

commitment

to a

general view of reason

would be

positively harmful to the

nature of Christianity.

If

we had

a comprehensive account

of reason of the sort that Hegel tries to provide, then, they argue, the narrative

form of Christianity would become a

kind of illustration or embellishment of truths that could

be

known on

other grounds which, in a sense,

55

is

precisely

what Hegel

tried to

do with

his transformation of Christi-

These points however take us back to where we

anity.

started

with Hegel

who

was, as

we

saw, profoundly con-

cerned with the fragmentation of the society

and the fragmentation of the

to achieve a

there

is

no

self

common

life

of

which was unable

comprehensive interpretation of existence.

general account of the nature of

human

life

If

and

purpose and no meta narrative, only specific narratives based upon faith and commitment, then a very polarized world in particular narratively

we run

the risk of

which people belong

to their

formed communities with no sense of

common purposes and common life.

Hegel's

life's

work was

devoted to showing the dangers in such an approach and,

through his philosophy, that

56

it

was not necessary.

NOTES 1.

Nohl,

H.

2.

Ibid., p. 27.

3.

Ibid., p. 28.

4.

Ibid., p.

5.

Mackinnon,

Hegel,

(Mohr,

p. 245.

333.

The Borderlands of Theology (Lutterworth,

D.,

London, 1968), 6.

Theologische Jugendschriften

Hegel's

(ed.),

Tubingen, 1907),

p.

The

G.L.F.,

83

an Appendix to H.S.

Towards

Development

- Programme of German

Earliest System

Idealism, translated as

the

Sunlight

Harris's Hegel's

Clarendon

(The

Press,

Oxford, 1972), p. 511. 7.

Glockner, H.

(ed.), Hegel's

Samtliche Werke, Vol. X, (frommann-

holzboog, Stuttgart, 1965) 8.

Hampshire,

S.N.,

p.

259.

Thought and Action (Jonathan Cape, London,

1959), p. 276. 9.

Hegel, G.W.F., The Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A.V. Miller

(The Clarendon G.W.F.,

10. Hegel, P.

Hodgson

Press,

Oxford, 1977), p. 493.

(University

Angeles/London, 1988), 11. Eliot,

(Faber

T.S.,

&

on the Philosophy of

Lectures

Tittle

Faber,

p.

of

California

Press,

Religion,

473.

Gidding',

in

London, 1963),

Collected p.

Poems 1909-1962

222.

12. Hegel, G.W.F., Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, Vol. P.

Hodgson

(University

ed.

Berkeley/Los

of

California

Press,

I,

ed.

Berkeley/Los

Angeles/London 1984), pp. 126-7. 13. Hegel, G.W.F.,

Allen

&

The Philosophy of Nature, ed. M.J. Petry (George

Unwin, London, 1970), Vol.

57

I,

p.

205.

14.

Hegel, G.W.F., Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, Vol. cit.,

p.

15. Hegel, G.W.F., Philosophy of Nature, Vol. 16.

I,

op.

381.

Ibid., p.

17. Hegel,

volume

I,

op.

cit.,

p.

205.

204.

G.W.F., Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion,

one-

edition, (University of California Press, Berkeley/Los

Angeles/London, 1988) op. 18. Hegel, G.W.F.,

and M. George 19. Hegel, G.W.F.,

cit.,

p.

454.

The Philosophical Propaedeutic, ed. A. Vincent (Blackwells, Oxford, 1986), p. 168.

The Phenomenology of Spirit, op.

cit.,

p.

462.

20. Ibid., p. 473. 21. Hegel,

volume

G.W.F., Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, oneedition, op.

cit.,

p.

473.

22. Ibid., p. 442.

23. Ibid.

24. Ibid., p. 459. 25. Ibid., p. 78. 26. Ibid.

27. Ibid., p. 489. 28. Green, T.H., Collected Works, vol. 3

don, 1885),

p.

221.

58

(Longman Green, Lon-

G.W.F.

HEGEL

1

-

7 7 0

1

8 3

1

$6.00

ithout Hegel, modern thought is unthinkable. From Marx

to

Merleau-Ponty, from Kierkegaard

to Nietzsche, those

whose

worked

shadow

modern age have

all

in his

ideas

have made the

For Hegel's preoccupations have turned out to be our own.

The

isolation of the individual adrift in society, the yearning of

the divided self for an integrated wholeness these are the anxi:

eties his al

successors have shared.

The

rival claims of the person-

and the public, the immediate instant and the wider

historic

narrative these have remained pressing problems through :

two

hundred years of change. Yet if his "philosophy" seems as contemporary as ever,

Hegel s "religious" views have been dismissed as irrelevant anachronism. The distinction cal explorations, suggests

new

is false,

Raymond

however. In his theologiPlant in this illuminating

guide, Hegel tackled the issues of interest to us

Raymond plant

has been a Master of

Oxford, since September 1994.

St.

all.

Catherines College,

He was Professor of Politics at the

University of Southampton from 1979 to 1994, and he Pro-Chancellor of the University

1992 and Political

sits

He was

now a

on the Labour Benches. His books include Hegel

Philosophy and Social Welfare

and Modern Political Thought.

consulting editors: Ray Monk and

Frederic Raphael

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