YAN 1/1969 4 8 g 3 Leeosica, seas Jf Emil L. Fackenheim | The Religious Dimension f in Hegel’s Thought H Indiana University Press : | Bloomington & LondonCopyright © 1967 by Emil L. Fackenheim [No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in ‘any form ot by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval syst < ‘permission in writing from ‘Association of America Resolution on Permissions coi ‘exception to Library of Congress catalog card nusnber: 68-14602 “Manufactured in the United States of America For Rose, Michael, Susan, and DavidContents Preface, xi ONE. Introduction, 3 ‘wo Human Experience and Absolute Thought: The Contral Problem of Hegel's 2. ComprchContents 4. Schellingian and Hegellan Absolute Talis, 25, cummz The “Ladder” to the Absolute Standpoint: On the Phenomenology of Spiga) 2. Introduction, 9 vor -Auehas Spo Neton (> Bt pit Cora of elt 6, TS Stnpint of bit lle, 7 Philosophical Sciences, 75 2 The Central Problem of the Hegelian System, 75 '2. The Right-Wing Interpretation, 77 6, The Idealist Mediation, 90 7. The Logical Mediation, 99 Crucial Aseumption, 208 science and Philosophy 7 The 0 5. Chris Glen the Hay Sp Ca) Theological Thoght and the Double Testa) ix a does sag re ri ee six. The Transfiguration of Faith into Philosophy, 160 4, Introduction, 160 6, “Knowledge of God “Appendie 3. Medieval Catholic and Moder Protestant Theology, 236 “Appendis 2. The Speculative to the Divine Side ofthe Divine “Appendix. The Preservation in Speculative Though 238, Appendi 4."Tae Moder Socular-P seve Conclusion: The Crisis of the Hegelian Middle, 223 1, ntoducton, 229 2, The Hegelian P the Consummation ‘post Hegelian Thought, 295, Notes, 246 Index, 266Preface mainly through the mediation of existentialism. speaks directly, by virtue of its own profundity. Theée are convictions at which I arrived two decades ago, About ten years ago they ripened into a plan to produce a one-volume work which'would trace the relation between religion and philos- ophy from Kant to Kierkegaard. The work was to address itself toxi Preface scholars inthe field, but also to philosophers and theologians who are interested in the past only where it has a bearing on the present. "The original plan broke down because of Hegel. Hegel's philos- ophy shatters the context of German idealism; it is as much a response to Aristotle and Spinoza as to Kant, Fichte, and Schelling, Moreover, in the case of all the other thinkers, religious thought ccan more or less be isolated from the rest of their philosophy; this is impossible in Hegel's case, for his philosophy exemplifies his assortion that “the Whole is the Truth.” As a result of this break- down, the present work is offered as one of two independent (al- ‘though, it is hoped, mutually illuminating) companion volumes. ‘The second volume (which I hope to offer in the near future) will be composed of essays on Kant, Fichte, Schleiermacher, and Schelling. ‘One feature of the original plait remains unchanged: this vol- ‘ume is addressed to scholars, on the one hand, philosophers and theologians, on the other. Hence the text is kept as free as possible of technical terminology; also, matters of purely scholarly interest— such as documentation, argument with alternative interpretations, crucial but esoteric points of doctrine-are confined to the notes and appendices. For this reason these are more extensive than is usual. Te remains only to offer thanks. A John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship enabled me to devote the year 1957-58 wholly to this study. I have enjoyed the fellowship of a, group of Jewish thinkers united in their commitment to Judaism, and of the members ofthe University of Toronto philosophy department who are open to every form of philosophizing; this fellowship has helped me endure the ever-present tension between religi mediacy and philosophical reflection, Mrs. Jean Reoch, senior seoretary of my department, typed the manuscript, undeterred by illegible scribblings and complex notes. Finally, the members of (to whom this work is dedicated) are a constant revela- wved, a philosophical bles my f tion that there is; as Hegel the fact that the philosopher, on his head” during the “speculative Sunday,” “stand on his feet” during the “workaday week.” Toronto ELF April 1967The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought Ein. Gesch. Phil, pp.ago f° Philosophy i seen (by Hegel] asthe consummator - 7 what ws promi suse nossnarwns, Der Stern der Erloesung (Prankfurt: Keuffman, 1922), p12 Why did Hegel not bocome forthe Protestant word “somthing smile to what Thomas Aquinas was for Roman Calin? How that, very s008 after Hegel st was exatly his schioverent which began to be looked upon, witha pitying sl rg someting wok as ened, hough of every pro "7 Enother after he hid come? xan, nant, From Rousseau f0 (London: SCM Press, 1959), pp + Abbreviations are listed on pp.ags f. s* Published in the United States as Protetant Thought: From Rousseau 40 Ritchl (Now York: Harper & Row, 1959).Introduction Aconing to a legend of great longevity, the Hegelian philos 9 not and rover was to Tels a dogmatic ‘atinaliom which undertakes a priori deductions of empirical fact by some strange thests-anihesi-sy panlogism which denies the empirieal a Itt thought system divorced sgencles of life, Itintellectalizes at and them. It dele history 30 as to identify mi history thus deifed cu+ [impenetrable mystery. Heg 4 The Religious Dimension in Hogel’s Thought presses all these absurdities is 8 barbarous and well-nigh unintel- ligible language. This legend was never credible. As early as 1844 (when Hegel's philosophy was already widely declared dead) his biographer Karl Rosenkranz. observed that if this were the case, “one would have to bbe astounded by the vehemence with which it is attacked precisely by those who declare it dead.”* His point is well taken, Its aston- {shing that anti-Hegelianism should have been an indispensable part of the thought of such strange nineteenth-century bedfellows ‘as Marx and Kierkegaard, and that the ghost of Hegel should conce again haunt such twentieth-century figures as Tillich and Rosenzweig, Heidegger and Sartre. Nothing, in fact, could be ‘more astonishing-except that thinkers of such stature should ‘waste their strength on a philosophy which is manifestly absurd. ‘The Hegel legend, though dying hard, has in recent decades shown signs of fading away. Serious students could never ignore facts which no amount of juggling can fit into the legend: to name but a few, that sections of the Phenomenology of Spirit are every istential as anything in Kierkegaard, Heidegger, or Sartre; that the Philosophy of Nature does not replace but on the contrary {presupposes empirical science; that the Philosophy of History ends \with the present, not because it ends all history but because phi- Tosophy cannot transcend present history; and that the entire Hegelian philosophy, far from denying the contingent, on the contrary seeks to demonstrate its inescapability. If facts such as these did not at once smash the Hegel legend, and indeed until this day have not destroyed it, itis because they seemed to replace ‘a caricature, not with a clear and true picture, but rather with an er all, does put forward an abso- and therefore final lute philosophy, that is, an all-comprehen [pst ofan all comprehensive nd therefor can he do so and yet take existance seriou tingent in either nature or history? Or limit his philosophy—what- ever the nature of this limitation—to his finite historical present? Introduction It is no accident that Hegel’ philosophy tragmentes right- and left-wing schools among his own diseipl continental scholars have long held that it collapses tradiction, and that some of the most penetrating studies have been produced, not by objective academic expositors, but rather by partisans who tear fragments from the Hegelian whole. Tt is tempting to dispose of the Hegel mystery by means of {genetic explanation, and the temptation to do so has greatly ereased ever since early Hegel manuscripts, hitherto unpublis have become available in print in recent decades. The so- merely positive external religion and living toveen throbbing life as a whole and abstract “What is more natural than to regard the later system-te exalt a “young” Hegel at the expense of an “old.” Hegel is a vigorous thinker and a straightforward if not ele writer; and he may be viewed as a proto-Marxi tionary. The pedia of Philosophical Sciences, and above all of the late Berlin Tectures, is an obscure and tortuous writer, and a lifeless and sterile thinker; a conservative if not reactionary who—worst of all—has taken refuge in some Sort of orthodox Chi Between these two extremes falls the Phenomenolog! of the life of the| “young” Hegel yet already burying it in the end in the abso Knowledge of the “old.” A new Hegel legend is rapidly replacing! the old. For that this s a legend can be doubted by no student serious enough to seek more than a neat disposal of the Hegel mystery Four major considerations remove all doubt.6 ‘The Religious Dimension in Heget's Thought |, First, though a prolific writer, Hegel did not publish his frst | book—the Phenomenology—untl he was thirty-seven years of age. Jin 2806 his friend Schelling, five years his junior, was the cele- brated author of ten books; Hegel himself was an obscure lecturer. ‘Throughout his life he refused to rush into print, and he published + only four books in his entire lifetime. How then can one deprecate these books which he published in favor of early manuscripts which he did not publish? Refusing to do so, one will suspect, secondly, that i the style of (and doubtless often obscure and is not without good reasons. Hegel could write fairly straightforwardly even in his later years. As for the style of his four books, this reflects labor, not lack of labor. Hegel is a com- [pact writer and-stil more important thinker of increible com- plexity, and he tortures language to make it say at once what must be said at once, One is almost tempted to say: he must torture Uvanguage. For as one tris to say diferently exactly what Hegel says one often ends up either by saying much less, or else revert- ing to his own words. (The present work, which has pedagogic as well as expository purposes, for the most part deliberately says much less.) It is thus not wholly perverse to say that the mature Hegel is a master of philosophical style. And it is not perverse at all to say that he could have written with the elegance of a Schopenhauer only if he had shared that thinkers superficiality, 1 Nietzsche only if he had let go of his determination to see all truths, above all the truths of passion, “Tess he changed even in the mature years, and these chang not be ignored. But the emphasis in these years systematic explication and elaboration. Nor did Hegel's energies Introduction Berlin lecture cycles. These works are second in importance to Hegel's four published books, and they are to be taken ser despite the inadequate form in which they were posthumously published. ) The “old” Hegel is not free of “resignation,” although signs of resignation are by no means absent from his earlier works. But the resignation is there, not because of a lapse from the earlier philosophic vigor but precisely because there is no such lapse: because a radical thought which claims to stay with—not flee from—the world must realistically confront such aspects of the world as may make resignation necessary. ‘The final consideration is most important of all and, ind cludes all the others. The Early Theological Ws Diography; they add I seriously hope to contri after well over a century of may here be noted. The H is thoroughly contextual. Such terms as “Idea,” “Spirit‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought God,” “World” and-perhaps above all—"Reason” are not exter- nally brought to experience; they are seen as emerging from ex- | perience and, in their final significance, from all of it, Hence they ~ can be fully grasped and appraised, not at the beginning, but only ‘at the end. Here itis not only vulgar polemicists who fail to do Hogel justice. These latter will attack Hegel's “Reason rules the World” without any prior attempt to understand his concept of “Reason” or, for that matter, “ruling” and “World.” Even serious students will often judge Hegel on the basis of abstract initial definitions, misled by the fact that the rationalism of Hegel's Logic has already passed through the process by which Reason emerges from experience whereas they themselves have yet to pass through that process some scholars grasp this vital req) shen they do not give di iderstands it. In Hegel's yuman life has an essential t have risen to philosophical thought anywhere in history. Moreover, without the Christian dimension of modern his own philosophy could not have reached its all-comprehen- sive goals; without the Christian dimension Reason could not be complete in the modem world, And without that completeness the Reason which is Hegelian thought would remain hopelessly fragmented. These crucial assertions were membered by i disciples, who fount admirably. They to all of experience as. ‘and unequivocally stated reason, most recent expositors have forgotten «Perhaps itis more accurate to say: they misunderstand Hegel of him. They misunderstand him when they view than, so to speak, philosophy for the ic picture-thinking simply swept aside by ‘and when this latter comes on the scene. 3y, in that case, would any philosophy presuppose religion at |, and Hegel's own, modern Christianity?) They make light of igious dimension; and with- + tothe Introduction 9 Hegel when they characterize hs philosophy as “secularized Chris- tianity.” In a sense, to be sure, this characterization is correct enough. correct only when so qualified as to contain Hegel's double-barreled assertion that the Christianity which is philosophically comprehended is unsecularized Che terrelated, to be sure, with the modern secular world his philosophy which does the. comprehending transcends confessional limitations. When Hegets philosophy is viewed sim ply as secularized Christianity it is all too easily disposed of by Christians as pseudo-Christianity, and by philosophers as Christian ‘The relation between the religious life which is tobe compret hended and the comprehendi which is Hegel hiss cophy is the central theme of 1g exposition. That theme} ~ demands heavy concentration on the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, the only mature work wholly and explicitly devoted ject. But the exposition would fall radically short of its objective were it to confine its attention to that work alone, Hegel holds the actual existence of religious life to be an indispensable condition, not only (as is obvious) of his philosophical compre- hhension of religion, but also (as is far from obvious) of his phi- losophy as a whole. It is the larger claim, not the smaller one ‘only, which our exposition seeks to grasp. And this cannot be done ‘without an interpretation of the entire Hegelian system. Only a selective interpretation may be attempted: we must suppress all desires to enter into such subjects as ar, history, the state, and feven the details of the Logic except insofar as they bear on our ob- jective. This selective interpretation, however, must be substantial: too often have neat summaries passed blithely over questions on which, by its own confession and insistence, the fate of Hegel's philosophy as a whole depends. How can Hegel's philosophy ne the Christian religion and yet have the autonomy of a rational tem? And how can it-with or without the help of the Christian religion—be an all-comprehensive thought system and yet reeng-|10 The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought | nize the persistent reality ofthe contingent, fragmented and fit? ‘ur answers to thse questions can become intelligible ony in ts own formula, however, becomes even rudiment when interwoven with Hegel's conceptions of philosophy, Chris- tianity, and the ancient, medieval, and modern worlds. only Hegel's but all philosophy is rise of thought to absoluteness or divinity, and philosophies which do not recognize themselves as such, too, are phases of such a rise. Moreover, in ‘ancient pagan Greece this rise was already accomplished and, in- deed, in a sense complete. ‘Ancient pagan philosophy was in principle incomplete, how- cever, in that it could rise to the Divine only by means of flight from the contingent world, Tt could not preserve or reinstate but only help destroy the ancient pagan world from which it had \ arisen, thus creating a rift between the thinker who had fled from the world and the man who mus live in it. And yet it could not in principle when God in Christ entered into ‘the world, but throughout the Middle Ages this healing existed ‘in the world in principle only. As for the ancient philosophical flight from the world, it was not then reversed at all. Redeemed in the sight of God, the medieval Christian remained unfree in the sight of feudal princes, and medieval philosophy could reconcile fa Catholic heaven with a feudal earth only by keeping the two neatly apart. The incursion of Christ into the world had begun to< [invert dhe word only inthe modera world could the ancient phi- Tosophical fight from the world be reversed. Ja the modern Profestant world, the medieval peace of distance has given way to what may be called a war of proximity. On the Introduction a cone hand, the Christian God has descended from Catholic heaven into a Protestant heart on earth. On the other hand, secular man on earth has smashed medieval fetters and acquized an inf nite self-confidence, which makes him aspire to heaven. ‘This elf-4 ‘confidence is manifest in his life—his science, technology, morality, nd political constitutions, al of which are inspired by the revolu- tionary demand for autonomy, This self-confidence i also manifest in his philosophy, which begins with the revolutionary self assertion of an omnipotent Reason which has destroyed all author- ities, However, this very war gives rise to a peace which is without) precedent. The realities manifest in modem Protestant faith ands Thodem secular life are not fico realities; they are two aspects of ‘one Reality which are already ienpictly united, And the phios-’ ‘piy which recognizes the one Reality in these two aspects makes the implicit explicit. That philosophy—it is Hegel's own—rises, like the Greek; to divinity. But unlike the Greek it can unite the ynowledge of God” with the “wisdom of the world,” and indeed, with the world itself. 1¢ does not flee from but stays tnodem world, The comprehended world is not destroyed by it but rather preserved and reinstated. Reason exists in the modem ‘world, in the midst of that very contingency without isno world, And the philosophic Reason which is Hege recognizes both Reason in the modern world and the modem ‘world itself, even though, to be such 2 recognition, it must rise above all contingency. ‘The summary just given s gros inadequate, Butt ues 0) show, lst, that what we have called the Hegel mystery is not an sceidental inconsistency in the Hogelian philosophy but part and}, parcel of its innermost historical selfunderstanding; and, Peni, that thi seltunderstanding resolves the mystery. Hegetsl thought takes itself to be, and is, a synthesis without par the history of philosophy. It favolves these three main elements: | a: modern religious confidence in an infinite God who, transcendent of the Bnite world, has fully entered into it and redeemed st; aFe The Religious Dimension in Heget's Thought modem secular self-confidence, immanent in the infinite espira- tions of modem culture; and the confidence in a philosophical thought to make radically intelligible what is already actual. No wisdom is required today for the insight that the Hegelian synthesis, if ever a genuine possibility, has broken down beyond all possible recovery. Shortsighted academic critics may focus their criticism even now on the Hegelian system, taken in isola- tion from the world which it seeks to comprehend. Prophetic non- academic critics such as Marx and Kierkegaard focused their criti- cism, even in the nineteenth century, on that modem world which Hegel could still view with so colossal an optimism, Tod: prophetic insight is needed for the perception of univ ‘mentation. The sins of colonialism have come to visit Hegel's mod- em Europe. America—Hegel’s “land of the future"—has lost its innocence at Hiroshima and im his view permanently 1 « Christian culture origi witz a depravity unequaled in all fidence, if surviving at all, has ks to present-day faith speaks ambiguously if i lent. This writer—a Jow committed to Judaism— one can accept this synthesis—Christian, post-Christidin, or non- ‘Christian, ‘mented world, Protests against any contemporary 5 the protests implicit in the work of Barth and Bul .erefore wholly in accord with Hey entirely safe to say that Hegel, were he alive today, would not be a Hegelian, Introduction 43 ‘And yet, such is the power of Heget’s philosophy that it speaks ly to the fragmented world of the present age as do that world’s own fragmented philosophies. This is not only-because it discloses that what Hegel failed to achieve cannot be achieved: compared ts Hegelssjstenallsubsequentattemps at tem and synthesis are feeble. Nor is it only because, even if the Hegelian System collapses, we are sl left with countless invaluable fag] ments. Most importantly of all, itis because neither post-Hegel Imoder life nor post Hegelian philosophical thought can rea “{ in sheer fragmentation, Thus modern faith may well directly con- tradict Hegel on the ultimate issue; asserting, after incommensurability between the Word of God and the word of rman, it may begin with a radical “No!” to the modern world, said in behalf of the Word of God. But moder faith cannot remain with this sheer “Nol”; and if it does so remain, it shrinks int6 a < worldless pietism turned upon itself: a faith whose nemesis is a seelan whould appropiate the ie of ft tel. Api ‘modem secularity may seek to wit into a finite sphere, ic., into a humanism simply Tonooont of avin. Butt eannot return to agnostic innocence; beginning with affirming the life of the human, it ends up affirming the death of the Divine, Even less tion. For to philosophize at all-even within the severely drawn | sand-now or a specific mode of tic discourseis inevitably to transcend these self-drawn limits Part of the human quality of human fs to seek and partially achieve even while remaining confined to it. Philosophy can do no less; incapable of achieving the speculative goal, aimed at from Parme- nides to Hegel, of becoming i must even in these post- jan days remain human, Too longsince Nietzsche on the and positivism on the other—a philosophers’ fashion has been to wallow without purpose and direction in one of the , fragments of the disrupted modem world. It is time for sober4 The Religious Dimension in Hegels Thought ‘transcending reflection to seek sich unity, purpose, and direction 1s may be found even in the midst of the pres. philosophy which assumes this burden may 7 only (as Hegel wrote) the owl of Minerva, but also (as he is reported to have said) the cock which annonces the coming of anew day. Human Experience and Absolute Thought: The Central Problem of Hegel’s Philosophy ‘+ The decison to philosophize cast itself purely a5 Ito an ocean wit Bin, Schr, pp-ig-20 2. Comprehensive System and Radical Openness “The philosophy of GF. W. Ht ! losophy. One of thought of is i and Schelling—in a larger whole. in writings, the tend philosophic comprehensiveness has itself become compre ‘Thus whereas Fichtean idealism is opposed, and opposes dogmatic realism, Hegelian idealism thesis of the idealism of Kant and * Abbreviations are listed on ppaB. with the realism of| 4516 The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought Spinoza~according to Fichté, the archdogmatist of them all, ‘Again, Hegel may understand his thought as the completion of modem philosophy. He by no means simply rejects the thought of the ancients. His only complete account of his entre system ends with @ quotation from Aristotle's Metaphysics But one does not begin to grasp the Hegelian claim to compre- “ hensiveness if one sees it as extending to other philosophies only. Such indeed is the physics seeks to grasp either a highest reality or else @ universal structure of all reality, thus leaving for lesser type of knowledge, respectively, lower realities and over, being theoretical knowledge only, it remains simply distinct from what is not knowledge, e.g., practical life concems. The Hegelian phi Reality which ices inthe particulars, by means of a thought which * passes through and encompasses them. Moreover, beside practical life but rather an activity which moves through both theory and practice, being in a sense both, {All this is because the Hegelian philosophy has carried to a fradical and unsurps Kantian revolution in phi- losophy. For Ka Human Experience and Absolute Thought y ‘ophy (it is doubtful whether the term “metaphysics” should stily ‘be used?) and the whole remainder of human life (oth ae and practical) is one of standpoint, All-other human activities are truly in contact with Reality, but reach partial truths only because they are limited to Gnite standpoints. Philosophy-or at any rate th true or final philosopby—rises to an infinite ora and to encompass and transfigure the partial standpoints into a Truth no longer partial is ts sole aim. Hegel's philosophy is thus a system whose claims exceed all previous philosophical systems not only in degree but also in prin- ciple. But the word “system” is wholly misurlderstood unless the usual connotation of elosedness is brought into immediate clash with notion of total openness.* Hegel's system is by its by vi radical foe of every form of one-sidedness. tis contemporary empiricists to describe closed systems as attitudes table because they are atti- Weltanschawungen. But though briefly involved with romant he quickly emancipated himself from it. His mat from being a Weltanschauung, on the contrary spel allmere Wellanschauungen—precisely by expt ness. Nor does it cure their flaw merely by sd and necessary but on the contrary shot through with nd brute chance. zn thus confronted, to be sure, some Hegelians—F. H. Bradley comes to mi ipate conflict and chance into mere8 The Religious Dimension in Hegets Thought ‘unreality, on the authority of a system and a Reason'which, pre- supposed from the start, do not expose themselves to the world self is not among these Hegelians. His system, to be Fas being comprehensive of the stem, liugging itself, denied the ould not compfehend the world i rather be in light from it.* The system can be comprehensive the world only by means of total self-exposure to it. In his in- augural lecture at the University of Berlin Hegel said: “The deci- ‘ocean without beaches; all bright colors, all mainstays have van- shed, all friendly lights otherwise present aze extinct. Only one everything leads, where one will end. Among the things vanished are many which one would not surrender at any in this solitude they have not yet been reconstituted. An¢ whether they will be found again and given back.”* 2, Spirit ‘The characteristic of the Hegelian system just described has al- ith varying degrees of clarity, as being at the core of all that is baflling about the Hegelian philosophy. Ini- tially the student, fastening on the incredibly high claims made Human Experience and Absolute Thought 19 bby Hegel in behalf of Reason, will assume that he already knows ‘the meaning ofthis word, and Hegel will then appear to him as the arch-rationalist of all time. His work will seem an attempt, made in the teeth of all facts, to deduce reality from a priori principles| and, indeed, as the final reductio ad absurdum of all such attempts! ever made, but the serious stodent cannot long remain with this caricature. For he soon finds that Hegel asserts an Understanding ‘which confronts, analyzes, and keeps separate facts, not merely beside a Reason which speculatively unites them but rather—o| ‘incomparably greater consequence—within a Reacon empty with- cout. And he discovers that Hegel not only admits contingency in addition to a necessity free of it but rather~again of inoomparably greater consequence—_insists that contingency enters into the neces- sity which in turn consists of nothing but its conquest. Hegel is so fa frm ding he ray of cxtingney a actly tobe the - sopher in history to attempt a demonstration ther speculative philosophers kept at least wm chance. But it was Hegel-not Nietasche— who fist asserted that God is dead? ‘Taking our cue from the passage cited at the end of the previous section, we may seek to cope with the enigma of the Hegelian system by turning to its fundamental affirmation. Reality s Spi This, however, merely seems to shift the enigma. For Hegelian Spirit, though opposed to Matter, cannot be simply opposed 4 spiritualism which denied Matter would be, in Heget’s view, as! false and one-sided as a materialism which asserted tho opposite.\ Hegel's Spivitwhich is free intemal self-development nen Matter, which is unfree externality, brute givenness, and chance But how can Matter be included in Spirit and yet, real in its own right, be and remain opposed to Spirit? It may well soem that Hegel's philosophy must either, as Marx believed, after all be a ‘one-sided spiritualism or else dissolve itself into so radical an openness to the world as to cease to be @ philosophical system of any kind.20 ‘The Religious Dimension in Heget’s Thought “The tum to Spirit nevertheless takes us a few decisive steps fur- ‘ther, in that i gives us aurinkling ofthe realities behind the Hlegel- fan enigma, as well as of the central problems these raise for Hegelian thought. ‘The enigma conceming Spirit appears because Hegel aserts— forthe present ths sa bare assertion—that Spirit has the power of foehat he calls overreaching,* S| it beside itself, Secondly {by-sideness, by absorbing the pther-than-Spirit. Thirdly—this must snot be overlooked: hile absorbing it. If in absorbing the other stroyed its othemess~if the “union” which isthe “res preserve the “process” throughout whi be a one-sided manism op- posed by an equally one-sided pluralism. If it failed to absorb the jthat only if Sprit has overreaching power'can there be an all: comprehensive, yet radically open system, rather than either & lome-sided system opposed by other one-sided systems, or else #0 radical an openness to the world as to dissipate all philosophy inn attempt to interpret it. Life wi such an interpretation~against a S half of spits remaining immersed prise, its 0 Thus the Hegelian philosophic strictures against one-sidedness ‘would tum against his own philosophy, and indeed, against all philosophy. For philosophy, having failed to comprehend life, ‘would be disclosed in this f Tt is no accident that post-Hegelian philosophers such as Marx ‘Human Experience and Absolute Thought a fand Nietzsche who considered the Hegelian system failure should have proclaimed the end of speculative philosophy.* ‘This destructive consequence can be avoided only if Spirit is ‘nota category brought to life by thought only, if its overreachi power is already mar thought isin terms of what it does. But if the Truth already manifest in life what remains to be done for philo thought? This question may seem susceptible of a ready answer. Even if rt inclusive ited by Matter indisputably exist in losophy fall thestask of demonstrating er against the spirits whose very is a testimony agai ut the problem does not dissi- pate itself so readily. No simple that, ifn ife nit spirit festing its allinclusiveness, a-philosophic demonstra contrary remains a one-sided assertion of thought over against life; whereas, if Spirit in life already demonstrates its all-inclusive- of finite spirits philosophy is, once again, . AB might have been suspected—and as wams often enough no solution, or even ion, of the central issues of the Hegelian sophy ean be achieved by a thought which, rather than im- concept of philosophy to its central assertion has nevertheless served to make two disclosures, Fi the togetherness of comprehensive system with radical openné depends on a Reality which is itself one and yet radically open,22 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought zo discord, evil, chance, brute fact-into the limbo of unreality. Secondly, Hegelian philosophy cannot be a mere thearyof life l 1 Human Experience and Absolute Thought 23 appears as one among other forms of spiritual life. This must under no circumstances obscure the fact that it is also the basis, tnd the condition ofthe poe, of the eystem in ts entiety. L ‘The Hegelian problem conceming the relation between life and philosophical thought therefore specifies itself into a problem con- ceming the relation between religious life and philosophic thought. It is a central Hegelian doctrine that the * lacking merely the true “form {.e, s0 hospitable to plurality of every kind as to eject nothing— truth of thought must be life. In @ companion volume the present work, we intend it, in the thought of Hegel's listic predecessors from Kant on, an intimate, intricate, and indispensable interconnection between human life and philosoph- ical thought. We shall try to show that a truth of life-such. as ‘moral duty, religious feeling or aesthetic creation—supports a truth of philosophical thought, even as in tur it receives support from ow that, here therefore requires religion philosophy, in giving the true religious cont ‘thought, both transfigures religion and produces pose of our entire concern with Hegel is, in the pound that doctrine, ‘Toward this purpose, philosophy. In the present volume, our task el radicalizes tende t one standpoint of life atthe expense of others, and the philosophy bound up with the exalted standpoint is in simple opposition to all other philosophies. In the case of Hegel, the “life” in question is all of life, nat ong of its standpoints one- \dedly exalted; and the philosophy he puts forward does not so ‘oppose other philosophies but encompass and transfigure "The problem of the zelation between comprehensive sys- .d radical openness thus transforms itself into the problem of the relation between all of human life and an all-comprehensive philosophical thought. This is the central problem of the whole ‘Hogelian philosophy. Hegel himself gives only the secon efit stage would be to devribe how Truth i present in 8) true philosophy. The second stage would be to produce the philoy + sophical comprehension, ic, a thought which absorbs and trans} figure igious basis and rises above it. Of these two tasks accomplishes only the second in all the three] which religion has a central role. His Phenome- , 1g Religious Life and Philosophie Thought ; second ed., 1828; third ed., 1830) reenacts in thought and spiritual-including religious—reality; but the thought24 The Religious Dimension in Hegets Thought alrgady philosophical.° The Lectures on the Philos- id in 1821, 1824, 1827, and 1831 and are, unlike the other two works, entirely work too does not first describe re- i fe in its self-understanding, in order then to show the ‘possibility, necessity and effect of its transfiguration into specula- In this_work religious life is already speculatively \transfigured. 'No doubt this Hegelian practice has done much to foster the widespread view that his philosophy is barren system of abstract thought externally and arbitrarily imposed on life when in fact it arises from life in order only then to attempt to rise above it. ‘Admittedly, Hegel's gigantic attempt may fail. His thought may, main bound to the life above which it secks to rise, live up to its vast speculative pretensions. Or it may, afterall, rise only atthe ops of loss of foothold in life, thus becsm- {ng in fact the dogmatic rationalism it is so widely thought to be. But if Hegelian thought suffers in fact either failure—including. ‘and indeed especially the last-namedthis is against its innermost intentions, What so often has been regarded as a thesis dogmatic- cally asserted at the start is at worst a conclusion emerging at the end, despite bitter struggles against it. And whether it does in fact emerge is not a foregone con Tis the question most in need of examination. Tn order to carry out this examination we have na shofee but to depart baldly, in decisive respects, from He; + Hin handing a ladder to the standpoint of al + Phenomenology already adopts that standpoint; we must ask |ywhether, and if so how, this prior adoption can be justified. The + Encyclopedia reenacts the actual world in absolute thought, claim- iiagltatn ss has orcred nthe oonstinet Wem oss all attention on this lastmnamed claim, bearing in mind that reality re- This ig why it can begin with pure Logi, although “logical Wea,” “Na tur" and “Splat” are each mediate by the other two, see ch 4 ec. 4 Human Experience and Absolute Thought 25 mains shot through with contingency even while absolute thought rises above it. The Philosophy of Religion grasps, frst, a specula- « tive Notion of religion, and then, existing religions as the necessary process of its actualization, a process completed in Christianity Here we must proceed in twa stages. The first is a descriptive - account of the philosophically unrgsnacted religion which is the alleged basis of both the Hegelian philosophy of religion and the Hegelian philosophy as a whole, i¢., Christianity. The second is account of Hegel's speculative comprehension of that relig of how in “encompassing” that religion “in its own being” Hegelian thought can hope to produce itself as the all-comprehensive philosophy. 4 Schellingian and Hegelian Absolute Idealism In a future work already repeated! ferred to, we intend to idealistic predecessors— in the development of German idealism ophy comes of developm pages. And it will show that Hegelian thought calls for a sys- tematic comprehension which concentrates on his mature works. ‘The last-named point has already been fs dissent from Schelling’s sm included, concerns prec restless shifts on Schelling’s part a seemingly endless necessity. againgt Schelling, more than against any other phi26 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought opher, that Hegel asserts that philesophy must assume system lend finality. The interpreter may not ignore or minimize this Hegelian assertion, He must understand it. Hegel's debt to Schelling. One ean- snot bite who in 1801 fist reached the stand- {point of absolute idealism, Tt may briefly be described standpoint of an ffinite or divine Thought which has relativized, Commentators often’ He \Schelling’s kind of absolute, ranean Soe Human Experience und Absolute Thought 7 objection that reality ifself includes nonunion and that, unless a} thought aspiring to absoluteness can recognize and preserve it as such it isapates both reality and itself into mere shadows, ‘A negative outcome of just this kind was to lead Schellingin his overall endeavors no less concerned to preserve the realities of life from dissipation into abstract thought—to abandon absolute is dale. The other i thatthe tw plsopicl thought dialectical ‘One must hesitate to make general pronouncements of any fort about Hegelian dialectic. There has been and can be no greater misunderstanding of Hegel's thought than the ascription to it of a dialectical method separable from all content, deriving its validity one knows not whence, and indiseriminately applied one cannot say by what justification. The error owes mich ofits inspiration ‘0 the same kind of positivist thinking witich con- cludes that, inasmuch as Hegel’ thought is obviously not inductive it must somehow be deductive; and it acquires a touch of comedy begin with, do not fit a particular appli- t Hegelian dialectic—the dialect of both losophical thought—is inseparable from ontent) ly a thought which actually labors with reality can For this reason our present merely introductory s cannot go far beyond corroborating what has already ity is dialectical in that the finite at once points to ~ an Infinity which contains it while yet For Hegel, as for the Schelling of 2801,28 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel’s Thought {is the main pringiple of philosophy." But to Schelling this means that the finite merely appears real at finite standpoints and is seen 1s absorbed in infinity at the absolute standpoint. To Hegel it ‘means that the finite is overreached by the Infinite, and that it (ise be real as well 2s “merely ideal," if the overreaching Inf rife is not itself to sulfer loss of all reality. It is"this conviction which forces Hegel to recognize the partia] truth of finite thought— natural science-when Schelling can merely oppose oF ignore s this conviction, too, which produces hig charge that Schel- lingian thought reduces the Absolute to a “night in which all.cows are black"!*a charge made in behalf of a “labor of thought” which must take place, so to speak, inthe daylight of multicolored if. It is ths, finallyand for our purpose most importantly—which ‘makes the mature Hegel confront seriously, the actual Christianity of historical tradition. For a brief period early in his career—more precisely, before his career had begun in earnest—he had em- braced a religious zomanticism which exalts ecstatic moments in | which theft human spit seems simply to become ane withthe ‘Divine The matuze Hegel is forced to take seriously the Chris- tian claim that the Easter which reconciles the human with the Divine can occur only. after a Good Friday which exhausts the whole agony of their discord. Hegel's mature confrontation of orthodox Christianity has offen been viewed as a lapse into reac- \tion, and this view-has received renewed impetus by the absurd recent fashion to exalt the Early Theological Writings—never in- tended by Hegel for publication—at the expense of the published ‘works of his maturity.* The truth is that the confrontation with ‘orthodox Christianity is but part of Hegel’s mature thought as a ‘whole, as this exposition will seek to show, an integral and indeed indispensable part. 'So much, for the present, for the dialectic of Reality. What of tthe dialectic of philosophie thought? Only a finite thought remains + Nothing is wrong, of cours, with studies which treat Barly Theological Writings as phase in the genes of Hegel's thought and nothing more. Human Experience and Absolute Thought 9 confronted by Reality, as its limiting aher, and Hegel's absolute idealistic thought aspites as much to infinity as that of Schelling. Philosophical thought claims to be infinite. Spirit in form, and it does not confront Reality but rather is one wi Schelling of 3803, however, merely asserts this identity, teeth ofall forms of finite existence and thought which ‘comes “shot from the pis vm. thou contrast, can absorb and transfigure ly after first of all confronting it in its othemess. Rather, than assert its claim over against finite experience and thought and indeed over against con ie ers ind it must pre- the “result” of having risen. In30 The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought in his case the’ loyalty to finite realities manifests itself in the steadfast persistence in a position believed capable of doing them cl by Schelling’s strictures on his earlier absolute i but only by the study of Hegel's own. And such a study must seriously his steadfast persistence in his positon, Tt must compre- hhend and appraise his philosophy as it was intended to be com- prehended—as a systematic, all-comprehensive whale The “Ladder” to the Standpoint of Absolute Knowledge: On the Phenomenology of Spirit ‘That natural consciousness immediately entrusts Itself wo selene i an att rein ii to expec to do ital violence which sas unprepared as it ust seem unnecestary. Werks, XI, pg (Ph. Rel, I, ps) 1. Introduction The times, Hogl asserts inthe preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit, are ripe for the “elevation of philosophy to the level of} selgnoe."! Sik years earlier Fichte had used the identical expres-! sion; more importantly, Schelling had in that year actualy tried to produce “science,”* But in Hegel's view Schelling had merely stated, and stated inadequately, the “selentifc” program. In order to be science, philosophy must be the systemati grasp of absolute} * Abbreviation ar ited on pps at3 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought tes. And in order to achieve such a grasp, risen to a standpoint of absolute knowledge someh« ,—of all standpoints this ib to, be remedied in the Hegelian sytem, of which the Encyclopedia of Philosophic the sole complete statement As forthe second, he Phenomenology an introduction to “scien Cause it shows all nite standpoints to be encompassed by the ataate standpoint. Hegel's work hands “the indvidual”—and itis not yet clear but does not yet matter who this individual ist—the Fiaader” to the standpoint of “scence” by “showing him that standpoint as it is in him Schelling’s My System of 180, in con- teat had merely aserted its standpoint ageinstone and al tand- points, thus coming, as it were, “shot from the pistol” But such £ bare and barren assertion, were philosophy forced to remain witht would sue to invalidate its claim to absoluteness, and Indeed destroy all hope for its elevation tothe level of science. 1 "Hegelian “Science” is inarked by an unprecedented presu twousness. The Encyclopedia is no mere conceptual philosophical system inclusive of other conceptual philosophical systems and ysl i included it are no ordinary con cepts. The same presumptuousness is enology, and indeed, is there unmistakable careless of readers. For until one reaches the I {more than soo-page work, one searches in vain for direct con- {frontations of the Hegelian with alternative philosophies.* The troduetions to philosophi * Not counting the Prefs, (Un Hogs view, om lations of waye of nonphlosople deen cock Brg The “Ladder” to the Absolute Standpoint 3 individuals who are handed the ladder to the Hegelian philosophic standpoint include the percipient of sensuous objects, the slave in fear of his master, the scientist engaged in the rational conquest of nature, the French revolutionary, and religious believers of various kinds. They.do not include philosophers. But where else could one) find a philosophic thought which in all seriousness labored tol encompass and supersede, not mérely alternative types of philo- sophic thought but algo nonphilosophic human life? For that Hegel is serious in this labor is beyond all doubt. Marx's attempt to ;ophy from its head to ilosophic criticis But if Hegelian “science” is sophical presumptuousness it precedented philosophical hm ‘of philosophy, such as Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, Fichte's Science of Knowledge of 1794, and Schelling’s My System of 1801. They also include—and for our purpose ths is far more im- pportant—such events in the history of nonphilosophic life as the imactic gos!—indeed, it not for indispensable aid furnished by nonphilosophic life. What speculative philosopher before Hegel considered it “absurd to fancy that a philosophy can transcend its contemporary world?"*34 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought is to reach its goals, But isnot then Hegelian “science” as nakedly self-assertive over against standpoints of nonphilosophic life as its (gman Decause itis fi li i less fragmentary, until fina ienowledge, all fragmentarin the fact, or at any rate the ful {known only to the watching if] present with us from confess that nonphilosophic for goals yet to be reached goals as are humanly attainable, and that science, left without fomesion veces ft sthingness. Th pbenonenolgel road ce can be a road only if it is already scientific. Phenom- lenological thought must already be at the absolute standpoint if it than making the times ripe , has already reached such The “Ladder” to the Absolute Standpoint 35 is to “hand the individual the ladder" to it. And while this in- dividual has “the right to demand” this ladder, any suggestion that “unscientific consciousness be instructed in science” must be Cognition of both the fact and the meaning of thi there were such a dualism, how could any individual in ‘own time any more than in any other-ascend the ladder to the absolute standpoint, handed him by a philosopher who himself is already: bly-at that standpoint? He would have zo choice but to assert his own standpoint against that ofa thought making a pretense to absoluteness, and this would be enough to shatter the pretense. ‘The entire phenomenological introduction to, “science,” then, rust be a mere elaborate failure unles the dualism between the] rot by’life but by philosophic thought, haa risen to the absolute standpoint from the start must come to recognize atthe end that, had it not been for what life has done, he could not himself have risen to that standp: ‘can one period in nonphilosophic history be riper any other. Hence everything in the end depends o Can there be « form of nonphilosophic human life which. makes | the ise to the scientific standpoint on the one hand possible and | on the other st éessary, and if so, what jystifies Hegel's lai ‘hat inthe nineteenth century that form of life has becwme wctwal? ‘To cope with this question is our sole purpose withthe Phenom-6 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought nology. We could not in any case hope here to d incredibly rch, complex, and dificult content. (While fry onthe road to science, Hegel cannot resist the temptation to dwell at Tength on standpoints which are stations on the road, and it has plausibly been argued that the work, though purportedly a mere fence, alregdy contains in one-f several possible ‘whole content of science.) Further, our special bbe served if rather than ask the stated question ‘we summarized its content with no special objective is to understand the cophy in Hegel's thought. Butt juestion we presently ask of the Phenomenology comes tox head. "To make progress with our question we must depart from the Phenomenology/s own progression. Hegel on his phenomenological e mndpoints as necessarily pointing be 7 je, and only.as he reaches as done his viewing. The confrontation which oceurs in the Phe- ‘end must be enaoted by us at every turn. "The yiewed standpoints do not know this truth, not at any rate in its full Hogelian significance, for if they did they would not take themselves as final and unalterable. ‘The viewing stands contrast, knows this trath ia its fnal form and, indeed, produces * See the appendix to this chapter, p73 ‘The “Ladder” to the Absolute Standpoint ‘We on our part must ‘mal toward its maximal significance ‘we may borrow this assumption as assumption only for a, while, For as we ask our question of the Phenomenology the gap, between viewing and viewed standpoints must grad 80; as itis closed, our assumption must cease to be the question we ask of the Phenomenology must fi 2. Of Individual Selfhood and Its Dialectic ‘The modern world, Hegel thinks, is free in idea if not (or not) yet) in actual fact." Moder science has freed itself from medi fetters. Modern Christian faith has moved from external, Cat authorities into an inward Protestant heart, Modern smashed slavery and feudalism and recognized the rights and duties of men as men, i., belonging to them simply because they are human. To the modem consciousness, therefore, a true state is a free state, which recognizes the human rights of all its citizens, and is in turn recognized by them as their state, to which they owe ies of citizenship. And a true sel 4 free saligion—one) whose God recognizes the hum: ‘human worshipers, and! is worshiped by them as recog No true state and no.true religion are ever simply externally imposed. Thus in ancient China, only one was.free. The Emperor | had all the rights and no duties, and his subjects, all duties and ‘subjects recognized the rights of the Emperor countless ae in both ped ta SC our ental nay tena woe meaning cn erg nl inthe Sind must erefore here remain sodefined. Soe especialy Gh. eats aCe) ahd,38 The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought and their own duties toward him, and their humanity was this recognizing. The Emperor, on his part, was his being-recognized, and this was his freedom. Even the most primitive but genuine human society in history differs in principle from a heap of ants in nature, Still, much has had to happen between the beginnings of history which recognized the mere arbitrary freedom and the modern age, free simply because they are man. {__ What is this modern freedom and how has it arisen? What is ‘modern, oné lengih recognizes ‘man is born free, constitution, it may be held, are timelessly true, merely dropping from heaven, as it were, when their nized. All this not only may be said, spectives—philosophical or nonphilos “forgets” that it has stance, ready-made by some force other than itself—and therefore fixed and unalterable. hic inguiry into the nature of modern freedom, pore of urpoes in our inital concentration on the doctrine of saltmabing, ‘The “Ladder” tothe Absolute Standpoint 29 Such an inquiry must remain incomplete unless it pursues the double_process tine origins We substance, thus showing the inadequacy of the perspective from which it has done its taking. ‘The inquiry must go back to a point at which there is as yet no made self ut only a pure power of selnaking. It cannot, however, go bey this power, i, to the realm of reprodubing, and protecting their young. They may seem to achieve « higher whole when they live, as do bees and ants, in or- ganized “societies.” These latter, however, are quasi-socities only because animals in principle lack the power of self-making. This is appearance. Also, it can be no more, A self already actually pendeat from nature Would be a self already selfnade.!* The desire now uncovered* must have the possibility” ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel’ Thought faction, Without this possibility, the desiring human, though po- ly a self, would even now be an actual animal, fied with the ache of an unsatisfable yearning and unconscious, moreover, of its true object. (For to know this latter as selfhood he would already have to possess selfhood.) Yet the uncovered desire can faction, A self alzeady made might negate nature ptting up with ts physical need of nature dependence as self from this need. But a self as yet unmade is not one which is self and has desires; it és desire and as yet nothing else. To satisfy this desire directly would require the physical negation of nature as a whole, and of this, ld be foredoomed to eter- ty of indirect satisfaction. fman self is dependent for selftood on o tr oak nw noe oe Ee ye ne dee 2g m- ae eee a inge io fr eh sos ae cr heading Meo, Moreen, he cae esc nl an esa ae hh a eases eh fod and se Ti ee eae Peng fre eo ling Sate tee opting genes td sii nde pen ‘ty to sees wn on 1 dt The So ner oo cay (tte prestige, ony i en ‘ceases to bo mere dependence, however, by virtue of the realty of ‘especially sts. and g of this chapter ‘The “Ladder” to the Absolute Standpoint 2 ing his life for the sake of prestige. So savage, acoording to Hegel, are the primitive origins of human selfhood."* * ' selfhood are short-lived. In the) self If incapable of rising above so primitive a selfhood, the self would forever alternate, like some barbaric prehistoric Faust, between ichieved and times between result, would ved into a dark longing for renewed battle.** Tecan pass beyond this condition because not all those desiring) ‘to negate nature risk life to satisfy their desires. The killer of the {oe gives way to the master ofa slave; the self which isa risking of the act of risk, toa self which has risked life and of the “process” survives in the recognition received from the slave. "The masters selBood is the actual process of being recognized ‘As such it extends over the slave, whose being is his activity of recognizing of the master. It extends, as well, over nature; for,43 2 The Religious Dimension in HegeTs Thought The “Leder” othe Absolute Stondpoint the commanding master and the belabored ma- {nto inessentiality. He comes to be 4 Jabor no longer bound to another, ie, a pure seléactvity. He is free ‘whether enthroned or enslaved inthe external workd—froe because himself free be belabored by the slave at the master’s behest, nagure is reduced to an object of his enjoyment Yet the save, not the master, st atlas fe selfhood. The rnaster’s self is his dominating of the slave and his enjoyment of nature, He needs a slave to dominate and a nature to enjoy. This Jute dependeic-on the human othr and on ature in the fend dependence on nature. For this human other is the master’s 0 long as hhis life. It is dependence on nature which is the + selfs unfreedom. ‘The process of slavery results in emancipation from this de- dence. The master does a double chaining-of the laboring {slave to nature and of the nature belabored to the slave. The slave ‘is doubly chained~by the master to the belaboring of nature and Ito the master by nature, Le, by his own fear of death. Ths latter {i the ultimate chain, and he is bound by it because he has shrunk from the risks of selfhood into mere riskless life. Yet @ human de- sire which has shrunk from selfhood into life is not an animal desire confined to life; a human slave is not a domesticated animal. { ‘And the selfhood from which the slave has shrunk in one form is 1 in another form forced upon him. As the condition of slavery is pushed to extremity the animal fear, which has made the slave @ Slave, extends its range, deepens in agony, and thus changes in quality. The fear ofthis and that which the animal, as ta Thuan slave is, and emancipated from nature. nihil. The Stoic is a free, self-made self* “Have we cone close tothe freedom which makes the times ripe for Hegelian “science,” and to the thinking, which is “science” i- {into no He has “ne cha | He loses these chains through his labor. ‘chained to the nature belabored and the com the clinging to life which he is, but as the f death dissipates / “+ We refer, of course, to the famous phrase in Man’s Communist Manifesto“4 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought self? We have come nowhere near either. Not one of the stand- pints considered has taken itself asthe self making process, which it is seen to be at the absolute standpoint. And the abyss between these two standpoints is by no means bridged when we come to Stoicism. The Stoic takes his thinking to be a fixed essence, and his freedom from nature and from the human other as absolute. The philosopher recognizes both as being the result of a s ting process, and the liberation as one-sided and inadequate. The ‘Stoie's free thought is achieved, not by conquest of the natural fand human worlds, but rather by means of a fight sithasitsnemos, ha, na Skeptical thought which m ‘ous reality and yet cannot but recognize it, and finally, in ligious life which, while “unhappy” in a self-imposed servitude to a ist: God yt higher than eon ‘which, confined to mere thought, is incapable of either happiness or unhappiness. It is higher because itis involved with sensuous reality—nature with- pets pss ihn thought which is mere thought, in contrast, has merely fled from both. 3. In Search of the Category of Spirit ‘The account thus far given, even if vastly expanded either by Hegel or on Hegel's behalf, would be in principle inadequate for Hegel's phenomenological purposes: its terms are inadequate.°* No dialectic of individual self-making could begin to touch either the most primitive (but genuine) society or the most primitive (but * tn pursuit of our question stated in soot 1. we ere break off eventhough the Phénomenclogy ieelf sees 4 necessary development from Stolcim to uals, spat (Se set. § an especaly sect. eently hover between the examining section is our fit approach to “Spin,” the four "Phenomenology. (For out second approach, see sect. 5.) He {i nacosserly fed 0 « more-than-Bnite Spirt, We on our part cannot lait ad fenoe ean comprehend Gate spirit only The “Ladder” to the Absolute Stondpoint 45 genuine) history, and, not touching either, it does not, and is not ‘meant to do, full justice to the individual either. The category thus far used, were it meant to be final, would leave society indifferent or hostile to human selfhood, and it would either destroy all his tory or-which is the same thing—fragment it into as many bis- tories as there are self-making selves. It is no wonder, then, that ‘we have come nowhere near those nineteenth-century social and historical realities which, according to Hegel, have made the times ripe for “science.” Tn no, society—primitive but genuine—do individuals achie selfhood by the solitary risk of life, exercise of lordship, or slavi labor. Even the primitive family extends postive recognition its members. As for the activities of self-making deseribed, thes ‘occur in social contexts, which furnish standards of recognition. In such a context, the victor in a prestige battle becomes a permanent member of the society whose standards of membership he has satisfied; as for masters and slaves, these belong, respectively, to ‘peersgroups of masters and classes of slaves. To deny the relevance of social standards for the selfs selfhood would be to affirm the absurd doctrine that conflict and withdrawal can and do, but love selfamaking process, and also human selfhood, history cannot and does not advance. The realities described in the preceding section, then, must be placed into a richer and truer context, and they can be taken as being realities in their own right only in times of social disintegration and chaos.** How must such a placing be done? Social standards must be} viewed as capable of entering into the selfs selfhood, Le., as en] able of being appropriated by the process of individual sel ‘making, If incapable of being so viewed, they would necessarily be external to the self-mmaking process; the social whole sustained by them would be indistinguishable from the natural whole; and the self about to achieve or augment its selfhood would be forced to tear itself loose from both. But while Hegel admits that thereThis torm here applies to every relatively completo objective jst as much as Subject” (Phan, he femainder ofthis chapter and alo, special, The “Ladder” to the Absolute Standpoint if" already is, and acts of ap- P| ig “for self” which come to be and to be, ‘The concept arrived at takes hold of an inner bond between “6 " and “sof” in which each points to the other and both done justice, This sour frat glimpse of the most decisive of all thus far unjustified and indeed unintelligible. Fe fon the contrary seem that Spirit can be a bond between logical term (although Hogel ‘dangerously mldeading, particular ‘who are its embers. See8 The Religious Dimension in Hegel s Thought ‘True, the foregoing account asserts forms of selfhood which merely appropriate what is “lready there,” ie, social wholes which are “ethica]_yorlds” because already found ‘work of the subject fin jut there can be no, warrant for confining the self to the appropriating of the already found. This ‘would freeze into eternal permanence what we have every reason to take for a finite social substance, and to take it, moreover, as having dropped from heaven. Corresponding ‘would be to view acts of selfmaking asserted against “ethic already found’-and such acts are surely possible and actual as asserting themselves against the preexisting social whole pre- cisely as against the natural whole, tearing themselves loose abso- Jutely.from both. In shor, the nemesis of a complete spiritual unity of substance and self would be a complete war between these ele- ments, destructive of the spirituality of both. The spiritual bond {reccen them mus bee teion as wellane son The ite sol substance contains the ethieal life which the self ean and does 1 they transform its actuality. These acts on themselves as absolute protests; in truth, however, they are only relative protests, which do not occur in a 1¢ preexisting conditions wll emerge in| truth fs preserved in the high specie Form, in ch. , sect. @ and ch ‘The “Ladder” to the Absolute Standpoint But we cannot yet consider this possibility seriously. A history rod might podocenintenpcentery Euro- 1g the time ripe for ‘mes of harmony. reflective grasp and the ono as tude, then no period in history is any riper than any other for| the absolute standpoint of Hegetian thought latter comes on the soene, it comes shot from the pistol”* But the definition of Spirit quoted earlier inthis section already, shows that the Phenomenology claims to grasp an infinite or co plete Spirit manifest in historical life. Indeed—concerned as not to give science but rather what may be deseribed as the sho standpoint of scienco#—it deals with infinite or complete Spirit only. The presence of such Spirit might have been glimpsed even in isolated selfhood —when it is driven beyond ab- nd unknown darkness” -| the dead™ disclose the Snitede, respectively, ofthe ancient Greek socal whole snd the individeal sof living int, An infinite, transcendent dimension re mains as Roman and medieval “elt” selectivity ‘dyllicharmoay of the Greek ethical world itremains eventhough here socity undertakes the ask of eubding “harsh actuality" bys Fate and the Eumenides of the spi= ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought own labors. For the counterpart ofthis worldly “realm of culture” here created remains a “world of fa ng "Essence" which transcends, and is unaffected by, all cultural Iabor. And while this dichotomy ends when the medieval heaven descends to a modem {earth this descent is by no means tantamount to & reduction of inf. Inite Spirit to finitude.* But oven if the spiritual realities described by Hegel-and we ted some of them, and done nothing to rrives at them-aze rightly described, a hurdle ‘appears which at this point cannot be passed. The Phenomenology claims to see one Spirit whose “ethically” experienced or “cultur- ‘produced worldly presence is complemented by a feared, or 3d, transworldly Diyinity. For the standpoints seen, however, { produced by Snite spirit andthe other, the transcendent divine ob- it. Hegel himself insists thet the Divine is here gory of complete or infinite Sprit to the spiritual realities it sees? If so, how can these realities make the time ripe for sciencecr _geience fal to come shot from the pistol? No xeay is yet visible by which the gap between the standpoints of life phenomenologicaly observed and the standpoint of thought, which does the observing, {might possibly be bridged. + Even the most cursory comparison between Toga’ Pioophy of He so re SO ecclegy prety andr ncn ws {Bak by Hoy ences in the Phenomenology of te fm mits youl indood be ma arbitrary were ovement of Siti history ogi ought wget at fom of ‘The “Ladder” to the Absolute Standpoint 4: Of Religion, or “Absolute Spirit Manifest” the bridge between these standpoints is ought tums to a complete or absolute manifest in human life and for humans conscious of the Such.a manifestation, acoording to Hegel, occurs in the life of religious faith, and it is complete in the life of the Christian faith, As has just been noted, the Divine may be a mere distant individual and social must at first sight seem that what is hopefully approached as the needed bridge on the contrary challenges most radically the entire phenomenological enterprise. Thus far we could hope that the gap between standpoints of life and the standpoint ofa somehow be bridged. Now that we have abr52 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought {to rule out any higher standpoint from which it can be viewed. That different religions must make presumably irreconcilable claims is a grave enough challenge for a thought which must reconcile all irreconcilables. The challenge is total when they all unite in opposing a “science” which would grasp them in terms more ultimate than those in which they understand them- selves. We here come for the rst time upon the issues which will be the central concern of en entire investigation ® They must for the present be dealt with briefly, and only in terms of the problem of the Phenomenology. In the preceding sections, we have followed Hegel’ attempt to understand human selfhood— \individual and social—as a self-constituting process. The ‘humanity is not such a process, at least not 1c; for the fnite human is receptively related to the Divine, infinite Other: indeed this receptivity can be so total as to ‘Encompass the human self's very being. In a previous section, the losophically understood as a se a philosophical understanding not ce the Atheismusstreit. Two interne ica developments, in principle complete in the Phenomenology, But much has happened least mitigated the stack conflict between religious eep- = "Fist, Hegel has long ago assimilated the protests, made by ‘The “Ladder” to the Absolute Standpoint receptive as wel as self-active* Te reached the view that this receptiv- even when viewed from the absolute wing the Schelling of x80r) he has joe to this requirement Schelling had into a “night in black” But, as will gradually emerge, the entire philosophy of Hegel's maturity may be viewed as one vast attempt-to_escape/ this Schellingian fate ‘The other development is no less significant. Under Kantian — Schelling, and indeed, the Hegel of the Early Theological Writings had all been inclined to contrast taken as resting on little more then arbitrary of a true religion consi moral activity, pious than the Divine; just as without the fist a 40 without the second itis lacking in serious ss of, and strain between, these two aspects “re- ntation,” and holds that 4s acted out. But this act and why—as will be seen—he alone, of all German idealisticst ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought philosophers, achieves a genuine philosophical confrontation with the historical Christian faith.” Can any religion thus understood—i suffice to make the time ripe for Hegelian ierely preliminary, account of Hegel's encounter with Christian- ity must remain wholly confined to this question, Tn no genuine religion can the Divinity present be simply other than the buman—both individual self and social whole—to which it is present. Above nature other-than-self the self can rise, tearing itself loose from it. Above a Divinity other-than-self it ‘cannot rise, for this is higher as well as other-than-sef. Its pres- cence, in stark otherness, would therefore simply destroy the selfs selthood. This, however, is no genuine religious possibilty. It does int and cannot occur—even in that extreme case in which a radi- jcommensurate with all things finite For the fnite self recognizes what occurs, and without such recog nition there would be no religious relationship at all. The self the very moment of being dis divine Infinity which does the dis- ite, works disintegrate, as does the integrate, But the self acknowledges grating, in a free act of velf-surender. Itis a ct ough Eat Sinence eh The “Ladder” to the Absolute Standpoint 3s finds itself “rejected.” Thus the divine-human incommensurability remains even as finite self and finite nation turn their being: dissolved into an act of surrender. The surrender cannot be made wholly xeal. On the contrary, the joy of the moment of union only accentuates the pain of actual separation which persists in real life Divine-humtan inwardness already exists in the religion of light Divine-human stherness i cally actual in the Gr seem to be a religion of pure inwardness. For the self and the na. tion here worship works of their own creating, which yet can be of mere humanity but rather of self affirms itself even as it worships the Divine, the gods, “friendly” to the worshiping nation and “recogniz- ing its selfhoos,” recognize the actual historical life of the nation. ins transcendence, things human, and the‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought {s confined to idolatrous worship of finite gods. But as the fgnored or abandoned truth at length enters into consciousness their worship, and the worshiping nation are all de- Thuman, and it has yet become absolutely com ‘man selfhood, so radically as to enter into actual human fnitude and to suffer actual human death. As for the human worshiper, hae recognizes the divine depth, and in so doing dies the death of his sinfulness, and he recognizes as well both the diving seath ‘which has occurred on his behalf and the divine “death of death’— the divine resurrectionwhich conquers all death. This recogniz~ ing, moreover, i, and is knowa to be, not a recognizing of the Di- vine by the human only but also the work of a Divinity other- than-homan in the human-the holy Spirit. Thus, Hegel assert, the divine-homan relation which is actual in all genuine religion finds its total consummation in a divine self-recognition in the human-the “self-consciousness” of “absolute Spirit” So much, for the present, for the religious realities encountered losophical thought, although even our brief account has ess already moved beyond sheer encounter toward compre- » Heels phenomenoli howght ove toward protest against ‘The “Ladder” to the Absolute Standpoint the human selfactivity already comprehended and the human re- a relative conflict only—one which vanishes when thi prehended as aspects of a single whole. Once a Hegels own progression, and t bring to light the enormity of the present step, and considered only human-ic,, fnite—realities, and the borrowed philosophical category of self-activity was itself only nite. Within these lit it remained wholly mysterious how any one time in human history a === _ hhuman history could move necessarily in that direction; the rise to the standpoint of “science, if it was ever coming at al, was bound to come “shot from the pistol” What has now emerged is that on} if history i not human but rater, as faith takes i tobe, human divine can Hegelian “sience” ever have an historially just ing: Hegelian thought pregupposes the prior existence off « ore precisely, Christian) life, and when i comes ont accepts, and must accept, the faith of that life as— in some sense—taue>* This acceptance, however, does not exhaust the enormity of} is only the nec- or social-exists either beside or in the context of this receptivity, |8 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegets Thought inthe Tight ofthe new I category of ifs Spt, Bowever, religion Listen nd in order so But our question is, as it has been all along, how Hegelian (ought can have reached this “scientific” standpoint. Does the (presence of the Christian truth by itself suc to make the time ripe forthe rise to scientfe thought? The answer is clearly in the Indeed, a veritable gulf exists between the religious self oven self-understanding remains humanly receptive of , even when in possession of Christian Grace, and the philosophical self which, as has now emerged, must have become infite and divine. But this negative answer might, after all, have been expected. According to Hegel, the time has become ripe for science, not since Jesus of Nazai ce Lather {in the sinteonth. It has become sige for science ony in his own 2time. 5. Of "Spirit Certain-of Itself” .gmentarily in K ic contemporaries. It will emerge that for Hegel's The “Ladder” to the Absolute Standpoint 59 phenomenological enterprise the one acceptance is as essential as the other, ‘This double acceptance raises thzee fundamental questions. Every standpoint thus far encountered by philosophic thought has is, obviously true of | to be receptively related to , and hence finite and human. But wy {is now to be encountered is a moral self-consciousness whic ‘laims infinity to be immanent in its own kn «ives rise to three crucial questions. Can ap accept the claim which now makes its sudden appearance, ox ‘must he rather reject it as amounting to a claim to divinity made by finite humans, and hence to madness? Secondly, if the claim st be accepted, is it not in radical conflict with the)> lnim already accepted? Can there be a greater con-! flict than between a religious faith which takes the human to be receptively related to a Divinity other-than-human (and hence it self Gnite) and a moral consciousness Which asserts divinity as nent i ral knowing and acting? The third question, raised at every stage in our inquiry, has now reached its final and climactic stage. Must the standpoint of a morallife in which “Spir is cortain-of-itsel” not already be.the absolute standpoint, thus” rendering thé standpoint of a still more ultimate “science” both superfluous and impossible? while our account has come suddenly upon a ue of the If. We have thus far been compelled to depart Which takes sel to be wholly passively ts wholly independent; sucoesvel, the sensecetalayThe Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought still needed. It still is needed, Hegel already in principle reached by the observing philosopher far from reached by the subject observed by him. And unless this subject somehow does reach this truth, and indeed has done so, how can the philosopher have reached In any case having reached this truth, the philosopher makes luse of it as he tums from consciousness to self-consciousness. The |self here observed asserts itself against its exten ‘and other selves—as objects of consciousness to be selfhood. The oberving philosopher already knows th flict with the external other is an internal conflict as w therefore what seems sheer host he will view the selfs victor by which the observed sel =a Stoic or Skeptical freedom of thought, bought at ‘withdrawal from or denial of nature and the human other— be viewed as a ong-sided victory, and the intemally divided un- wappy religious consciousness, as its nemesis. But the truth of consciousness pointed to by this nemesis is a selfhood which at once internalized the other—natural and human—and itself sserts tse as @ universality ideally rt” at thi tage (Pham, * The plop “leads ee : which he observes page (Phen, paa7)-) This not toe nts The “Ladder” to the Absolute Standpoint the angels whose blessedness it cannot reach. Tf there 1s any one absolutely decisive step in the entire Phe- pee Repent eee eee ae mecea as uecren that fuses Reason the “Truth of ser] of Boron Spt We haveshoy pape HogThe Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought [finds is the Truth of Reason. nal dichotomy between the simply finite real and the merely ideal infinite is an abstraction when frozen into fixity, and it isin fact unfrozen in the actyal spiritual life from which it is abstracted, In such a’life, the sub- through with ideality and firm its ideality and infinity, permeated in this afirmation with reality and finitude. What for abstract Reason is a frozen opposition is in concrete spiritual life the self-opposition arising from a prior unity, which for this reason seeks self-reconeiliation, But when at length the self consciously appropriates of spiritual life it transcends the stage jof a Reason merely cei reality forever yet to be appropri- ated. It has found itself i ty. Ithas become “Spirit certain- ofits.” np hich the self had no iy there iS at the sume time the deed! and work of him who finds ‘The “Ladder” to the Absolute Standpoint 6 ht of 3801 had risen to a standpoint of absolute“ selfhood;| so doing it had produced a vast gulf between a think idge, and the step presently under co } tion is crucial for his entire enterprise. For if-as Fichte main- tained —Reason is the highest stage of selfhood in life then philo- thought too must remain confined to the'standpoint of finite selfhood. It can rise to the Schellinglan absolute selfhood only if selfiood in life ean become, and has in fact become, “Spirit certain-oF itself How can the self in life find this certainty? It cannot so long 1s the self’s oneness with complete or infinite Spirit is observed only by the philosopher, and is not grasped by thé self observed. We have already noted that whereas the Phenomenology sees one ing the harmonious Greek ethicel world to the dark Fate which is its nemesis,those who live in that world ex-64 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought propriated; the absolute self-certainty in question is a merely fini {and human self-activty, idolatronsly absolutized. This i e even in the merely halthearted and merely theoretical cts of merely having absolutized a merely human freedom, ,” which ends up in terror.? cs, then, can be found only if-alienation, so as to appropriate as self {or itself a Substance which remaine Substance initself. And this, he asserts, has at least in principle occurred in a post-Enlighten- ment, post-revolutionary “morality” existing in his own time, What ‘is that morality? Ttisat least to begin with-once again the morality articulated by Kant but now considered, not as an imperative abstractly op- posed by a legislating rational self to the world, but rather as a concrete spiritual Jfe lived by the self with the wo |as a “moral view of the world” acted out in the world. In order for there to be such a view and such an acting-out there must be, in addition to the opposition between the ideal and the actual, (s postulated harmony between them. 1 the hamony of morakty_and objective na ‘and will in its form of The gel is overt acting discloses a “whole nest of contradictions.” ‘The “Ladder” to the Absolute Standpoint 65 bbe my task and this latter must be absolute, ic, incapable of ‘completion. Yet the harmony must also “be, not remain a mere task’; hence what is my task must also be hoped for as a divine gift. These and other contradictions arise because in the “move- ‘ment of overt acting” infinite ideality and! finite actuality are both at war and united. , however, is not that a philosopher can detect these contradictions. It is that the “movement of overt acting.” being one movement, can itself rise above them, and has in fact done so in a post Kantian moral life. The self of the moral view of the world remains internally divided into ai abstractly universal and a contingently particular aspect. A post-Kantian copscience or cconscientiousness has boldly accepted itself as a unity, in which ‘deal universality and contingent particularity are inextricably tertwined, Moreover, it has accepted conscience or conscientious: ness in others, and what for the moral view of the world is an ab-1 stract unify of mankind, constituted by an abstract universal duty, has given way.to a community of conscientious persons, united through mutual recognition. persists. Hence conscience or con- )66 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought sciously accepted its blemish and ditties his hands; indeed, this latter hard-heartedly asserts his “egotistie purposes”. For this, to be sure, he is judged by the beautiful soul, and rightly so by judgment in turn invites the accusa- beautiful soul has remained bgautiful state of the final morality—for in Hege -a unsurpassable, however inadequately realized is “unforgiving” conflict. The beautifel sou! Deauty in recognizi recognizes an ideality whi “word of reconciliation’ is spoken, and a “mutual recogn! extremes. The self-in both its poles—produces, and forever is yet to produce, , and because, in recognizing and ac- \who appears." ‘The questions asked at the be the present section can now be answered, More precisely, they have already answered themselves, Fit, the moderg moral self contemplates an inward {aii 2 nd become divine. For «This is why, whereas religion is «form of absolute Spit, morality even at ts highest only points to absolite Splut See farther ch. 6, sec. ‘The “Ladder” to the Absolute Standpoint forever is yet fo le accomplished. Thi because tsa reality already accomplished. The i engin uth, and since tay be dveibed as the highest and most con Reason in modern life, the Hegelian philosophy may asanattempt to reconcile a reality which is with a re “Thirdly, Hogel holds this reconciliation to be already in prin- ciple actual in modern life, Ttis actual. Moral self-activity points only either to further moral remaining eterually fragmented, or else to an unfrag. ‘mented religious truth which remains beyond its self-activty be- ‘own selfunderstanding nota self-a seltactively produce reconciliation but rather receives it a8 1 pift-of divine Grace. The Christian truth, which is the essent “content” of “science,” has been aetual in human history fo n two millennia, And self-actvity has reached in modem mo as ultimate a “form” as it can ever reach in life, But because remains human in both its religious and its moral aspects, human er aspect risen, and could not have risen, to an i-complete self-activity. The time has become as ripe for “science” as life can ever make it, Only philosophical thought can be the self-activity which produces science ‘ wenology, the final morals Tegin with apart.” They‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought already implicitly united’—in religion. For religion is the Truth lof the moral certainty. What is religiously received as already ‘done would not be final if what morally is yet to be done fell simply outside it. The workaday week of “action and existence” points to the Sunday vf rest and reconciliation~a Sunday not di Noreed from the week but rather of the week.*? What then is stil ification which is still missing,” Hegel tells us, is this Notion? ins to be done. What is moral “Spirit certain- ofitself") is, infinite selfacting and which (like Christian faith) has transcended the fragmentari cof what forever is yet to be done, and has ‘possession of what already is, This self- knowledge of the unity which impli already is. To a degree, this self-acti yl, for i isa “selfcontemy for this reason can maintain itself in purity flight from the blemish of finite humanity. It contradicted by the human zealities from which ith blemished but real “action and existence,” and by 9 faith which, while receptive of a God other-than-human, i and concretely human, In contrast, the is the Notion does not lee from these realities but rather unites eee ca Boa only by srnacing tm a a Jfgure them. This is done by. complete or absolute Spirit, already factual in the final seligion, but recreating itself in that form of solf-activity which is already present in the vora] acting It is the Self which, at long las, is absolutely free, ‘no longer either in fight from, or limited by, any external real ‘The hnmag self which has risen to this selfhood has risen to ‘The “Ladder” to the Absolute Stondpoint 6 nature of Hegel's phenomenologi- ts relation to the Hegelian system as a whole have at least in principle established themselves. If the phenomenological road to science is “already scientific” .oves from beginning to end in the “circle"* of th gated standpoints of lif forms of sel: selves, and itself, Only th by an internal neces sees in every standpoint as leading to the necessary ofthe examined standpoint.** Because the Phenomenology already’ roves within the circle of the Notion, it presupposes the “sci ‘logicwhich explicates that Notion. If never soduction to science itis bocause, unlike science views itself before * implilly Identical fence.” Ph at the te ‘ach standpoint he ob- ‘om sande a‘The Religious Dimension in Heget's Thought it criticizes it in the light of the Notion; and because, in doing ‘both, it “hands the individual [the] ladder” to sciance.* Does this answer the question which throughout this discourse ‘we have been asking of the Phenor Up to a point. The Phenomenology has not “instructed tile consciousness in science," and this holds true, as much as of any other such con- sciousness, of Chi jodern moral self-activity. What )ithas shown, howe walks on his feot But the expectation that such a strange posture te adopted isnot equally unprepared at all times. A mora self hich ready Knows being aed acing to be “Spt cetan of (eel need but recognize and accept thatthe same Spirit which its own acting is forever yet to be)already i in te divine-human relation manifest in the Christian faith—and he will have entered into the circle ofthe Notion, As forthe Phenomenology self it nay have moved within that circle frm the beginning. It demon- Strate atthe end that the timo in which this moving has been done | has been made as ripe for it by life as life can ever make it. 1 "Yetour question bas been answered only up to point A radial fea feral remains been he standpoint of abst Sought Baligin. (See Tsing is subject ‘eanawored is whethe ‘Of eoveral possible forms, see ch. 4, PBS Be The “Ladder” to the Absolute Standpoint n and even those standpoints of life which are closest to it. Why— + this might be asked not oily by Fichteans but also, mutatis mutandis, by Marxists~should the standpoint of moral self-activity ‘grasp the ladder to the scientific standpoint when, having done so, it finds its certainty of what is forever yet to be done point to a is is in fact asked by’ ascend the Hegelian ladder, wi against the Hegelian expectation, even at the price of radical cor flict with each other? And will not this protest be enough the absoluteness of the standpoint tion? Moreover, even if they are willing to ascend the do so? As thus far considered, in life of hig philosophic thought, a already con pprinciple—in nonphilosophic form its essential content: yet our ! account of that religion has hitherto been most cursory.* He asserts, too, that his philosophy arises from, andl consummates, not only history but also the history of philosophy. However, we have thus far not said a word about the : philos- ophy and the history of philosophy; indeed, Hegel himself fully cexplicates that relation only many years after writing the Phe- nomenology:* Another question, however, calls for more immediate attention: st will be dealt with in the chapter immediately following. The Phenomenology isa road to “science.” It passes from standpoint to standpoint, and it would be quite justified in doing so along then ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought strnightest and quickest path, As for the superseded standpoints, these may and must be simply left behind. Yet these continue to assert their persisting realty, even when higher standpoints have ppecome historical realities. Thus even ifthe Christian faith and the ‘Kantian moral self-activity accepted by Hegel are in fact right ly questioned*"—count dlisputably exist beside them. This fact can be ignored by the ed as it is merely to hand the ladder to to individuals at varying degrees of near- ignored by Hegelian “science” proper. In jon, oan the Notion ignore or deny the wuman.existence which are shot through mn? But then surely any single protest made anywhere in fnite pretensions of the Notion. Or can the unifying Notion recognize sitnonunion? But then surly this recognition must reduce it to i move form of nite thought. Unless Hegelian science can cope ‘with this dilemma the introduction to “science” furnished by the Phenomenology will tum out to have been lost labor.** | This dilemma isnot lost sight of even during the course of the \phenomenology itself. In pursuit of its goal, the work ought to move toward the absolute standpoint as speedily and elegantly as possible, Yet its actual movement i tortuous, and is arrested time Bod again as if Hegel were haunted by the fear that encountered Standpoints of life, disposed of too quickly or gibly by a thought Which is Notion, will arise to accuse the Notion of lifelessness. When finally the Notion appears on the scene in its own right, it does not expand its scope explicitly over the whole vast panorama of life previously viewed. It is merely tersely assertedas a stage ring demand. Hegel has nat forgotten that the time which he oes ax ripe for “science” is algo (ike all time)—one of conict, i ‘and brute fact, and that he-the self rising to absolute ought-is also a cantingent self in the midst of time. Many years The “Ladder” to the Absolute Standpoint 23 See ert tis Atmnte us eg nfl cone | eons dal adn consumes Bath aspects! cae ete the and des cach od --Tum tho sruggle bets them this rggle andthe suggl to resolve the stg seeped te soe thane ofthe Phenomenelogy an, indeed, of the whe Hegelian poopy Append ‘The Place of the Phenomenology in the Hegelian System (Seep6.) “The Phenomenology has been the subject of scholarly controver is has concerned not only its details ‘any rate, clear; the main inconsistency~or apparent inconsistency— being that what is offered in 1807 as an introduction to (and first are Phin. pp24 f » 29, 51. (Logic, answer, the 4 srarded as having abandoned his whole earlier phenomenolo in which case the question is whether the ‘oF sigaificant ‘even internally, of rather a patchwork com- credibly short period of mminent advocate of the patchwork theory is Theodor‘The Religious Dimension in Hegets Thought The Hegelian Middle: i) The hypothe nog On the Encyclopedia = of Philosophical Sciences 3 from Phenomenology to syst Johannes Hoffmeister, 2 vols. he began preparing a second fven reject the genetic hyp ‘problem of the systematic relation between the Phenomenology and th stan an id yea sition (For my own nt [70 ofthis chapter.) a gtematio on of tld rpc loan tor purpose a vig nly, considered in the perspective expounded in sex. 2 of this chapter. to the actual - Lees . And it would bebold in that workd Reason's sensuous expression, ‘would take that expres time a being essentially Ne ‘This statement neatly sums up the program of the Hegelian system: its frst movement, the Logic; its double second movement which, directed on Nature and Spirit into which “the actual world” divides itself, i itself divided into Philosophy of Nature and Phi- losophy of Spirit; and its third movement, already in the second ‘movement because it isa double movement, by virtue of which * Abbreviations sr sted on pp.24s 7sCHAPTER FOUR The Hegelian Middle: On the Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences It is the cowardice of abstract thought to shun sensuous presence in monkish fashion. Werke, XII, p.go9 (Phil. Rel., III, p.101).° 1, The Central Problem of the Hegelian System n anticipating remark in the Phenomenology—Hegel's “appear- ing science”—outlines the task of the Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences—Hegel’s definitive statement of “science” proper. If consciousness [already] knew Reason to be the essence of both things and itself; and if it fnew that Reason can be present in the stage peculiar to itself only in consciousness itself: then it would descend into its own depths and seek Reason there rather than in things, Having discovered it there, it would then find itself directed once more to the actual world. And it would behold in that world Reason’s sensuous expression, but it would take that expression at the same time as being essentially Notion. This statement neatly sums up the program of the Hegelian system: its first movement, the Logic; its double second movement which, directed on Nature and Spirit into which “the actual world” divides itself, is itself divided into Philosophy of Nature and Phi- losophy of Spirit; and its third movement, already in the second movement because it is a double movement, by virtue of which * Abbreviations are listed on pp.245 ff, 786 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought the system, rather than fall into three separate parts, is a single “overreaching”? whole. But the cited passage also indicates the central problem, not 0 say scandal, of the Hegelian system; itis the enigma which was to divide his followers into right- and left-wing schools, and is the rock on which countless interpreters have foundered. 1s Reason the “essence of both things and consciousness?” If so how can ‘identified with Reason, recognize any actual world recognize such a world, namely, the contingent and fragmented world of human experience? How then can it take that world “as being essentially Notion”? From the outset and throughout, the ‘Hegelian system seems faced with the choice between saving the smi pete Gattschre fin La Lacr de Hegel to thee two wor ‘The Hegelian Middle 7 radical in its claims to comprehensiveness than any other specula- in the middle between these extremes, and how it can dwvell there is its innermost secret, 2. The Right-Wing Interpretation Hegelian middle. But to impossible. Such an under- move from the insights to be me puned from such attempts are gained by watching their collapse. We consider, first, the right-wing interpretation, Here Hegel ap- pears as a “transcendent metaphysician’® whose Logic—which he himself call metaphysics'—describes an ontologically self-sufficient, mdent realm, In this, it might be supposed, Nature and Hegel's actual world—somehow participate as do Platonic shy of Nature are mere symptoms over, that the Logic is {s disclosed by its very contents. ism,” “teleology,” and “life.” Even chance or con fan appearance if only—so it seems—in order as such to vanish But if the Logic is an all-comprehensive transcendent realm ’p The Religious Dimension in Hegels Thought ‘what reality remains for an actual world outside that realm? And ‘what fonctions for philosophies concerned with it?* It cannot bbe the case that whereas the Logic describes re absolute standpoint, the other tw: © appearance from a finite standpx these parts, as much as the Logic, must adopt the adsolute stand- point. Yet if the Logic already comprehends all reality at the abso- ute standpoint no function is left for its appli ‘with good reason that one interpreter, courageous the transcendent-metaphys is forced to write: “Is there in the world anything at all outside the Logic? According to Hegel one would, strictly speaking, have to answer this question resolutely in the negative.”” The right-wing interpretation has without doubt some consid- erable plausthility. And in forms less extreme but also less enlight- ening than that just stated it has always found adherents. Doubt- less the other two parts of Heget’s system dep. though this by itself means little un dependence is specified, and this is exactly the problem. To this systematic one may add an historical sation. The Logic c by itself, to correspond to Schelling’s My System of igards program, as well as to correct finds with that work as regards exeeution, Both wor into a sheer and hence empty union Logic emerge as a self-diflerentiating ‘Whole which encompasses nonunion as well as union. Must one say, then, that Hegel's entire and complete response to the night of Schelling’s Indifference is to be found in that self-ifere ciginal, (1H, p.s32) The Hegelian Middle ” Totality which is aimed at throughout the Logic and finally reached in the Absolute Idea?* system, and unless we are al progression of the First, Hegel's life-long endeavour was to find the Absolute not beyond the world, the worl its presence in and for thought ry be called a mysticism of Reason But unlike so many mysti- s, this mysticism is no flight from the actual world, which takes that world as mere sham and it is much rather such a eave the impression dat, re the whole series: leduce all the est by mech ‘and without reference to empirical thinking, (1 ailded-— follow that Hegel is ‘complete ‘grasping the way of leaming as ¢ moment in sannct whally escape Tap t «lower ition Of wich has to be = absolate thought80 The Religious Dimension in Hoge’s Thought steadfast existence in the actual world, even if taken as fragmented, has substance and reality. The Absolute, if accessible to thought at all, is accessible only toa thought which remains: the world of sense, not to a thought which shuns it in “monkish fashion.” This general conviction specifies itself in the presence, within the Hegelian system, of a Philosophy of Nature and a Philosophy of Spirit. In the transcendent-metaphysical interpretation these either vanish altogether or else figure awkwardly as a priori specu- lations on empirical fact. As such, they have always been widely criticized. But the critics might have noticed that their attacks on Hegel are paralleled by Hegel's attacks on his romantic contem- poraries, Hegel viewed romantic speculation about nature as a timate substitute for empiri- losophy of history he wrote: orical facts can be fraud because he considered it an ‘established only by means of sources.”!! In contrast with such efforts, Hegel's own philosophies of nature and history do not replace but on the contrary presup- is done by virtue of an abstraction achieved that abstraction, Hegel does not hesitate to say that sion, which may also be called an arbitrary act.”"* The logical realm, then, apart from Hegel's actual world, is far indeed from being all-encompassing Reality. It isa “realm of shadows." The Hegelian Middle a 3 The Left-Wing Interpretation. ‘The collapse of the transcendent-motaphysical interpretation ‘moves us on to its opposite—an “ the most of precisely those elements in Hegel's thought which its pie fared to ignore o deny i pays the high pic of aban prinefple, the fundamental goal of Hegel's entire philo- prise, ence exhausts Reality, and it consists of the countless (though not chaotic) ways in which Nature and Spirit are related. These rela- tions include natural sefence, which is the observation of natural objects by the sprit cient subjet, and historiography, of the spirit expressed in historical a well as Spirit xno means exhausted by such theoretical kinds, They in labor, which is the appropriating transformation of natural frag- , and the lives of states, which are spiritually les arising from, requiring, and par subduing a natural base. Even between Nature and Spirit. For it isa relation between finite spirits, limited by Nature, and Spirit which—in one form or another, depending on the religion—is Nature's source. “The ex- weed world,” in short, has the widest possible connotation, lds of theoretical knowl- nental philosophers would call the Lebenswelt, or what thotr Anglo-Saxon contemporaries might con- ceivably be induced to call the world of ordinary language. spects of that world of experience have, as humanly experi-Be ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought enced, one thing in common: they are shot through with eon- tingency, externality, factual givenness. This is true not only of natural seience, which cannot eliminate the empiri of historiography which, in addition, must be arbi true also of the highest and most comprel fe, Even the best of states remains dependent of other states.»* Indeed, contingency would appear to remain even in the religious relationship. Thus in the highest religion—Pro! tant Christianity—sin appears as a groundless and heace fortuitous s gift. sisting on the reality of the humanly experie the “immanentist” interpretation saves the crucial Hey ‘that there is nonunion as well as union, and that the former, as ‘well as the later, is real in the form in which itis humanly experi- enced. For it would by no means satisfy Hegel's purpose to grant nonunion as a phase in a logical movement only, which passed through that phase only in order as such to abolish it. In the actual world nonunion persists ax nonuuion, and simply to deny it as such would be to dissipate the actual world into a realm which, while possibly beautiful, would nevertheless consist of mere shadows." But can philosophic thought remain limited by the bounds of contingent human experience? If so, it can be no more than + tna pasageoxting that “activity of separating. [hich i] the Under standing that ost stosihing and greatest, o rather absolute power,” Hegel 1, and to hold fast to the dead is jeauly hates the Understanding, the life of “The passage is dirocted against omante flights from reality ‘The Hegelian Middle 83 finite thought, ie., reflection on finite experience, undertaken at the standpoint of finite experience, Understood as such, the Hegel- ian applied logic could at best only state and justify the cate in which Nature and wre experienced, thus reducing itself to a Kantian-type critique or to second-order discourse, modern style. As for the Logic, it would remain confined to the same task, presumably at a higher level of abstraction. But the Hegelian philosophy has far more exalted aims than these. It incorporates reflective restatements of the categories of finite experience. But rising to the absolute standpoint, it reenacis thse categorie in a thought which alter them in the process of reenactment* Hence the Philosophy of Nature and the Philos- ophy of Spirit begin with empirically supplied truths, but they move at each step toward raising these truths to a higher Truth of their own, And the Logic is what gives them this raising power. This is because logical abstractions are not abstractions of an ordi- nary sort. They permeate the actual world from which logical thought has abstracted them." Hence philosophic thought can extend its scope beyond logic; it need not and cannot remain in logical abstractness. It need not remain so because philosophical thought can confront the contingencies of the actual world arid, by raising them, move to their conquest. It cannot rem: this conquest is achieves has described the logic untenable as its transcend of this double collapse, the Hegelian middle is inescapable. sk of entering into the authentic 7 Y84 The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought is context, we can attempt no more than to grasp the prin- ciple of the Hegelian middle, abstaining from all efforts to enter details. And we shall seek to grasp it by interpreting lements of all three phases are found fered throughout Hegel's works, But he would appear to have given a complete and systematic statement of what we shall call its logical phase only, in his Encyclopedia of Philosophic Sciences. That phase, if teken as exclusive of the other two, has always encouraged, though never justified, fatal misunderstandings, of which panlogism is the best-known. It will appear that these mis- understandings—or a good many of them—vanish, once due atten- tion is given to the realistic and idealistic, as well as the logical, phases of Hegel's thought. One Hegelian passage states the principle of the threefold mediation clearly, tersely, and completely-so much so that the whole remainder of this chapter may be devoted to its interpreta tion, Hegel writes: Everything rational shows itself to be a threefold union , the logical Idea, Nature and ting member. Nature, that im- folds itself into two extremes, the logical Tdea eee Ea “he Additional supporting pas- nconelasve, passages: En, Logik I, pp. 35. (Logic, 1, The Hegelian Middle 85 5: The Realistic Mediation First, Nature mediates. This is Nature itself. Tt is by no means either a transcendent Idea of Nature or a subjective experience we may have of it. Nature, as such, may be “immediate,” & to both logical and spiritual mediation. Its, however, an“ ate Totality,” ic., a self-existent Whole in its own right, and it persists in such selfexistence throughout all mediation. For in order to be a middle between logical Idea and Spirit, Nature, while “unfolding itself” into these “extremes,” must at the same time remain distinct from them, unless these extremes are to col- lapse into an empty identity. “It is ray body,” Hegel writes, “which constitutes the middle through which T find contact with the ex- temal world.”* That body, it will become evident, is esential not All quotations througho: refer bick to this passage [Key passage in this chapter, ' far as T know, the interprotation along the lines of this chapter has never been attempted, although the su chapter to which no references are given will sect, 187 Zus.), which willbe tented as the86 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought aking process, dependent on the case of primitive selfhood mediates Nature no finite spirit can media finite spirit, a dialectical tension between immers Nature and a transcending mediation of it. But except for a persisting immediate Nature neither of these aspects would have substance and reality. In the form of his own cosporeality, pa hat has thos bee Of auch hanoony conus ecome ade The Hegelian Middle 87 By itself, however, this relation between Nature and Spirit does not make Nature a middle, which is between two extremes. One of these—the logical Tdea—emerges only because Hogel asserts far more than a doctrine of selfhood, understood as a self-consti- ne of Nature. ‘That for which Nature is nonself conquerable, in infinity, by self. Itis a is the sophie thought to infinite selthood. How otherwise could thought recognize Nature as pre-self, instead of taking it, as on its own terms all finite selfhood must, as other-than-sel But this position, first approached by Schelling in 1800, gives rise to a dilemma glaringly obvious in Schelling’s My System of 3801. Either the struggles, s, and failures of the finite self have the meaning and real h the finite self takes them to have, at least at one or some of the points which it is capable of reaching, But then Nature must ultimately be other-than-self, just as the finite self takes it to be, and the philosophic project of lerstanding it as pre-sclf is a mere wayward fancy: philosophi- cal idealism is at most a Fichtean “idealism of the finite self,” if it can be even as much. Or else philosophic thought succeeds in displaying Nature as pre-self; but then this display reduces to mere appearance Nature-as-other. selfhood, which takes that appea My System of 1801 the many-colored ne of fi indeed meant to be preserved in the one wl cows are black,88 The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought ram, His sympathies with Fichte are manifest recognition it was, in Hegel's view, because of an error not in pro- gram but execution. Schelling did not err in seeking to descend ‘nto Nature in order to reproduce it as pre-self in philosophic thought. He erred in identifying Nature-as-reprodueed-in-thought with Nature itself? But Nature mocks at this identification, for it is shot through with contingency, and to be so i part of its essence. Nature thus resists an idealism which denies natural contin- gency, but it does not, according to Heg absiracts from contingency. Such an idealism reproduces ia thought, not Nature, but only the structure by which Nature is maintained, For Nature, though contingent, is not sheer cont gency, Itisa Totality, made so by a structure, That stru over, can be reenacted by thought without leaving a element, ‘comprehensive structure which is no longer fragmentary— ture of nothing other than the reenacting thought itself. ‘The thought which does this reenacting accomplishes at once two ends, It recognizes Nature as other-than-self, for it abstracts from ts own. Such is the double task of the Hegelian Logic.#* ‘The Logic accomplishes the second aspect of this task because, The Hegelian Middle 89 while reenacting categories already manifest in the actual world, the final category of the Logio-the absol gory besides others, such as those manifest im the actual worlds it has so altered all others as to incorporate them, And logical thought which thinks this Idea is not besides or over against Nature and finite selfhood; it is—in a sense—the absolute Self, ‘which has made the whole actual world its pre-self, However, this is true in a sense only. For if logical thought is capable of any altering appropriation of the actual world, it is only at the price of abstraction, and what it abstracts from is a con- tingency essential to both Nature and finite spirit, Logical thought, therefore, is forced to recognize Nature as other-than-self in the very act which displays it as pre- so doing it recognizes, as well, the reality of finite selfhood, which takes Nature as other- than-self. Consequently, if the absolute logical Self supersedes ex- isting finite selfhood, it is only at the price of an abstraction which leaves finite selfhood a persisting reality: a reality, moreover, of which logical thought itself stands in persisting need. For the sbstracting and altering reenactment of the structure of the actual ‘world (which is logical thought) is not the permanent result of a process accomplished and done with acted process itself. Thus logical though not a pure dwel world, Itis a rise to Infinity which requires ite in order to be that rise, It is not by some it may be said, in sum, that the dilemma with which ing’s program of 1801 confronts Hegel is resolved if Natase itself, as it were, comes to the rescue. On the one hand, Nature9 The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought “unfolds itself into two extremes” of which the one~Spirit as logi- jht-reenacts the other—the logical Idea, by fragments of which Nature and finite spirit are maintained. Yet on the other hand Nature also persists as Nature, and between these extremes, by virtue of a contingency which is of its essence. Nature does Ive into these extremes, thus causing their collapse into an empty identity. It is the persisting middle between them. But what lives between the extremes is the full and unabridged reality world, After Hegel's death, Schelling reappeared on the scene, to assail Hegel's log mont.*° Had Hegel been Schelling’ own philosophi vealed the logical realm. This, to b |. For, frst, his absolut the contingent but actual world. Ai tive philosophy, which recognized the cont despaired of the whole program of absolute view, however, the denial of the contingent but actual world had been a mere error on Schelling’s part, in no way essential to abso- li ir of absolute /s subsequent des was wholly unnecessary. Were Hegel ve this exact response to Schelling’s present. rs and successors.2* 6. The Idealistic Mediation So much, for the present, for Hegel's first mediation, which may The Hegelian Middle a mentary, if indced not unintelligibl whole to which it belongs.” ‘To recognize its fragmentariness one need but inquire into the relation between contingent Nature and the logical realm by maintained. Either Nature after all reduces itself to hus pointing to a larger fragmentary. A dualism remains, then, between the actual world of Nature and faite spirit, and the logical realm which maintains if capable at all of philosophical knowledge of the logical realm, can achiove such knowledge only by virture of a leap, which leaves the actual world, unmeditated, behind. Such leaps, to be sure, have been tolerated throughout the history of Western philosophy, at least from Plato on. But it Hege¥s profound conviction that for precisely that reason such thought, until his own time, has remained in prinefple incomplete" But it now emerges that such consequences follow only from a dogmatic realism which, failing to distinguish between immediate Nature and Nature-as-mediated, mistakes Nature for a fixed and Simply given objec, known by an equally xed and wholly pave eet. They vanish by virtue of of that docisive truth is the life of Hegel's second, i ‘mediation ?* + As wil bo een fn sects. 6 and only because Ni so} posited” Festernaloe The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought First and foremost, that mediation has long been in progress before philosophic thought appears on the scene, although this latter is necessary both for its completion and its full compre sion. For itis all Spirit, by no means Spirit in the form of to precarious survi whom it is instrument of human use; yet a third for who subdues it to the needs of a communal whole; s for scientific man, for whom it is a system of objects observed by & . Wrong- headed philosophers hold that only thi is knowledge, on the grounds that whereas thought, which is, much more than Heidegger's after him, naively realistie enough to assert a primordial openness of experience to the external world. In his view, such a wrong-headed idealism is the mere counterpart of a wrong-headed realism. The latter di- vorces what Nature is from the richly varied way humanly experienced. The former, which holds fast to ences, must abandon a self-existent Nature only because it accepts The Hegelian Middle 93 that divorce. Both errors are undercut by a philosophy which ac- cepts a wisdom by which nonphilosophic men live anyhow:* that |human selfhood is primordially open to Nature and that, this being an active openness, it everywhere mediates Nature's immediacy. This doctrine answers at east one question concerning the rela- tion between Nature and the logical realm which maintains it. This is nota relation between two objects, apprehended by a pas- sive philosophical subject: for t 10 such subje thought may see Nature as maintained by the logical re {tis an acting as ‘ seeing, And what is grasped by not a more redup! structure of Nature life, and in so doing it transfigures its own reenacting seeing into vity.2° however, this does not cure the fatal dualism, Indeed, it but causes a shift, from an age-old and time-honored ontological sively apprehended, to what ism, between two relations of tingent. The other is a transcendence of Nature, by a Spirit which, while infinite, remains confined to the form of abstract logi thought. Moreover, since these two relations must be tions of one Spirit, the relation between tl4 The Religious Dimension in Hegel s Thought wven the humblest form of finite spiritu contingent Nature (albeit never more conflict between finite existing self and infinite thinking Self ne not remain in frozen arrest. It is eapable of historical development, and it may be said—with qualiications—that history is that de- velopment.* Even so, the conflict between the finite and infinite ppoles of selfhood seems to remain in principle unresolved, and if it remains so the idealistic remains as fragmentary as the realistic mediation, whose fragmentariness it was meant to cure. In Hege’s view, such a cure is possible only on two conditions: that nonphilosophical human existence is not everywhere confined to simple finiteness, and that philosophical thought is not doomed to remain in logical abstractness. We have already taken note of religion, which is one manifestation of the first of these conditions, and further examination will show this to be the decisive mar festation.# Here we must take note of another, namely, natural science. This is necessary for an explication, however brief, of the enco deals with Nature as a whole, and it acquires the power of fea ese sn forges pny of iton = eS craic rte eg Se se The Hegelian Middle 95 imply passive. In truth, ichotomy is an achievement, giver, and the theoretic however, the scientific subject: eves it partakes of both finiteness and infinity. It partakes of finiteness because the Nature which islet be remains shot ‘through with contingency and givenness. It partakes of infinity because what it lets be are not fragments of Nature but is Nature as a whole, Natural science, then, is not a simply finite and passive apprehension of a simply given Nature. It is an ar rested mediation. This truth displays itself in a double contradiction, one between scientific theory and the total spiritual existence from which itis abstracted, the other within scientific theory itself. As for the first, the theoretical be of natural things is contradicted by the whole of nontheoretical life which does not let them be, but rather “directly refutes the one-sided assumption . .. that natural things are persistent and impenetrable to us.” The Nature which is object of sciontific thought, and the natural fragments which are part of our Lebenswelt are both one-sided abstractions from one artial mediations of its immediacy. n is reinforced by natural science, taken by itself to itself. But qua thought it aims at their comprehension, whi a derial that they are beyond and alien. Natural science is a move- only to transcend this beginning and yet forever to return we make them into universals. But the6 The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought tossimple finiteness. Is it the case, as well, that philosophic thought need not remain in logical abstractness? Can such thought, rather than flee in “monkish fashion” from the contingencies of the actual ‘world, confront and conquer them? That it can do so is the deepest conviction of Hegel's philosophy, and itis systematically expressed in it insofar as it is not Logic only, but rather a whole composed of Philosophy of Nature and a Philosophy of Spirit as well as of Logic. The Logic, taken by itself, abstracts from contingency. The total philosophy of which the Logic is but one phase is the con- {quest of contingency: applied logic is just that conquest.® natural science is an indispensable part. But they do not remain. bound by the limits of their presuppositions. For, by virtue of the Logic of which they are applications, they alter the empirical ma- terial supplied to them, so as to raise it above nize its ultimate Truth, It accomplishes b the Idea in Nature ... [and in this recogni its Essence.” The for finite spirit, rising it above finiteness by recognizing the Idea in ite But how can philosoph ise Nature to an Essence ately is contingent; but reduc- nee in question is Nature's own, but then natural contingency was all along a mere sham, and so was the finite spirit which took it for this chapter, pps ff this chapter, pp.r14 The Hegelian Middle 9 reality. Nature either cannot or need not be raised to an Essence above contingency, and the idealistic mediation either remains fragmentary or else collapses into a vacuous infinity. In short, the old, nagging dilemma seems still unresolved, and on reflection this can hardly come as a surpris be surprising. The realistic mediation re- come to the reseue. The idealistic itself do likewise. There is, how- Pesase Spirit at once requites Nature, as its presupposition, and quired by Nature, as its presupposition.® and only presup (Werke, VIL 2, pp.90 fi Such manifestations of nite epeit must be presorved by the idealistic media ton without loss8 The Religious Dimension in Hegel’s Thought Se, to the philosophic recognition of Nature as presse. Only if il at once can there be a complet the contingent and finite world, and yet raises it to a Truth above contingency and finiteness. But how can both these conditions prevail at once? Only by virtue of seemingly unmitigated paradox. Nature must remain other-than-Spirit, s0 1 so as to reduce Spirit itself to the ultimate in finiteness, which is death, and yet it must be so wholly included in Spirit as to manifest the supremacy of spiritual power in the very death of Spirit. Hegel writes: “The life of Spirit is not the kind which, shunning death, keeps itself pure from destruction, It is a life which endures death, and in death maintains its own being, It wins its truth only by finding itself in a state of absolute self-disruption.”* Hegel calls this double power, ascribed to Spirit, the power of overreaching.** * “Overreaching” is perhaps Hegel's most impor- tant term, and the presence of overreaching power in Spirit may be called without exaggeration the decisive condition of the possibil- ity of the complete philosophic thought. For just as Spirit must overreach Nature unless itis either to reduce itself to concrete but finite spirit or to dissipate itself into an infinite but empty Spirit, so the complete philosophic thought—» the culminating form of Spirit-must overreach all reality, unless itis either to re- If as encompassing the acti To conquer the actual world, pl frst, recognize its reality, and it can do s0 only by itself assuming embodiment, so as to raise to infinity both the human thinker ee consi ie as peti of ngrecting ps wl ore wt Sayan gan teie ‘The Hegelian Middle 99 and his actual world. And it must, fi actual world and the humanity of the thinker. Hegel reje all attempts to deny the struggle between the and inginite ps hood: both the eseape into an empty ticism of a simply infinite Thought, and the escape into a simply finite thought supposedly devoid of all transcendence. If nevertheless he does not remain with a self-destructive struggle, it is Kecause the infinite overreaches the finite pole, The concrete losophic thought is the perpetually reenacted raising of the finite to the infinite which, while raising the finite without remain- der, must yet in so doing affirm its persistence as finite, est its own activity of raising reduce itself to a mere lifeless transcendence. According to Hegel, philosophy is the Sunday of life."* * But there can be no Sunday unless, first, the workaday week is a reality; and unless secondly, instead of there being a meaningless alternation between work and rest, Sunday is the meaning and truth of the whole 7. The Logical Mediation But in order for the there is need for yet a third, cal Iéea is itself the middle . Spirit and Nature, that which hhas been said, this mediation alone Hegel give Hogel also wrtes—with obvious approval-that “all t reli sy the source di oe ll return to {for fuller weatment,100 The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought cent purpose cannot be to reproduce it completely, or even in general outline, but merely to understand the logical mediation in, its relation to the other two. That purpose is best accomplished by showing that it is already implicit in these two, as the condition of their togetherness. We begin with a review of the main tensions between the real- istic and idealistic mediations. First, Spirit must presuppose Na- ture, if finite spirit is to have reality, but Nature must also ‘presuppose Spirit, if Spirit is to be able to rise to absolute philo- sophic thought. Secondly, the logical realm must be, independently at any rate of our thought, ifthe Nature which is maintained by itis to have sol-existenco; yot it cannot be a transcendent object, over against a pass ig subject. Thirdly, contingent Nature ‘must remain contingent, unless Idea and Spirit, rather than linked by it, are to collapse into an empty identity; yet philosophic ‘thought must he able to raise it to an Essence above contingency, unless such thought is either to be finite or else a fight from reality. that the Hegelian middle requires all these anti- ties, but also that it will break asunder if these remain ithetical. As thus far understood, the Hegelian middle depends ly on the claim that Spirit has overreaching power—a power ‘in tum makes possible the overreaching power of philo- sophie thought. But a closer look now reveals that this claim on behalf of Spicit requires a corresponding claim on betuif of the Idea. Spirit and Idea must bof have overreaching power, and the ultimate ques- tion to be asked of the Hegelian system will concern the relation between these two powers. Consider, first and in isolation, the logical realm. If Nature, intained by that realm, is to have self-existence apart piri, that realm must be, apart from logical thought, which merely sees it. Logical movement, therefore, is not a movement of thinking only, which moves mere ideas which are inert apart from it. The Idea itself must move, while logical thought, as it were, ‘The Hegelian Middle 101 simply looks on. This much the realistic mediation requires. The idealistic mediation requires that there be no passive subject, ap- pfehending an extemal and transcendent object, but ruther a self- activity so pure as to allow nothing external to it, and hence no object. How then can logical thought be at once a pure realistic surrender to the movement of the Idea, and a pure idealistic self- ‘activity? This is possible, we now lear, only if the surrender of Giir thought to the movement of the Idea is the self-movement of the Idea in us: if our logical thought is that self-movement.>* ® The Idea, then, must have at least some overreaching power: it must have the power to overreach that Spirit which is logical thought, Because the logical realm, in isolation, can overreach logical thought only, which latter is abstracted from the actual world, itis itself abstract, a “realm of shadows.” But because it is the Idea which moves logical thought, not logical thought which ‘moves it, itis at the same time “God . . . before the creation of Nature and finite spirit.” Consider, next, the relation between the actual world and the Spirit which, being the complete philosophic thought, is to be its conquest. The actual world must remain as contingent the realistic and the idealistic mediations require, Spirit presup- poses Nature, But it must also be raised above contingency if, as istic mediation requires, Spisit is to overreach Nature, overreaching of the whole is the complete philosophic thought. But how can thought both recognize and conquer the actual world? ll sein that such thought must either reduce itself to crletzes the Kenta Fchtcan plilosopty for remaining limits he sand point of consciousness. (Enz,, sect, 415.)302 The Religious Dimension in Hege’s Thought tums from the logical realm to Nature it must, to achieve appli- cability, take a leap, from infinite self-activity to finite acceptance of the given, Buti itis to be applied logic, this leap cannot romain a leap. If no leap is made, all philosophic thought is logic; and if the leap remains a leap, philosophic thought becomes natural sci- ence after having made it. In either ease the philosophic conquest of Nature which is philosophy of nature is impossible. Its possible, For Hegel's purpose, it would not be enough, as for some phi- phors it might, if Nature were a tension Between the Tdea and is the ultimate source of all werywhere.* This, tobe su, would go considerably intains i, making Nature a system of stages with increasing logical penetration, and yet qua Nature bound to the limits ofits external pole, But it would allow the external pole at once too spe and too little. If Nature were a tension between two external poles how, in the * From H head's Proves a ‘The Hegelian Middle 103 make both these mediations possible the Idea, first, must be the “Substance” which wholly “penetrates” Nature; secondly, it must so penetrate it as to preserve the externality without which Nature would not be Nature; and thirdly, it must—because it is that penetration, not a Substance which és independently of what it does—itself assume the form of externality. In religious or quasi- ligious language, this is expressed in the contradictory terms that Nature is at once a divine creation and yet constituted by Nature is external and yet the Idea externalized cat apart Idea and Spirit and yet wholly unfold itself into them. Only then, too, can it at once require being raised to its Essence and be capable of being raised, without remainder. Such raising, frag- mentarily and haphazardly accomplished by all Spirit everywhere, is accomplished wholly by the Spirit which is philosophy of Na- ture. For whereas Nature is the external philosophy of ‘Nature is the reco of Nature as the extemalized Tdea; but asserts that Spirit, as such, is the T: Nature itself . The complete Truth of Nature is the Spirit which recog- nizes the Idea in it.°* legel asers 976.) Hie also asserts that104 The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought Such recognition is possible, however, only on the decisive addi- tional condition that the 1dea overreaches Spirit as well as Natut i.e, all Spirit, by no means the Spirit which is philosophical thought alone. For if finite spirit were our spirit only, then Nature ‘ight well be the Idea extemalized; we on ous part should be in principle incapable of recognizing it as such, Our finite spiritual existence would mediate actual Nature, but fragments only, of @ Nature which as a whole would remain extemal and other-than- self, And ous infinite philosophic Thought would remain confined to logic, recognizing the Idea in logical abstractness; it could not recognize its concrete embodiment in Nature. Such a recognition only if the Idea overreaches all Spirit, as well as all {the “Substance” which “penetrates” both, ‘But if Nature and Spirit are both to remain what they are, these ‘two penetrations must diffe 1d, Nature is externality. Even the humblest form of finite spirit to a degree transcends natural cextemality. Hence in order to preserve finite Spirit in overreaching, it the Idea must, as it were, mo same direction in which finite spirit moves itself, even though it supersedes its finite goals, Finite spirit takes itself as a fragmentary conquest of a Nature which, qua unconquered, remains simply extemal and otherthan-self. It is in truth a phase in the Idea’s return-to-self, from a Nature which is its self-externalization.* pleted In animal life... . (Enz, sect. 389 Zus. (Werke, VIE 2, pp.s1 ffs Jtalics added.) inportant to dis oon wh ‘The Hegelian Middle 108 ‘This truth remains hidden from finite spirit because it is finite. Tt does not remain hidden from all Spirit because, in philosophic thought, Spirit rises to infinity. The Spirit which recognizes the overreaching power of the Idea must itself be overreached by it. But because it recognizes itself as thus overreached, it is no mere phase in the retum of the Idea from otherness. It is the complete having-returned. Sach a recognition is not of the Idea by thought. It is the self-recognition of the Idea in thought:** We saw above that logical thought, taken by itself, is the self-movement of the Idea, in a thought abstracted from the actual world. It has now emerged that the complete philosophical thought, which includes philosophy of Nature and philosophy of Spirit as well as logic, a total conquest of the actual world—its transfiguration into an infinite spiritual life. And it can be this conquest only because it is the return-to-self of the Idea, from self-extemalization in Nature. That conquest is not a final dissipation of the actual world Hegel wsites: “Nature is too impotent to exhibit . .. the logical forms in their clarity." This impotence, which is of a strange sort, is the dynamic union of two powers. One is the natural power to point, as to its Truth, to Spirit and in the end to philasop Spirit, and this permits the rise to an all-transfiguring philosophi thought. The other is the power to persist as Nature, untruth, and this londs persistent Only because these two powers combine their forces can ph cal thought be an actual conquest of the actual world, not aps conquest, which is a mere light from it, For the spiritual life which106, The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought losophic thought i sullied by finiteness. Itis a laboring rise to infinity and a having-risen which, in order itself to have substance and reality, requires the reality of world which is the object of its Iabor. In the complete philoso, thought the Idea manifests itself as a divine play. But this play has ‘uso it includes the whole pain and labor of human The philosophical Sunday is no other-worldly joy, indifferent to the grief of this world, against which indiference the deemed world would rise as an unconquered witness and accuser. It is a this-worldly joy, which can be joy only because its very life is the conquest of the world’s grief. 8. The Hegelin Middle and Its Crucial Assumption This completes our account of the three phases of Hegel's three- fold mediation. It remains for us to display it as a middle which, as we put it above, combines a pluralistic openness as hospitable to the varieties of contingent experience as any empiricism with ic comprehensiveness more radical in its than any (or us to identify one idle, as well as to ask whether ight, by its own terms, is mn out to be the decisive with the finite thinker and his finite but actual work thought tums from pure into applied I deductions which never reg wholly ruled out once the logical mediation is placed into the context of a three-phased whole. For within that whole Nature The Hegelien Middle 107 persists in its natural immediacy even while unfolding itself into Idea and Spirit, and Spirit persists as fragmented by Nature into Ginitude even while raising Nature to its Essence and itself to infinity. Within such a wholo, human thought cannot reach pure legal simply nity By means of a leap which simply denies the reality monly achieve purity, recognizing the reality the very act of abstraction which achieves such parity, Agata, W PE is fo become applied become capabie of having applications, and it can become so only by seencountering the contingent from which logical thought has abstracted, and by reimmersion in the finite above which logical thought has risen. This encoun not in @ surrender to the oon 1 whieh s samag Bar expetually reenacted“pipe- ess of conquering The Hegelian Possibly ‘ne In requires the in the life of specula- tive thought itself.* ‘The Hegelian middle equally maintains itself ayainst all threats to reduce the Hegelian Idea to mere human ideas, and to alter Hegel's thought in the light of this reduction, But it is not possible to do so in a manner which ‘would reject the logical phase in Heget’s threefold mediation and in appendix to this chapter (p.a35), males tar from denying the veh of cont Dilosophers to demonstate Ht108 ‘The Religious Dimension in Heget’s Thought retain the others unimpaired. For in Hegel's threefold mediation Nature unfolds itself into Tdea and Spirit even while persisting in natural immediacy, and Spirit raises both Nature and itself to infinity even while persisting as fragmented into finitude, But if the Hegelian Idea reduces itself to mere human ideas then neither ‘Nature nor Spirit can continue to perform such functions. To reject ‘one phase of Hegel's threefold mediation is thus to shatter all into fragments. But against such a fragmentation the Hegelian middle ‘maintains itself as both internally complete and all-comprehensive: hence as radically immune to external assault, But this self-maintenance against both extremes rests on one fundamental assumption, which, already stated, must now come under explicit scrutiny. Nature, and hence the whole contingent but actual world, is doubly overreached, by Spirit and Idea. Spirit that middle which is philosophic thought. the final analysis, the identity of Idea and a sheer identity which simply excludes nonidentity. It'is a having- into identity, of an idea which can be a having-returned- mn in Nature and after the which, achieved once and for all, renders unreal the process which haas led to it, The result is the process—its perpetual reenactment. And the human thinker who qua thinker participates in it must remain human to be capable of such participation. The thought which transfigures his human life requires the persist untransfigured reality of that life if itis itself to be end of all life. But how can Hegel assert that the actual world is doubly over- The Hegelian Middle 109 reached by Idea and Spirit, and that philosophical thought is their having-grown-into identity? As thus far expounded, this appears as a mere assumption, which, unless it can be philosophically demonstrated, allows and indeed invites rejection. We have called this the decisive question to be asked of the whole Hegelian philosophy. But one must be sure not to misstate the question. Without doubt Hegel's overreaching Spirit and his overreaching Idea stand in a relation of mutual confirmation. The assertion that the actual world is overreached by Spirit rests on the assumption that it is overreached by the Idea; and the assertion that itis overreached by Idea rests on the assumption that the S} is truth is.not a finite spirit extemal to an itself infinite Spirit overreaching it. Pi Il be quick to point out that this makes Heg «closed system, which can afford to be radically open to all empirical faets and all contingent experience only because, while they are allowed to confirm the system, they are sy the minds of positivistic rit If the exposition just given Is corect, then Hegelian pilsopy i tml ‘Krug’ famous request to deduce his writing pen (Werke, XVI, pp.so i; Tne, seet, ago), and yet fs in no way confounded by this inability,110 The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought enterprise, as in principle unacceptable and indeed a gigantic blunder. But this is to judge the Hegelian teal standards which, moreover, it ¢ Hegel's view, scientific thought—the Understanding—requites ex- ternal empirical confirmation and allows external empirical refuta- tion, for it is finite, In contrast, philosophica! thought is infinite, and the complete philosophical thought has internalized all temal verification and is incapable of extemal refutation. Pt istic criticism makes no effort to come to grips with the Hoge position, It merely rejects it. Here as elsewhere positivism ignores a philosophy which might well challenge it, indulging instead ia the solitary airing ofits own dogmas. ‘The question to be asked of the Hegelian system is not whether it satisfies external standards. It is whether it satisfies its own. Is it entitled to the assumptions, mutually confirming, of an over- not thought and in this stance merely asserts its overreaching power. Against such an assertion life would protest too loudly, and the protest would fall outside the asserting thought. Falling the philosophic claim to a mere dogma, is also indemonstrable. Pfotests of this ade by the varieties of existenti 3 criticiom, these are not external and i to the Hegelian philosophy* Such protests can be met only if the dualism between nonphilo- | sophic life and philosophic thought is the last of all the false d isms; that is, i the having-grown-into-identity of an overreaching Spirit and an overreaching Idea is not a philosophic assertion over against a nonphilosophic life, itself wholly devoid of such identity, ‘but rather a reality already present in life before philosophy comes The Hegelian Middle au ‘upon the scene to convert it into thought. And philosophy will be ‘a demonstration of its central claim only if, on the one hand, this ion comprehends wholly and without loss the reality of nonphilosophical life and if, on the other, it shows itself to be a ‘conversion which life itself requires. Such is in fact HegeYs position. In his view philosophy in the ancient world was bound to a cruci Necessary and the Infinite, But it and the finite. limit. It could grasp the Id only ignore the contingent is was because the ancient world was pagan. The however, has long been Christian, Here the Infinite sted itself in the finite and human, so as at once to preserve its finite humanity and yet to raise it above it ‘This modern world, then, already is doubly overreached, by a cre- ‘The problem of the Hegelian middle thus turns into the problem of the relation between religious iife and philosophic thought. In a previous chapter devoted to the Phenomenology, we saw that Hegel must adopt the standpoint of absolute thought in order to * For tho contrast between pagan and Christian philosophy, see perhaps smost suosnety, Werke, XIU, ppas8-27 (Hut. Phi, 1, ppaoraio). See also, gs Bry sect 8 “The word Split and its representation have been discovered in an re he conten: of he Christin selon oaks Co knw {rp what is here gioen to representation, ad what is ef ‘own element, namely, the Notion~that Is the ask of pilosopy And philosophy has not completed ts task truly and immanent 30 lng ss the KRodion'and Freedonnaze nots object and it 30 "The contrast between Christian philosophy is dealt with more fully below, ch. 6, sect. eeeaa The Religious Dimension in Hegel’s Thought hand the individual the “ladder” to it. In the present chapter, de- voted to the Encyclopedia, we have seen that Hegelian thought can be a middle overreaching the actual world only on the as- sumption that it has overreaching power. Hegel's “appearing sci ence” and his “science propex” must both fail to demonstrate their crucial assumption unless the final dualism can be disposed of: between the totality of nonphilosophic life and the philosophic thought which is to comprehend it. Hegel asserts, with unwaver- ing insistence, that Christianity is the absolutely true content, and that his philosophy both can and must give that content its abso- lutely true form. Our sole remaining task is to examine that assertion.‘ Appendie 1 Natural Science and Philosophy of Nature (See p.98.) In this book we cannot expound in detail Hegel’s view concerning the relation between philosophy of Nature and natural science. The sub- ject is of great complexity, and only a brief outline can here be given. Schelling wavers between three alternative doctrines, of which only one would grant empirical science a status in principle independent of philosophy of Nature, (This subject will be dealt with in “The God Within”) Hegel agrees that philosophy of nature supersedes natural science but unequivocally grants this latter independent status. (At least in his mature thought, any wavering on this point is against his better judgment.) Natural science has autonomous methods and pur- poses, even though philosophy “raises” both natural science and Nature itself. As this whole chapter seeks to show, this doctrine is essential to Hegel's entire philosophy, and it is certainly the crucial difference be- tween the Hegelian and Schellingian philosophies of Nature. How then do the two disciplines differ? Not as perception and252 Notes for Pages 73 to 80 the Phen. breaks apart into fragments which no longer add up to an “introduction” to science, 59. Werke, XI, p.6q (Phil. Rel, 1, p.65). 4. The Hegelian Middle 1, Phin, p84 (Phen, p.282) term, see sects. 6, 7, and n. 95 of this chapter; also ch. 5, sect, 24. Hegel alo refers to ich contemplates the Idea of erke, XT, p.434 (Phil. Rel, 1, als Kontemplative Gotteslehre (Bern, Switz.: A Francke, 1948), p-404. 8. Schelling’s doctrine will be treated in “T.G. W." For Hegel, sce Phiin., pp.17 f. (Phen., pp-77 f.), his frst oper ling, which gradually led to @ permanent breach between the erstwhile xls, (See also Brlefe, I, pp.159 f..194.) Notes for Pages 80 to 83 253 in and development of philosophical science requires empirical physies as mn. But the development and preliminary labors of a science are one thing, that science itself is an- ‘other. In sefence itself, these can no longer appear as basis. The basis is here to be the necessity of the Notion (On this whole issue, see appendices 1 and 2 to this chapter 13, Logik lps spirits which owe their beauty dependence on external influences dons which are connected with imitations of our present sadly Rrthat i must have Hogels philosophy of art almost wholly ‘unconsidered. 415, Aechtsphil, sect. 3 must here suffice as evidence that Hegel recognizes the persistence of contingency in the lives of states and, 22, 60, 246, 246 Zus. (Werke, VII 3, pag). Hegel first “having Ruge asserts that the He from crypto-theology Die Hegelsche Linke {s habitually ignored by leftaving interpreters, such as those exticzed by Hin, 18. Logik I, pg (Logic, p.60). What has been said ing two paragraphs about the logical realm is well following passage: “This advance in the determi Logic develops in its nocessty; each stage through which it pases involves the elevation of a category of Snitude to its infinitude.” (Werke, XII, p.43g [Phil Rel, 1, p.235].) 4g, The basic shortcoming of J. N. Findlay’s otherwise worthy Hegel: A Re-examination (London: Allen & Unwin, 1958) is its failure to254 Notes for Pages 86 to 88 Notes for Pages 8 to 93 255 recognize that the immanentst is neither the sole possible nor the cor- Deutschen Ideaiemus (Berlin: De Gruyter, 29501, p.279; also “Hegel rae that i tnd ds Fable dr Relat” Blt ar Deuce Phas, IX {1935-961, p.a2.) Hartman's charge is thoughtlessly repeated by others. (See, eg, Woligang Albrecht, Hegels Gotteshewets [Ber mncker & Humblot, 1958], p.116.) We shall deal in “T. G, W.” with ich forced Schelling to move beyond Fichte's transcen- den ism toward a realistic philosophy of Nature. As for Hegel, he may indeed be finally forced into a dogmatism of Reason. He does not, at any rate, fntially leap into it, by means of “premises” of a “syil These are Albrecht’s terms, See ch. 2, sect. 5.) Indeed, condemns “dogmatism, not only... the assertion of some- jinate—Ego or Belng, thought or sense—as the true, false view that ¥ and sects, 6 and 7 of th r 25. This assault part of Schelling’ tun from absolute id ideale “postive? concluding sections of "T. 26. This must be qualifed, however, inthe light of the considers tions offered in ch. 7, sects, 3 and 4. 27. Fora blef account of Hegel’ view of pre-Chris philosophy, se set 8, Fora faler account see also my articles cited in ch. 2, for-self enters the category of ideality in the fist instance apprehend + and thus fnitude as wel Hegel great modesty vis a nevertheless beyond doubt, at least since Hermann Noht's publication of Th. J. Schr. in 1907. On the other absurd to deny that Hegel’ debt to Schelling is fundamental, Similarity, the infinite of understanding, which is set beside the fin |s itself only one of two fnites, untrue and a non-substantial element This ideality of the finite isthe main thesis of philosophy: and reason every genuine philosophy is idealism. (Enz, sect. 9 added; see ako sect. 98 Zus. (Werke, VI, pp.a8% 1.) and the understanding within philo- ts. 79-Ba, in, p.87 (Phen. p-r59); Enz, sect. 248 Zus. (Werke, VIL 3, and also Werke, XIV, p.476; XV, p.sgo (Hist. Phil, Il, p.ggay 458). as Schelling had placed philosophy of nature before Fichte's dental philosophy. Since he wholly fails to inquire why either Set ‘or Hegel found such a. placing-before necessary, he is quick to charge Hegel with a “vast dogmatism” of a simply presupposed and simply self-confimming all-embracing rationalism. (Die Philosophie des256 Notes for Pages 94 t0 208 0. Cf, and relate (among many others) these passages: Logik, 1, pp. 5H 10,451 (Logt, 1 pps, 48,74): Ent sec 2, 30, 24 ferke, VI, p.159)s sock, us. (Werke, VI, raise myself in thought to the Absolute ... thus being infinite consciousness; yet at the samo time I am finite consciousness... . Both aspects seek each other and flee each other ... I am the struggle betw 7.64 (Phil. Rel, 1, pp.63 6.1.) As we have said above sect. 4, and chs. 5 and 6. passages quoted or reerred to in the last four paragraphs (Werke, VIL, 35. Among the numero we may ce Phin in, Phen (Logic, 1, 70% 207); Logik, 1, pans TH, pada sect, 24 Zus. (Werke, VI, p47): Works Xi, pray ips s08 (Phi Rel ppt, Werke, XIV, p.473 (Hist. Phil. neither in HL nor i any He; 36. Bln, Schr., pb. eG, Enz, sects. 213 ff, 296, 5745 Logik, I, p.6 (Logic, sects, 2 and g of this chapt contradiction has now emerged as a coherent doc then a hopeless 24 Tae 1, ps (Loge, 46) 6s). Additional passages are cited by Iwan Hegels cls Kontemplative Gotteslave (Bem, Swi 24s. Notes jor Pages 110 to 123 257 44. See, 45: Seo ch. &» Ens, sects. 554 and 574, tion left unanswered in this chapter will be cts, 4-6 and appendices g and 4 o that chap- mn middle, see ch. 7, sects 3 and 4. 5 The Religious Bass of the Absolute Philosophy seen peace (Were, Vi ppt )s ao Werke XI, pax aig). ie notable recent exception is Karl Barth, From Rousseau to (London: SOM Press, 1959), pp.268-305. (Published in the United States as Protestant Thought jrom Rousseau to Ritschl (New 5. Werke, XI . pp.285 ff. (Phil, Rel, I, pp.2g0.); also Enz., sect. Werke, X1, ppaas i, 36, 68 5, 67 fs TT, pp.ag0 ff). On dl che ictal teaching ‘hi sith Macher’ actual teaching is a question which will be deal ith is “Gwe ahi 9. Werke, XI, p.ago (PR Rel, 1, pagq): “If feeling oniy it dies a ee ition (Anschauiung) lung) whereas ‘ 3a} 1, peas inuton to representation, We folly Lason's et, which s doubles un. Eg, Werke, pre ete Mh weso4s XU petal (PRE Rel, 1a4 The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought ‘The whole question—concerning both Hegel's principles and hit prac- ‘only in a far more thorough and de- i ‘le, emaneipated-natural scence, Append 2 Contingency (See p96.) Although the subject of contingency runs through 8 fev brief remarks eontgeney One pe that etingensy octets de ere wou vor al The Hegelian Middle Second (and this is already obvious), by means of fanciful constructions, philosophy must reso What isnot immediately obvious i that, on the nition is intrnsio to philosophic thought, from reducing philosophic to a phy on toward both the vindleation or analogies are needed if fn inherent need of recognizing the manifestations of ry contingency On account of the necessity of the sy inthe world.‘The Religious Basis of the Absolute Philosophy thot lig ‘Enz, second preface (Werke, VI, pf). 1. Introduction Heget writes: "Religion can exist without (cphy cannot exist without religion. For it encompasses ‘Tho present chapter will examine the st of these ae to follow, the second, More specifically, we the Christian religion a8, according to Hog philosophy with which, indeed, itis said to be tial®® content, And then we shall examine how Hi while presupposing Christianity, yet tums agains sted on pp.24s Sian asta fm the Poop of vk gin ah ish emaine 6 position by so transfigurin Sacha two-phasedac st quoted and the doct reall purpose. In the preceding chapters, we have argued that neither the Phenomenology of Spirit nor the Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences can reach their respective g jon (or more precisely the Christian or erges as an infinite Life to mediate between fi finite thought whi one because finite standpoints of 1g outside the standpoint of infinite Thought would destroy its claims to absoluteness; not the other because infinite Thought would either dissipate the reality of the actual world (thus becoming a “night in which all cows are black"), or else recognize the actual world atthe price of its own reduction to Anitude. But whether or not religion (or the Christian religion) can in fact be the necessary bridge requires two separate investigations, of which the first inquires how it “exists without philosop nthe religious self-understanding, while the second tries to discover what occurs when religious life {s transfigured into philosophic thought. But as has already been stated * the proposed two-phased treat. id to understand itself in representational terms only, an Sophy not at all Hegel's own central writings on the subject \¢ Phenomenology, the Encyclopedia and the Philosophy of Re- igion~ll treat religion as it is already reenacted and transigured | iy philosophic thought: they gioe nq sustained description of re-, gion from the representational, philosophically unreenacted |a8 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought ‘and untransfigured—stondpoint of religion itselj.* Here Mes the problem, Our description inthis chapter of religion 9s, aeonrding to Hegel, it exists t philosophy, must be based on texts which themselves do not give such a description; it must recon- ‘stract what Hegel would, or might, or must say but does say. Such a reconstruction poses obvious methodol Jems to which there can be no total or wholly safe solution. ‘However, the task must be undertaken. In the preceding two chapters, it has become clear that the central problem of Hegel's philosophy is not so much philosophical comprehension as the elation between such comprehension and the realities compre hhended; and already we can see that this problem has its critical dimension in the relation between philosophical comprehension and religious realities. In examining this last-named relation we must first of all make every effort to describe the philosop! tuncomprehended religious realities presupposed by the Hegelian comprehension. Not until we have grasped Hegel's view of Chris- ities in their own selfunderstanding-ic. in “representa sm-can we hope to understand the claim of the Hegelian This ts because the Encyolopedia and the Philosophy of Religion both nomenology can be 8 8) ‘The Religious Basis of the Absolute Philosophy ng philosophy to comprehend, transfigure, and “make peace” with 1 have never taken the Philosophy of Re- attempt to describe it, they have dismissed it as a mere piece of ‘armchair speculation with no serious resemblance to thei histor- But this chapter will show that the Christianity pres fand transigured by the Philosophy of Religion i astonish ingly close to the Christianity of history. The chapter to follow will show that, whatever may ultimately be sai of the Hegelian specu- lative transfiguration of Christianity, itis at any rate of the most serious import. Far from a mere armchair enterprise, it i oterprae fom Tews the mtu or rational religion in-gengral of the Enlightenment, as a mere} 1, but only religions, sneha on ue. thar not be ther platy of solgon cis to th and ne post ove Bete conte? Nor doc f saan tht phlsopic “hai nie) cn te ioe wot rain four tthe linia fs pei] ioug basis, and contradicted by alternative philosophies with| ‘smndee wigs bee!320 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought j But all religions have a unity in their very plurality. This doc- \tcine, too, Hegel shares with the romantics. However, whereas these latter naively view it as solving the difficulty, Hegel is well * aware of the fact that, by itse (eine rm spurious and decadent religion, Magis preudoreligious (as well as prereligios). An attempt at human control of the Divine, it places the Divine below the human rther than above it But a religion for which the Divine is not above the human which is not worship—is no religion at all © 1f magical pseudoreligion is prerel em religious decadence may be cr i reduces God to a mere object of thought, and man to a mere observer without subjective involvement. Its opposite-romantic subjectivism-possesses such subjective involvement. But hence is feeling heart From these strictures upon false religion emerge decisive char- acteristics of genuine religion. Genuine religion is a relation of ‘nity other than human and higher than human, Hoge contrat male with lion be ao I kt fer te lv we ae git ages cont ournear) at Spt higher Tid cae fn Rom slion (See, = Tedd to bss of himwelt Only with the conscious hee does tan reach a standpoint af which he ean respect himsel tay” (Werke, 1X, paar (Phd. Hit, pos) ; tie subjctviem shows that genuine religion requires more than feeling; Delstic detachment that it cannot be without it. Even the most exalted Cod is a more concept unless He is my God; indeed, ne may say tat s Gare Cena ta Gaon tal * But by themselves felings are no religion, F vide 20; exter for dition, nor does mer itera oe shee ae thom. A religion of mere feeling would Ia only between good and evil or noble and bas religious and nonreligious. Indeed, feling by shares with the animals; these to are capable and, ia fact, of nothing ele. A religion of pure fee to be, at any rate, one of religious feeling, as was recognized in Schleiermacher’s definition of tho fel But, inthe abseaoe ofan objective real 48 on, can the feeling of dependence be even dstingy were correct, a dog would be the best Christian,# ‘The quality of feeling depends on the object to which Seared Religious feeling, first, must have an object, it emain in self-enclosed subjectivity. Secondly, the object mu: ‘cannot be an empty mystery. And thirdly, by virtueaaa ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought { ofthis content the object must be higher than human, and thus is Jotely high, ie,, universal and infinite rather than particular and ‘or Hegel holds that no genuine religion is simply idola- ation.* ject” inthe context of religious representation must not be misunderstood. As is already clear from the repudiation of religious subjecivism, it does mean that the Divinity represented, than the subjective act of representing, It does not mean an object of either empirical obgervation or detached not the one because (as is implied in the rejection of Gate empirical objec, not the e strictures upon Deism) even rught cannot be the God of re the thought remains in a state of to be religious, s0 representation must be bound |up with feeling to be religious. ‘The required aspects of religious representation all unite in the {religious symbol The represented must be ater than the repre \senting, and indeed in its divine Infinity radically other than the represent the relation would not be genuinely religious. And 0 wholly other as to bean inaccessible Beyond; se would be no rela- ‘ion at all. The relation requires a symbol which points to the { divine Infinity while being itself finite. It thus mediates between the Divine and the human, at once relating them and keeping them relation, fogling and representation Jacking is what may {ie called the clement of exitental seriousness. Religious feling Lis an at-oneness of finite human singularity with divine Infinity. * See appendix ato this chapter, pp. ‘The Religious Basis of the Absolute Philosophy Religious representation preserves the mutu relation between the Divinity represented and the act of repro- senting. There is a tension between the aspects of feeling and representation which are yet united, but unless something hap-; pens or is done to this tension it es 5 the Divine and the human must pre. does its eating, and it can do so only ina lebor which so thoroughly permeates the breadth of exis i dea. It represents a divine Infinity which destr finite existence to remain ‘out the clash ‘and apartness of the Divine and the human in the divine-human I its undiminished reality, and it transfigures that tually to nie th124 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought realty and a purposeless labor. Bvery genuine religion, then, is 0 totality of existence in which the inwardness of pure feeling is ned with outward action and overt occurrence, through a repre- ‘sented meaning which permeates both.* (This total existence may also be called faith. Faith is not a ‘merely theoretical airmation which asserts a meze object. Nor is it mere feeling, an inward life divorced from the outward, and hence lacking in reality. Faith is the total inward-outward life of nite man in hs relation to the divine Infinity. Such a life can only accidentally be initiated (not essentially produced) by external tuuthorities, such as miracles, divine threats or promises, of the letter of a Holy Writ, for these fail to touch and transform in- , wardness, What produges the life of faith exists within the du | homan relation rather than outside it. “The true ground of faith (is spre 3. The Status of the Preceding Account ‘The account thus far given is mainly based on the first part of the Philasophy of Religion, “The Notion of Religion.” It has not, however, reproduced the Hegelian Notion. This latter is graspe only by a thought which “encompasses religion in its own bei Whereas our purpose has been to describe religion as it “exists without philosophy.” What then is the status of the preceding account? ‘tis nat that of a detached observer, for whom what the takes as an actual divine-human relation is the mere empi of human belief in such a relation. Such a standpo toa dogmatic atheistic reductionism, is utterly un-Hegelian. And it is equaly so if it amounts to the nondogmatic view of an ob- ‘server who abstracts from the divine side in the believer's divine- rmulation ig meant to convey that “repress for both ae of ios stents and be form ‘The Religious Basis of the Absolute Philosophy 195 human relation and yet hopes adequately to comprehend the bby mo means the mere human, jonship. It is an actual relationship} fein np decisive respect. Religious feeling soot ing of being genre tothe Diving, t's an actual bel Ye Folng, Tho a of tepreveting oot 8 taxsly and the represented God a mete human pijection; & divine Realty: present inthe representation, and the act of epre- senting which take tuelf as both eter than that Realty and yet sin fat both other and yet related. Call hl related to a God beyond it. Such, at an ‘And, as willbe seen, such it must be if hilosophy.# But from what standpoint may this religious basis be described, | ‘without philosophy? Not from that of infinite! ‘thought, for this will “encom ‘own being." Nor from that of finite or “obse this has proved to be in principle incapable of grasping the divine- human relation, Can one doubt that a Hegelian description of the ‘basis of philosophy would have to be in terms of religious lerstanding?* Yet this is hardly what our preceding account * Hegel does not alto consider the poss detache el om, ends pon, ag Tost fn ‘woul appear hower Mout Elrcal bain mally coped, TP ahr en deny or pend eg226 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought thas given. According to Hegel, there exists no religion but only religions. Can any one of these possess criteria adequate even to recognize other religions as genuine, and hence distinet from spurious? Can it possibly go far enough to admit them to be actual lations between man and Divinity? Our above. account of ligion-in,general, then, is provisional, and its status is prob ati. ‘Our dificuties in deseribing the religious basis of Hegel's phil- sophie thought point sma arising for his own enterprise, ne already referred to but now requiring explicit statement, Either Hege!’s philosophy remains bound up with the religious basis it is said to require: but then (since there is no religion eligions) must it not be confined to the of one «religion, thus losing its claims to absoluteness? Or < its ubsotuteness, and renders each religion what may be its due ‘uti fenot then cut off from its religious foundation, which is one _specifc religion? In either case religious Life fails to furnish the ‘Fridge between finite life and infinite philosophical Thought. Yet itis this bridge which we have found to be indispensable for the entire Hegelian philosophy. "The dilemma, of course, is nota new one. Its already contained {in romantic religious pluralism which grants each religious stand- point ultimate truth and which yet, to do such granting, must ise Eranscend all religious standpoints and deny their ultimacy—a nineteenth century posture which, incidentally, is reenacted by those twentieth century pluralists who, in comparing religions to players in a symphony orchestra, unconsciously assume the role of conductor. came peenegceagee by seection; 0 Cotherse might be ciel te ‘ueeisof Retogeads ‘The Religious Basis of the Absolute Philosophy a7 Schleiermacher’s “religion of religions” is ttle more than an dilemma, shot through with Christin! 5 Philosophy of Religion confronts the indeed may be said in its entirety to b on. On the one hand, it secks to daa “justice” to stan included) can mete iscovers one sligion which oth enables plop to do such justice aa yet sures the philosophical activity of doing it. The relation between philosophy {nd this religion, barely touched on by Schletermacher, becomes ‘n explicit, and indeed the central, problem. As for tis religion e's ease is Christian- of history. Atleast for this had been victually re- placed by “Intuition.” ‘This Christianity of history most supply a decisive condition if the Philosophy of Religion isto rise above the romantic dilemma. While confronting and opposing othe religions, it mus also some- how absorb them and, moreover, recognize itself as doing s0. The revealed religion must be the comprehensive religion: in- deed, it will emerge that “comprehensive” is what “revealed” In tho light ofthese considerstions, our description of religous “feeling,” “representation,” “cult,” ‘hot specially Cristian meanin {ng Christian sel-understandng most be seen as absobing aswell as oppesing non-Christian religious selunderstanding, Moreover the clin to comprebensiveness which emerges frm this confon: tation must be strong enough to assert ise agnnet future pole For nothing less will enable‘The Religious Dimension in Hegels Thought 4: Provisional Characterization of the Christianity of History “There are many Christianities in history, and they opp other as Christian opposes non-Christian religions. Hegel simply bow to the contingencies of external history. What is the ‘genuine Christianity of history? “This question is answered in part by the strictures previously de- «scribed upon spurious and decad: tian relics is a pseud anti subjocivism which, having lost has Withdrawn on the merely human feeling of divine presence They als include a Deism recognizing a merely transcendent di- vine thought-object, and a humanism exhausted inthe search for ical Jeaus All these are marked by the common failure to ctual iacursin of the divine Transcendence into human onthe strictest emerges that Hegel’ genuine Chistian af stony isan orthodon Christianity, by such ortodoy i 1 acta ration between man ad a trntarin God who, Though infinite and transcendent, bas yet boeome Aes in Jes Chatto redeea the Hesh by His death and resumecion* But Chor Christen ontodoxy? Not one based on extemal authority, Sthether the lotr of Seip, the power of «church or—despite Hogels Lutheran ngpcation-the words de Early Theological Wt Sets eneral ath gion. ven serve only subordinate ol** Ont provisional acct of ep Ma fet “ha have aap en age Leto nly alae itegy See ‘ iT See append 2 to this chapter, pp.as6 ‘The Religious Basis of the Absolute Philosophy 129 bt that the true authority of ity must be internal rather an external. It is Spirit" But a more precise definition of Hegel's orthodox Christian can- not at this stage be given. To this latter, Greek-Roman paganism {sas indispensable for the advent of Christ as Old Testament Juda- ism, His Christian fruth is only initiated by the events reported in| the New-Testament, and completed in the cultic life and specula-) tive thought ofthe Chistian church, And w! simply anti-Catholic this Christian isin the end Protestant and ‘more precisely Lutheran. All these characteristics may well seem to make this Christianity very partisan in its orthodox claims or evennotably in the ease of the frst-named characteristio—cast its orthodoxy into serious doubt. It is therefore necessary not to hold to discover what the Christianity of Hegel's Christian is. 5 Creation and Fall, or the Christian Understanding of the Human Condition Hegel's Christian®* knows himself to exist ina divinely created330 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegets Thought ‘world: in « world because it is a whole independent in its own [right; in a created world because it nevertheless whol depends sees God beyond it Christan faith thus contrasts equally with that of mystics who dissipate the world into Divinity, and with that of such mythological religions as take the world, or any part of it as itself divine. The world actually exists side by side with the Divine: this idea is expressed in the distinction between an initial creatio ex nifilo and a subsequent divine activity of mere preserving, as ifthe world, once created, stands only accidentally aera aivine support, Yet Ue world i ia ts very being de- pendent on God: this dependency is expressed in the belief that {he creation is ex nihilo and that, were God ever to cease to mai- tain it, it would vanish into nothingness; in th tween creation and preservation, though neces only in order to be abolished. Thus the making and the a (of the distinction are both part of Christian repr parod tits represented dialectical truth, there is only a one-sided Error to an abstract metaphysical thought which either simply makes or simply denies the dist God exeated the world eternally or in time are empty ‘The created world has its corre! Goodness and divine Wisdom. Abstract metaphysical thought treats these as attributes, external not only to each other, but also to the God sing thom, aswell to @ world which manifests them es aaa cutis saperadded to its being, But a divine and therefore infinite Goodness and Wisdom must be internally related to each (ether aa wells to Divinity itself, and their manifestation ina finite treated world must penetrate the whole length and breadth of that “omple use. Ta the edit involves th question ofthe rlatlon betwen th Fae vert al Christan extnoe end final Uuaogy which ret op i Echt ab 2 whole into specustive thought. This Freee regarded, wih erations (See ch. 6, sek San Re Hagelin phisophy. See bel gay Whee an Sh 6, Epeilly sects 2(b), 9-6, and append The Religious Basis of the Absolute Philosophy world’s being. To manifest both the independence granted by vine Goodness and the dependence flowing from the Power divine Wisdom és the being of the created world * from the standpoint of an observer but from that of a participant. Man himself is a creature, and only as he recognizes himself as such does he recognize either the created world or the Creator. His being, too, is ceaturely—a togetherness of independence granted by divine Goodness and dependence flowing from divine Wisdom. But while the creation isa single whole it divides, nevertheless) into nature and Gnite spirit. Nature and man are both divinely! created. Onlyman can know ofthis truth concerning either. Nature isa divine revelation, but only for man and not for itself. For this reason, humgn ereatureliness, as distinct from the, natural, is doubly dialectical: man is created inthe divine image.| Qua created, his being isa togetherness of divinely granted inde pendence and divinely imposed dependence. But qua created in, the divine image, he manifests as well, an independence which must be a human achievement rathor than a divine gift. For the knowledge of God-and this is the divine image—is God-given} only as potentiality; its actualization isa task handed over to man! Not until the knowledge of God is actual is the image of God elf actual and its actuation completes tht independence| sift of divine Goodness, and hence completes the If 1 act which actualizes the creation at the same time runs como the entin tas beg all Theat which coms pletes God-given independence is also a defange of God-imposed dependence. And the dependence is of a finite creature on an infinite Christian faith thus sees man as in a paradoxical condition. He is) by nature good. For he is created in the image of God apart from his own doing, and his knowledge of being so created (which the original human act) is for that reason also the original anti-the divine image remains potential until he Knowledge which actual limginary pat aay lsd Tot Such, in brief, is the human condition, The faith which faces up (to it becomes conscious of a need for redemption. No merely hu- ‘man acting can heal the breach between the human and the Divine, for itis the original human acting which has produced it, Nor can a divine acting heal it if itis simply alien to human acting and destructive of its significance. For the human acting which ‘makes man stand ia need of redemption is also what makes him {s simply a fall upwards; nor the orthodox kind for simply contingent event which should not and need not have occurred, And therefore it may be expected that this (Christian can find redemption neither in the liberal Jesus who is ‘merely human teacher nor in an orthodox divine incamation which, absolutely contingent, cannot be expected before its oc- less controversial. Unlike most others, however, the pretation regards the symbolic form as essential to ‘and, moreover, as recognized by the religious con Thus in Christian consciousness itseli— pot merely in a philosophical reinterpretation of it~each man is {Adam, created innocent, falling by his own will, and yet forever ‘would be another man's; and without the third, it would not be a universal and necess _ human condition. This is why sip, though each man's responsibil. ‘ty, must yet be represented as hereditary. not and should not have occurred. How otherwise could the hu- ‘man creature be represented as owing its all to the Creator, while 1 free human act which opposes Gi 1ess which knows good and evil. Thes c words ofthe tempter. But, Hegel rejoins, “the serpent does not lie. God Himself confirms its words," * ©. The Meeting of Jewish East and Greek-Roman West, or the Répeness of Time for Christ parts of his Christian truth, Old Testament a mere fragmentary anticipation, and one w! Jess but also not more significant than anoth pation of Christianity—the pagan, Groek- frontation of Hegel's Christianity with both Jewish East and ofthis chapter, wll we ose pendix thicker134 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought ‘A clue to the attitude toward Judaism lies in the remarkable element in whi ‘The flaw here asserted is not, or not primarily, that the God who rela ‘The Jowish God is infinite and those ‘particularity, For it is in this particularity 1 to.a God who is universal ‘But in Christian perspective the truth of Judaism mentary. Its God is one and infinite; He is one and i and hence remains in the utter transcendence of sheer Lordship. "The man who worships the Lord remains simply human, utter servitude, Such servitude remains fragmentary ‘cannot reach what it secks, thus remaining in the fear of radical distance. But while the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all The Religious Basis of the Absolute Philosophy ment," and correspondingly, righteousness remains a go sued by merely human effort despite all pr toriness ofthe ivine-human relation is recognized a i.e, of the human essence. And when this occurs Jewish existence, fs filled with absolute pain. “Pain exists tradietion that dialectical condition which doctrines of creation, the divine image and the fall. It is only as it ‘comes to recognize that condition, and fc is reach. The time has) as he confronts the pagan religiou: unhappiness, Hegel's Christian accepts it as matching the Jewish in Christian significance, despite its idolatrous worship of finite gods." Hegel's Christian accepts every genuine religion as expressing least the true human need to worship the higher-than-human. ‘pagan worship cannot match the Jewish in Christian signifi cance when it remains ignorant both of the true infinite object of worship and of the true subject who partakes of infinity in the act of worship. (Such ignorance character which finite nature is worshiped in place of it exalt the worshiped nature above can match the Jewi ( recognizes that even nature religions hostel tough dog fet cee396 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel Thought above such ignorance and if its development is such as to reach an historic point at which, ike Judaism, it points to the higher Truth which redeems the world, {, Greek religion matches the Jewish sm Christi ‘The Jew knows the infinite Creator, not as Creator but only as steansoendent Lord; hence he knows himself as simply finite only, \not as created in the divine image. As for the Greek, he knows of no Creator ether (for his gods are {of sorts of the diving image which i i a nature which is below the human, but rather a Beauty ‘above bim and which is yt immanent in the human whose: c, because the Beauty is ims yan projections. ‘of human worth, which is beyond the Judaiem: a divination of the human as worth saving, Indeed, the beautiful flower which is ancient Greece is noth- wn a pagan anticipation of Christian Grace Hegel ‘has justly been charged with prejudice against Judaism, (although in our view the charge must primarily be leveled against Hegel's Christian), This prejudice is seen in perspective only gether with the projudice of Hegel's Christian (: Hegelian philosophy itself), for ancient Greece few Hegelian doctrines are ever simply prejudice. Greek religion could hardly match the Jewish in Chu ificance unless, like Judaism, if sufered the nemesis of limitations. As the ancient world \doubly demythplogized and thus ‘in the realm of thought and by # : sactual world? If Greek religion is the “religion of humanity . .. [in which] confidence gods is at the same time human self-conf- dence,” then Rome is that universalization and radicalization in ‘which the self-confidence in the end destroys the confidence, and ‘The Religious Basis of the Absolute Philosophy e religion. As, Rome expands into « uni ina pantheon, And a ct led is inevitab ly when worshiping the high the merely human to pseudo- “The Roman world ends with unhappy emperor worship, s end discloses the truth of wordly pagan esistenco as a ‘whole. To the Christian-not to the Roman himself the rth tnt finite man isnot, and canot be, “satisfied” na] godless world? ‘The Chistian shares this knowledge, however, with some an- cient pagan philosophers if not with n unless this were the case paganism CCnristin significance, and even less to Judaism init significance for the Hegel Roman world siaks into unhappy selfenslavement, pl escape into a worldless thought. And the last among them—th ‘Alerandrinian Neoplatonists—achieve access to nothing less than. faith not wholly mateh the Christan sigaifeance ofthe Jewish pain, Which i conscious ofthat need. Paganism matches Judaisa by ‘inte ofits philosophy. This achieves an actual oneness with the true Cod which beyond both pegan worldines and Jewish th} “And yet for Christian faith if nt for its Hegelian reenactment), the Jewish anticipation of the Christian redemption remains as vital as that of pagan philosophy. To find acess to the true God, the pagan philosopher ust resort to ight fom « godless word “The Jew serves Him nthe wold, and his pain reveals that He cxn-338 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought notand yet must be found init, Jewish painful service of the infinite Se nite worlds philosophical fight from this godless world to.a worldless God; Roman unhappy selfenslaverent in a godless world: these are all needed if the world is to become ripe for the Christian redemption. For this redemption isthe all-compre- hensive reconciliation of the Divine in the extremity of its trans- ccendent infinity with the human in the total concreteness of his worldly and human finitude. 7. The Incarnation ‘We have thus far described the Christan understanding of the thuman condition in abstraction from the Incarnation. Much en- courages the conjecture that Hogel's Christian can have such an ‘understanding only after the Incarnation, and on the basis of faith jn its actual occurrence. Thus a the view of Hegel's Christan, the Jew has but an inadequate knowledge ofthe creation and the fall, and the pagan (whether Greck, Roman, or philosopher) has no Knowledge of it at all. But if this knowledge arises only after the Ciiristian consciousness has transfigured both the Jewish and the pagan how can it exist except after the redemptive event which has produced that transfiguration? Yet despite such doubts we must finally opt for the alternative interpretation. To be sure, for Hege’s Christian the Incarnation is fa contingent event and indeed—because it isthe incursion of the Divine in the extreme ofits infinity into the human in the extreme ofits Gnitude—the most radical possible case of contingency. It ‘however, not simply contingent because itis expected, and it {expected because it is recognized as needed. Without this prior ‘expectation and recognition the redemptive event would not be recognized as redemptive when in fact it occurs. In short, as , Jewish East intermingles with Greck-Roman West there arises Ufa may be called & prote-Christian consciousness which de- The Religious Basis of the Absolute Philosophy 139 velops a criterion of the needed redemption. That criterion is com-} prehensiveness.® ‘The belief in Creation has accepted an infinite God and an actually finite world—the latter is actually Gnite because it exists separately from the infinite God and yet, because itis finite and God infinite, it is wholly dependent on Him. As for the belief in the divine image in man and the fall of man, it has accepted a ‘unique place for man within the creation; a divinely-willed destiny himself to actualize the potentiality to know God, which is also antidivine because itis done by man, Redemption, in order to be redemption, must be all-comprehensive. That is, it must preserve ‘without loss the extremes in the divine-human relation, of which one is the Creator in His infinity and the other the human creature in his finitude, It must reconcile these extremes in their very ex- ‘tremity. And the comprehensiveness ofthis reconciliation must be 0 total as to encompass not only all aspects of the past worlds of Jewish East and Greek-Roman West, but ‘on the scene as future post-Christian work were it not for this all;comprehensivenes us life, the Hegelian philosophy—which claims to encompass hhensiveness in the realm of thought.) ‘What, then, isthe redemption expected by the proto-Christian consciousness? Nota self-edemptive acting of man; it would only accentuate the unredeemedness already manifest in extreme form divine acting moves from creation and fal, through the need for jewish Bast and Greck-Roman West, (0ayo ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought the world, is already accessible to a philosophical thought which leaves the world unredeemed." To such were possible) destroy its own divinity; a god who simp! died in the human world would be but an additional member the Roman pantheon of dead gods. Jewish trans- ity of the gods of sanot, like the Greek gods, be merely represented as human, To Christian consciousness, these represented gods had been mere human projections, and they were destroyed, by philosophy because they were mere Bnite projec- tions and by Roman worldliness because they reigned not over the actual world but only over an idealized world of Beauty. In the Christian view the Greek gods were not too anthropomorphic {but rather not anthropemorphi enought and yet the peeded extreme anthropomorphic manifestation must be the act not of “yan but of the transcendent God. This act, then, is a divine as | sumption of actual human existence, not an idealized image of Inuman existence. And it is manifest not to a sense of beauty only, which is a mere aspect of actual human existence, but rather to Jhuman existence in full empirical concreteness. Such is the central redemptive event of the Christian faith. It is a “tremendous com- position” of the Divine and the human. In accepting the actual occurrence of this event, the Christian ‘consciousness, already dialectical in its understanding of the divine-human relation, explodes inty paradox. Holding together in representation what undialectical thought cannot hold together— the creatureliness which makes man wholly depend on the divine Infinity and yet have independence, and the human creatureliness accept a a ser fact. The proteCbristian oo demption b ign i, andi is no ore i ite proto Chistian state already Christian. It asi cepts what i o anlpated necessity but contingent and para- Anita fat that becomes Christian: the ac of acceptance tans figures How can what, at least in the st instance, Christan conscious ness eannot hold together yet be held together? Only. by divine tion This cannot be the Me of Christ, taken by sel: Hegel jects liberal Chistanity which, conned tothe life of Ch Sade divinsty att in teachings. These ater cannot by them seles compote the Divine and the human, nor can obedience © them redeem man om his fallen condition. Indeed, Hea to far as to say that te life of Jesus, could it be taken in signeance from that of Socrates "The redemptive event is not the ie but rather the death off ist, This exhust human fitenss inal its extremity, both) the natral (Qeath itself), which all men suffer, and the situa «The event ofthe Incamation thus remains tremendous for Chistian con- for which we have opted—that the xs, Hence whage ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought (sin), which makes Christ suffer death on all men’s behalf. Yet this very extremity is the supreme test of faithfulness—the faith- fulness of both God to man and man to God." * snd of all possibi mained alien to death It would remain alien Its love, a play of divine self-love. The most fea comes actual as the Divine, because of love ppenetrated by death, Yet this very_penetration by death is (conquest of death, for, unlike Enite pagan deities, the true infinite God is not penetrated by death as an unwilling victim. He freely { submits to death, and the love which causes this submission con- {quers death. The death of God carries in train the “death of ‘\death*the divine resurrection. In this death of death, man i at ‘once recognized in his humanity and redeemed from his self alienation from God. He is given his “highest confirmation The reader will recall that in an earlier chapter we saw the activity of overreaching, as decisive forthe whole of Hegets thoughts" We have now come upon that activity, as according to Hegel itis already manifest apart from all philosophy—for Christian ftth in the religious life. ‘Can the divine confirmation of the human become a reality for it hua? Not forthe detached spectator. For hin, the dog fag well as the living Christ must remain human only, « past of snan—not human-divine—history. The human is confirmed by {he Divine only when he accepts himself as confirmed: the divine {death of death is a reality only for Christian faith. °® 1 God's faithfulness to man consists in His death on man’s be ect i the ba” of faithSpet—has ‘The Religious Basi of the Absolute Philosophy 43 ‘But faith by islf—the pristine faith of the New Testament only begin the conésmation, The believer who frst hears the good) ‘world with all its untransigured values. Only when this inversion has become wholly actual will the divine confirmation of the human have penetrated the whole of the human being. [A previous part ofthis chapter (sect. 4) which characterized the Trt rather theif of «church only ited »| "This life will be—though this is a more com- plex matter than is generally zecogaized—of the moder Protestant | rather than of the medieval Catholic church. Even the life of Protestant faith will be fragmentary unless it is in creative inter- relation with secular life. These implications though still far from obvious, have already begun to emerge; for the life death, and resurrection of Christ has i ‘process which seeks com- pleteness once it is expic ted, And it will not have reached completeness until an infinite, transcendent heaven has descended to a finite, transSgured earth.* 8, Christian Cult and the Holy Spirit ‘The Incamation objectively confirms the human, How does it ( become actual for the human subject who is to be confirmed? As thus far described, the Divine has entered into the human, but into + The meaning and actulity of such a nal descent wil be treated es the clinician of tho entire Hegelian piesophy in ch 6, st. 5.at ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought one particular human other than the human worshiper. If there ‘were no moze to describe, then the saving event would be objective the subject who accepts it, and this subject, x- ternal to the saving event, would remain untransfigured in his human fanitude. And he would accept the death of death, not as a present reality but as a mere past historical fact help consists, not of constructing a philosophical ‘eternal and the historical which would other- , ut it consists of showing that the bridge already exists apart from all philosophical activity. It exists in the {cult which is the life of the Christian church.* "The general truth that religious representation and feeling re- hout cult here begins to assume its specifi wsentation composes the the historical past. The {good news from the past remains of the past only and does not become present reality i the composition represented remains @ mere object, external to an activity of represe merely fnite subject. For this latter, taken bj 1 Christ would flee into the tra ‘The Religious Basis of the Absolute Philosophy us lordship, while his Son would be “sent back two thousand years "© The good news of the divine presence in the ee m not transfigured and redeemed” Genuine Christianity resists all these possibilities, as mere per- versions. Forint (as in every genuine religion) feeling permeates representation, and representation, feeling. Because of the one, the Christ who is historical and pasts also sought in the presen, and it is essential to Christian representation to “waver” between these two poles" Because ofthe other, a mysticism which woul fee the huznan condition is arrested by the God who has entered into that condition, and a romanticism which would dey human feeling is stopped short by the roanner of His entrance: into an actual past man other than the present worsiper so as fst to sulfer the agony of human death before achieving the vie the resurrection But the mutual interpenetration of representation and feeling produces a tension, resolved only in Christian cult. This clt alone fmcompasses both the undiminished reality of the human in its finite concreteness and the Divine in its serene Infinity; sulle the whole agony of their confict, and yet by its lbor can transigure this agony into total reconciliation How can Christian cult reach this goal? Tt cannot if its Tabor} remains a merely human Jabor, albeit that of a pious community? imbued with a present representation of a divine incursion into the human past. The past divine incursion becomes present reality nly ii ces in the present community, as well as being the past abject ofits present representation. The redemptive event of ‘Chustan fit, then, io only bogun by its occurrence i the his146 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought torial pat. It completes ite n its perpetual recurrence in the community which ives by its believing acceptance. Christian wor- ‘worship i not of Christ only eis in Christ swell, As for Christian cull this isnot the single activity of a merely human labor, ap- proprating the divine gift. The gift here given isa Grace operative (in the buman, not one external to the human. This Grace, to be sure, leaves room fora human fs it whichis why its nota single divine activity destructive of the hhuman aspect of tho cultic labor. However, no fied line ean be drawn between th ving work of God and th human svork of | eoeptive appropriation, and to draw such a line i to lose the real- iy of both Christian cut, then, ts one double a: fine and the human, and the antimony which Woes in tis 1b of the Christian cosonce. The redemption begun in the "8 completed in the Holy Spirts* ‘This double activity permeates every aspect of Christian cul ( Baptism ia snorament (not a mansmade ceremony), an objective event by which the individual, already naturally bor, is reborn in it, Ie, however, not objective only and to take it as such is to reduce it to an external observance. Baptism has an objectve- tubjetive life inthe consciousness ofthe community into whieh the robom individual is received. The lif is objective subjective because the hoy § acting that death of death fn the communal ian representation, is already objectively complete? “Ths cbjectivesubjective fe, however, i only begun in bap- tiom, fortwo reasons. The baptized in church; the acceptance does not become 1 is second birth superse ren begun.® Moreover—and this is decisive—the ‘+ werke, XII, past (Phil Rel. I. ppaao f.). Hegel here contrasts Chistes Comslodocs for which “he "erage ie over” with Kantien ‘The Religious Basis of the Absolute Philosophy aay perpetually repeat| incon) church into which he is received cannot joyment.” On the other hand, it doe mnspiritual thing.” (This thing would be- come-in another perversion—“actually present God” only through ‘an external act of consecration and would leave the individual in fa state of merely empirical enjoyment, inwardly untransfigured.) the truth of which Catholicism does not wholly rise and the reformed notion does not match-the act of consumption transfigures both the consumed host and the consumer. The “feeling of the presence of God arises,” which unites the divine giving and the I the work of the Holy Spirit. © * morality for which “th peat (Mt,‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought completes what in beptism i forever totality is objectively at one with God. Holy Comision is its lias, in which this oneness becomes a unio ity Man, though baptized, oly Communion ho has iebunen waon which the human, ite~dsipates the human info the Divie. Were this the cas, Hely Communion would bean otherworldly experience which fd from rather than tranfigured te world which retroactively destroyed the Creation in which the nite, while dependent on divine Wisdom, is granted Independence by divine Goodness, and which (because ln 50 doing it destuoyed sin a wel), retroactively destoyed the need fora dvi death which conquer sn Such an oterwordly a Id be confined tothe matical experince i would net imax of ycl of eli He. Rather than postal it ‘moral if not enimoral, And when it appeared on the ‘woul lack all power to move historical reales. Thus Jowsh pain and Roman happiness both testy to the une. 5 Pe fo ts chapter, pp God who has already redeemed death had first to s Chistian cule can perpetually repeat the death of death only by repeating, aswell, the divine death itself. Christin life includes/ the agony of Good Friday, even though the bli reaches it. Only thus can Christian life remain in Yyot redeem it, transfiguring both Roman unhappine ain. Only thuis can the comprehensive ‘Truth asserted be all. comprehensive-of future possibilities as well as past actuaities, Christian life possesses such Divine in the extreme id because ‘t both is given and accepts the Truth which hea 9 Theological Thought and the Double Trinity se the world is not yet actually iny in the life of his faith, According to Hegel350 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegels Thought crverge as both Protestant and « modem man), this proces of transiguring the atu world (begn with he Pe of Chstinn faith) has renined in principe ares throught the ete le Age, uring which the divine mage i an wes soog, nized in the sight of God ut ‘ot in hat of feudal priser el during which Cristian faith was tein Ctl ater valine Only te moder yor in the diving image become anes {realty and the Catholic heaven, « Protestant earth, The proces of transfguing the wort lay none seni, endless in ner For the Truth forever repested comple ete Christan religions life sip secular life forever yet tobe completed, even aterithas become a mover realy Tis lferencs feo accidental and temporary, sof the essence ofthe respective Forms of zligosty and secular. The form ofthe one omen fat receptive o the Divo; that of th ob, a divine slleciy Imaneti he Buta: "Te oe complete becaae the di git is eompete and nod bt be humanly rested. he eter forever yet to be completed even tough the seleactivy os divine, fr become ata nan ace which romans boon tothe lint of humans, But hw ean nom Potstan fat view elation to modern dccuiarsdl-activty? is this whch conquers he eta Serres destroyed the finite pagan gods: is it the case self-confidence must seck to destroy the infinite and therefore final (Christian God, and ths inaugurate a radical implacable hostility, this feat~for a Truth which claims ‘otto flee from the world but rather to comprehend and transfg- ure it. ‘These are questions of the utmost seriousness. But they eannot The Religious Basis ofthe Absolute Philosophy ast at present be answered or even fully stated; for Christi Xe for Chistian fth— ind ist standpoint we ae presently describing, nt Hoge seit only beginning to answer them in hs own tine itsean se moreover, are one-sided becaus : from the Hegelian tive thought. esau ieaeacaret cog rare ere on '5 the cultic repetition of the divine incursion into time, at i ema no Deity dwelling in temity Here we se the len ene ora eae eee352 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought Tes one of the utmost importance. Conceivably the Christian God might conceal as well as reveal Himself, confining His dis- cogure the human to what Tle docs. For Hoga’ Christin, the (Patho nctades what God od x herefre total As far back ‘isin Plato and Aristotle, the God even of pagan philosophy was s0 lacking in “envy” a to disclose His natareor ome of sto human thought The Christian God who i Love can do no Tess. As will be seen, He does far more. Having tise to theological thought, what does Cristian faith apprehend of the God who dwells in eternity? He is the One of Jadaism, but He is no longer an abstract One, empty ex ld world outside Him and yet requir Ld for His own lordship. His unity is self-complete and lay of Love, in which Son Separates from Father only to be reunited as Spirit. And the theo- Tceical thought which contemplates the play participates in the (bliss! ® : ut as Christian theological thought rises to the eternal Trinity ‘upon a crucial lemma, Does the eternal trintaran Life by indifference to the worldly and human? the divine inursion into the worldly and human i, after th, believed only by those incapable of theological thought, and there is redemption, not for man who exists jn the world bat only for his thought as it rises above it. Oris thedivine playful Biss achiewed by a divine selfmovement though the ‘vorkd? But then the seriousness with which man takes the divine vvorldly incursion is, from the standpoint of divine playfulness, ‘The Religious Basis of the Absolute Philosophy 353 mere appearance. In either case theological thought would be forced retroactively to destroy the whole reality of Christian faith, back to its believing acceptance of Creation. For that faith has accepted that finite man and his Gnite the divine Infinity by virtue of divine ‘granted actual independence by virtue of divine Goodness. But diving Love cannot destroy either divine Wisdom or divine Good ness. It must rather comprehend and complete both. Itis by virtue of an ultimate affirmation pf an ultimate Love of the divine Infinity for finite humanity that Hegel's Christian rejects the dilemma. What would be a divine Love whose playful bliss depended on indifference to the worldly and human? And what ‘would it be if it passed through both only in order to achieve this bliss, lacking it without such a passage? In either case, the Love | could get no further. anf theological thought) makes the ultimate_a and gratuitous divine Love for the human: a total identification only by forever fering Ba bond between mr Titer a hese to Tie Cian Me Sadat ength redemptive comprehensiveness. Without a cultic aspect it srvld bent tos apere of thought beyond tne, aving life with what God has done and does sould comprehend andi Here les not only the ianemost center ofthe compreheasive truth of eae al ea lb sce erat which en- tion See ch 6s. 4-6 nd appendices 3, ppai8 &1s4 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought redeem all past forms of human life, but its comprehensiveness would fall short of totality since icked access to what God is. XI pliloophicehought which claims jst such an access would trond fall outside it: And what would already be toe of present tule thought might stl come tobe true as well of future Fonns of religious Ife But against these poss e Chri tinity of Hegel Christian does claim total comprebensivencs. {fort a io whan cull wih the intra non ine pints to thoughtpole which rss tothe divin trintarian {Tife-sbove time, and whose thought-pole above tack tothe caft-pole in time. I tums back because i a ivine Goodness which has created man, and a divine Love Which has become one with him in his humanity. EE Appendis 1 The Concept of Religious Representation (Vorstellung) (See pp.222 6.) the conventional but obscure more nataral terms have false at to have its uses.) Thos 7 Philosophy of Religion by E. B. Speirs and \d “picturethinking” (J. N. may be a merely fi because the “thinking” would have to ref ‘The Religious Basts of the Absolute Philosophy aspect of religious existence but also to religious existence (This objection would apply alto to “symbolic thinking,” although less the ropresented is ac- begin with, as given. (Werke, XY, p.a48 [7 oa ay Ei remains Vorstllung, however, Vorstellung is capable 3 inadequacy of int, se expecially '5. Even though to begin with tho rep ‘which mere extemal given- il. Rel I, pp-150 1 On the universally of spect treen ofthis chatacters356 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought —— Appendic 2 ‘The Role of Authority in Genuine Religion (See p28.) ‘The Barly Theologleal Weitngs remain with an unresolved dualism Fa Ba Tretia of te itercstnervence fo auton ro ligion of th Spin. Tn contrast, the Philosophy of Religion ve form, they... are valid in society as this form, of being something ‘everyone, valid and binding. But ‘must be tre Spirit, The Bible has ay Spit whch ly Spi hi wisi” Some have to svarens sepa (Werke, Xl, 208 (Pi Chg tect) Hales ofthe Early ra Grange’ and ot ony thetensc inthis a reaetionary be A ‘revolutions In fact his early position posit foligion is but part have already shown, inc secks to overreach the © resenty show the Divine sulfers and re- mature Hegel with a reac: ‘The Religious Basis of the Absolute Philosophy 487 ‘positivity is to fal to recognize that positivity is posed of when, rather than externally opposed, it ly oppos Appendis 3 Jewish, Greek, and Roman Religion (Seepaas) ‘The account here begun, and aibsequently to be further develpod, of themecting ofthe Jonsh Eas cae nts which spy ligion: Jewish “eligi ty” (Werke, XI, pp.g-288 3831 Hegel followed the cited roceeding from Greek through Jewish to Roman adequate” involves « demthologiing gocttlichung) of nature, Judai or, and fat eeptaleto modern man who “eno! belo ina Ganges, least as rogards its religion ww both Jewish and Greek Jewish East ison a. par with Greck-Roman West. (We pp.a87 &, 273, 125 (Phil. Rel, 1, pp.g2e f.; IN, 62; UL, pp.2ss)358 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegets Thought “The above four points should suffice to demonstrate that any account vvish-Greek-Roman sequence presents Hegel han, phrase hal edition of Hegel's works? (Werke, XI, p. ‘And why does Hermann Glockner’s Hegel Gennany in 1995!) cite, under “Jewish re laudatory passages? To give but one exampl phrase concerning Jewish “fanaticism of stu Statement (which is port of th represents “admirable firmness Fel, 1, p212).) "The interpretation wo shall give will atten the above aspects of Hegelian doctrine, an the distinction (made and held to the Jewish from the standpoint of the Hegelian philesophy. 1 ject will be dealt with further throughout ch. 6, oe SS Appendic 4 ‘The Role of Theological Thought in Medieval Catholicism and Modern Protestantism (See pass) ‘This characteristic must be Teft deliberately vague st Hegel clearly holds that Christian existence and both Catholic and Protestant-remain ineomplet ‘The Religious Basis of the Absolute Philosophy theological thought to the preworldly init therefore be distinguished from the philosop! of pagan Neoplatonism which is without Christian existence and, eed, divorced from all existence (See below, ch. 6, sect af not part of rather their speculative transfiguration Philosophy of Religion titled, “The Kingd rity, and Catholic cultic life too }) As for Protestantism, its cutic been very né these assertions are directlyThe Transfiguration of Faith into Philosophy Werks, XV, p.r7 (Hist. Pil 1, p48). We have to consider. the transition fom 3. Ttroduction We have now completed our reconstruction of “religion... fas climactic task—is to understand why “philosophy cannot e out religion... {and how it comes to] encompass religion jown being.” More specifically, the tak isto understand Hegel's (enepented formu atthe tug content, already existing Inthe * Aubreviton ae isted on pp.as 60 ‘The Transfiguration of Faith into Philosophy Christian zeligion in the form of representat ‘own philosophy the trug form of speculative This formula is more easily cited than understood. How can philosophical thought emancipate itself from the religious form ‘and yet recognize, preserve, and indeed itself presuppose the truth of the religious content? Not, fist, if it reduces what religious representation takes for an actual divine-human relationship tothe solitary disport of the soul with its own unrecognized products even ast exposes the celgos fare to gap worship which is philosophy clases wit We deine worship which . Philo ce relation and yet simply reject rligans es gious content, whi tue would then sede of tata shoe empty Presence ment nor equally empty In Hegers tine as ous, don loops sought simpy to dstioy myth and symbol, Hegels on plilosophy i not among these Tn his view myth and seabed 2ot cover but rather uncover eligius Truth? Thay exe com tet, and the content i inepaable rom the form of eopreaion thought tobe st, ans tose above wlgoce ope, destroyed this ater woul osophy of align i not detiloging cengmbole is pan Bolo sed wn] Symbol Te cannot, tidy, passes hi Tastnamed character lest iy to ws and fs of Cod a wel 2 This162 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought "can rise to infinity. A thought conlined to fitude might reflect on religions roremttion nd ecoguize myths symbol fox what they are. But if while doing soit accepted a divine Presence in religious representation, it could not rise above representation toa higher form of truth. Dem ‘would lead back to re- then, ean achieve its transrepresentational | goals only if is not fnite and human but rather infinite and divine. But how can it achieve its goals even then? The dilemmas just r- iste ont eget The lenis now te onset te art of his om philosophy, and itis no very great exaggeration to ty that his whte Phlowpy of Raigentand, inset, ophy—is haunted religion) as necessary presupposition, But then how can| tran or onfereh opennetna fro the religious content? Ox else philosophy does indeed achieve 7 ‘unprocedented feat: but then was not the representational form al representation from spe (tive thought. Ts ted roan oP en tho resenting ast Inf sllpepductivy which has suspased and vanished ll therm the represented eases te sch and cas be {alin toto owed of only Bocas to Sls produced 1 Sn Werke, 7 (PAL Rls pp 1 sont psy ns of SEE end pon cot The Transfiguration of Fath into Philosophy 163 Religion, then, remains a relation Betogen the human and the Diving, but speculative thought a human activity at one with the Divine ‘The Hogelisn dilemma may therefore be restated as follows. « Either God ts wlimately other than man, asi the religion tet mony ofthe beliver who stands in relation with Hing But then religion & true in form ax well at in content, and phlorophia ‘thought must recognize both as well as itself remain finite reflec. tion. Qt philovophic thought can become an absolst all eng, passing self actcty. But then it disclose theslusriness of tao aap Between the Divine and the human, ond hence thet 4 the decison respact-rligian fs alae in content no less than fora Christan Ife, in that cas, dsipates itself nto mere appousnce the sn of man and the death of God are both, after allt seione it mere aspects of a divine play. As for phlovopic ity. Te preceding account of the Hegelian phi- With, but not yet answered, these two ques: tions: how.can philosophic thought claim abroluteness over against standpoints of life which themselves claim to fall ouside it a How, having made this claim, ean it both encompass the actual) World and yet not, as such, destroy it Tt has previously emerged! that Hegel's philosophy requires an infinite divine-human Life to mediate between finite life and infinite Thought, and that this, for Hogel, is Christian life” What enierges now ‘imnot fulfil this mediating function ia fnal condi itself incapable of mediation-between it and philosophic It is Hegel's goal to bring about a final “peace” between the final zligion and the final philosophy.® It would appear that{ unless he can achieve this peace, his whole philosophy falls into fragments, ‘This peace is the subject of the present chapter. The manner in> 164 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought which it will be concluded may preliminarily be summed up as follows. The final philosophy presupposes the final religion: unless the absolute content were present in Christian life, philosophic ‘to attain it. But in attain- for whereas the Christian vine-human relation the final Such a philosophic enterprise will produ in satisfy two.crucial conditions. Tt must be able Jide of the Christian divine-human relation, itself remains at the human, and, hav- Je to reenact the Christian divine-human Jatian in thought and yet not destroy or dissipate its representa yuma life. Whether Hogel’s thought cap or That byt to supply thm isnt. This most be stressed in par tear concerang the scan endition on which the Filwophy ‘of Religion the main weight rests. The critics have always noted dhat the Hegelian philosopher “walks on his head,” but only arely (that he does so “for-a change only’*—because he is a man as well “They have seen that his philosophy is a speculative “Sunday (dur- ing which man}, uniting himself with the viduality and activity vanish in the Divine” Sunday is connected with the workaday week “during ‘The Transfiguration of Faith into Philosophy 265 ‘The general execution of Hegel's intentions in his philosophy as a whole has been discussed in a previous chapter. We then ‘the actual world and the other, philosophical ‘ent chapter, we shall have occasion to w: transfiguration of Christianity give equal care to seeking a middle which would preserve Christianity against two extremes equally destructive of it. One of these is a speculative pantheism which ‘would dissipate the human into the Divine. The other is an athe istic humanism which would reduce the Divine to the human"? 2 Christianity and the History of Philosophy Can Hegel's thought rise from the human to the di the Christian divine-human relation? This protest and its object are part of a larger, concrete infinity, According to our exposition thus far it may have seemed that the Hegelian project of rising to infinite Thought is in its self-understanding without precedent, and that it presupposes} ‘Now it seems that itis as ancient as philosophy itself and (since ancient philosophy is pagan) in no need of Christianity at all But it is one of the chief objectives of Hegel's History of Phi-166 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought {losophy to deige the emctsslation of Hogslian philosophy both (oat tea ood tecstanty The deblon omer from the periods into which the history of philosophy is divided. Greek thought, though a “ree! ise to Divinity, isi prineiple lim ited by the fact that st is pre so vast as to bo a veritable leap-to give the true content of the true form, that, for thought to move 39 mn is among the ripest fruits of the final philosophy. I s no acci- dent that in the very last year of his life Hegel composed a lecture ‘which transfigured the medieval ontological argument into a final ‘modern speculative truth. (ce) Modern Philosophy ‘The. modem world begins with a renaissance of Greek this worldly freedom. However, this now expands itself, in various, and at frst sight unrelated, ways into infinity. Greek man shuns the world of the barbarians; modern man discovers America. Greek states recognize some men as free; truly modem states recognize all men as free simply because they are human. Greek science grasps order and is stopped short by chaos; modem science seeks to penetrate and conquer the infinitude of contingent facts, In sn, like the Greek, has a “oy in the earth,” and is jee is “right and understanding [in his] occupa th it” But unlike for the Greek what now invites and in- deed demands such occupation is the whole earth** * ' jphy too acquires an infinite dimension, Ancient sphie thought are both free. But whereas the) geared to Being, the other is “relexively” tumed ‘tween Thought and Being. The one is fres! simply atone with the divine Being—a union above all’ + Hoge famous reference to Americas the land of the future (Werks, 1X, pp oof. Phil, Hist, pp.80 81) is wholy in line with his eception of ‘Hye Prodera world See sect sand appendix 4176 The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought nonunion. The other faces up to an “opposition” between Being and Thought so radical as to fragment both into finitude; and it thought consists. ‘Modern freedom does not simply take over where the Greek left ignifcance. The moderp world negates the me Treen the secular present andthe sacred beyon ‘empirical facts without “honor,” humen individ ‘cept in the sight of God, and philosophic thought bereft of its ‘native freedom. And inthis negating process it appropriates what The Transfiguration of Faith into Philosophy a7 of what was formerly sacred. The modern world negates both the sacred and the secular in their medieval divorco and opposition, and it affrme both in their mutually supporting relation. That “worldly judging of worldly things” which is modern science would be fragmented and without direction unless it were the secular whose religious aspect “sanctified” it. The hurnan does away with monks, priests, and an other-worldly if, and transforms the medieval hope in a beyond into a present, in- ‘ward experience. The modern world does not destroy Christianity. It produces the Protestant Reformation: anachronism. Neither does it dissipat ‘phy, and this despite the fact that modem philosophy must (at least to begin with) turn radically against it. sophic thought cannot be one aspect of a life of) For the very claim to infinity which makes! infinitocan allow no such room: for its range lude—not remain indifferent tothe finite and historical. subservience to a free Protestant heart would be less xdem philosophie thought than subservience to authorities But they are both impossible. * Precisely because Grock philosophy does Avion incursion into te conlgent lls tide thought to survive in nedeval teaogy and free fto bocome scbervent to calesiastia autort.‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought thus no accident that modern philosophy ( logy-will finally make it and theology identical when this goal is reached the whole history of philosophy has reached its end.” “The reflexive tym of modern philosophic thought begins with of {in Someiousness” Spinoea exits this fist assertion, For Par mendes, Thought naively at one with Being. Spinoza Jew ya moder philosopher in a Christin work] Parmenidian Being is an abstract w ‘The Spinozistie Substance asserts itself a well as the ope—even at 1e many ae many, and of the finite as finite. ‘Thought. But in the modern world the surrender of the claim to autonomy made by Thought, bi ate le a den hoon nse Mass opps it ‘The Transfiguration of Faith into Philosophy 179 rather by opposite forms of Thought with equal claims to auto ‘omy. The Spinocisti identity of infinite Thought and infinite S Stance is countered by Locke's “motaphysical empiricism” whi fsverts an absolute apposition of Thought and Being, reducing both to fnitude. But just as Spinoza’s reflexive thought capnot saintain the simple entity of Thought and Being so Locke's ‘equally rellexive thought cannot maintain their simple opposition, ‘The “a prior idealism’ of the one—which begins with a pure uni- versal abstraction-wily-nlly points to particularity and concrete- ness. The “a posterior realism’ ofthe other moves from the empirically given particular to a universal Substance, posited Both are one-sided phases of a thinking which, accepts the opposition between Thought and Being and the attendant fragmentation of thought into fniteness and yet, on the other, moves toward the overcoming of both, That Shey are onesidd is tth mane sl in the Leming tmonad, which is "intemal diferentiated and yet remains one and} Simple” Thus abstract infinity is united with the finite given2** "The Leibnizian monad completes the first period of modem ophy. Butt also disclose ts limitations, Leibnizian manads) fre external to each other, and hence iosophie thought st Pacis Spins180 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought “As far as thought reaches, just so far and no further reaches the universe, and where comprehension coases the universe ceases, concrete fnitude as a Thought at once infinite uuntil it will have “brought back through taphysical” be- fe Substance, Lockean eee ‘asserted; it is not developed by e activity of @ ‘Thought. Hence in the period now following, Thought r \by revalutionizing the social consciousness and the ‘rol in which xists. Thought in both its British and French forms’puts a crea- ts own making into the place left empty by the loss ject. This latter object had been possessed ‘and the subjective movement of thinking had Com Hume holds fast to the idealistic certainty ofselEonscious- ‘The Transfiguration of Faith into Philosophy ness, and this latter is activity and movement. Among the French— ‘who can boast of the greater achievement~the movement of sub- {in the practical, external world in its image. This accomplish its goal by raising subjecti thought to an infinity already imy This revolution brought about by German speculative thought. ‘This revolution begins with Kant, who may be viewed as the Socrates of the moder world. Like Socrates, Kant asserts the! fre, thinking subject against the authority of tho extemal world. But unlike Socrates he has passed through the radical opposition between Thought and Being which fragment tive ofa practical Reason which is more Kantian freedom renews in the modern context the Socratic opposition to extemal deities, For theoretical consciousness, God} is found neither in outward nor in faward experience: this He! Becomes an empty Beyond. For practi freedom He becomes) mere-extrapolated Ideal. In both respects, Kant shrinks from a radicalism which, flly asserting Thought’ appropriating power,182 “Thee Religious Dimension in Hege’s Thought would destroy both the empty theoretical Beyond and the extra- ¢activity. But only foolish or faithless Chris- instead of the “knowledge of God [which is pealed religion” they are here left with mere emptiness which con {ceals—as it does in Kantianism faming discloses itself in Fichtean thought bectuse tis Fichte, not Kant, who does ‘power which has been impli in modem tought eve sce Descartes. In Desgates and Senet, thinking subjectivity remain unmoving. Yo Home and ‘Roussean it moves but within the limits of a finiteness i which it hos become absorbed, It is the Fichtean igo which ist discloses (retifas an aie self ealzingeobjectivigytraly infinite becuse w fate i prt ofthe selfelizing process. Hence the object s replaced by sellobjectvation, and the Kantian Divinity-beyond, vr subjectvty whose movements tse divine—the “moral order ofthe world” Here the modern “war” of au {Reason on the Christian faith has reached its clznax. ‘But in this very climax it comes upon itis eotit Fichtoan Deity afer all, a mere sleication, Herel itself ax such by lapsing into contadiction. The ify ‘Gleiven for is also unattainable: for the subjectivist Deity has real- ‘Tan the proces of strvng ply. It herefar becomes a yearning, wench in tum Becomes a yearning for earning’ ake. This, bow wis lapte into faudulence which has surrendered ts serious Sanit aim in order to rest “comfortably” TNoris there an esonpe from such vanity n 8 tuchinen fom it-tht romantic ony Which the recognition of the vanity ofall nite things, ‘The Transfiguration of Faith into Philosophy 385 for infinity included. For this irony is infected with the very vanity from which it seeks detachment: it deifies the finite subject in its ironic selfdetachment Its precisely in the radical assextion of its claim to i ‘that subjective thought comes upon an ultimate own: subjectivity itself. And this discloses the need for a final iberation"~one which does not destroy thought but rather cures it ofits subjectivist one-sidedness. In the beginnings of the modern period, Spinoza has sought to surrender subjective thi objective Substance which yet cannot absorb it, Since then, philos- ophy has been asserting the claims of subjective thought, frst by siurrendering all given objectivity, and at length by raising thought eed of the hour now— and itis the final hour of philosophy—is to “bring back” the objec- tive God, through the activity of a subjective thought which shows its supreme freedom By divesting itself of its subjectivist one- sidedness. ‘This need i in principle filled by Schelling, whose thought fs| “concerned with that deep speculative content” which has pre-! ‘occupied the whole history of philosophy. Like ancient thought— Platonism, Aristotelianism, and Neoplatonism—itis in living upity with an objective ideal world. But like all modern thought, it has confronted that opposition between Thought and Being which fragments both into Rnitude. Like Spinozism, it asserts the unity of Thought and the Divine Being despite their opposition. But unlike Spinozisin it is no_acogmic denial of fragmentation an Ginitude but rather encompasses the fnite~in both its subject and objective forms—in an all-encompassing infinity. ‘But Schelling only asserts this final develop than a “restless Ego” which establishes its absolutene: this establishing, his thought remains in mere “intuitive repose") Hence, contrary to its own innermost intentions, it lapses into a sheer, acosmie Spinozistic infinity which is now long superseded,384 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought and the faitde which afer all fils ouside i ft for an om ‘en far rude even than that of Locke, Schelings thought ils forthe labor of the nal philosophy. Buti does not elt feonish se or thi cason, too, it fis o bring about peace betwee phi (osphy and faith The true peace wil be produced by a p ; av and wppropiates a psoudoa faculty possessed in intuitive oneness with the Divine, soorn the faith of ‘mere flight from fnitude—as - ness as the subjectivist self-deiBcation which it seeks to replace.*® In the preceding chapter, we saw that Christian life can have seriousness and reality only because, while at one with the Divine through divine Love, it continues to be burden of human Gnitude. From the sketch of the History of Philosophy now com- jt reach his final goals—which are the goa! ry hhe understands it-unless he can make peace with this Christian life so as to preserve ite seriousness and reality: that is, unless his thought ean encompass the Snite in a union of thought that stays with, rather than flees from, that nonunion of life by virtue of which the human remains confined to humanity. 4 Religious Representation and Speculatice 1 1 the account just given is correct, the History of Philosophy points toad demands final pence between the Bal reign and The foal phiuophy. eet isa vitally universally held view that Hilcouhy makes tue peace between any religion and {any peopl in principle imposible. Moreover, the History of Phlbsophy may well sem to confi tat view. The Transfiguration of Faith into Philosophy 185 thought which has denied this otherness and has rigen to oneness ake all re- view finds specific confirmation in the History of Philosophy. Ac- cording to that work, Greek philosophy can achieve freedom only by destroying Greek religion, the Christian religion only at the price of surrendering the free- dom which is of the philosophic essence, and pre-Hegelian modem philosophy can reconquer the lost freedom only by waging total ‘war upgn faith. Does it not seem th. egelian philosophy Lmake peaco-with Ghristianity only by reenacting the medie- But the Hegelian forms of religious representation and specu- ht cannot be understood adequately in abstraction ind there is notin the inal analysis any such thing Hegelian doctrine concerning the relation between eneral_andphilosophy-in-general.® According to Hegel, al religion differs by virtue of its form from all philosophy; yet some religions—the Greek and the-Christant!—make possible the rise, respectively, of ancient and modem philosophy. OF these‘The Religious Dimension in Hege?s Thought ce, Greek religion." In contrast, Chris- philosophy to which it gives rise. ‘This latter culminates in a process which transfigures and rein- states its religious basis, and only thus does it each its own eom- pleteness. No account of the Hegelian doctrine conceming re- Tigious representation and speculative thought is adequate if it does not grasp these fundamental assertions. Our present account ‘must be entirely confined to ther. For religious selfundesstanding, religion is a relation between {ene Divine and the human, in which the Divine is both ofher than. ‘the human and yet inwardly related to it Ifthe Divine were not human there would be no relation; and if it were the human the relation would not be Jabor.!# The aspects of nonunion and union permeate the whole of representational existence, and this latter is, therefore, accepted ‘by the religious self-nde asa form of truth. ‘This much is true of a the highest. Even the natu nature, but the Divine represented as natura incarnate God is other than His human worshi suffering actual death is closer than, say, the Greck deities which are idealized human representations. But he is also more remote for he exists—or rather, has existed—outside the of the wor shiper; he is not merely represented as externally existing, Hence Christian faith necessarily “wavers” between the extremes of a de- votional and sacramental unity with the “indwelling Che fan historical representation which “sends him back two years into Palestine." The form of representation, essential to all ‘ther religious existence, is essential to Christianity as well If all philosophic thought presupposes religion, then which recognizes this fact) must fist o of the religious relationship. That The Transfiguration of Faith into Philosophy 387 aspect of inwagdness without which religions would be mere external worship, and it must accept the otherness of the Divine it would lack its real and serious labor. would not recog- nize the religious basis required by all philosophic thought. It would rather destroy that basis. But if in al religions the Divine remains other than the human, haw can some religions (Greek and Christian) make possible fon >humans a philosophie thought at one with Divinity? Judaism can? rot give rise to stich philosophic freedom even though, like Grok religion, it recognizes the divine Infinity. For the infinite God worshiped remains wholly other (transcendent Lord) and the as- pect of inwardness is confined to an unfree recogation of bis lord- ship. If Greek religion makes possible what Judaism does not, itis becau e creation of poets. The divine Infinity is imma- nent ina free.and creative worship, and the aspect of divine other- ness is confined to its ereated products, Because of the former, Greek philosophic thought can explicate an Infinity already im- ‘iy rising to pure unity with the Divine. But because of the it pays a double price for this achievement: it destroys the 3 of the Greek gods (and hence these gods themselves); itself forced to Hee {rom a world which, now demytholo- ret remains other than the Divinity to ly by destroying its Greek religious presupposition, how can the final modern phi- 10 achieve freedom and yet recognize and make Christian presupposition? And~another aspect of hope to stay with and comprehend ‘world when Greek thought was forced into flight from it? the unique relation between Christian representational existence and the final philosophy which brings such goals within reach? First, the Christian God-man is an actual man external to human.288 ‘The Religious Dimension in HegeTs Thought representation, as much other-than-human worship as the Lord of Judaism, Christianity is therefore no creation of poets, and Chris- tian, like Jewish, worship has an essential aspect of receptivity, Why then does Christianity, like Greek religion, make main transcendent to human worship. He is other.than the wor- ‘shiper and yet, because He has revealed His tis worship én Christ as we Proprio by ate {fest in tis appropri fs «result, the dicing-hyman relation—In all other religious representation composed of tc activities, respectively divine and {Inumanie in Christian representation one double artoty Tei double because it remains a religious. ‘And a human freedom seems to leave ng room for a divitie Grace which, outside it, must bé humanly received. (‘This is true at least if such freedom demands, as in modern times it does, scope, and here lies the reason why pre-Hegelian modern thought recognize its Christian presupposition and indeed is hostile ‘Yet Christian representation must express these diff- ‘cannot seek refuge from its double activity in a single The Transfiguration of Faith into Philosophy 189 activity which—whether it dissipates the human into the Divine or the Divine into the human—would destroy the reality of the Christian God-man relationship. And the diffeulties~or rather, paradoxes—which flow from this double activity are of the Chris- precisely this double activity of Christian representational, ‘existence which enables the Snal hilosophy, like the’ Greek, to achieve oneness of thought with Divinity and yet, unlike the Greek, to recognize, preserve, and compre destroy the religion which has made this a faith itself, modem philosophy has like the Greek, is inclusive of finiteness. The fina [However] frm retaining ‘and Lae coy, Hegel fds & eady between the concepts of divine Goodnest rence & that wheres for Hegel and Buber the antin- oy red I palpi ertenefr Hep can btn by190 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought ‘ophy now recognizes that the infinity claimed presupposes the faith against which itis dizected, and that its negation of that faith has positive as well as negative significance. In recognizing this ‘zuth it ceases to oppose faith and instead undertakes to compre- hhend and transfiguro it ‘This task can be accomplished only on two conditions. One is ‘hat Christian faith is nq longer a merely inte human testimony, in ‘nonunion with a Divinity other-than-human. The other is that the the Divine Both must Jes of spirit to Spirit," ie, testimonies of the Divine to a Divinity which, though other than the testifying ‘manifest in it, And, the testimony of speculative be possible only beoause the testimony of Christian {, Tey ile in that thought and speculation will grasp as one ingle activity what in faith and representation remains double.** Hlow is this possible? Religious spirit—the heart—exists on the hu- * The truth to be comprehended by the ual moder thought Hegel de- series fallow: the merely mol stand ins something yet to be pro wore not lady een ‘Good snot something which mere ‘Trth. (Werke, XI, ppaaa lL? The Transfiguration of Faith into Philosophy a2 tan vido of the dicine-human relationship. Philosophic_spe specilatice thought-rises to its divin side. What for Christin foith is free reception ofthe Divine by tha human's for speculaice | thought divine activity in the human. ‘This rise has in principle already been achieved in Schellingian | thought; however, it does not recognize : philosophical testimony ‘Spirit made possible by the Christan testimony. Th phy to wage war on faith Schelling’ the nemesis it sufers for such rvslty is di abstractions. The Bnal modem philosophy n ‘Thus it comes to perceive a task which, saved it from the Schellingian fate, The one double activity which is Christian faith is double because itis for the heat, which exists ‘on the human side of the divine-human relationship. tive thought which has risen to its divine side must(feserve heart, ie, the human, in the divine-human relations the crucial task of the Philosophy of Religion. And execution depend both the peace between Christianity and final philosophy, and the claim of the fnal philosophy to be fn comprehensive of reality rather than jost the possibility of this peace before its actual execution is considered. freedom, the heart, a as single? And if recognize the heart as heart, Le, in its human receptivity? It is all- 4 See appendis 2 to this cate ‘The fee heart hae ela2 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought too-obvious that the basic dilemma of Hegel's entire thought—now \ {isos wal pee ‘The heart is cloge to speculative. thought becau permanent character geared to the Di {geared is permeated with self-activity raises the whole being; and because in. ‘thought. Yet the heart remains clearly thought because it is mine—that of an “T” ‘and human. Its thinking (Denken) is devotion (Andacht)—not ‘And its cultic labor has two aspects, not one ‘both a rise of the human and a being-raised by itself."* A thought which reduced the heart to a mere ghost would {tself become ghostly! 28, Ths seme sn rome vi To be prety frank he sak of pape fe oceson 8 ocabeie, ‘weird, The Transfiguration of Faith into Philosophy 4 The Speculatice Comprehension of Christian Faith tian faith finds the Christian totality; philosophic thought — ‘and transforms representational fact into specula- itean attain these two goals—which Christian faith itself cannot-it is because, having risen from the human to the divine side of the religious relationship, it grasps as one single activity what to faith remains double,* ‘The frst attainment of the Philosophy of Religion is the Notion) of calgon This is not, as the term might suggest, the meze work ay very ones, Tam sensoous comprehession, what can grap alee ee those two gals a a manner joct (except for Jowsb, Grock, and394 ‘The Religious Dimension in HegeTs Thought of the finite understanding. Tis later most ignore or reject the fhuman claim to a religious relation with the Divine and regard religion as mere human fact, from which it will then seek Sbstact such features a all elgions may have in common. sophie of inte Thought begin by accepting the reality of the Gtinechuman relation to which all religions lay cla, and it DDecomes infinite by reenacting 0s single what in and for them th brought t such are rent isa wnity in all the conict between them. The divine human activity presegt én all existing re ‘recoghized by them as this activity because they 1 The Notion_of religion, however, s no {becomes separate only forthe thonght which reenacts ne impli Power, which requires existing religions for its sel txlieton. Hence the philosophic thought which grasps the No- qi of religion eaanot remain in splendid isolation, Tt is, rater, iniday between twp confrontations with existing religion, Tt preceded by an acceptance of existing religion, a an actual ater \than an illusory divine-human relation. thout this accept- nee the Notion of religion woul be a mere arbitrary and wnreal thought product) Ts follawed by the comprehension of existing eligi in terns ofthe Notion which has been atained—s its sl “explication. This second confrontation, however, doesnot remain & confrontation, For the thous ccomprehends existing re- ligion absorbs and transfgure ‘The Transfiguration of Faith into Philosophy 195 ng, ret a al align nt however xu ret ey eg SE RES cupeenin pss he eres te Scher my ong oS rrr ges of te epson fe igion. The process of self-explication, however, does’, “Sapien sty Ont itis complete in this religion can philosophie thought comprehend j any religion. For only ifthe Notion of religion exists wholly expli) . double activity of Christian faith can philosophic thought grasp it as Notion—by reenacting as single what to remains double. The grasp of the Notion of religion, then, stands midway between twa. confrontations, not with existing religion-, in-general, but rather with exiting Christianity. And the con- ditions in existing religious life which make it possible for the Philosophy of Religion to bogin its work also make it man- datory for it to complete it-in the comprehension of they ‘Christin religion as the total selfexplication of the Notion of religion. * $0 much for the program of the Philosophy of Religion. A brief ‘of essentials must sufice for its execution. Fit, what of the 7 f religion? All genuine religions are toalities of feeling, tation, and cult geared to the Divine, and the totalites oes the Divine to which they are geared. Philosophie comprehension grasps as single what in every religion remains double, and it grasps one Power explicated in all different religions. Forreligious consciousness, the totalities of feeling, representation, ‘and cult are geared to the Divine, and are themselves human; and the totalites and Divintis differ and indeed are in mutual conflict, PPhilosophio comprehension sees the Divine in these human totali- * Because the Christan religion ithe total self-expliation ofthe Notion of cligon i isthe 5; Stl ppage [ha Rel, 1 p84: H, ppga7 fe396 ‘The Religious Dimension in Heget's Thought ties; and the implicit divine-human Power which is in them is in ‘them all This result-the Notion of religion—next produces the task of ‘comprehending existing religions, For these latter the Divine, in- wardly related to the human, still remains other-than-human, actively destroy both the comprehending existing religions. It cannot repudiate it: repudia- tion would dissipate the existing religi which philosophy ‘comprehension of religion a Divine self othering in the human." For this reason, philosophic comprehension can mope through they seek, Christian faith must nevertheless oppose w! found as simple falschood. And the falsehood opposed, left unab- sorbed, can continue to assert itself as truth, Philosophic compre- hhension has transcended all such mutual opposing. Noo-Christian religions are true self-explications justice is done them which Christ ‘and superseded. In this way philosophic comprehension, and it alone, “reconciles the true religion with the false."** ‘The Transfiguration of Faith into Philosophy 197 ‘Even naturo religions demand such justice. For Christian faith, ‘these may be sheer dolatrythe worship of a fallen nature in place ofits Creator and Redeemer. In the light of the Notion of religion, philosophic comprehension finds a degree of truth even in this also sees the Divine, by itself complete apart ‘passing through selfexteralization én nature eligious man—before it can manifest itself 10 longer Gite only-religious man. It sees passing if the Notion of religion is to encom- ts unity s0 as to become explicit in existing Christian view the Jew, risen above idolatry, worsh the infinite God; but, infinite only, this God remains inacce ‘The Greek, though in idolatrous worship of finite gods, w Beauty to which he fence which makes pos preworldly Trinity. But although recognizing truth in these ro- 5, etre rion the most dil wo compabed beck es fr thet fom oor [he ¢ represeatetion” Bt wl eter ito en esperiene of” we ca pemprchnd a8 (Ph Rely, pan; ppb)198 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hege’s Thought ‘pain into which he is finally driven, And the Greek may ro) ts folly even though at Jength forced into the choice between Roman unhappiness in a godless world and a philosophic ght to ‘2 worldless God. Christian faith can bear witness against both Jew and Greek; but it can do no more. Shie comprehension, in contrast, can do a great deal first, view either the Jewish Lord as simply simply-finite and and wholly lacks the other (His im Jmuman), As comprehended in the ‘Judaism isin partial possession of the whale Ts negates its own finiteness even as tafrms the divine Jani fand the Jewish God-who isin the worship as well as its object— has become immanent even while Hee remains transcendent. Juda- ‘has this Truth partially only because it , of Greek, or Greek-Roman, gel understands {ship of finite gods. Its truth is its colebration of eck eligi 5“ religion of tenet ‘The Transfiguration of Faith into Philosophy 199 and because this latter truth is conjoined with the former false- hood, it discloses at length the whole misery and grandeur of hu wer. Its misery is manifest in the absolute enslavement of 1 godless Roman world deified and made infinite. jophic thought to infinity and hence above humani or Christian faith, Tacks, and one must take Hegel to meat y value. Neoplatonie thought, to be sure, can rise to oneness with the ip can only serve a Lord ‘who remains distant forced to despair, whereas Jewish worship serves in the world a God who is Lord of it.” For philosophic comprehension, the GreekRoman world cul , not with the total possession of one Truth (the pre- “Trinity) and the total lack of the other culminates with the partial possession of the whole Truth, ym its fist and wholly 1 Infinity is in the Greek: nl products.*® Because of this presence Infinity iced by aan And a ses, ey age oe Sy mc of proses200 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel s Thought can enter—for better and worse—into consciousness. For better Neoplatonie thought finds speculative access to the trinitarian absolute Infinity. For worse: Roman emperor worship bestows in- / Bstyon mere san rer, thusmaing hua avery eee / For better and worse: the very absoluteness of Roman // produces longing for abslute salvation, and the very absolute | fess of the Neoplatonic fight from the world discloses that the ‘World is humanly inescapable, The Roman conflict between a god- Jess world and a worldless Godbetween a human existence wholly enslaved and a wholly free thought fled from human existence— fs an internal conflict: it is the partial possession of the whole st and Greek-Roman West, moreover, are themselves explication of the Notion t Philosophie comprehension Doth to an infinite God and ige the gulf betwoon them. tha divine Infinity im- self-disruption into eification of a godless world and fight to a worldless God. The Notion of religion is wholly explicated when there is at once total the otherness of the Divine—that distance between ‘and the finite which makes the Infinite divine and eaves the finite worldly and human~and yet a total presence of the Divine, not for a thought only which has fled from the world, et for existing man who remains in it. For Christian faith, peness of the time for Christ, brought about by the mecting Christianity, but a attempt to reconcile them with Christianity, Jewish worldly service of a transcendent Lord, however painful; Neoplatonic union of thought with a pre- worldly ‘Trinity, however escapist; Roman emperor worship in a godless world, however unhappy: these could each assert its abso- Tuteness (as well as resist all attempts to be reconciled to each other). And any such absolute self-asserting in life would expose asa mere arbitrary and lifeless thought a Notion of religion which contradicted it. The Philosophy of Religion must demonstrate that this Notion is neither arbitrary nor lifeless, and it can do so only by showing that it is wholly explicated in an existing religion. Hegel's work therefore culminates in the transfiguration of the Christian comprehensive Truth, accepted as fact by fi speculative necessity. And the whole enterprise stands or falls with this climactic task. Christian faith, like all faith, remains at the human side of the divine-human relation, and hence humanly receptive of fact. But and wholly dependent on Him. the-divine-image, while self-accepted as fact, is by nature both good and evil. Though accepting his nature as God-given, he can- not remain in his naturalness, and for this reason the act of self- emancipation from naturalness is both anti-divine—a fall—and divinely willed and necessary. This togetherness of contingent fac-‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought son asin the "christian goin worship. ily worship tn Chat as well For the comm i Spit, emeine cnt inthis testifying Sprit remains from its worldly incursion, a former remains but ong pole other is existence in the worl, ‘These two poles, however—and this mutually destructive. They point to each othe ‘come the absolutely comprehensive form because of the supreme mystery impli ligious faith but wholly explicitonly in the Christian Divine which needs no Zélation to the human never in relation to the human, without yet suffering loss of its divinity. ‘The Baal mystery of Christan faith i nether the pre-w Temity nor ts worldly incursion. 1¢ i the final paradosical Sha they ate and remain fo Trnites even while they are united fs Divine Loce™ Christian fat, then, remains with received paradoxical fact. Pislosophie comprehension transfigures it into speculative noces- tyne it does by Hsing in reenactng thought othe divine side SP je Chsntien dvinenaman relationship. In ths reenactment, ‘The Transfiguration of Faith into Philosophy to emerge becomes the absolute point of departure.® The pre-| play in which Son separates from ith Him in Spiritemerges as the ‘The worldly incursion of that Trinty emerges as espllention of the Notion of religion. For what man Ifepoleteductble to teslogea thought po tenched by specuatoe thought which, having ssn to Divi reenact it For the if pole of faith, the thanunan, sn the bunen, other than-Divine. For the specula-/ tive hough which enacts Divinity th himan oer i a divin} selfathesing the duemption Between the Divine and the human | W divine sft-Sremption; and the divine reconclaton human, a divine self-reconciliation. The total ttolite Notion of sligion is a single whole of divine Life com re of the (the divine sl tering in nature inte spi ‘ vine Toca mation in mature and fin “Kingdom of Spi” {that divigeselfeeonclaton inthe Ciistan community mani festina worship which is bth in and of Christ). This total process is nocesayin tat the vine self-otberng i reque ifthe abso Tate Notion of religion i to find total selfexplcation, and in that the divine selrecocttin is posible only when th proces of divine setocering aod seltemption bas reached a stage at assage already cited in ch. 5 ec 5 ieee nour rte appronch 1204 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought ‘which the time has become ripe for it, Such, in the briefest of out: lines, is the Hegelian comprehensi {f Gan it make peace with the fait 101? At fc sight, the Hegelian comprehension seems con- with but twp choices, both hot oath Eiger the pe ‘worldly trnitarian play emerges as inherently complete; its worldly manifestation merely repeats the play: and the bt then its significance i other than faith ses it. For Christian tsa free gift of Love, unneeded by the Divine, to its human ‘other. For philosophic comprehension, itis an than those pre-Hegelian ‘modem philosophies which, rather than comprebend the Christian content, could only wage war upon it. ‘But a comprehension of either sort—by a thought reenacting Divinity—would be protested against too loudly, by a faith insist- ing on remaining human. And a thought which claimed to encom- pass life would in fact fail to encompass this protest made in and Philosophizing man, “walking on his head,” would thus dis- absolute philosophy. In short, the dilemma arrived at threatens t only the peace between Christian faith and Hegelian philos- Sophy. It threatens, too, the absolute standpoint required by Hegel's thought asa whole. + 1n viow of ovr extensive descrip of Christianity in ch. 5, sects. 4-9 we nay be brief In oor prevent account of ts speculative reenact ‘The Transfiguration of Faith into Philosophy ‘Trinity of Christian faith merely specifies the general dilemma of the Hegelian middle. We have long rojected a right-wing dissipa- tion of the actual world into the logical realm: this would be speci- fied by the dissipation of the worldly trinitarian incursion into a timeless trnitarian play, and we have also rejected a left-wing re- ‘and Spirit to worldly fnitude: this wo fied by the reduction of the worldly trinitarian incurs self-realization which, bereft of a pre-worldly Trinity to sustain it, could never be compl But just as the probl s0 does their solution, Fory Hegel rejects the dilemma which has just been posed, both oft whose horns would be destructive of Christian faith. The pre- festation; yet this atter—no mere repetition of the play—is as real for philosophic comprehension as it is for Christian faith. The tvnitarian God is wholly real apart from the world and wholly | real in_st, and only because of His preworldly reality can His worldly manifestation be complete. The two Trinities of Christian | faith, then, do not reduce themselves, in one of two opposite wa philosophic thought, divine Love remains such a gift even though itisa divine seothering. This Love doesnot shrink into a divine umnconcem with the worldly and human, nor into a concern neoes- sitated by divine need. Divine Lave, therefor, i the ultimate fact of faith which remains fact even for the final philosophy, and + mheslogins in partis have tne and agua acouned Hops of ether pnthelsm of theistic humanism, Ou Hopes own reaction t6 these two harges, See Bez, sot. 573,208 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought ( Because philosophy accepts this fact can it attain absolute finality * 1 Here lies the ultimato condition on which Hegel's philosophy vean make peace with Christan faith, A thought which reduced the Christian God to an unworldly tnitaian play would leave reenact the Neoplatonie fight h transformed Him into a self ealizing deny the comprehensiveness of Christan o nitude. A thought which recognizes ian faith forever begin. a faith, humanly a phase ‘own rise above humanity. Only a thought ofthis kind can be di and yet a possibilty for thinkers who are, and remain, human, 5 The Final Secular-Religious World ‘and the Final Philosophy double.) Can it save reenacting as divine sef-othering what hu- Other expose such receptivity as mere bbecomefor both religion and philosophy-a peace of death, Yet that this is contrary to Hegels innermost intentions has been the recurrent theme of the entire preceding © Phenomenology can maintain its absolute standpoint of thought * Soe appendix to thi chapter, p.2i8 ‘The Transfiguration of Faith into Philosophy 207 only if t preserves some standpoints of life. The system asa whole, can dwell in its middle only if ther than dss the actual word. And the Philosophy of Religion can compreh the Christian divine human relation fe St both arises from and preserves the f side. A thought which simply destroyed the repres of faith would surely call forth a protest fom the ie of fit And this protest, falling outside the thought which claimed to encom: duce this latter to “ghostines.” Bust the Philosophy of Religion doos not ens with a rigid oppost- tion between the forms of religious life and speculative thought ends, rather, with the mediation between life and specal thought, the mediation ofthe ultimate dichotomy. Its crucial con:) dition t that a conflict which in one sense yet to be resolved by ‘thought isin another already resoloed in lie tent is present ia moder life sion) so is the tru ind perhaps Moreover, true content and true form, ted, let alone in cond " ind accomplished fac nur + Tealm of fact has discarded its berbarity and unrighteous captice, while the realm of to Spirit (which remains receptive forall its Prot and “free” modern secular self-activity (which fragmented for all its infinite self-confidence) is for Hegel ultimate revelation of Reason in modern ife~ tion that “the Rational is actual, and the Actual, rational.”* Only * Rechtphit, Preface. Hegesfamoos dictum does not ether shard ery the empcal lament common Iaowleige, or seasdaouly Sc208 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought ‘on condition of the existence ofthis Reason in life can there be @ true peace between it and that Reason which és speculative thought "This conclusion might be gathered from our previous exposition ‘of Hogel's History_of Philosophy. For in this work we saw not ‘one but two conditions of philosophical thought in life—religion and secular self-acivity. And we also saw the war waged on faith by that infinite self-actvity which is moder philosophy paralleled by another, waged by that infinite self-activity which makes mod- cern secular life modem. But since its form must ally modem phi- losophy with modem secular life one might guess thet the one war peace only ifthe same is somehow true ofthe other: ant conscience, rather than remain in inward unworldly ssumes selfactive worldly outward ex i secular sel astivity recognizes a foundation in rel ‘ness which transcends the scope of all secular power." Only if this double condition is somehow satisfied in life can the time be rd Berlin: Oldenboure, a tautology ‘he see further appendix 4 ‘The Transfiguration of Faith into Philosophy 209 hilosophie thought. Itis evident that the entire rst fully conceived in the Phenomenology, /—that the final philos- ophy is possible; what then i the relation between the_union) which is already actual in modern life and the union which iss t0_be produced by the final thought? On this decisive question Hegel’ thinking undergoes, over the decades, a remarkable change. For the early Hegel, the final losophy will revolutionize a life which still needs revolutiona change. For the mature Hegel, the final philosophy can only co prehend life, and need only comprehend it: for the final unity already implicit in life itself. For the early Hegel, philosophy wi produce a new religion on the ruins of the old. For the mature Hegel, philosophy comprehends the old religion, and this latter is not and cannot be rained. In an early manuscript Hegel writes as follows: . «Protestantism has fred itself from allen consecration. Hence haga to eough to take unto sl ts pure shape, on snows majesty "To erie the whole energy ofthe sulin and Glscord which has oo I is fon of cre for Several thousand yes nd alo fo rie above thi an be done by phlosophy alone ‘The central point of this remarkable passage isthe prognostica-aro ‘The Religious Dimension in Heget’s Thought tion that philosophy will, can, and must produce a religio form of life. The early Hegel believes that philosophy must new form of life. (For life is still in principle fragment the old religion, while free, is yet lacking “Spirit for 1808 he still writes: "I am more convinced every day that theoreti- cal labor accomplishes more in the world than practical. Ono the «++ [to the] feeling [that] God is dead {thus producing a} speculative Good Friday, and in that existence absolute discord is absolutely redeemed, in the “highest Totalty” which has assumed the shape of "serenest freedom."® , But how would the life of this new selgion have to be undes- stood? In the old religion, grief and discord may be resol only.in a cultic life which, first, c receives the Gr knowledges a secular sealm outside the cultic marked, not by a divine reconciliation eternally accomplished but rather reconcliation eternally o be accomplished—by human self labor. For this double reason, in the ok ‘human, Can it remain so in the new religion projected by early «Hegelian philosophy? Certainly not, for it must become divine. A Spirit which in “autonomous majesty” purely dissolved discord identity secular self-activity, abolishing the receptive form of the one and “superseding the finite and hence discordant content of the other. The Transfiguration of Faith into Philosophy au ‘human. This new religion would wrench Hegelian thought fom its ‘idle and force it into one of the extremes But Hegel's meture thought has turned sharply from this early conception of a new religion to be produced by philosophy. Thel ‘grey in grey” of philosophy cannot rejuvenate but only corm hhend a “shape of life” It reenact the ol ‘ean produce no new religion to replace the old, which heralds a new bout rather~in one of Hegels most celebrated passages—the “owl of Minerva {which} rises to flight with the coming of dusk Populax opinion here takes Hogel as reducin the reflective self-consciousness of eivilizator tentially~assnany philosophies as there are ci fing toward the end and hastening death, sadically mistaken, In Hegel's view, only some cis productive of a philosophy. Moreover, his own philosophy is comprehensive of the civilization) secular aspects, b inity—ts itself in principle complete. Finally thests—the comprehension which is in not weaken or end the life which is in Drinciple complete. “Only natural old age is weakness; the old age of Spirit is that complete maturity in which Spirit goes back, ives se toa decisive question t can be maintained, Life ied ifthe unifcation whichis philosop yet it must already be united if isin fact the mature Hegel poston ‘which con only comprehend life-naed only compre. for modern life i aleady fa principle united. Yet because} itt fo ts unity must rain oetie doers: the Spit which] oes back into simple nity is philosophic thought only. Such ane ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought thought dons ot epee life which for continued participation at length emerged, then, is of his one phesophe thought. tte ature Hegel cn acept a rl as in pretle Bt Deus, fey Be ith which in his view constitutes it. The Chis- thought-only because he takes it as already being one world; no less indestructible than the two dimensions which constitute ition bas implicitly lst its marrow.” oppos vl miss actygl—ond, in principle, final Jmodem je can Hegel both ve [his philosophic thought and ye [fe which has made i possible : and the philosophical comprehension which arises to the will nat end the ing. Protestant f s again lapse into that sheer receptivity and ‘The Transfiguration of Faith into Philosophy revolution both impossible and unnecess pable of aint intemal reforms wh the life comprehended If man, though human, can rise in the fal thought tothe absolute divine se mn of “wisdom of the world” and the “knowledge of thas risen above this dichotomy in thought. But it would a ghostly abstraction unless it demanded continued par- ticipation in a life which continues to have both these aspects in diversity. The Philosophy of Religion stubbornly insists the foe but true friend and protector of Chistian | * Sco appendix 4t this chapter, pp.aao fh‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought his History of Philosophy with a plea to his + - [to] the urgency” of Spirit and to help 6. “Knowledge of God” and “Wiadom of the World” Hegel describes philosophy as “wisdom ofthe world" and also {as “wiedg of Go Ini completely developed fornia, present chapter, devoted ‘of an earlier chapter (ch. 4) devoted to the middle of the Hegelian system must remain fragmentod unless Divinity is wholly present in the actual world, and unless philosophy is cap- able of comprehending this presence. And the present chapter has shown that, unless Divinity has a worldly presence, specu! thought cannot hope to “transfigure faith into philosophy: system, then, requires the Philosophy of Religion, as an indispens- able and indeed its central par, and the Philosophy of Religion is 1, not a philosophical enterprise which stands ;ophical knowledge of God and wisdom of the world both om nogphilosophical human life. The fist arses from re- igious representational existence, and in its complete form from Christian existence, The second presupposes “the awakening of the wisdom of the world in the spist of governme: i.e, wisdom conoerning what is... world." Such wisdom is mani and hence recoguition of h ciple completely manifest are free, simply because Philosophical knowledge of God and wisdom of the world must ‘The Transfiguration of Faith into Philosophy 215 seek eachother from the start, Cut of fom the former, philesophi- cal wisdom of the world would remain as finite as the secular existence from which it arses, the religious and the philosoph sophical knowledge of God, on its part, must philosophical wisdom ofthe world. For “the content of philosophy And religion fs identical {only} except for the more specific con. fent of external nature and finite sprit which does not fall into the sphere of religion:™* This “more specific content” may not fll into the sphere of religion. It does fll, however, into the sphere of philosophy. An unworlly philosophical theology which simply ‘ignored this more specific content would be opposed by a wisdom of the world which aimed at the conquest of externality in life, 8s well as by a philosophical wisdom ofthe world whi et the “more specie conten of} and faite sprit” above nitude by “altering the| categories audit can do to becuse the lnowloge of Ged] representation, i measly td ve tought. On te other dal pst seca. witht apeciltively tanslgpred fo thought of What semana ‘Hegel sums up all these conclusions in a remarkable statement, He weites: ‘The absolute Idea may be compared to the old man, who utters the same religious doctrines as the child, but for whom they signify bis ‘The child in contrast may understand the religious content ‘But all of life and the whole word sl.The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought Aypondic x Medieval Catholic and Modem Protestant Theology (Seep.a7a.) mt thought all too often (es In tion) daipetes the divine earl Presence into sheet felng ‘The Transfiguration of Faith into Philosophy a7 both devoid of cbjestive cantnt and divored from history, or (a In sccidntal aberrations, Medieval theology makes subservient to church authority and. preserves 724, 2448 2; sets. 4-6 ofthis chapter) Appendis 2 The Speculative Rise from the Human to the Divine Side of the Divine-Human Relation (See pgs.) ‘This interpretation is central to this chapter and, indeed, to our whole238 The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought ‘8 at once a producing and a recog th "God (and)... His ration to the world” (E ‘These three assertions (which mi not be understood at all unless for p Christian faith the two Trinities of Chr The Preservation of the Double Trinity in Speculative Thought (See p.208.) ef into Nature?” (See han by grasping all otherness asa divine telf-othering sophy of Religion can see the World as itudo~otber than,The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought The Transfiguration of Faith into Philosophy ‘only against Metterichstyle reactionaries but also romantiorevolutonary "German-Chrstan” nat eeged during the war of lberation, Ths later Appendix 4 ‘The Modern Secular-Protestant World (Seop.ans.) a pa ight to marry and trade, ced to wear a Jewish badge life would be one in 1 of my interpretation is wholly beyond the scope of would have to examine the Philsophy of Right in have to conced any such unity as un-Hogelian, this ee sfends (Rechtsphil., sect. 270) the ems ‘ ancient work the Jews (sil much enbeted in the German tates of his oe), nt Abhandingen[Statgut:Kabbsmne, 1960) Pas)The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought Conclusion: The Crisis of ema pol ontop of our he the Hegelian Middle It would be wrench idle nto ring extrome by the absurd view which would make all history end with a present actual state and into a Jeftwing extreme by a view leaving history simply open-ended because cular, would fragment all spinitphilosophy included-into eternal fitade, 1. Introduction re t the University of Beri, Hegel de but this of his Ystenere: “nu jn sane bel 'n Reason, self-confidence” Thess inal demands tan ot sata monumental, The seleconfdence is in a philosophic thos Which infinitely selactive. The science tobe tated “ones locked up esene ofthe universe And the Reaon ono une be lieve in snqt human only but inthe end, divine. For thor at one Reason, Thre isn second superhuman Reason, Renson tha Divine inman” ere ina ntl sth presumptuous ronal —nupposedly Presupposed frm the stat and hence dogmatic and mister: hich ha always boen widely regarded as 30 fundamental ee fense in the Hegelian philosophy as to make it urwertg at gos02 The Religious Dimension in Hegets Thought ‘Two further points may be ‘The Philosophy of Fight all sorts of commotion in and onto German head quietly keeps is ni (Werke, XV, p go. {Hict. PRL, entire Hegelian philosophy. to right-wing extreme by make all history end with a present fe and into a leftwing extreme by a view which, leaving ily open-ended because simply seeula, would fragment all spltphilosophy included—into eternal fnitude. Conclusion: The Crisis of the Hegelian Middle 1st poste to peak here of when th Kingdon bf God i fue faver ‘and th = 2. Introduction Tn his inaugual tecture at the Univesity of Berlin, Hegel d- ‘nanded intially but this of his Isteners: “trust in sianes, belie sn Reason, self-confidence”: These intial demands tum out to be toniumental. The selfconfdence i in a philosophic thought hich i nStelyselfsctiv. The science to he trusted “opens the locked up essence ofthe universe” And the Resson one must be. eve ins ngt human ony but, i the end, divine. For “thre is but no second super-human Reason, Reason isthe hell isthe presumptuous rationalism~supposedly presupposed from the start and hence dogmatic and arbitrary— Which has always been widely rogarded as so fundamental an of- fense in the Hegelian philosophy as to make it unworthy of serious * Abbreviations ate ited on pp245 a3204 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hege?s Thought consideration, But if the preceding investigation has shown any- philosophy is not arbitrary, and that its doubt- presumptuousness is matched by an equally , “science” can appear on the eason is divine only be- ‘boen revealed to be s0 by history, divine as well as hruman, philosophical as well as nonphilosophical. And the self ‘confidence of man is not in man only but in a Divinity at work ‘within him, Hegel’ initial demand of his Berlin is also, and at the same time, the “result” of several ‘But what if Hegel's appraisal of his own age, and hence ofall history, were radically mistaken? Or what if epoch-making even! wore to oceut which destroyed all gounds of the Hegelian est- rate, ether of modern secular freedom, or of modem Protestant faith, or of the inner bond between them? Our investigation has Teft inno doubs that this would fragment the middle of Hegel's t would shatter his “peace” between ‘ean anyone be in doubt that this possi- Abas bocome actual since Hegel’ time, if not in his own Ta, ‘deed, such are the crises which have befallen the Christian West inthe last half ‘may safely be sai that, were he alive today, 0 reals ‘opher as Hegel would not be a Hegelian. ‘What contemporary significance, then, attaches to the Hegelian philosophy? One possible answer is German idealism. This ‘Thomists, logical positivist, or linguistic philosophers of religion. Only two points can briefly be argued. First, the Hegelian pesce between Christian faith and philosophy is unsurpassabl marks the end of an era: if it fails, no similar effort can hope to ‘jucveed. Secondly, if the Hegelian enterprise does fail itis signif: Conclusion: The Crisis of the Hegelian Middle 295 ‘cant in its very failure. Much, if not most, important religious thought until today is post-Hlegelian in essence a i a, The Hegelian Philosophy as the Consummation of German Idealism ‘The first point is best made by an effort thus far deliberately avoided:* a summary account of Hegel's place within the whole jgned to show that his izes and unites all the system? Kantian “have courage to use, your oven reason" has become absolute in the Hegelian Logi. ‘Even within ts Kantian limitations reason is radical enough, far more vo than in tha Enlightenment thought which bas formshed not with his motto, Enlightenment reason may not submit to r- Ditrary extemal authorities, such as absolute monarchs, priests, tnd sacred tents exempt from eriiism, Tt does submit to the au- thority of both empirical fact without and sensuous inclination ‘oithin. Compared to so harmless rational freedom, the autonomy GF Kantian Feason is indeed revolutionary. Tt will recognize in reason only when it is self determined, Kantian season rejects-all ‘submissiveness because itis self-ctivity. Until teday one observes, specially inthe sphere of religious though, the contrast between The following generaiations can be substantited only tn “The C awit! eh le show tat Ye Rest26 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hege?’s Thought the heirg of Hume and those of Kant. Thus some of the former proclaim the “death” of God for the harmless reason that the word God" has no empirically verifiable meaning. Some of the latter— Marx, Nietzsche, Sartre, to name but a few—proc ‘on behalf and for the sake of a radically self-active human free- om. There can be no doubt as to which group of thinkers is more radical or religiously more significant 4 Even 30, Hegel radicaizes the Kantian reason. This latter re: {aint and human fr tsa om ty sel-activity except when “raised” ral not exclusively because the Reason in question clearly and unequivocal «philosophical Reason. Only the ined by philosophy, but also “ining This election results in the discovery tha, in recognizing [i its of the examined ssn, examing Rosson tani nese limits. Hegel's Logic completes this philosophical process, which i doubly-exaroining because attends to both the examined a the examining Reason. His work both recognizes and indeed presupposes the categories of Gite thought, and alters these cate ove so as to integrate them into the infinitely selfactive think ing which it performs Fai) But what would be a free Reason of any sort—Kantion or Hogelian-which is a mere philosophical assertion? No more than a groundless dogma and a ghostly abstr spread viw that such thinkers as Fiehte and Hes moans of pute season. This is of se their thought the most disastrous. Inthe minds of Conclusion: The Crisis of the Hegelian Middle 2a7 Kant and every one of his German idealistic successors, free philp-) sophical Reason must have what may be called an existent matrix, or Sifz fm Leben, in order to have reality of any kind, and In omdor to be furniched with what one may ferm experiential veri} fication.* The recognition ofthe need for such a matrix is built into every aspect of their thought: the Sitz im Leben of philosophic thought isa second theme with all these thinkers, additional to that, ‘of autonomous Reason. And this second theme is inextricably ‘woven with the fst “This assertion cannot here be demonstrated but onl Kantpproves the possiblity of moral freedom**—on the group the actuality of moral obligation. Fichte reeuacts in philosophic. ‘thought the absolute Ego, which posts the non-Ego: thi¢requires nce’ of the moral Ego which confronts the non-Ego, of its duty rendered sensuous” Schleiermacher as-. seits a philosophical “realism” that is “higher” than Fichte’s moral Idealism: he bases it on a religious feling of absolute dependence which discloses an actual, dependence. Schelling pats forward = philosophical “r composed of philosophies of nature and conscioumess: this reabidealism but reenaets in conscious thought what is already unconsciously enacted in life, coming to consciousness in the work of art. Of each of these pre-Hegelian thinkers itis true, to use Kantian Ianguage, that human life sup plies the ratia_cognoscendi of a truth of philosophic thought, whereas philosophical thought discovers the ratia_essendi of af truth of nonphilosophic life.t , peily ch sect 8 Cndontood i an emp ‘orp sense: TG imply inclder—though Kant Maslf barely attends tor yen t= eo fila og wl at TThs theme still dominates such 2 twentieth gus Sein und Zot See ny atic, The Histo spi Th Poet othe SecenhInerAmeron Congr of28 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought embroiled in a notorious controversy over atheism, ‘The Hegelian philosophy radicalizes not only-the Kantian auton- mous reason. It radicalizes, as well, the Kantian and post-Kantian search for an existential matris of philosophic thought. And in this process it is driven into @ unique philosophical confrontation with e existential matrix in that he longer adequate to exalt one Conclusion: The Crisis of the Hegelian Middle 209 his Idealism comes to make allencompassing demands which ae unprecedented ‘These consequences, and their interrelation, are mot readily seen inthe demand in which the entre Hegelian philosophy hich all cows are black” Ngr tet by asurender of thought Ife: this wold be the reduction life or shipwrecked by it. Such a thought activity would forever crise from a lie required as it basis and presupposition, it would y i and=because the result ‘toward union and thus toward philosophic thought; and on ‘whether philosophic thought can so move toward life as to encom- pass nonunjon rather than merely “shun it... in monkish fashion.”230 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel’ Thought ‘The Hogelian idealistic claim to comprehensiveness ix radically misunderstood unless seen as united with a realistic self-exposure to the contingencies of the actual world. there is in fact such an indissoluble union of realism and ‘may be corroborated by the contrast between Hegel and his predecessors. Precisely because these Jatter a than seonque As for un ‘ideal asserted by pl only excepted—are mature, Hegel ‘surprise~in an encount (Chuistianity which is philosophies ‘unseconstructed. His predece Conclusion: The Crisis of the Hegelian Middle ag rofashion the Christian faith in their own philosophic image, and | this is true of the Early Theological Writings as well. The mature Hegel, taking existing religion and indeed all existence seriously, hhas made an astounding discovery. The religious life of man did not have to wait for philosophic thought, or for purification by philosophic thought, in orjer to be redeemed from nonunion, dis yet wholly conquered, ‘onunion already actual in whole, Increasing involvement with historical Chris ‘no accident in the philosophy of Hegel’s maturi 1 lapse into reaction due to resignation or old age. It is part and parcel of that realism which distinguishes the mature Hegelian {idealism from all others. Nor is this involyernent on Hegel's part a betrayal ‘Reasap or freedom. bounds of reason, ly (Christianity only by either ignoring or denying its claims to vealed status.* Hegel at once accepts the paradoxical revelatio of God in Christ and dares comprehend it in philosophical thought. (i) For all the preceding reasons ten together, Hegel ef forced to confront history—the fourth major theme all German| © This is one of several major frues over which cesses mae an inaediate bre with Kant’ Kant never attempted, and. could rot have tttempted to fonsh «ert of revelation. Yt such ithe Ue of Fick na292 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought ther for Kant or his successor che matrix of philosophical th: torical existence." History can nevertheless remain peripheral so long as the matrix of philosophic thoughts less than all dimensions ‘of human life, and so long as the relation between life and philo- sophie thought has not become the central issue. Philosophie thought must presumably erupt somewhere in life. But so long as sd matrix—Kantian or Fichtean m son why it might not equally erupt anywhere. For Hegel, phil ‘ophy cannot equally erupt anywhere; indeed, it cannot simply cezupt Philosophy cangot equally erupt anywhere: the whole of life fs subject development, and this is true als. Christian faith, Philosophy cannot simply erupt unbr able chasm may remain between comprehending thought and the ‘comprehended life from which it arises. This is why the rise of CCluistinity alqne does not suffce'to make the time ripe for its pphilosophife comprehension, What must exist prior to such compre- hension, in addition to the Christian cont 1 thought. therefore, be said thatthe actual existence of one spe- cifichisercal word isthe cardinal condition wthout which by ts tion admission and insistence, the Hegelian philosophy cannot reach ts ultimate goal. This specie world may be clled—with {feservations-the modern bourgens Protestant work* Thi “In the present ral contest we feel fre tas he ter “bourgel” which inthe previows expository contest (See ch, 6 sect. s.) we have deib- ately void The ten has nowndays mostly negtive connotation, and in Conclusion: The Crisis of the Hegelian Middle Kingdom of God, which is eternal. As regards its secular aspect, i is the varied manifestations of free modern rationality. These range from modem natural science through modern_m moder sjate, and they are all free or rational because ideal -—are inadequate so long + They become adequate, hen they make the mod- heaven into a modern less pictism unless this heart demands free worldly action as its authentic secular ex- the bounds of all finite reality and yet leaves it et ‘mented by reality: thus its free doing of what forever yet remains tobe done points to what Divinity has already done, i, toa divine acting merely appropriated by a receptive faith. 3. The “Discordant Note” ‘What if the modern bourgeois, Protestant world were lacking in either spirit or power o, to use Hegelian language, what i it were234 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought "merely eating withot beng actigl? What if its achievements | were fagmentary or indeed wholly fraudulent? Ho ignore or thy away fom these question. His to confront them, and—as if to confound gb biogaphers-not only when the high hopes aroused by the French revolution had Tong become mere memory and he himself old and resigned, bron various occasions in bis carer gel never despazed of the modem bourgeois, Protestant (sort Hence be nver faced upto the elect of such despa upon is thought. But hed peosive severe strain in hs contemporary sword, Moreover asain he responded tothe ith an alt gether staring tum of thought tog py ogee cri at a passing away.” Philosophy cannot in a state of deoay. “The disco was unity has vanished from modern Hegel atte this decay in large measure ta the work of "re {aection” The modem Understanding as fragmented immediate Conclusion: The Criss of the Hegelian Middle 235 splstual nity, and its stork not only in modem sience but and~although t coos ‘evidence in Hegel's time—in modem tech- nology. Many of Hegel's contemporaries responded to these forces ‘with a futile fight into a romanticized past. Hegel accepts ccangot? the discordant note remains. And=so! ie thought has na choice but to beppme by philosophers who are an’ edible, what a shattering turn of thought! The en~ Philosophy may be viewed as one vas fort to stay) iodern Christian world, in contrast t pagan derstand that the Hogelian philasophy too is, 4 The Grisis of Hegelianism and Post-Hegelian Thought In the early nineteenth century, this question could still remain marginal. Were Hegel alive today, he ‘inescapable. On the one hand, obscurely and intermittently 4s « Christian, can no longer rising world which is non-Western, non-Christian and nonv he exists in a post-Christian world. On the other hand, our secular296 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hege?s Thought “world too is postmodern; for the old modem Western s ence has been shaken to the_core in this oe Stars ave destroyed Europe's spiritual hegemony, The Western tere which hae produced the idea ofthe freegom ofall as also Glosshed foroes which would dehemanize and make slaves of all. ‘And philosophical, sociological, and psychological skepticism tieulate, or even aggravate, the widespread failure o! sina single sphere-sciene and scientific techpok ives, and even he ‘and Hiroshim: ed ith “yotld the Hegelian philosophy would be forced to 2 inte ght from Imperial Rome, Only XE as a serene unity of thought free of preceding investigation has demon- Stated anythiog, is that, inthe light of Hegel's declared central itontions sucha resort to light would be tantamount to radical | What then, i the elect of this inevitable falare upon post {Hegelian thought? One possible answer is: there is no essential elect, for the Hegelian philosophy, and indeed the ideal tion which it completes, is a mere episode in the history of thought-an aberration which deserves to be forgotten. At {the sphere of religious thought this answer is not convincing, for fone can deny neither the existence of a uniquely modem secular~ religious problem, nor the significance Jian attempt to cope with it. Th lever pretends | that the modern secula mn imp ‘nor ean he simply abide jn the moder world by premodern, but now undermined, sacred thorties. It is equally in_yain that modern secular culture pre- ug peutality. Tt cannot simply let_go of the old fo autonomy and hence must-unless it comes to ‘and the God of faithitself make quasi. pseudo, Conclusion: The Crisis of the Hegelian Middle 237 ‘Again, a philosophic shought which simp] bypass, as well, the whole modem se Tor example, of seleatific and cal positivism at the one extreme, is the| other, For the one merely ignores the challenge of faith while jence or empiricist skepti- lly questionab bypasses the modern secula all competence to contribute to its solution. Thus present-day Tinguinte pilosophy of religion is prpne to protest is nests] toward all substantial issues, and ostensibly confines itself to the! tnere. analysis of religious language. Such a neutralist program, ‘were philosophic thought actually to abide by it, would demand the indiscriminate analysis of any and every zeligious language! spurious, obscurantist, and anachronistic as well as genuine and live. Philosophy can never be so neutral, and the humility of much present philosophy is a mere mock:humilty, disguising failure of philosophic nerve. ‘What, then, if the Hegelian philosophy is no mere aberration? Tn Hegelian language, does a “result” follow from the “process” of its failure? A result certainly follows if staying close to Hegel's ‘own thought, one dwells on the fight into which, today, it would t must result in a judgment upon either the thought, Both these possibilities became, ‘The first is actual, for example, in Bradleian idealism. Here philosophic thought flees from the world simply because it i the world. The Hegelian difference between the ancient pagan + Dietrich Bouhoeffercrtsaes Karl Barth's “positivist doctrine of revela- in lft, ve Letters ond Pepers from “p26.) ‘This jostfed oem, howe rom disposing, nevorthedoxy ‘ul be the very few fomnths we can here make on this subject.‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought Conclusion: The Criss of the Hegelian Middle 239 deen Christian world has become, so far as philosophic History tums out to be, to philosophic truth as wve asserted: the dualism end ofall past metaphysics even as 1 initiates a new. The nov, metaphysics fs a thought which remains bound to existing, man and his world even as it seeks the transcending comprehension of both. "The destiny of philosophic thought under such circumstances depends on the condition of man and his world, and on the philo- Sophie interpretation of that condition, Both may move far from Hegelianism. But two. opposite possibilities, both stil alive, result 1 immediately from the ersis of Hegel’s own thought. Despairing of Hegels modern bourgeois, Protestant world, philosophic thought may hold fast to his modern secular freedom, or to his} modem, Protestant faith. ‘ “The first has occurred in such le and Marx, For these, lke for Heg: the last of all gods who exhausts all religious poss like for Hegel this God does not redeem man but preserves and Indeed aggravates his alienation; and this is precisely because He remaing God, ie, other-than-buman. Hence this last God points to a radically postreligious future, and the bourgeois, Protestant) human freedom already actual points to a radically secular dom which is yet to become actual. Both will be produced by the most decisive ofall acts, which is at once the negation of divine) otherness by the human and a radical sel-efirmation of the human. On the grounds of such a tur of thought, fs fs preserved and indeed transfigured by the death of God for responsible, and so is free philosophic thought. At fa the Chistian God is Such a right-wing tum, then, leav the phi thought is to stay with the wosld from the world is the mark of parti tum on such grounds discloses tha ‘need of an existential matrix, and ‘Kantian philosophy (in which this need frst finds radically ex Jnt in the history of Western meta- recogaiti physics.° As for He, yphy, ite significance is then CChaistian content deprives both t lying in its very failure. ‘pre-Kantian metaphy postreligi to stay with the world; like pre-Kantian metaphysics it see thought, ofall hopes to final 1 tionary and bourgeois no longe riso to eternity: and it cannot do both. And this failure marks the y the forever fragmented herald’ Ms fast to Hegels mod40 ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought (ilty-if the faith is in a God who enters into and stays with the Iworld, not in a God who, indifferent to the world, force faith into \ight from it, This possibility, however, depends on ong crucial condition. The God whom faith represents as other-than-man and {his world must remain inthis otherness, even while entering into the world, visdvis both modem,secular freedom and modem philosophic thought. He is not judged by contemporary secular or eligiou fragmentation but, on the judges the contem- ous works, as much as the end, all idolatrous. As for the philosophic thought which stays with such a faith, it must accept this judgment upon modern secularity, as well as, in an act of foundering, repent of its own pretensions to infinity. ‘Such a philosophic thought, to be sure, recognizes the represen- onal form of faith. But it can no longer hope to rise through et anad aegis he dhe eo Se ane eran ee eee nee (te y's Enkogdan initio, and de |e ugh up dima elon poi one {Gatpaption be The Cojwho le thershan ou ferrelgons coat at in. There is no greater attempt than the God of the philosophers with the God of Ab: ec he fgal€ are that he t fl ral = ‘anally apart “Must post Hegelian religious thought remain at chese starkly opposed extremes? Recent developments suggest that they repre- Set onesie protests and temporary neces, not permanent "possiblities. Conclusion: The Crisis of the Hegelian Middle ap ‘Thus it is instructive to consider the fate of nineteenth century ~ in the process virtually each, thinker accused his predecessors of Aisipating concrete. man info unreal abstractions. This proces) utopians; and Nietzsche's Overman is afar more unresl myth-2ad, one infinitely more daogerous~than all past transcendent gods: By the standards of Hege!s own thought, such forms of post- Hegelian atheism are one-sided! prlatly followed by the poste Sartre and Camus, whose realism resist all temptations to make rman divine. No less instructive is what, for want ofa better word, may be called pon Hegelian neogrthodony. Kierkegaard’ potest against} the modern world and the modern church is a necessity; yet, were? this protest to become frozen it would tum into an unbiblial un- worldiiness which is against Kierkegaard’s innermost intentions and, by his ow confession, his persnal conflict between his wo Regina-remains unresolved only because of] gin, Karl Barth must say "No" tothe word of 1¢ Word of God, forthe two remain incommen- | surable, But he cannot remain with a sheer No, lest the God once + present in the world now be dissipated into a mere memory. As Martin Huber teaches, the meeting ofthe Divine and the human occurs, iit occurs at al, non a separate sphere cut off from the ‘world It occurs in the world in which men meet each other. ! ‘These developments indicate that philosophic thought must rave beyond the extreaes of partisan commttments, and grope foraye ‘The Religious Dimension in Hegel Thought what may be called a fragmented middle. This is not to suggest Tevival ofthe Hegelian philosophy. But it isto suggest that ‘ing can no longer expect, o: eve satisfaction. Yet it is not doomed ‘unvanguishable. Currently, the metap mocked, denied and obscured by a fight wholly at pected as that men, in order not al should ever prefer not to breathe at Abbreviations Hogelian Works Werke” Werke; Voletindige Aus Phin. Phinomenologie des Geistes, ed. meister (Hamburg: Meiner, 1952 Phen. The Phenomenology of (London: Allen & Unwin, 2993 asRechtspil Th. J. Sehr. E.Th.We Pha. Ht is Hist, Phil inl. Geach, Phil Phil. Rel Dokumente Bln, Schr Briefe Abbreviations Wissenscheft dor Logik ed. Georg Lasson, and ed. (Leipeig: Meiner, 2992), _Enzyklopsidie der philosophischen Wissens ‘ed. Friedhelm Nicolin and Otto Poggeler Dburg: Meiner, 1959) nn der Philosophie les Rechts, ed. Coorg ‘eipzig: Meines, 1912), ‘Theologische Jugendschrften, ed. Hermann Noh] (Tubingen: Mohs, 1907) Early Theological Writings, tans."T- M. Knox and Richard Kroner (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1948). Philosophy of History, trans. J Sree (New York: Colonial Press, 1899). History of Philosophy, trans, E.S. Haldane (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Tribner & Co, 3892-95) lesungen tiber dle Geschichte der Philosophie. ing: System und Geschichte der Philoso- {Johannes Hoffmeister (Leipzig: Meines, Lectures onthe Philosophy of Religion, trans. EB. Speirs and J.B. Sanderson (London: Kegan Paul, ‘Trench, Trlbner, 1895). Dokumente =u Hegels Entwicklung, ed. Johannes Hoffmeister (Stuttgart: Frommann, 1936) Berliner Schriften, ed. Johannes Hoffmeister (Hamburg: Meiner, 1956), Briefe con und an Hegel, of. Johannes Hofmeister and Rolf Flechsig (Hamburg: Meiner, 1956-80). Abbreviations 45 Secondary Sources Karl Rosenkranz, Hegels Leben, Supplement 2 Hegels Werken” (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1844) HL Hegel-Lezikon, ed. Hermann Glockner (and ed.; Stuttgart: Fromann, 2957). lm G.R.G. Mure, An Introduction to Hegel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940). G.R.G. Mure, A Study of Hegels Logic (Oxford: Clarendon Pres, 2950) “The God Within: The Religious Thou ht, Sheamacher nd Seheling Hegels Leben mn. This praction is Hower, a the case af Bn. (exp fo the Za) ae ‘in German, bof Rechiph.2. Introduction 1, Hegels Leben, pat 1, Human Experience and Absolute Thought: ‘The Central Problem of Hegets Philosophy “Difleronz des Fichteschen tnd Scbellingschen Systems der Phi- Notes for Pages 27 to.27 247 On Bln. Schr. pp.a9 ft. See Dieter H “Hogels ‘Theorie ber den ee ch, , sect. 8 and apper ingency as is posible in these pa ‘pas7. Unlike the Nietzchean death of God, is followed by a divine resurrection, see ch. 5, ‘Philosophical Truth, Not decide whether setting or whether philosophy within Ge 11, See ch. 3, Sects. 2 12, See ch. 5, sect. 2; ch ‘Soh ee also. Werke, is the Identity of sunderstanding, in the main a result of positi preconceptions, is also shared by Marasts has been shown Miller, “The Hegel Legend of “Thesis, Antithesis and Syn28 Notes for Pages 28 10 34 Journal of the History of tes, XIX (3958), 411-14. On the relation ott conveniently, Richard "4. ‘This phase. virtually ched to Hegel by Thomists as well as jeing and Some Philosophers 3. The “Ladder” to the Standpoint of Absolute Knowledge pp, 58 (Phen. pp.7 Fichte, Werke (Bern: sungen dber 3: See all of ch. 4 2. [istory of philosophy for “sci sph are in the Introduction, Tntroduction introduces the Notes for Pages 35 10.47 in the preceding two Phen., especially Werke, IX (Phil. Hist), 17. For the preceding, soe Phin, pp.aq6-s4 (Phen, pp.234-40). Shown conceming Stoiciem, Phin, BP.S43. 583 (Phen., pp.503, 752.) In Enz, sect. 432 Zus. (Werke, VII 2, pp.28g 8. the life-and-death battle for prestige tl impor 19. Phin, p.gi4 (Phen, p.4s8),Notes for Pages 48 to 58 [Notes for Pages 59 t0 72 281 major division titled “Spit.” (Phan, pp- ao. Phin, p.aa8 (Phen, pare) “hial but newtbianatiactny radon of Hoge | thatthe Hogelan mening wil emerge ‘rom the pe senenpurpose On the Hegtan distinction bet ie (Stdidhkat) in the Piloophy of ght Ppa p79-129 (Phen, pp.a4g-233). 38. Phan, pag (Phen. p.2ig) 39. Phan. p.178 (Phen. (Phin, pp.275-3) th most dated an regards its det the section in the work as a whole is lear enough, 40. Phin, p49 (Phon, ps2) 41 bid Iny Metaphysics and Historicity (961), pP-55 #. Hegel himself ‘emerged only with left-wing Hegetian- 3. See sock. 6 ofthis chapter. 42. Phan, p.gza (Phen, pp.609 29. Phin, pp.a73 . (Phen. pp-685 ff). 45, Phin, paso (Phen, 630), staes added, Hegel here teats a. Ibid 3s philosophy, but asthe articulation ofthe “moral 25, Ibid. 28. Seo below, all of chs. 5 and 6, and particularly ch. 6, sects. 2 raph are Phin, pp-4a4, sed in Phin. pp.445-72 47. Phi, pots 461 48. The pasrages referred to pps Phin, pasa giver 8 cique 1d philosophical sect 2. 483 f. (Phen., pp.699 ‘both Jewish’ and Pers yng these two even then. In any case, red, fomanticsm, see ch. sects, 2 and 4; ch 6, sect. 2c). “40. Phin, pp-472 (Phen, pp.677&.) ets 6 and 7. 32 Phin, p.so2 ‘doctines sketched al “Revealed Relig gion"), Phin, pp.sat—48 (Phen, pp-750-85). We ty at length ch, 5s ‘presupposition, see ch. 5, especially sects 3 iss, se ch. 6, sects. 1-4 ction focuses attention on “Spit Certain-of Itself: MoralNotes for Pages 73 0 80 the Phen, breaks apart into fragments which no longer add up to an luction” to scence. 59. Werke, XI, p.6q (Phil. Rel, I, p65). 4. The Hegelian Middle 12, See, eg, Enz, sect 246 (Werke, VIL x, Notes for Pages 80 0 83 development of philosophical supposition and condition. But th thing, itself these can no longer appear as bass. The bass is be the necessity of the Notion. ‘which he explicitly refers ‘expression in the context of aesthetic disco y/s otherwise worthy Hegel: ‘& Unwin, 1958) is its fathure to254 Notes for Pages 86 t0 88 ing doctrines willbe tatement on Fichtean ide 3g, had placed philosophy {dental philosophy, Since he whol for Hegel found such a plal charge Hegel with a “vast dogmatism” of a simply presupposed and simply seléconfrmning alhembracing rationalism. (Die Philosophie des Notes for Pages 89 to 93 255 hers, (See, eg, Wolfgang Albrecht, Hegels Gottesbewels (Ber sects. 6 and 7 of of Schelling’ turn tic “positive” philorophy. This will be dealt with in the ions of "T. G. W."; soe also my articles cited in ch. 2,256 Notes for Pages 94 to 108 20. CF. and relate (among many others) these passages: Logik J, pp. 5, 19, 45. (Logic, 1, pps, 32. OF, this remarkable ps liready cited: “I raise myself in thought to the Absoluto... thas being infinite consciousness; yet at the same time I am finite consciousness 1.64 (Phil. Rel, 1, pp.63. the resolation ‘of this struggle 3 work wholly inadequate, 9. See ch. g, sect. 4, and chs. § and 6, ‘39, The passages quoted or refered to in the last four paragraphs are all found in Enz, sect. 246 Zus. (Werko neither in HL nor in any Hegel-index Ihave coneulted, ‘36. Bln, Schr, .26, 37. See, eg, Ens, sects, 2296, 2968, 574; Logik I, p6 (Logic, p36). 2 and g of this chapter. What soemed then a hopeless has now emerged as a coherent doctrine Notes for Pages 110 0 233 44, Seo, og, Ens, sects. 554 and 574 45. See ch 7, soc. 4 48. The decisive question left unanswered in this chapter will be rered any in ch. 6, sects. 4-6 and appendices and 4 to tha chap ter. On the ers ofthe Hegelan middle see ch 7 ects 9 and 4 5. The Religious Basis of the Absolute Philosophy 2. Ens. second preface (Werke, VI, pps); also Werke, XI, pax (Phil. Rel, 1, pag). 2. Seo ch. a, sect. 3 Karl Barth, From Rousseau to ‘its (London: SCM Press, Pp.268-305. (Published in the United States as Protestant Thought from Rousseou 10 Ritschl (New York: Harper, 1959). 5. Werke, P55 ‘matters in the case of piety i ts co maintained content.” Whether Hegel does justice to Schleier aches actual teaching is « qustion which wil be ‘dealt with In G.W. fr represeatation (Vorstel- ‘orlesungen diber die Philo- a, Eg, Werke, XI, pp204 ff; XII, pp.g84f. (Phil. Rel, 1, ppa2io f; II, ppb.)Notes for Pages 124 t0 138 1, ppt fy ved by Hegel Werke, X1, pp.206 ff, 239; XII, p.4og (Phil. Rel ay. Seok. 7, page m BB. See, eg, Werke, XI, pp.gof 167 hs XIL, pp-oss&. (PAIL 2f pp204, 210 ff). 26, Werke, XI ‘ough is given by Nat Jewish Social Studies, X) ‘30. On the former, see ch. a7 (Phi 257) Phi. Rel, 1, pp.288 5 1, ch. 6 sect. 2(a) and (b). ‘34, Werke, XII, pp.276, 291 (Phil Rel, 11, pp-66, 82). 138. See below, ch. 6, sect. 2(a) Notes for Pages 140 t0 16 'pp.905 & (Phil. Rel, I, pp.g7 f.) pp272d, 285, ag8f. (Phil. Rel, 1, pp.62., ‘Theological Writ- ry Chadwick ( + psi f Lesing’s th by Schelling and Kierkegaard, see my segaard, Concluding Un- scientific Postscript sh Phi, 180. p.g08. and especially pp.ag6 f pp.226 fs 1, 190). For the crucial phlo ieance of the characteristic of Christian cul page). 52. Seed ‘and especially 5, A preliminary discussion ‘as given above, ch. 3, sects. $ and 6preliminary because the Notion ‘was then only asserted and not yet developed. 53 See ch. 6, 54. Werke, XIL, pp.2a7. (Phil. Rel, 1M, pp.2o f.). 6. The Transfiguration of Fatth into Philosophy 1. Enz, second preface (Werke, VI, pp f.). Of also Werke, XI, Pay '2, See, eg., Werke, XII, pp.gsa ff. (Phil. R 148); Phin, ppg 554 (Phen, p74, 705); Bos st. 579: Einl. Gesch. Phil, pal ‘3 Einl. Gesch, Phil, ps7260 Werke, 5. Set 447). Hegel cha scribes evil as “the perversion af good, See also Wer sects 6 and 7. (a 4. Phin, p.482 (Phen. p.6g7). See also Bil. Gesch. Phil, p.286, P95 f. (Hit. especialy sect. 6 6: See ch 4, especially sec. 8 lies added; of ch. 4, 9. Phan, pas (Phen., p87). Cf. Werke, IX, p.sas (Phil. Hist, the meaning of ilosophie thought would scribed as being on their feet. See also ch, 5, sect. 1. 20 f. 12, Soe, eg., the careful statement deliberately placed clote to the eg pp. 29688 to move in separate spheres ication of nctes in the f cited ierter XV, p46 (Hat Phils Hh, png). Om his pn, Hegel's mature thought with his E. Th. Wr, which Notes for Pages 161 t0 168 In religion man places I pp.8Hl. (Phil Rel, 1, p.7). Cf ch. 4, 24); Ein. Gesch. Phil, p.au7 also Werke, XU, pp.ss0 ft. (Phi Ise peace” for religion and pl Notes for Pages 168 to 180 261 3.79, 195)3 Werke, XI, Werke, XIV, p.516, XV, pp fl. (Hist. Phil, Werke, XV, pp.7o f. (Hist. Phil, Ui, pp-4so. 352 XIV, pp.42, 62, 78, 63, 102 (Hist, Phil, sect. 8.) ‘24. Werke, XI ee De Civ. Dei, book X, eb. xix, 25, See, og., Werke, XII, p.273 (PI 26. Werke, XV, pp.i00 ff. (Hist. Phil 1 45). See » pp2i8 29, Werke, XV, pp.iga f, 153, 277 (Hist P 94) ‘30. Werke, XV, pp.ag4 i. (Hi ly important and much-neglected Leo- tence of God, Werke, 67). Hegel deals lowing pass ff Logic, I, pps ferke, XV, pp. 426, 397, 484 (Hist. PI262 Notes for Pages 181 to 190 38. Werke, XV, ppaa7, 489 (H a9. Werke, XV, psoo (iit. XV, pp.soo fi, 552 8 350, 407 f.) added. p-424 fl, 478). 1, pp.2g0, 248, ). Fichto’s pp.496 f.). ppsai fi.) psa) 1.320). Schelling’ doo bby Greek religion , ppaagtl, 124i, ag7 ff, 14668 (Phil 2H, 150). See ch, 5, sects, 2-4. 25, 661, 204 2g2 f. (Phil p23, 658, a10f, 237 50. CE Werke, X1, ppaigr ff. (PI pp Soff. (Phil. Rel ‘worship tho sun, Notes for Pages 192 to212 59. See, 64, Werke, XI, pp.r21 f, 208 ff. (Phil. R ff) see, eg, Werke, XI, pars (PI 68, Werke, XI, p76 (Phil. Rel 69, See ch. 5, sect 74. Enz, sect. 552. 75, See also ch 3, secs. § a 76. See further, appendix 4 ot italics 78. Hoga Leben, pas 8, Werke, XI, pase (Phil Rel 84. See pazo and. 79, 60. Werke, XI, pp.ga fl. (Phil. Rel, , pp.g3 f.). Hege such is not expelled by philorephy.” Rel. -hp77) chapter added. The pa Wr. p38. 199, 2050, arf, 218, 223 5 UL, (Werke, introduction to B. Th. Wr, p38. 263 pase, tween Jowish pain end Roman unhappiness,Notes for Pages 212 t0 240 Enz. sect. $73, tales added, Ene, sock 297 Zan, (Werke, VI p.4og) 7. Conclusion: The Crisis of the Hegelian Middle 5. Kant, “What is Enlightenment?” On History, ed, L.W. Beck (New York-Indianapolis: Library of Liberal I of this paragraph are all ‘is not accidental that toward the end of Phil. Rel. Hegel 5 f.); also Einl. Gesch. Phil, pp. © my "Schelling’s Concoption of Positive Philosophy” (Review of ‘Notes for Pages a4o to.242 2653 Metaphysi 954], S634.) and “Schelling’ Philosophy of Re- ligion” (Unicersty of Toronto Querterly, XX [1952], 1f.). This sub- ject will also be dealt with in "TG, W- 33, A now rapprochement is attempted by Paul Tillich, see, eg, his Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality (Chi would appear to be not seem that he ever reaches total cart cerning the and history and the history ls of Kierkegaard, trans. and ed. Alexander Dru London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1959), p.223; f. Martin Buber, Between ‘Man and Man (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955), p57. rolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, trans, Paul Carus (La Open Court, 1947), page.ternal, as play of Lave by ecto 208,217Index etre: animal desire as part of human ase tora Hote rom 39Phiowohy. Hoge Tous “rah eich, 2960 BED.274 Index — marl pd aban, 9, 73-72. Sog to Piloopy Hegel