Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 3 (of 3)

by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

From what has been said it follows, in the second place, that the world must not be left in its immediate naturalness. The original, implicitly existent, is found only in the strictest conception of mind, or as its determination: immediately, man is only a living being, who has indeed the capacity to become actual spirit—but spirit does not pertain to nature. Man is thus not by nature this particular in which the spirit of God lives and dwells: man is not by nature what he ought to be. The animal is by nature what it ought to be. But what has to be noticed in this respect is that natural things merely remain in their implicit Notion, or their truth does not enter into their sensuous life, for this their natural individuality is only a fleeting fact that cannot look back on itself. The misfortune in natural things is that they get no further, that their essential nature is not for itself and independent; from this it follows that they do not attain to infinitude, to liberation from their immediate individuality, i.e. they do not attain to freedom, but only remain in the necessity which is the connection of the “one” with an “other,” so that when this other unites itself to natural things, these last perish because they cannot bear the contradiction. But because the truth exists for man as consciousness, and in it he has the qualities necessary for freedom, he is capable of perceiving the Absolute, of placing himself in a relation to the same, and having knowledge as an end; and the liberation of mind depends on the fact that consciousness does not remain in its natural condition, but becomes spiritual, i.e. that for it the eternal, that is the reconciliation of the finite as this subject with the infinite, exists. Thus consciousness does not signify remaining in the sphere of nature, but the existence of the process whereby the universal becomes object or end to man. Man makes himself divine, but in a spiritual, that is to say not in an immediate way. In the ancient religions the divine is also united to the natural or human; but this unity is no reconciliation, but an immediate, undeveloped, and thus unspiritual unity, just because it is merely natural. But because mind is not natural but only that into which it makes itself, the spiritual is first met with in this very process of producing unity. To this spiritual unity pertains the negation of nature, of the flesh, as that in which man must not rest; for nature is from the beginning evil. Man is likewise naturally evil, for all the wickedness that man does proceeds from a natural desire. Now because man is in himself the image of God, but in existence is only natural, that which is implicit must be evolved, while the first natural condition must be abrogated. So much the more is it true that man first becomes spiritual, and attains to truth through rising above the natural, inasmuch as God Himself is a spirit only in that He transformed the hidden unity into the other of Himself, in order from this other to turn back again into Himself.

Now the fact that this is given as, or asserted to be the fundamental Idea of Christianity, implies on the one hand an historic question; at different times this idea has been grasped in different ways, and now, for example, men again have their particular conceptions of it. In order to bring about the conclusion that this is the historic idea of Christianity, we should have to enter upon an historic disquisition; but because we cannot deal with this here, we must accept it as an historic axiom. On the other hand, in so far as this question falls within the history of Philosophy, the assertion that this is the idea of Christianity has another ground to stand on than that of history, and this constitutes the third point of interest. In connection with the preceding forms it has been shown that this Idea of Christianity must have now come forth, and indeed become the universal consciousness of the nations. The fact that it has come forth as the world-religion, is the content of history; it is this necessity in the Idea which has to be expounded more clearly in the philosophy of history. To this end the conception of mind must be made fundamental, and it must now be shown that history is the process of mind itself, the revelation of itself from its first superficial, enshrouded consciousness, and the attainment of this standpoint of its free self-consciousness, in order that the absolute command of mind, “Know thyself,” may be fulfilled. The recognition of this necessity has been called the à priori construction of history; there is no good in decrying it as inadmissible, and indeed as arrogant. The development of history may be represented as contingent. Or, if the providence and government of God are seriously accepted, these are represented as though Christianity were so to speak ready made in the mind of God; then, when thrust into the world, it appears to be contingent. But the rationality and likewise the necessity of this decree of God’s has now to be considered, and this may be called a theodicy, a justification of God, i.e. a vindication of our Idea. It is a demonstration that, as I have just said, things have happened rationally in the world, and it implies the fact that the world-history represents the process of mind partially as the history of mind, which has to be reflected into itself in order to come to a consciousness of what it is. It is this which is shown forth in temporal history, and as history, indeed, just because mind is the living movement, proceeding from its immediate existence to beget revolutions in the world, as well as in individuals.

Since it is hereby presupposed that this Idea must necessarily become universal religion, there is, in the fourth place, present in it the source of a method of knowledge proper to the particular consciousness. That is to say, the new religion has made the intelligible world of Philosophy the world of common consciousness. Tertullian hence says: “Even children in our day have a knowledge of God, which the wisest men of antiquity alone attained to.” But in order that all may know the truth, this Idea must come to them as an object, not for the thinking, philosophic and cultured consciousness, but for the sensuous consciousness which still adheres to uncultured methods of regarding things. If this Idea were not to receive and to retain this form of outward consciousness, it would be a philosophy of the Christian religion; for the standpoint of Philosophy is the Idea in the form of the merely universal thought, and not the Idea as it is for the subject and directed to the subject. That through which this Idea appears as religion, belongs, however, to the history of religion, and this development of its form must here be passed over. Through these forms we must however not mistake the content, much less reject it altogether, for we must rather recognize its presence more completely; the forms must likewise not be held to be absolute, and we must not try to maintain the doctrines in this form alone, as was at one time done by an orthodoxy “of straw.”

Only one example will here be given. The so-called doctrine of original sin implies that our first parents have sinned, that this sin has thus descended to all mankind as an hereditary disorder, and has come upon posterity in an external way as something inherent in their nature, which does not pertain to freedom of the mind, nor has its ground therein. Through this original sin, it is further signified, man has drawn upon himself the wrath of God. Now if these forms be adhered to, we have in the first place there the first parents in time, and not in thought; but the thought of these first parents is none other than man as he is in and for himself. What is said of him as such, what every member of the human race really is in himself, is represented here in the form of the first man, Adam; and in this first man sin manifests itself as something contingent, or, more particularly, in his allowing himself to be enticed into eating of the apple. But it is again not merely represented that he simply partook of the fruit, but that he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; it is as man that he must partake of it, and not as beast. The fundamental characteristic, however, through which he distinguishes himself from the animal, is the very fact that he knows what good and evil are. For God likewise says, “Behold, Adam has become as one of us, to know good and evil.” But it is only through man’s having the power of thinking that he can make this distinction between good and evil; in thought alone is there thus the source of good and evil, but the healing of the evil which is brought about through thought is also there. The second point is that man is by nature evil and transmits the evil. On the other hand, it is said: “Why should the sinner suffer punishment seeing that there is no responsibility for what is inborn in him?” As a matter of fact the statement that man is implicitly or by nature evil would seem to be a hard saying. But if we set aside this hard saying, and do not speak of a divine punishment, but make use of milder general expressions, in this idea of original sin the fact remains for us that man as he is by nature is not what he ought to be before God, but has the power of becoming explicitly what he only is implicitly; and the fact that this rests in the determination of man as such is represented as inheritance. The abrogation of mere naturalness is known to us simply as education, and arises of itself; through education subjection is brought about, and with that a capacity for becoming good is developed. Now if this appears to come to pass very easily, we must recollect that it is of infinite importance that the reconciliation of the world with itself, the making good, is brought about through the simple method of education.

2. What concerns us now is to make the Principle of Christianity, which has been explained at considerable length, into the principle of the world; the task set before the world is to bring this absolute Idea within itself, to actualize it in itself, and thereby to reconcile itself to God. This task once more falls into three separate divisions.

In the first place we have the dissemination of the Christian religion and the bringing of it within the hearts of men; this, however, lies outside the limits of our consideration. The heart signifies the subjective man as ‘this,’ and through this principle the latter has a different position from before; it is essential that this subject should be present. The individual subject is the object of divine grace; each subject, or man as man, has on his own account an infinite value, is destined to partake of this spirit which must, as God, be born within the heart of every man. Man is determined for freedom, he is here recognized as implicitly free; this freedom is, however, at first only formal, because it remains within the principle of subjectivity.

The second point is that the principle of the Christian religion should be worked out for thought, and be taken up into thinking knowledge, and realized in this; and thus that it should attain to reconciliation, having the divine Idea within itself, and that the riches of thought and culture belonging to the philosophic Idea should become united to the Christian principle. For the philosophic Idea is the Idea of God, and thought has the absolute right of reconciliation, or the right to claim that the Christian principle should correspond with thought. The Fathers have rendered the service of thus elaborating the Christian religion in thinking knowledge; but neither have we to consider further this development of the Christian principle, since it belongs to the history of the Church. We have only here to give the point of view adopted regarding the relation of the Fathers to Philosophy. They for the most part lived within the ancient Roman world and in Latin culture, though the Byzantines likewise are included with them. We know that the Fathers were men of great philosophic culture, and that they introduced Philosophy, and more especially Neo-Platonic philosophy, into the Church; in this way they worked out a Christian system by which the first mode in which Christianity was manifested in the world was supplemented, for system was not present in this first manifestation. The Fathers have dealt with all questions respecting the nature of God, the freedom of man, the relationship to God—who is the objective—the origin of evil, and so on; and whatever thought decided regarding these questions was by them brought into and incorporated with the Christian system. The nature of spirit, the way of salvation, i.e. the various stages in the spiritualizing of the subject, his growth, the process of spirit, whereby it is spirit, the changes it has undergone, they have likewise treated in its freedom, and recognized its moments in the depths to which it reaches.

We may thus describe the attitude of the Christian Fathers, and likewise remark that this first philosophic development of the Christian principle has been looked on as a crime on their part, and it has been said that they have thus corrupted the purity of Christianity as originally manifested. We must speak of the nature of this corruption. It is well known that Luther in his Reformation made his aim the bringing of the Church back to the purity of its first estate in the early centuries, but this first condition already shows the fabric of an extensive and closely interwoven system, an elaborate tissue of doctrines regarding what God is and what is man’s relation to Him. Hence at the time of the Reformation no particular system was built up, but what was originally there was purified from later additions; it is a complicated erection, in which the most intricate pieces of workmanship are to be found. In modern times this elaborately woven system has been entirely pulled to pieces, because men have wished to bring Christianity back to the simple lines of the Word of God as found in the writings of the New Testament. Men have likewise given up the propagation of the system, the doctrine of Christianity as determined through the Idea and by the Idea, and have returned to the manner of its first appearance (and that, indeed, in eclectic fashion, and having regard to what will fit in with their own notions), so that now only the original Gospel narrative is regarded as forming the basis of Christianity. As regards the title of Philosophy and the Fathers to bring Philosophy into Christianity we have the following remarks to make.

Modern Theology on the one hand derives its formulas from the words of the Bible, which are made to form their basis, so that the whole business of the individual, as regards his thoughts and his conceptions, is merely exegetical; religion must be retained in its positive form, and thus it is from something received and given, something most evidently externally posited and revealed, that a beginning must be made. These words and this text are, however, of a nature such that they allow full latitude to the will of the interpreter; hence the other side is also present, or the application of the Bible saying: “The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.” This must be assented to, and the spirit means none else than the power which dwells within those who apply themselves to the letter in order that they may spiritually apprehend and animate it. This signifies that it is the conceptions which we bring along with us which have in the letter to give efficacy to themselves. Now these reflections brought along with us may be grasped by the most ordinary human understanding, which is what is indicated in modern times when we say that dogmas must be popular. In that way the right to act upon the letter with the spirit is assumed, i.e. the right to approach it with our individual judgment; but to the Fathers this is forbidden. They did act upon it with the Spirit; and it is expressly said that the Spirit dwells within the Church, directs, teaches, and illuminates it. The Fathers have hence a similar right to relate themselves with the Spirit to the positive, to what is given by the senses. Only it will depend absolutely upon what the nature of the Spirit is, for spirits are very different.