Hegel - Raymond Plant

(Originally written April 22, 2006 in Book 1)

Hegel
Raymond Plant
1999

The importance of Hegel:

Hegel is still influential in philosophy, political and social theory, aesthetics, philosophy of history, theology and the philosophy of religion (which is this particular book's focus).

Karl Löwith states that Hegel is the philosopher of the bourgeois Christian world.

Hegel saw his work as systematic, thus concentrating on a single field without recognizing it as a part of the whole would misconstrue his philosophy.

Life & Development:

Born in 1770, in Stuttgart. Educated at the Stuttgart Gymnasium, then at Tübinger Stift (a famous Swabian theological seminary). He wanted to be a Lutheran pastor or an honorationen.

Supported the French Revolution from Tübinger. Lived with Hölderlin (a poet) and Schelling (a philosopher) while at Tübinger.

Concerned himself with fragmentation and brokenness of man's relationship to God, to nature and to society.

Instead of following his aspirations he took up a tutoring position in Bern. He left Bern to move to Frankfurt with Hölderlin then took a position at the University of Jena with Schelling.

Napoleon closed Jena and Hegel took an editor job at the Bamberg Gazette, a Catholic paper.

Hegel left the position at the paper to become the Rector of the Grammar School in Nuremberg, where he was charged with the job of shifting education away from the Catholic based teachings to a humanistic approach.

Hegel left the school to become the chair of philosophy at Heidelberg in 1816. In 1818 he moved to the University of Berlin to be its chair of philosophy and perform the same reform as he did at Nuremberg.

He died suddenly in 1831.

Fears of Fragmentation:

Hegel, Hölderlin and Schelling developed a fear of "division and fragmentation in modern life and in particular the bifurcation between man and God; between man and society, between man and nature and indeed the division within the individual's own personality" (Plant, 11) while at the Tübinger Shift.

The rediscovery of Greek culture by the Germans in the 18th century and its concept of all life being unified set the stage for Hegel's fear of fragmentation.

Hegel was inspired by the Greek unified life. He saw it as how man could fully reach his potential and become a whole man.

Hegel saw Christianity as being a polar opposite to Greek life. Greek life embraced this world; whereas a Christian's true home was in heaven, not on earth.

"Our religion [Chrisitanity] wishes to educate men to be citizens of heaven who always look on high and this makes them strangers to human feeling" (Plant, 13-14).

He saw Christianity as a private religion, unconcerned with social and moral unity in a community.

Hegel saw the modern world could not return to the Greek way of life because of Christianity and the rise of individualism. Hegel wished to reinterpret Christianity as a folk religion so it could provide a basis for common life.

Jesus' ministry was a failure in Hegel's view because the disciples understood God in too Jewish of a context. "Instead of following Jesus in teaching a general message about the reconciliation of the divine and the human in all life, this reconciliation was understood to be achieved in Jesus alone" (Plant, 17).

Towards Philosophy:

Hegel sought to rework Christianity by combining rationality and mythology.

"Bifurcation is the source of the need for philosophy" (Plant, 21).

Philosophy provides the interpretation of human experience and existence.

The self must be understood in relation to family, economics, politics, art, religion and philosophy. If it is not the theory of mind will be overly rationalistic and unlivable.

A theory of mind must be a unification of self and its relationship with activities the individuals engage in.

Hegel believed philosophy must be systematic.

Philosophy must provide the basis for all modes of social life and show how they are interconnected.

Hegel's view of philosophy being a 'meta-narrative' that provides an interpretation of all the forms of human experience is opposed by post-modern philosophers who celebrate fragmentation.

Hegel's view is troubling to the analytic tradition. Analytic philosophers believe that logic is relative to the facet of life it is being used to. Thus, fragmentation is not only desirable, but necessary.

Hegel also believed that philosophy must be historical.

The historical development was teleological for Hegel. It was a rational process that leads to the ultimate goal of attaining Absolute Knowledge.

Absolute Knowledge occurs when all the shapes of human life, in terms of their historical development and their connections are understood.

History, for Hegel, was not a series of discontinuous contingent events. It was the structure of development. This development is what Hegel called the dialectic.

The dialectic was the "process in which an account of how forms of life develop is embodied. Forms of social life, whether religious, political, artistic or social have organizing principles or forms of ethos. The process of dialectical development shows how in human history one form turns into another because contradictions are revealed in previous forms. Previous forms are not lost... rather what is true in them... is carried over into a richer and deeper form of life (Plant, 25).

Humans often do not realize Absolute Knowledge because they merely understand thing in and of themselves and disregard their connections. The level of understanding (Absolute Knowledge) must be used to reach the level of reason (the dialectic). This level of understanding is the Vorstellung. This level of Reason is the Begriff.

History is not accidental in Hegel's account.

The organizing principle of human existence becomes concrete in nature, in history, in human society, in art, in religion and in philosophy through the actions of God being united with human life. This is what Hegel called the "Absolute Idea".

When the absolute idea is embodied in the interconnections of human life it becomes Spirit. When the Spirit is fully comprehended it becomes Absolute Spirit.

"God as he is in himself before the foundation of the world is transformed by Hegel into the Absolute Idea" (Plant, 27).

"The philosophical understanding of the rationality of human experience and history is equivalent to the incarnate life of God, or the embodiment of the Absolute Idea. Absolute Knowledge is the transcription of the religious idea of the role of the Holy Spirit when we have a comprehensive understanding of the indwelling of God in this process."

For Hegel, religion became a rational system of understanding human existence based on reason, not faith. Religion is one stepping stone on the path to Absolute Knowledge.

Hegel claimed that his philosophy was a true transcription of Christianity.

Religion:

Religion was a vital part of Hegel's philosophy. Christianity was Hegel's religion, albeit a highly interpreted form of it.

The Concept of God:

Hegel did not believe it was impossible for man to state something true about the nature of God because of man's finitude and God's infinitude. (Contra to Kant, Jacobi, and Schleiermacher). He rejects this belief because it makes God hollow and all one can then know is that God is.

"God is" is an abstraction of a supreme being, but when God is cognized we have a representation with content.

Hegel rejects the view of God's nature being unknowable for:
-Hegel's view of consciousness (consciousness is the level of awareness that this view gives us of the knowledge that God is) requires interaction with other beings. Therefore, if we are conscious of God it is because man's consciousness and God's consciousness have come into contact.
-Hegel sees the study of history and of the physical world as the study of the very nature of God.

"God is not to be considered in abstraction, for that is not possible" (Plant, 34)

Creation:

Hegel rejects the concept that God is complete in and of himself. He rejects this view because it leads to the belief that God created the world on a mere whimsical notion. Hegel's notion of consciousness being necessarily connected with other consciousness naturally leads him to this concept of creation.

Hegel views the world as the self-disclosure of love by God and the embodiment of freedom.

Incarnation:

The Incarnation of Hegel, is a "representation in religious form of the conceptual truth about the nature of God as consciousness and subjectivity" (Plant, 37).

It is the necessity of God to externalize Himself and manifest His consciousness in the world. The Incarnation was a necessity because "only what exists in an immediate way, in inner or outer intuition, that is certain. In order it [this divine human unity] to become a certainty for humanity, God has to appear in the world in the flesh" (Plant, 38).

A quote from Hans Küng: "Jesus is the revelation of that God man which is the hidden, true nature of ever person" (Plant, 40). Hegel embraced this concept.

The Fall

Adam is the representation of all men. The Fall is a myth based on the reality of where man is now.

Redemption is not the return to innocence because that is impossible. Instead it is a midway point between innocence and fallenness.

The consciousness is the vehicle to redemption because it is the starting point of both evil and good.

Religion and Philosophy:

Religion and philosophy are both modes of Absolute Knowledge. Religion transcends philosophy. Philosophy transcends religion. Philosophy and religion have the same goal: eternal truth, which is God and nothing else.

"Philosophy does nothing but transform our representations into concepts. The content remains always the same" (Plant, 49).

Philosophy is the Gottes Dienst (the service of God)

Conclusion

Hegel's theology is panentheism, distinguished from deism, pantheism and orthodox theism.

Panentheism is a combination of three Greek words:
Pan - All
en- in
theos - God

"God is immanent in the world, but is more than the sum of the parts of the world" (Plant, 52).