Christianity and Greek Philosophy / or, the relation between spontaneous and reflective thought in Greece and the positive teaching of Christ and His Apostles

by B. F. Cocker

[Footnote 46: ][ (return) ] Ibid., chap. xi. p. 24.

[Footnote 47: ][ (return) ] Herzog's Real-Encyc., art. "Hegelian Philos.," by Ulrici.

The whole philosophy of Hegel consists in the development of this idea of God by means of his, so-called, dialectic method, which reflects the objective life-process of the Absolute, and is, in fact, identical with it; for God, says he, "is only the Absolute Intelligence in so far as he knows himself to be the Absolute Intelligence, and this he knows only in science [dialectics], and this knowledge alone constitutes his true existence." [⁴⁸] This life-process of the Absolute has three "moments." It may be considered as the idea in itself--bare, naked, undetermined, unconscious idea; as the idea out of itself, in its objective form, or in its differentiation; and, finally, as the idea in itself, and for itself, in its regressive or reflective form. This movement of thought gives, first, bare, naked, indeterminate thought, or thought in the mere antithesis of Being and non-Being; secondly, thought externalizing itself in nature; and, thirdly, thought returning to itself, and knowing itself in mind, or consciousness. Philosophy has, accordingly, three corresponding divisions:--1. LOGIC, which here is identical with metaphysics; 2. PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE; 3. PHILOSOPHY OF MIND.

[Footnote 48: ][ (return) ] "Hist, of Philos.," iii. p. 399.

It is beyond our design to present an expanded view of the entire philosophy of Hegel. But as he has given to the world a new logic, it may be needful to glance at its general features as a help to the comprehension of his philosophy of religion. The fundamental law of his logic is the identity of contraries or contradictions. All thought is a synthesis of contraries or opposites. This antithesis not only exists in all ideas, but constitutes them. In every idea we form, there must be two things opposed and distinguished, in order to afford a clear conception. Light can not be conceived but as the opposite of darkness; good can not be thought except in opposition to evil. All life, all reality is thus, essentially, the union of two elements, which, together, are mutually opposed to, and yet imply each other.

The identity of Being and Nothing is one of the consequences of this law.

1. The Absolute is the Being (das Absolute ist das Seyn), and "the Being" is here, according to Hegel, bare, naked, abstract, undistinguished, indeterminate, unconscious idea.

2. The Absolute is the Nothing (das Absolute ist das Nichts). "Pure being is pure abstraction, and consequently the absolute-negative, which in like manner, directly taken, is nothing." Being and Nothing are the positive and negative poles of the Idea, that is, the Absolute. They both alike exist, they are both pure abstractions, both absolutely unconditioned, without attributes, and without consciousness. Hence follows the conclusion--

3. Being and Nothing are identical (das Seyn und das Nichts ist dasselbe), Being is non-Being. Non-Being is Being--the Anders-seyn--which becomes as Being to the Seyn. Nothing is, in some sense, an actual thing.

Being and Nothing are thus the two elements which enter into the one Absolute Idea as contradictories, and both together combine to form a complete notion of bare production, or the becoming of something out of nothing,--the unfolding of real existence in its lowest form, that is, of nature.