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Phenomenology of Spirit

HEGEL LECTURES ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

Volume 1: Introduction and The Concept of Religion

by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

edited by Peter C. Hodgson

University of California Press

$25.00, paper, 494 pages, index

0-520-20371-2

HEGEL LECTURES ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

Volume 2: Determinate Religion

by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

edited by Peter C. Hodgson

University of California Press

$25.00, paper, 825 pages, Bibliography of Sources, index

0-520-20372-0

HEGEL LECTURES ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

Volume 3: The Consummate Religion

by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

edited by Peter C. Hodgson

University of California Press

$65.00, cloth, 825 pages, glossary, index

0-520-05514-4

paper edition

When one returns to Hegel’s writings themselves the problem of proper translation and modern critical editions is still a work very much in progress, at least in the English translation of the philosopher. A century and a half after the appearance of the first edition of Hegel’s philosophy-of-religion lectures in 1832, there was still lacking an edition of these lectures adequate to the demands of critical interpretative scholarship. This lack had been expressed rather sharply during the preceding decade of Hegel scholarship, especially in Germany. But the need could not have been met even today were it not for a fortunate development, namely, the recent discovery of important new sources. A decade earlier, only Hegel’s original manuscript of 1821 and the lecture series of 1824 could have been included in a new edition, but today the last two series, those of 1827 and 1831, can also be taken into account (the latter only in outline form). Eventually a new edition was published concurrently in German, English, and Spanish. Jaeschke was completing his work on the critical edition of the Wissenschaft der Logik and would have time to devote to the new project. The key editorial work would be done by him, with as much assistance as possible from Ferrara and Hodgson. Not only would the editorial burden be lightened somewhat, but this would be a unique venture in international collaboration. The new edition is based upon four lecture series—1821, 1824, 1827, 1831— each separated and published as autonomous units on the basis of a complete reediting of the sources. Hegel’s conception and execution of the lectures differed so significantly on each of the occasions he delivered them that it was impossible to conflate materials from different years into an editorially constructed text, as was attempted both in the Werke and by Lasson, without destroying the structural integrity of the lectures and thus emasculating the textual context in terms of which valid interpretative judgments could be rendered. This basic weakness has skewed all previous attempts at interpreting Hegel’s lectures on the philosophy of religion.

This three volume edition attempts to give critical shape to Hegel’s lectures on religion in a way not previously accessible to scholars. A careful reading will suggest that Hegel’s work was very much a work in progress. That the philosopher’s mind was not so completely made up as some have supposed and that he offers some interpretative insights that religious studies programs could definitely profit. The ambitious project to include an edition of the lectures in both German and English. Such a project was abandoned and Peter C. Hodgson completed his translation of the third part, for which Lasson editorial work in the German provided a more adequate text, correcting the most serious problems on the basis of materials to be furnished by Jaeschke editions. This study edition was published by Scholars Press in 1979 under the title The Christian Religion, and was reissued in thoroughly revised and retranslated form as volume 3 of the present edition.

This edition makes possible for the first time a comprehensive comparison of the structure of the four series of lectures Hegel presented on the philosophy of religion, as well as an analysis of the development in his conceptualization and treatment of this subject. The editors use the term "development" intentionally, since they wished to avoid two misleading views: that the first, incomplete, and "immature" version found in the manuscript is worked out with greater "maturity" in the later lectures; or that Hegel’s originally fresh and creative insights give way to an increasing "scholasticism of the concept" during his latter days in Berlin. In their view, the manuscript is by no means a philosophically immature document, despite its external form. On the other hand it is a mistake to suggest that Hegel became increasingly rigid and set in his ways of thinking as he repeated the lectures. Just the opposite is the case: the later lectures display an unusual vitality and flexibility, a willingness to rework the whole in order to take into consideration new materials and new issues, and to find a form that matches the concept of religion itself. But the concept is already present, both germinally and explicitly, in the original manuscript, and thus Hegel’s basic philosophical conception of religion does not significantly change during the Berlin period, even though his conception of the philosophy of religion does.

All four lecture series Hegel’s Introduction and in Part I of the lectures, The Concept of Religion begin with a brief prefatory depiction, couched in rather poetic terms, of what religion is wherever it is found, namely, the consciousness of God and occupation or concern (Beschaftigung) with God. This is the only part of the original manuscript repeated without much change in the subsequent lectures. Following these opening remarks, the introductions all address several themes in a similar order: the relation of philosophy of religion to philosophy and religion; the theological and philosophical situation of the time, which furnishes specific issues to be addressed by these lectures; and a survey of the three main parts of the ensuing treatment. But the specific way these themes are articulated differs considerably from one year to the next, with only occasional reliance on the original manuscript after 1821.

Following the prefatory remarks, the manuscript inserts a special sheet, arguing that the purpose of the philosophy of religion is to know God despite the widely held prejudice of the time that nothing can be known of God. Following this insertion the manuscript returns to what was originally intended as the first task of the Introduction, namely, to treat the relation of the philosophy of religion to religion. This relation consists in philosophy’s recognition that religion is already everywhere present and presupposed in human experience, and that therefore philosophy’s task is to comprehend religion, not produce it. While the existence of religion may be self-evident, in another sense it must be demonstrated. For the moment the most important question facing the philosophy of religion is how religion as such or religious consciousness is related to everything else in human experience and consciousness. If the "theoretical" task of the philosophy of religion is to cognize God and religion, then its "practical" task is that of addressing the profound conflict that has developed in the modern world between the sacred and the secular. This is what is taken up in the longest section of the Introduction. While Hegel’s primary concern is to analyze this conflict or opposition, the analysis also contains an implicit criticism of the prevailing theological tendencies of the Enlightenment and its aftermath— deism, rationalism, pietism—which in Hegel’s view utterly failed to heal the conflict. The conflict comes down, finally, to an opposition between religion and scientific cognition: religion tends to withdraw into the realm of the noncognitive, i.e., feeling, intuition, piety, "faith." This is the "discord of our time," which it is the task of speculative philosophy of religion to heal. The theologians cannot heal it since, in defending themselves against the onslaughts of science and criticism, they have given up all content in religion: they are like blind men, able to describe everything about a painting but the picture itself. The Introduction concludes with a brief "division of the subject", which offers not so much a survey of the ensuing parts of the lecture as a summary of the moments of the concept of religion, which serve as the speculative basis of the "division".

Following the Preface, the 1824 lectures introduce a new Section, which is concerned to define the subject matter of this "new" discipline: its content is not just God as such but religion. However, "God" and "religion" are intimately associated. Therefore the idea of God is also the concern of the philosophy of religion. But the idea of God is the "result" of the whole of philosophy that precedes the philosophy of religion, and is given to the latter discipline as a kind of presupposition—to be considered now, however, not as an abstract but as an utterly concrete idea, as infinitely appearing spirit. Then Hegel develops more explicitly the polemic against the theological and philosophical views of his time that is already implicit in the Introduction. Although his target is ostensibly rationalist theology and historicist theology, it is evident that the real polemic is being increasingly directed against Schleiermacher. After a brief interlude on the relationship of the philosophy of religion to positive religion, Hegel abruptly returns to the conflict with prevailing philosophical and theological views.

The work stands as a major contribution to any philosophy of religion.

In Volume Two: "Determinate Religion"

Hegel devoted detailed attention to precisely this part of his lectures is evidenced by the abundance of primary sources and literature he utilized. These sources are documented by the editorial annotations to this edition as well as the Bibliography of Sources for Hegel’s Philosophy of Religion printed at the back of the volume. The editors also offer a fairly detailed comparative analysis of the structure and development of Hegel’s treatment of "Determinate Religion" in each of the lecture series. This kind of analysis is the first step in arriving at a valid critical assessment of Hegel’s work. Such assessments of Volume Two have been virtually nonexistent, and for good reason: a critical text has not been available.

A clear understanding of the structure and development of Part II of the lectures is of special importance for two reasons. First, the earlier editions (both the Werke and Lasson) gave the mistaken impression that Determinate Religion was divided into only two main sections, "nature religion" and "the religions of spiritual individuality," whereas it is clear that Hegel intended to give Part II a triadic structure. The twofold structure reflects only the lectures of 1824, and the analysis of these lectures show that Hegel began them with the threefold structure in mind, shifting to the twofold arrangement as he went along, even though Roman religion did not properly fit under the category of "spiritual individuality." In 1827 and 1831 Hegel restored the threefold arrangement, but with significant changes introduced in the last series.

In the second place, and of greater significance, is the fact that Hegel never did arrive at a satisfactory arrangement for Determinate Religion. For Part III ( The Consummate Religion) he arrived at his mature conceptualization in 1824, while for Part I (The Concept of Religion) he achieved it in 1827. But in the case of Part II, he introduced significant structural changes in 1831, which offered a quite different context for interpreting the Oriental and Near Eastern religions (including Judaism).

While we of course do not know whether Hegel would have reorganized Determinate Religion yet again upon a subsequent offering, it is evident that 1831 does not provide a fully satisfactory arrangement, especially with regard to Jewish and Roman religion. At the same time, one senses a growing fascination with the history of religions, and it would not be inappropriate to suggest that this topic, rather than the concept of religion or the Christian religion, was at the cutting edge of Hegel’s interest when he died in the fall of 1831. His evident willingness to incorporate new data and experiment with new schemes underscores the fact that for him philosophy was a kind of "conceptual play" based on imaginative variation in order to arrive at new insights. The hermeneutical questions remained open and lively from the earliest to the latest texts contained in this volume, and it is hoped that the reader will sense and share in the excitement they convey.

Greek to Roman religion as follows. Free spirit must come to recognize that "its value no longer consists in its being merely the free spirit of the Greeks, of the citizens of this or that state, but humanity must be known freely as humanity, and God is the God of all humanity, the comprehensive, universal spirit" .This happens when one of the limited folk-spirits "raises itself to become the fate of all the others." It does so through pretensions of universality, through the politics of world mastery and of oppression, so that other peoples become conscious of the weakness of their gods. "The fate that overthrew the world of the Greeks was the world of Rome."

But this fate was in fact an advance. The way to the cleansing of spirit of its finitude was through the absolutization of finitude, with the result that the whole world of the finite gods finally collapsed. The Romans orchestrated this Gotterdammerung, and this was their service to the history of religion. Much that was good also perished in this collapse—the happiness, serenity, and beauty of Greek religion, the transcendence, sublimity, and holiness of the God of Israel, the vitality and diversity of the religions of other peoples. The "monstrous misery," the "universal sorrow" thus produced by the Romans was to serve as "the birth pangs of the religion of truth".

Jaeschke points out that Hegel gave a rigorously logical structure only to the first lectures, those of 1821, which arranged Determinate Religion into a triad corresponding to the three basic categories of logic, namely, being, essence, and concept. He never provided a convincing justification for this arrangement and did not repeat it. While retaining the triadic division (with one exception), in the later lectures he experimented with a variety of quasi-logical structures, applied quite flexibly and openly. Hegel has frequently been criticized for imposing a dialectical, ideal-genetic method on the history of religions.

But according to Jaeschke, Hegel’s method was neither initially dialectical nor in any way genetic; rather it was typifying, in part typologizing. On the basis of his typification and typology of the religions, Hegel attempted a systematic, to be sure dialectical, arrangement of the types through the application of a variety of conceptual schemes. But far from imposing an abstract, preconceived, a priori structure on the history of religion, he approached this subject matter as an experimental field in which virtually nothing should not be tried, at least once. What he in fact offered, in Jaeschke’s view, was less a history of religion than a geography of religion. To be sure, religion is fundamentally historical, but its historicity follows from the historicity of human spirit. Contra Hegel, argues Jaeschke, we must recognize that there is no single history of human spirit and therefore no single, unified history of religion. At best, what we can attain is a history of religions, or better, histories of religions—a diversity of histories that cannot be organized under a single, encompassing philosophical conceptuality, namely, the logic of the concept of religion itself. Hegel’s claim to be able to do this was falsified by his actual achievement in the successive lectures, which should have made it clear, according to Jaeschke, that the objective of a logical construction of the history of religion could not be attained. Hegel’s geography of religion was in fact closer to the truth than the chimera of a universal history of religions, such as has been attempted again recently by certain theologians in the name of Hegel.

With this interpretation there is good cause to follow but we should want to add that the relationships and points of contact among the religions remain important questions for theology and philosophy of religion, together with a dear recognition of their differences and of the relativity of perspectives. A unitary history of religion, especially one that culminates in a single highest religion, is no longer acceptable. But structural analogies and fundamental thematic similarities certainly exist, which make possible an encounter and dialogue among the religions, and perhaps even mutual transformations. For the sake of the future of humanity, such a dialogue, inducing mutual criticism and enrichment, is essential; and for the sake of such dialogue, Hegel’s detailed interpretations and experiments in arrangement continue to be of singular interest. Few interpreters of religion have pressed so rigorously to uncover fundamental presuppositions and principles, similarities and differences, possibilities and limits. Hegel himself provides the clue to the Reconstruction of his own logical construction of the history of religion. By following this clue, we may yet discover what hermeneutical treasures are hidden in these lectures. In many ways part two may offer approaches to pluralistic dialogue and discourse between the religions.

Consummate Religion is probably the least suitable of any of the titles. While there are indeed similarities between "consummate" (in the sense of "final" or "perfect") and "absolute," the two terms have distinct nuances. Christianity is the "consummate" religion in the sense that the concept of religion has been brought to completion or consummation in it; it simply is religion in its quintessential expression. But while the object or content of religion is the absolute, religion itself does not entail absolute knowledge of the absolute: that is the role of philosophy. The representational forms of religious expression, even of the Christian religion, must be "sublated" (annulled and preserved) in philosophical concepts. Thus in Hegel’s scheme of things there is an absolute knowledge (the science of speculative philosophy) but a consummate religion. Whether religion as such is to be superseded by philosophy is another question.

As an alternative to all of the philosophical (or system-related) names for this religion, one might employ as a title its historical name, "the Christian religion," which also occurs in the texts of the lectures. This was in fact the solution adopted by the volume that was a forerunner to this one, The Christian Religion: Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, Part III: The Revelatory, Consummate, Absolute Religion. However, in the context of the systematic structure of the philosophy of religion, and of the place of religion in the philosophical system as a whole, the historical names of the religions are out of place, and Hegel used them only rarely (though he does indeed speak of the "Christian religion" more freely than he does of the others). Certainly very concrete historical realities lie behind Hegel’s philosophical redescriptions, but the redescriptions are designed precisely to elicit a grasp of the distinctive stage of consciousness present in each religion, and for this purpose the historical names are of little service. In any event, to maintain consistency with Volumes 1 and 2, it is appropriate that Volume 3 be entitled The Consummate Religion. To bring out the fact that Hegel commonly used two titles or names for Part III, the title could have been The Consummate or Revelatory Religion, thus approximating the complete title as found in the manuscript. But such a title is unwieldy, and it is advisable in any case to maintain consistency with Volume 3 of the German edition, which is titled Die vollendete Religion.

For all intents and purposes, what is offered here is a new edition, not a revision of The Christian Religion as issued in 1979. While distinguishing the sources (indeed more clearly and accurately than the Lasson edition, on which it was based), The Christian Religion wove them together under a common set of section headings. This was feasible since Hegel treated the topics of Part III in roughly the same order in all of the lectures. Just as important, all of the texts have been completely reedited on the basis of the original sources, and the translations are based on the newly edited texts.

In summary he goal of the dialectical cosmic process can be most clearly understood at the level of reason. As finite reason progresses in understanding, the Absolute progresses toward full self-knowledge. Indeed, the Absolute comes to know itself through the human mind’s increased understanding of reality, or the Absolute. Hegel analyzed this human progression in understanding in terms of three levels: art, religion, and philosophy. Art grasps the Absolute in material forms, interpreting the rational through the sensible forms of beauty. Art is conceptually superseded by religion, which grasps the Absolute by means of images and symbols. The highest religion for Hegel is Christianity, for in Christianity the truth that the Absolute manifests itself in the finite is symbolically reflected in the incarnation. Philosophy, however, is conceptually supreme, because it grasps the Absolute rationally. Once this has been achieved, the Absolute has arrived at full self-consciousness, and the cosmic drama reaches its end and goal. Only at this point did Hegel identify the Absolute with God. "God is God," Hegel argued, "only in so far as he knows himself." Much of the glib absolute that makes much of Hegel not readily approachable to the average philosophical reader should become more open ended and less imperialistic as these critical editions suggest more nuanced readings of the philosopher.

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