Zhao Lin: “Hegel’s Philosophy of Religion,” Wuhan University Press, April 2005

Zhao Lin: Hegel’s Philosophy of Religion, Wuhan University Press, April 2005

Philosophy of religion is a rather important link in Hegel’s thought. In fact, Hegel’s entire system of thought can be called a kind of rational theology. Concern with religion runs through Hegel’s whole life, and the contradictions and uncertainties in his view of religion are precisely the fuse that triggered the split in the Hegelian school. For that reason, philosophy of religion ought to be an excellent entry point for studying Hegel. This book is both highly organized and theoretically deep; in fact, it can also be read as a guide to Hegel’s thought. Of course, it is also a specialized monograph of considerable academic substance.

As for Hegel, I do not personally feel the same closeness to him as I do to Kant; on the contrary, my attitude toward Hegel’s thought is one of respect mixed with resistance. I cannot accept the direction itself that Hegel’s thought strives to argue for, though of course his arguments are extremely worthy of serious attention. In particular, Hegel’s criticism of Kant is indispensable for the development of Kantian philosophy; only after reflection and response under Hegel’s criticism can Kantian philosophy truly reveal its contemporary significance. Just as Hegel’s own philosophy must also pass through the criticism of Marx, Kierkegaard, and Schopenhauer before its contemporary value can shine forth more fully. This too accords with the developmental law Hegel called the movement from “positive, negative, and synthesis.” My preliminary impression is that if one wants to study Hegel, one must take seriously his philosophy of religion and must also pay close attention to Hegel’s relation to Kant, Fichte, Schleiermacher, and so on, as well as Hegel’s criticisms of them; and if one wants to carry Hegel forward, one must take seriously the views of Marx, Kierkegaard, and Schopenhauer.

Of course, I neither want to study Hegel nor want to carry him forward. I have always admired Kant more. But I feel that when reading Kant one inevitably has to read Hegel, and inevitably has to face Hegel’s profound criticism. Of course, before Hegel there were also Jacobi, and after him Nietzsche, and others who raised important criticisms of Kant; yet Hegel’s inheritance of and criticism of Kant are the most direct. Of course, I also do not have the energy to study Kant; at most, I hope to carry Kant forward. In any case, however one looks at it, one cannot avoid Kant and Hegel when reading philosophy. Ye Xiushan’s instruction was not wrong.

I admire Hegel’s dialectical logic, his sense of praxis, his sense of history, and so on; yet I deeply doubt his rational mysticism, and I am even more dissatisfied with the “conceited self-importance of subjectivity” that he precisely displays when criticizing subjectivity (p. 243). In addition, I insist that Kant’s thing-in-itself is unattainable. Perhaps, as in Nietzsche, it is feasible simply to “discard” that essential world cut off from reality; but to reach that absolute essential world, whether by means of objective experience or by means of the mysterious subjective power of Hegel’s “spirit,” is impossible. Even if one turns formal logic into dialectical logic, changes linear argument into circular argument, or does whatever else, human cognition is forever limited.

Page 1
Hegel stripped Christianity’s God of authority, but worshiped the concept and spirit as philosophy’s God; he sublated the traditional theology based on superficial representations. Yet he constructed speculative theology grounded in the movement of the concept. Thus, when Hegel turned theology into philosophy, he also turned philosophy into theology (albeit on a higher level).

Page 31
However, this superficiality of Enlightenment thought is ultimately determined by the one-sidedness of the understanding, or of empirical reason. For that reason, eighteenth-century French atheism did not become the true end of theological religion, but rather became a transitional form in the transformation of deism into moral theology, a negative and self-negating mediation or necessary link between the two theological systems. Its direct consequence was not the final triumph of natural reason, but rather the criticism and sublation of natural reason. From the egg of French Enlightenment thought and atheism emerged Samson—wielding the ax of skepticism—Hume, Rousseau, and Kant, and through the latter, in negative form, it was transformed into Hegel’s speculative theology.

Page 62
The person who truly accomplished the “Copernican revolution” in the realm of theology was Schleiermacher, not Kant. … In Schleiermacher, religion truly becomes a private matter, becomes the genuine feeling of the free spirit. Religious belief is reduced to psychology. A subjectivist view of religion, based on immediate experience and feeling, thus emerges. Here, every person who possesses devout faith need only be responsible to his own living mood, and need not obey all sorts of external authority or internal moral injunctions. An absolute feeling of dependence and a mystical experience replace not only theoretical reason but also practical reason as the only reliable foundation of religion; the soul becomes the sole site of communication between human beings and God, and religion no longer concerns itself with metaphysics or moral practice. ////——Clearly, compared with Kant, Schleiermacher went too far.

Page 69
(Hegel in his early period) emphasized: “Religion is not merely historical or rationalized knowledge, but something that interests our soul, deeply affects our feelings, and determines our will. On the one hand, our moral duties and laws derive from religion a powerful sense of awe, and thus are regarded by us as sacred duties and laws; on the other hand, the sublimity of God and the idea of the highest good fill our hearts with feelings of yearning and gratitude.” (Early Theological Writings of Hegel, p. 3)

Page 72
The entire Christian people is all at once anxiously waiting in a kind of “lack of manly spirit” for the hour of death to arrive, in striking contrast to the composure and detachment with which the Greek people faced death.

Page 74
In Hegel’s completed philosophy, the formal shape of sentimentalism is abandoned, but the mysterious “nous” impulse contained in Greek sentimentalism is retained.

Page 86
The Frankfurt period was an important stage in the development of Hegel’s thought. There he began to free himself from the influence of Kantian moralism, and increasingly came to appreciate the importance of contradiction in thought and especially in real life. On the one hand, this understanding led him through the greatest spiritual crisis of his life, plunging him for a time into a “painful hypochondriacal state, a state of self-destruction and self-collapse”; (footnote: Hegel frankly acknowledged this painful hypochondriacal state in some of his letters of the time and in later recollections. For example, in a letter from 1810, Hegel recalled the spiritual crisis of the Frankfurt period: “I endured this hypochondriacal state for several years, to the point that spiritually I was almost reduced to paralysis. In general, one can say that every person must experience such a turning point in his life; it is a dark contraction point in his essence. He must pass through this gate in order to reach safety, and thus be certain of himself, certain of ordinary daily life; and if he is no longer able to sustain himself by daily life, then only by passing through this gate can he become certain of a more inward and nobler existence.” There are many such confessions; see Lukács, The Young Hegel, pp. 93–96.) On the other hand, it also caused him to change his negative attitude toward contradiction, and to begin regarding contradiction as the common basis and driving force of thought and being. … ////——What kind of problem could produce such a great spiritual crisis, and one that every person must go through? Clearly, this is the problem of the meaning of existence—what is living for, what does death mean, why do we exist? Even children can ask this question, but after they mature people generally seldom raise it openly anymore. Yet this does not mean the problem is solved. In fact, every person inevitably falls into this question and becomes profoundly troubled by the issue of facing death and by the possibility that life may be utterly meaningless; great philosophers are no exception. One could even say that great philosophers suffer more from this question than ordinary people do, because they think more and know more, and their self-consciousness regarding their own existence and their own thought is also stronger. But this is a question that is destined never to be fully understood; in general, it can only be “seen through,” that is, one escapes the question and no longer entangles oneself in it. Yet for people like Hegel (Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer and others may well be the same in this respect), who are infinitely confident in their own rational capacities, evasion of the problem is not an option. Therefore the pain they suffer is often far greater than that of ordinary people, and the eventual solution they devise to this problem will constitute an important part of their philosophical thought—though usually it appears in hidden or indirect form.

Page 96
In the reconciliation of love, spirit transcends the one-sidedness of moral command and reaches the whole. Yet from another angle, this universality remains a kind of one-sidedness, namely subjective one-sidedness, because it always remains confined within the sphere of love, confined within the sphere of feeling. Love transcends the boundaries of morality and the realm of objectivity posited by those boundaries, dissolving all opposition into absolute subjectivity. In The Spirit of Christianity and Its Fate, Hegel had already become aware of the one-sidedness of love and tried to transcend it; yet because he rejected Kantian reason (the abstract reason of universality), he could not find a convincing—indeed, a self-convincing—highest unity.

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“…………(Early Theological Writings of Hegel, pp. 408–409…………” Here, Hegel’s criticism of the “unhappy nation,” or of Kantian and Fichtean philosophy, is simultaneously the natural expression of his own “consciousness of distress,” because although he had already become aware of the limitations produced by clinging to separation and independence, he was likewise unable truly to overcome or sublate this separation and one-sided independence. His criticism is only negative; lacking the concept, it still remains in the distress of being unable to find the true mediating unity.

Page 125     
 In The Phenomenology of Spirit, the three-stage sequence in the development of religion is: natural religion, religion of art, and revealed religion. Natural religion is the stage of spirit’s development-in-itself, or in the form of consciousness, within religious forms; religion of art is the stage of this development for-itself, or in the form of self-consciousness; and revealed religion is the stage of this development in-itself-and-for-itself, or in the form of the unity of consciousness and self-consciousness.

Page 144
Thus, the development of the concept of absolute religion contains, in a self-negating and sublating way, three moments: first, spirit in pure thought, or spirit as pure substance; then spirit descending into determinate existence, or the process of representation of spirit; and finally spirit returning from representation to self-consciousness itself and becoming truth.

Page 157
“For Hegel, philosophy of religion is religion that has attained reflective self-awareness and self-understanding.” (footnote: New Studies on Hegel’s Philosophy, Commercial Press 1990 edition, p. 233) Hegel said: “When we begin from the representation of God, philosophy of religion must consider its meaning, namely that God is the Idea, the Absolute, the essence grasped in thought and concept; and it shares this with logical philosophy: God is the logical Idea. Just as he is in-itself. Yet God is not merely this in-itself existence; he is likewise essentially for-itself, absolute spirit. This spirit is not only the essence that preserves itself in thought, but also that which appears, that which gives itself objectivity.” (Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion: Introduction) As absolute essence, this spirit or God that is in-itself-and-for-itself becomes the common content and object of religion and philosophy.

Page 158
Hegel thought that the view asserting that human beings cannot know God is illogical; it directly contradicts the meaning of revealed religion. True knowledge can and must begin from God, because all knowledge in the final analysis is God’s or spirit’s knowledge of itself. If God cannot be known by human reason, then he is left with nothing but jealousy.

Page 163
In Hegel’s view, such agnosticism about God is “the final stage of man’s self-debasement,” and the mission of philosophy lies precisely in freeing us from this shameful self-debasement, guiding religion deep into itself so that spirit may attain true liberation. ////——A certain degree of agnosticism is by no means shameful; on the contrary, self-revelation of one’s own limits is a manifestation of great nobility, courage, and profound insight. For example, Gödel’s incompleteness theorem in mathematics reveals the limits of mathematics entirely through mathematics’ own methods; one could say it is a kind of “agnosticism” within mathematics. Although the emergence of this theorem made people feel at a loss for a while, it marked mathematics’ attainment of a new height. Agnosticism in philosophical epistemology likewise brings itself to a new level through self-negation, and this too accords with the dialectical law of historical development in Hegel’s “positive, negative, and synthesis.” I see many places criticizing Kant by saying that his theory somehow “falls into agnosticism,” and then stopping there, as if once one has led to agnosticism, that in itself proves a fundamental defect in Kant’s philosophy. But little do they know that the Kantian version of agnosticism (which is different from the agnosticism of skepticism or mysticism) is precisely one of the most revolutionary strengths of Kant’s theory: it teaches people humility without plunging them into confusion. Traditional evaluations often mention this very strength only in order to prove a defect in Kantian philosophy. Even if one is to criticize, one should continue and ask: where exactly is Kant’s agnosticism bad? If one reasonably points out the defects of Kantian agnosticism, then such criticism is valuable; if one merely treats agnosticism itself as a defect, and the moment one sees the words “agnosticism” regards it as a monstrous flood, that is as informationless as saying that the fatal flaw in an idealist philosopher’s thought is that it leads to idealism.

Page 167
In contrast to Kantian philosophy’s splitting apart of the cognizing subject and the object of knowledge, as well as the process of knowing, in philosophy of religion God and reason are both the object of knowledge and the subject of knowledge, and at the same time also the process of knowledge itself.

Page 172
There can be only one method in all science and knowledge. Method is nothing but the concept in self-interpretation, not anything else, and there is only one concept. (Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, English trans., vol. 1, p. 174)

Page 180
In brief, religion is our connection with God. We have already discussed this connection in thought. God is for thought, because God is the universal that is in-itself-and-for-itself. The first division (or judgment), or creation, of this inner and immediate universal is self-differentiation, namely the differentiation of a particular spirit set over against absolute spirit. The first connection we examine is the cognitive connection, the theoretical connection; the second connection is the practical connection, or knowledge of this elevation itself (for this elevation itself is knowledge). The third stage is knowledge of this knowledge. This is actual religion. (Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, English trans., vol. 1, pp. 448–449)

Page 182
In Hegel’s conceptual description of the interrelations among the various determinate religions, on the one hand we can see, in overall terms, the profound idea that history corresponds to logic; on the other hand, in the details we can also find many strained and forced interpretations, namely the willingness to distort history arbitrarily for the sake of logic.

Page 190
This self-contradictory and chaotic condition precisely reveals one of the most important features of Hegel’s speculative philosophy: he subjectively determines logic, and then calls this subjectively determined logic objective.

Page 209
“God is love,” because “love is a distinction between two people, and yet they absolutely cannot be distinguished from one another. The consciousness and feeling of the identity of the two—outside ourselves and in the other—this is love. I do not possess my self-consciousness in myself, but in the other; only in this other do I feel satisfied and reconciled with myself—and because this other likewise exists outside itself, it too possesses self-consciousness only in me. The other and I are nothing but consciousness of what ‘exists outside ourselves’ and consciousness of our identity.” (Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, English trans., vol. 1, p. 276)

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… Good and evil are mutually conditional; to speak abstractly about the goodness or evil of human nature is meaningless. …

Page 218
Evil is division, alienation, opposition; it is consciousness of division and opposition, and this consciousness is precisely self-consciousness.

Page 235
The basic task and core idea of Hegel’s philosophy of religion is to use the dialectical movement of the concept itself to demonstrate the identity of reason and religion, knowledge and faith, to identify God with spirit and the Idea itself, and to say that truth is human beings’ knowledge of God or God’s self-knowledge in human beings. Thus philosophy and theology are unified. In Hegel, reason goes beyond empirical reason or the understanding and becomes speculative reason; this speculative reason is at the same time the negation of superficial intuitive mysticism, yet in itself it possesses a still deeper mystical character.

Page 243
Although Hegel also criticizes subjectivity, he does so only because subjectivity is too shrunken, too humble, and dares not go beyond the narrow bounds of experience into the “metaphysical” realm, dares not objectify itself and become the content of reality, of truth. Thus Hegel’s criticism of subjectivity precisely manifests subjectivity’s own conceited self-importance. This conceited self-importance of subjectivity is not only a general feature of German mysticism and spiritualism, but also the basic feature of Hegel’s absolute idealism.

Page 257
The essential characteristic of Hegel’s philosophy of religion is that it turns the unsayable and the undecidable into something sayable and decidable, turns the religious mood into religious concept or religious philosophy, and takes this philosophy as the “final philosophy,” as “science.” Yet when Hegel does this, he does not elevate the taste of philosophy; he lowers it. When he complacently proclaims that outside (speculative) philosophy there is no more mystery, and outside the concept there is no more philosophy, he is merely resorting to a kind of self-deception, …

2006年1月27日

Latest Comments

Wu
2006-01-29 23:01:54 [reply]
As for “agnosticism,” I do not think this is a simple label. The key is to understand: what is unknowable? Why is it unknowable? In what sense and within what scope is it unknowable? In particular, one must understand what the opposite of agnosticism is—that is, what we can know within “agnosticism” —for example, that something reveals its own limits; to some extent, this is also a kind of “knowing when to stop.” I greatly admire Kant’s philosophy, especially the space it leaves for faith, while at the same time giving “human beings” a rational arrangement (not necessarily the best one). A friend of mine once said: many philosophers, beginning with Socrates, have had a certain kind of “arrangement” and “design” for human affairs; the most typical example is Plato. Although these “designs” now seem very bad, the problems and intentions behind them are the noblest of all.

Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.