Hegel’s Philosophy of Religion

162 Pages·1977·15.619 MB·English

by  Bernard M. G. Reardon (auth.)

HEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
LIBRARY OF PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION
General Editor: John Hick, H. G. Wood Professor of
Theology,
University of Birmingham
This new series of books will explore contemporary religious understand
ings of man and the universe. The books will be contributions to various
aspects of the continuing dialogues between religion and philosophy,
between scepticism and faith, and between the different religions and
ideologies. The authors will represent a correspondingly wide range I of
viewpoints. Some of the books in the series will be written for the general
educated public and others for a more specialised philosophical or theo
logical readership.
Already published
William H. Austin THE RELEVANCE OF NATURAL SCIENCE
TO THEOLOGY
Paul Badham CHRISTIAN BELIEFS ABOUT LIFE AFTER
DEATH
Ramchandra Gandhi THE AVAILABILITY OF RELIGIOUS IDEAS
Hugo A. Meynell AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY
OF BERNARD LONERGAN
Dennis Nineham THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE BIBLE
Bernard M. G. Reardon HEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
John J. Shepherd EXPERIENCE, INFERENCE AND GOD
Robert Yong FREEDOM, RESPONSIBILITY AND GOD
Patrick Sherry RELIGION, TRUTH AND LANGUAGE-
GAMES
Further titles in preparation
HEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY
OF RELIGION
Bernard M. G. Reardon
©Bernard M. G. Reardon 197 7
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1977
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without permission
First published 1977 by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
London and Basingstoke
Associated companies in New York
Dublin Melbourne Johannesburg and Madras
ISBN 978-1-349-02689-0 ISBN 978-1-349-02687-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-02687-6
Typeset by
SANTYPE LTD (COLDTYPE DIVISION)
Salisbury, Wiltshire
This book is sold subject
to the standard conditions
of the Net Book Agreement
In Memory of My Mother
Contents
Preface ix
Biographical Note xi
Introduction xiii
1 The Early Theological Writings 1
(i) The Greek Ideal 1
(ii) Jesus and Kant 4
(iii) 'The Spirit of Christianity' 12
2 What Is ~eligion? 24
(i) The Marks of the Religious Consciousness 24
(ii) Religion and the Secular World 29
(iii) Religion and Philosophy 31
(iv) Philosophy as 'Understanding' and as 'Speculation' 35
Appended Note on the Relation of Religion to Art 37
3 The Main Types of Religion 38
(i) Religions of Nature 38
(ii) The Religion of Spiritual Individuality 50
4 The Absolute Religion: Christianity 58
(i) The Meaning of Revelation 58
(ii) Christian Dogma 65
(iii) The Church 71
5 Man's Knowledge of God 77
(i) The Question of Intuition 77
(ii) Hegel's Criticism of Jacobi and Schleiermacher 82
(iii) Can God's Existence be Proved? 88
6 Some Problems of Interpretation 100
(i) Theism or Pantheism? 100
(ii) Necessary Truth and Contingent Events 104
(iii) The 'Speculative' Treatment of Doctrine 113
(iv) The Diversity of Religions 119
References and Notes 123
Select Bibliography 142
Index 145
Preface
After long eclipse - in the English speaking world certainly -
Hegel has today become a focus of attention on the part of
both philosophers and historians of ideas, as the continuing
flow of books and articles about him well testifies. Indeed a full
bibliography of only the more recent publications would run to
over a thousand titles. The basic reason for this is that the great
German idealist, as is now justly realised, stands out as a
key-figure in modem thought, upon which his influence,
whether direct or indirect, whether through committed disciple
ship or from antipathy and hostility, is seen as pervasive. But
Hegel is also very difficult to interpret, even indeed to under
stand; ambiguity permeates his thinking: 'Sein Wesen', it has
been said, 'war Zweideutigkeit', Moreover his attitude is polemi
cal; he did not shrink from controversy and his often cryptic
utterances have not ceased to provoke it. Finally there is the
religious dimension of his philosophy which, in any serious
study of him, cannot be ignored. On the contrary, it has to be
faced even if, in a secularising age, it presents a stumbling-block.
My aim in the present volume is restricted to an account of
Hegel's express treatment of the religious issue, mainly as
comprised in the Berlin lecture-courses. These, it has to be
remembered, Hegel never wrote out for publication and they do
not make easy reading, being prolix, obscure and repetitious. To
cope with them the student needs a guide, and this function I
have endeavoured, within the space allotted to me, to provide.
In particular I have sought to specify some of the main
problems of interpretation and to indicate how hard it is to say
definitively what Hegel's meaning truly was. The reader who,
X Preface
fairly enough, expects of philosophers that they should be
always clear and as far as possible concise, will most probably
be deterred as soon as he is made aware of what faces him; yet
it is this very element of ambivalence in Hegel - the longueurs
have to be admitted - which renders the study of his works, for
some minds at least, so fascinating. His merit, his admirers
would say, lies not in the system itself, with its over-elaborate
patterns, or in the train of his reasoning, which frequently lacks
rigour, or for that matter in the soundness of his erudition,
which can readily be faulted, but in the extraordinary
perceptiveness of his insights. For what interested Hegel was, in
the largest sense, the historic destiny of man, and upon this
presiding theme he seldom fails to cast significant light.
BERNARD M.G. REARDON
Biographical Note
The son of a minor civil servant in the Duchy of Wiirttemberg,
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born at Stuttgart, 27
August, 1770. Schooled at the local gymnasium, he entered the
Protestant seminary at Tiibingen University in 1788, ostensibly
with a view to the Lutheran ministry. But on leaving he took up
work as a private tutor at Berne in Switzerland, where he stayed
until 1 796, after which he moved to a similar post at Frankfurt.
In 1800 he was appointed Privatdozent, or unsalaried lecturer,
at the university of J ena - fortunately by the death of his
father he had inherited some small private means - where he
had for a colleague his Tiibingen contemporary and personal
friend F. W.J. von Schelling, who by this time had already
made his name as a philosopher. Hegel indeed reckoned himself
a disciple of Schelling's, although it was not long before the
divergence of his own views became increasingly apparent. His
final break with Schelling came with the publication of his first
major work, The Phenomenology of Spirit, in 1807. His flight
from J ena following Napoleon's victory and the occupation of
the town by the French troops left him professionally un
employed until, through the good offices of his friend F. I.
Niethammer, an official of the Bavarian ministry of education,
he was appointed director of the Nuremberg gymnasium,
although in the interval he was able to make a living for himself
by editing a newspaper, the Bambergerzeitung. His Nuremberg
post he held from 1808 to 1816, carrying out his headmaster's
duties with signal conscientiousness and competence. In 1811
he married Marie von Tucher, of an upper-class Nuremberg
family, by whom he had two sons and a daughter. The