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INTRODUCTION
DURING the thirteen
years that Hegel held the chair of philosophy at Berlin
he devoted the whole of his intellectual energy to his
lectures. The rugged and uneven construction of much of
his published work is to be explained by the fact that
many of his books are editorial compilations from the
notes of his students. This applies particularly to his
Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of History, and
History of Philosophy. These defects in form detract
somewhat from the value of the lectures as scientific
treatises, but they have some compensating advantages,
for, as Dr. Edward Caird remarked, 'their very
artlessness gives them something of the same stimulating
and suggestive power which is attained by the consummate
art of the Platonic dialogues.' The Philosophy of
Religion was published at Berlin in 1832
The
Philosophy of Religion
The
condensed version first published by Sir John Hammerton
in 1919.
by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 1832
Squashed version edited by
Glyn
Hughes
© 2004
I
- THE RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY TO RELIGION
THE object of religion is the same as that of
philosophy; it is the eternal verity itself in its
objective existence; it is God. Nothing but God and the
unfolding of God. Philosophy is not the wisdom of the
world, but the knowledge of things which are not of this
world. It is not the knowledge of external mass, of
empirical life and existence, but of the eternal, of the
nature of God, and of all which flows from His nature.
For this nature ought to manifest and develop itself.
Consequently, philosophy in unfolding religion merely
unfolds itself, and in unfolding itself it unfolds
religion.
In so far as philosophy is occupied with the eternal
truth, the truth which is in and for itself; in so far
as it is occupied with this as thinking spirit, rather
than in an arbitrary fashion and in view of a particular
interest, philosophy has the same sphere of activity as
has religion. And if the religious consciousness aspires
to abolish all that is peculiar to itself and to be
absorbed in its object, the philosophic spirit likewise
plunges with the same energy into its object and
renounces all particularity.
Religion and philosophy are thus at one in having one
and the same object. Philosophy, in fact, also is the
adoration of God, it is religion; for, seeing that God
is its object, it involves the same renunciation of
every opinion and every thought that is arbitrary and
subjective. Philosophy is, in consequence, identical
with religion. Only it is religion in a peculiar manner,
and this it is which distinguishes it from religion
commonly so called. So philosophy and religion are both
religion, and that which distinguishes one from the
other is no more than the characteristic mode in which
respectively they consider their object, God.
Here is the difficulty of understanding how philosophy
can make but one with religion, a difficulty which has
even been mistaken for impossibility. Thence also arise
the fears which philosophy inspires in theology and the
hostile attitudes which they assume towards each other.
What brings about this attitude is, on the side of
theology, that for her philosophy does nothing but
corrupt, pull down and profane the content of religion,
and that she understands God in a totally different
manner from that after which religion understands Him.
It is the same opposition which long ago among the
Greeks caused a free and democratic people like the
Athenians to burn books and to condemn Socrates. In our
own day, however, this opposition is considered a thing
which it is natural to admit - more natural indeed than
the other opinion concerning the unity of religion and
philosophy.
Diverse religions offer us, it is true, only too often
the most bizarre and monstrous representations of the
divine essence. But we must not confine ourselves to a
superficial consideration and consequent rejection of
these representations and the religious practices which
follow upon them as being engendered by superstition, by
error, or by imposture, or even by a simple piety, and
so neglect their essential value. There is need to
discover in these representations and in these practices
their relation with truth.
II - GOD THE UNIVERSAL
FOR us, who have a religion, God is a familiar being, a
substantial truth existing in our subjective
consciousness. But, scientifically considered, God is a
general and abstract term. The philosophy of religion it
is which develops and grasps the divine nature and which
teaches us what God is. God is a familiar idea, but an
idea which has still to be scientifically developed.
The result of philosophic examination is that God is the
absolute truth, the universal in and for itself,
embracing all things and in which all things subsist.
And in regard to this assertion, we may appeal in the
first place to the religious consciousness, and to its
conviction that God is the absolute truth whence all
things proceed, whither they all return, upon which all
things depend and in respect of which nothing can
possess a true and absolute independence.
The heart may very well be full of this representation
of God, but science is not built up of what is in the
heart. The object of science is that which has arisen to
the level of consciousness, and of thinking
consciousness; in other words, which has attained the
form of thought.
In so much as He is the universal, God is, for us, in
relation to development, Being enclosed in itself, Being
at unity with itself. When we say God is Being enclosed
in itself, we enunciate a proposition which is bound to
a development which we await. But this envelopment of
God in Himself which we have called His universality we
must not conceive, relatively to God Himself and His
content, as an abstract universality, outside of which,
and as opposed to which, the particular has an
independent existence.
So we must consider this universal as an absolutely
concrete universal. This sense of fullness is the sense
in which God is one, and there is but one God - that is
to say, God is not one merely by contrast with other
gods, but because it is He that is the One, that is,
God.
The things which are, the developments of the worlds of
nature and of mind, show a multiplicity of forms and an
infinite variety of existences. But whatever may be
their difference of degree, of force, of content, these
things have no true independence; their being is
consequent and, so to speak, contingent. When we
predicate being of particular things, it is not of
absolute Being that we speak- -Being of and from itself;
that is, God - but a borrowed being, a semblance of
being.
God is His universality - that is, this universal Being
which has no limit, no bounds, no particularity - is a
Being which subsists absolutely, and which subsists
alone; all else which subsists has its root in this
unity, and by this alone subsists. In thus representing
to ourselves this first content we may say that God is
absolute substance, the only veritable reality. For not
everything which has a reality has a reality of its own,
or subsists by itself. God is the only absolute reality,
and thereby the absolute substance.
If we stop at this abstract thought we have Spinozism,
for in Spinozism subjectivity is not yet differentiated
from substantiality, from substance as such. But in the
pre-supposition just made there is also this thought -
God is spirit, absolute and eternal; spirit which comes
not forth from itself in differentiation. This ideality,
this subjectivity of spirit, which is transparency,
ideality excluding all particular determination, is
precisely the universal, pure relation to self, Being
which remains absolutely within itself.
If we halt at substance, we fail to grasp this Universal
under its concrete form. In its concrete determination
spirit always preserves its unity, this unity of its
reality which we call substance. But one should add that
this substantiality, the unity of the absolute reality
with itself, is but the foundation, but a moment in the
determination of God as spirit. Hence, principally,
arises the reproach which is directed against philosophy
- to wit, that philosophy, to be consistent with itself,
is necessarily Spinozism, and consequently atheism and
fatalism. But at the beginning we have not yet
determinations distinguished one from another as aye and
nay. We have the one but not the other.
Consequently, what we have here is, to start with,
content under the form of substance. Even when we say,
'God,' 'spirit,' we have only words, indeterminate
representations. The essential point is to know what has
been produced in the consciousness. And that is, first,
the simple, the abstract. Here, in this first simple
determination, we have God only under the form of
universality. Only we do not halt at this moment.
Nevertheless, this content remains the foundation of all
further developments, for in these developments God
comes not forth from His unity. When God creates the
world - to use the expression of every day - there comes
not into existence an evil, a contrary, existing in
itself independently of God.
III - GOD EXISTS FOR THOUGHT
THIS Beginning is an object for us or a content in us.
We possess this object. Immediately the question arises,
Who are we? We, I, spirit - here also is a complex
being, a multiplied being. I have perceptions; I see, I
hear, etc. Seeing, hearing; all this is I. Consequently,
the precise sense of this question is, Which among these
determinations is it in accordance with which this
content exists for our minds? Idea, will, imagination,
feeling - which is the seat, the proper domain of this
content, of this object?
If we accept the common answers to this question, God
will abide in us as the object of faith, of feeling, of
representation, of knowledge.
We shall have to examine more closely later on in a
special fashion with respect to this point, these forms,
faculties, aspects of ourselves. In this place we shall
not seek a reply to this question; nor shall we say,
basing our answer on experience and observation, that
God is in our feeling, etc. But, to begin with, we will
confine ourselves to what we have actually before us, to
this One, concrete Being.
If we take this One, and ask for what power, for what
activity of our mind does this One, this absolutely
universal Being, exist, we cannot but name the one
activity of mind which corresponds to it as constituting
its proper natural domain. This activity, which
corresponds to the universal, is thought.
Thought is the field in which this content moves; it is
the energising of the universal, or the universal in the
reality of its activity. Or, if we say that thought
embraces the universal, that for which the universal is
will still be thought.
This universal which can be produced by thought, and
which is for thought, may be a quite abstract universal.
In this sense it is the unlimited, the infinite, the
being without bounds, without particular determination.
This universal, negative to begin with, has its seat not
elsewhere than in thought.
To think of God is to rise above the things of sense,
exterior and individual, above simple feeling into the
region of pure being; being at unity with itself - that
is to say, into the pure region of the universal. And
this region is thought.
Such is the substratum for this content considered on
the subjective side. Here the content is that Being in
which is no difference, no schism; Being which abides in
itself, the universal; and thought is the form for which
this universal is.
Thus we have a difference between thought and the
universal which we have called God. It is a difference
which in the first place belongs only to our reflection,
and is by no means to be found in the content on its own
account. There is the result to which philosophy comes -
a result already comprised in religion as under the form
of faith - to wit, that God is the sole veritable
reality, the Being without, which no other reality would
exist.
IN the unity of this reality, in this cloudless shining,
the reality and the distinction which we call
thinking-being have as yet no place.
What we have before us is this absolute unity. This
content we cannot yet call religion, because to religion
belongs subjective spirit, consciousness. Thought is the
seat of this universal, but this seat is absorbed in
this being which is one, eternal, in and for itself.
This universal constitutes the beginning and the point
of departure, but only as unity which so abides. It is
not a mere substratum whence differences are born;
rather, all differences are included in this universal.
No more is it an abstract and inert universal, but the
absolute principle of all activity, the matrix, the
infinite source whence all things proceed, whither all
things return, and in which they are eternally
preserved.
Thus the universal is never separated from this ethereal
element, from this unity with itself, this concentration
within itself.
IV - WHAT IS EVIL?
AS the universal, God could not find Himself faced by a
contrary whereof the reality should pretend to rise
above the phantasmal level. For this pure unity and this
perfect transparency matter is nothing impenetrable, and
spirit, the ego, is not so independent as to possess a
true, individual substantiality.
There has been a tendency to label this idea pantheism.
It would be more exact to call it the conception of
substantiality. God is first determined as substance
only. The absolute subject, spirit, is also substance;
but it is determined rather as subject. This is the
difference generally ignored by those who assert that
speculative philosophy is pantheism. As usual, they miss
the essential point and disparage philosophy by
falsifying it.
Pantheism is commonly taken to mean that God is all
things - the whole, the universe, the collection of all
existences, of things finite and infinitely diverse.
From which notion the charge is brought against
philosophy that it teaches that all things are God; that
is to say, that God is, not the universal which is in
and for itself, but the infinite multiplicity of
individual things in their empirical and immediate
existence.
If you say God is all that is here, this paper, etc.,
you have indeed committed yourself to the pantheism with
which philosophy is reproached; that is, the whole is
understood as equivalent to all individual things. But
there is also the genus, which is equally the universal,
yet is wholly different from this totality in which the
universal is but the collection of individual things,
and the basis, the content, is constituted by these
things themselves. To say that there has ever been a
religion which has taught this pantheism is to say what
is absolutely untrue. It has never entered any man's
mind that everything is God; that is to say, that God is
things in their individual and contingent existence. Far
less has philosophy ever taught this doctrine.
Spinozism itself, as such, as well as Oriental
pantheism, contains this doctrine: that the divine in
all things is no more than that which is universal in
their content, their essence; and in such sense that
this essence is conceived of as a determinate essence.
When Brahma says, 'In the metal I am the brightness of
its shining; among the rivers I am the Ganges; I am the
life of all that lives,' he thereby suppresses the
individual. He says not, 'I am the metal, the rivers,
the individual things of various kinds as such, nor in
the fashion of their immediate existence.'
Here, at this stage, what is expressed is no longer
pantheism; but rather that of the essence in individual
things.
In the living being are time and space. But in this
individual being it is only the changeless element that
is made to stand out. 'The life of being that lives' is
in this latter sphere of life the unlimited, the
universal. But if it be said 'God is all things,' here
we understand individuality with all its limitations,
its finity, its passing existence. This notion of
pantheism arises out of the conception of unity, not as
spiritual unity, but abstract unity; and then, when the
idea takes its religious form, where only the substance,
the One, is possessed of true reality, there is a
tendency to forget that it is precisely in presence of
this unity that individual and finite things are
effaced, and to continue to place these in a material
fashion side by side with this unity. They will not
admit the teaching of the Eleatics, who, when they say
'There is only One,' add expressly that nonentity is
not. All that is finite would be limitation, a negation
of the One, but non-entity, the boundary, term, limit,
and that which is limited, exist not at all.
Spinozism has been accused of atheism. But Spinozism
does not teach that God is the world, that He is all
things. Things have indeed a phenomenal existence - that
is, an existence as appearances. We speak of our
existence, and our life is indeed comprised in this
existence, but to speak philosophically the world has no
reality, it has no existence. Individual things are
finite things to which no reality can be attributed; it
may be said of them that they have no existence.
Spinozism - this is the accusation directed against it -
involves by way of consequence that, if all things make
but one, good and evil make but one; there is no
difference between them; and thereby all religion is
destroyed. In themselves, it is said there is no
difference between good and evil; consequently it is a
matter of indifference whether one be righteous or
wicked.
It may be granted that in themselves - that is, in God,
who is the sole veritable reality - the difference
between good and evil disappears. In God is no evil. But
the difference between good and evil can exist only on
condition that God is the evil. But it cannot be allowed
that evil is an affirmative thing, and that this
affirmation is in God. God is good, and nothing else
than good; the distinction between good and evil is not
present in this unity, in this substance, and comes into
existence only with differentiation.
GOD is unity abiding absolutely in itself. In the
substance there is no differentiation. The distinction
of good and evil begins with the distinction of God from
the world, and particularly from man. It is the
fundamental principle of Spinozism with regard to this
distinction of God and the world that man must have no
other end than God. The love of God, therefore, it is
that Spinozism marks out for man as the law to be
followed in order to bring about the healing of this
breach.
And it is the loftiest morality that teaches that evil
has no existence and that man is not bound to permit the
substantial existence of this distinction, this
negation. Yet it is possible for him to desire to
maintain the difference and even to push it to the point
of sheer opposition to God. In this case man is evil.
But he may annual this distinction and place his true
existence in God alone and in his aspiration towards
Him; in this case he is good.
In Spinozism there is indeed the difference between good
and evil, opposition between God and man; but side by
side with it we have also the principle that evil is to
be deemed a non-entity. In God as God, in God as
substance, there is no distinction. It is for man that
the distinction exists, as also for him exists the
distinction of good and evil.
V - THE DETERMINATION OF UNITY
THE superficial method of appraising philosophy is
exemplified also in those who assert that it is a
'system of identity.' It is perfectly true that
substance is this unity at one with itself, but spirit
no less is this self-identity. Ultimately, all is
identity, unity with itself. But when they speak of the
philosophy of identity they have in view abstract
identity or unity in general; and they neglect the
essential point, to wit, the determination of this unity
in itself; in other words, they omit to consider whether
this unity is determined as substance or as spirit.
Philosophy from beginning to end is nothing else than
the study of determinations of unity.
In the sphere of the Notion many unities are comprised.
The combination of water and earth is a unity, but this
unity is mixture. If we bring together a base and an
acid, we have as the result a crystal; also water; but
water which cannot be discerned and which gives no trace
of humidity. Here the unity of the water and of this
matter is a unity different from the mixture of water
and earth. The essential point is the difference of
these determinations. The unity of God is always unity,
but what is of primary importance is to know the modes
and forms of the determination of this unity.
Manifestation, development, determination do not go on
to infinity, nor yet do they stop accidentally. But in
the course of its true development the Notion completes
its course by a return upon itself, whereby it has
attained the reality adequate to it. So it is that the
manifestation is infinite in nature, that the content is
adequate to the Notion of spirit, and that the
phenomenal world exists, like spirit, in and for itself.
In religion, the Notion of religion has become its own
object. Spirit which is in and for itself has now no
longer in its development individual forms and
determinations, it knows itself no longer as spirit in
such determinability or such a limited moment; but it
has triumphed over these limitations and this
finiteness, and is for itself that which also it is in
itself. This cognisance in which spirit is for itself
what it is in itself constitutes the in-and-for of
spirit which is in possession of knowledge, the perfect
and absolute religion, in which is revealed what spirit
is, what God is. That is the Christian religion.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
1770-1831
Hegel's grave at Dorotheenstadt and Friedrichswerder
Cemetery, Berlin
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