Abstract
Hegel laid great emphasis on the place of religion in human culture and on the close connection between religion and speculative philosophy. Quite apart from questions concerning the adequacy and legitimacy of his interpretation of religion in general or of Christianity in particular, the fact remains that Hegel more than once described his thought as the translation of the content of classical Christianity into the form of the speculative concept. His belief that he had actually accomplished such a translation is expressed on numerous occasions throughout his many writings. Therefore, I find quite unconvincing the claims made by those who find this fact embarrassing and who must then invent the myth that Hegel was not serious or that he did not mean what he said. What grounds other than those of dogmatic preference could be brought forth to support such a claim? One side finds the religious dimension in Hegel uncongenial and concludes that it may be dismissed: the other side finds that many of Hegel’s doctrines and especially his repeatedly stated view of the relation between religion and philosophy, make it impossible for us to think of eliminating the religious element in his thought while supposedly leaving his philosophy still standing. If we consult Hegel on the matter and not our own predilections and special interests, the religious dimension is essential. In this I agree with the recent study of the topic by Emil Fackenheim.
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Notes
VPR, II, p. 365 (I shall be using the 1959 printing). In future notes I shall cite a passage in the original and follow with the corresponding English translation in LPR. In all cases I have made my own translations, but in some cases I find the above translation adequate. I have cited the English for purposes of convenience and comparison.
VPR, II, p. 356; LPR, III, p. 151.
VPR, II, p. 311; LPR, III, p. 103.
EdpW, Glockner, X, sec. 554, pp, 446f; Wallace, pp. 167f.
If, on the other hand, we follow Hegel’s own statements about the identity of God and the Idea, and the ultimate identity of philosophy and theology, the philosophy of religion must no longer be seen as one part or branch among others of the total system, but rather as its culmination. In my view, there always remains an ambiguity, at least in Hegel’s form of expression, on this head. He describes the Idee as that which presents itself in existence and comprehends itself in all reality; his identification of the Idee with absolute Truth and reality demands at once that it be identified with God as well. And yet Hegel can speak of the “divine Idea” as if the expression were not redundant, thus suggesting that God is the Idee insofar as it is expressed in the sphere of religion. On the other hand, the account given of the Absolute Idea in the final section of the Science of Logic (5.327ff.) combines several possibilities. After characterizing the Idea as the identity of the theoretical and practical Idea, he goes on to say, “The Absolute Idea is the only object and content of philosophy” (the passage is found in WdL, Glöckner, V, p. 328 and in SL, II, p. 466) but that it has different modes of existence — Nature and Spirit — and different modes in which it comprehends itself — art and religion. Hegel again makes the point that the content of philosophy is the same as that of religion and art, but that philosophy represents the higher form of comprehension because it works through the concept. The question is the extent to which the Idea in religion is making its appearance in a special or limited perspective and is thus the “divine” Idea rather than the Idea “itself.” It is, of course, open to Hegel to say that the fully adequate realization of the Absolute Idea, qua content, is found in the Truth of religion, even if it remains for speculative thought to express that Truth in the form of the concept.
In making such a characterization one must bear in mind that the sorts of relation that obtain between the items of reality grasped by the concept undergo change as the process of self-comprehension goes forward. Thus,for example, in logical development — the movement from Being to Essence and finally to concept — the categories come to be related to each other in an increasingly internal way. The categories of Being are like monads which confront each other externally and pass into each other reciprocally, those of Essence have a diadic or conjunctive character which Hegel describes as “pairs of correlatives,” while in the sphere of the Concept, the categories of “moments” are irreducibly triadic since they must express the complete development of Being through universality, particularity and individuality.
EdpW, Glockner, sec. 160.
EdpW, Glockner, sec. 162, pp. 356f; Wallace, p. 291.
EdpW, Glockner, sec. 236, p. 446; Wallace, p. 374.
The problem of determining the meaning of Spirit is focused by the fact that we have difficulty translating the very title of Phenomenology. The term “mind” expresses only the intellectual or cognitive aspect of Geist and leaves out power and life. On the other hand, the term “spirit” is not entirely satisfactory because it is vague, connoting feeling or the immaterial in a general sense and not at all conveying Hegel’s meaning of self-determining life and thought involved in concrete individuality.
The thinker chiefly responsible for this historical line of interpretation was Joachim di Fiore, a medieval thinker, who not only correlated the reign of the Persons with historical ages, but held that the age of the Spirit would begin in 1260 and that in this period a new creativity would appear breaking through the fixed forms of both religious dogma and institutions.
VPR, II, p. 219; LPR, III, p. 2.
The “limited” but not absolutely “universal” present.
VPR, II, p. 315; LPR, III, p. 107.
VPR, II, pp. 317f; LPR, III, p. 110.
In his doctrine of the community, expressed in terms of the theory of interpretation and triadic relations, Royce gave a more explicit formulation of the central idea involved. The members as individuals become related to the truth that founds and defines the community and thereby become related to each other in a new way. The relation between member and member, however, is not the same as that between each member and the community itself which, for both Hegel and Royce, is not merely a collection of members, but the truth or the power which united the members.
Throughout the discussion of the spiritual community, Hegel uses the term Geist to mean God as understood, first, through the Trinitarian religious symbol, and second, through his own speculative reconstruction of Spirit as the concrete in-and-for-itself actualization of God or the eternal Idea found only in the kingdom of Spirit. There are some passages when Hegel uses the expression “der heilige Geist” to refer to the historical situation of the founding of the community. I see no ground for doubting that he identified the religious doctrine of God as Holy Spirit with his own conception of Spirit. If it be asked whether he was entirely justified in so doing, the answer would have to be long and involved. One thing is clear: Spirit, for Hegel, contained a greater emphasis on self-consciousness and knowledge than would have been characteristic of the interpretation of many theologians, especially those in the evangelical traditions where discussions of the Holy Spirit were invariably bound up with the problem of conversion and the “sincerity” of the true believer.
VPR, II, p. 318. “… Gott als Geist der Dreinige ist.”
VPR, II, p. 326; LPR, III, p. 119.
VPR, II, p. 328; LPR, III, p. 121.
Hegel saw, as many over-zealous questers for the “historical Jesus” have not, that however important historical research may be for the correct determination of the religious content, such research does not bring us closer to providing whatever justification that content is to receive. Hegel’s point is that when the content was present in historical form, that form, even then, did not provide the justification since the truth of faith was and is bound up with the significance of the starting point and that significance is available only for Spirit, i.e., for experience and thought.
VPR, II, p. 336; LPR, III, p. 108.
VPR, II, p. 313; LPR, III, p. 105.
VPR, II, p. 314; LPR, III, p. 106.
VPR, II, p. 314; LPR, III, p. 106.
VPR, II, p. 327; LPR, III, p. 121. “der sich schlechthin gegenwärtig ist”; cf. VPR, II, p. 340.
VPR, II, p. 328; LPR, III, p. 122.
VPR, II, pp. 340ff.; LPR, III, pp. 134ff.
For Hegel’s doctrine of Objectivity, it is necessary to turn to the Science of Logic, Eng. trans., vol. 2, 343ff. This doctrine forms the second section of the theory of the concept. Objectivity embraces the domain of objects as understood through the forms of mechanism, chemism and teleology. As far as the philosophy of religion is concerned, “objectivity” means the world and points to the involvement of both the individual members of the community and the community itself in the worlds of natural and cultural objects.
VPR, II, p. 342; LPR, III, p. 136.
VPR, II, p. 342; LPR, III, p. 137.
It is interesting to note that Hegel, speaking historically, refers to the church (Kirche) as corrupted, but not to the Spiritual as such (der Geistige). The latter is said to be in “absolute contradiction” but presumably, in not being identical with any historical church, the Spiritual can escape corruption and go on to the finding of a more satisfactory way of relating itself to the world. A topic which I have not considered and which would be essential for a more complete study, is the distinction and precise relation between the “spiritual community,” the “church,” the “Spiritual,” the “kingdom of Spirit,” and the “kingdom of God.” There is clearly much overlap in denotation among the terms, but determining the divergences is essential for clarity.
“It is the freedom of reason which has been won in religion which now knows itself in Spirit as existing for itself.” VPR, II, p. 344; LPR, III, p. 139.
VPR, II, pp. 343f; LPR, III, p. 138.
VPR, II, p. 350; LPR, III, p. 145.
VPR, II, p. 352; LPR, II, p. 148.
LPR, II, p. 353; LPR, III, p. 148. There is a possible ambiguity in this passage; Hegel says, “In der Philosophie, welche Theologie ist…” which could be taken to mean either that philosophy, as such, and theology are identical, or that there is a type, a form, a task, of philosophy which is theology. I do not attempt to resolve this problem; I am inclined to think that Hegel means to refer to philosophy as such. And yet there is one further passage that must be reckoned with. Hegel writes: “This reconciliation [of thought with the concrete] is philosophy; philosophy is theology insofar as it sets forth the reconciliation of God with himself and with nature.” 16.354; Eng. 4.148. Much depends on the limitation implied in “insofar.”
VPR, II, p. 354; LPR, III, p. 150.
VPR, II, p. 354; LPR, III, p. 150.
The proper denotation of the “for us” here parallels that of the “we” in other of Hegel’s writings.
VPR, II, p. 355; LPR, III, p.151. 42. VPR, II, p. 365; LPR, III, p. 151.
VPR, Lasson,63, p. 228.
Gerhard Ebeling, Das Wesen des christlichen Glaubens (Hamburg, Siebenstern, 1965), p. 95.
VPR, Lasson, 63, p. 179.
Emil Brunner, Wahrheit als Begegnung (Zürich, Zwingli, 1938), pp. 62–63.
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Smith, J.E., Smith, P.C. (1970). Hegel’s Reinterpretation of the Doctrine of Spirit and the Religious Community. In: Christensen, D.E. (eds) Hegel and the Philosophy of Religion. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9152-4_6
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