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Hegel as a Theologian

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

William C. Shepherd
Affiliation:
Smith College Northampton, Mass. 01060

Extract

Confronted with the conventional genre of Hegelian interpretation, the following pages take on a rather unusual cast, for their concern is exclusively theological. Furthermore, I make the large assumption in this essay that the customary theological critique of Hegel, which flagellates him for the Aujhebung of theology into philosophy, is both inadequate and even crude, however much the principal motivation of such a critique may be quite justifiable.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1968

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References

1 For sophisticated theological criticism of Hegel which nevertheless takes him with utmost seriousness as a theologian, see Gerdes, Hayo, Das Christusbild Soren Kierkegaards (Düsseldorf-Köln: Eugen Diederich Verlag, 1960)Google Scholar, and especially Crites, Stephen D., The Problem of the Positivity of the Gospel in the Hegelian Dialectic of Alienation and Reconciliation (unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Dept. of Religious Studies, Yale University, 1961)Google Scholar. Also, Crites, , The Gospel According to Hegel, The Journal of Religion 46 (04, 1966), 246–63Google Scholar, though the material in the article comes directly from the dissertation.

2 Munson, Thomas N., Hegel as Philosopher of Religion, The Journal of Religion 46 (01, 1966), 924CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Cf. Crites, 200ff., for a very full and competent discussion of this basic movement of the Hegelian dialectic. All references cite CRITES’ dissertation, not his later article.

4 Hegel, G. W. F., Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, trans. Speirs, E. B. and Sanderson, J. Burdon (New York: The Humanities Press, 1962), Vol. I, 80Google Scholar. Hereafter cited by volume and page number only.

5 I, 81.

6 III, 42.

7 III, 43–44. Cf. also Hegel's discussion of man as imago del (man as by nature good), III, 46ff.

8 III, 130.

9 III, 130. Hegel uses the concept “velleity” incorrectly. It denotes only a conditional desire for the vision of God. See the historical sections of my forthcoming work, Man's Condition: God and the World Process (New York: Herder and Herder, Jan., 1969)Google Scholar for a discussion of the term with regard to the post-Tridentine. and the contemporary Roman Catholic theological traditions.

10 III, 130f.

11 III, 2 and 143.

12 II, 334, and cf. Crites, 200, n. 1 — comparison with Luther.

13 II, 335.

14 See Rahner, Karl, Über den Begriff des Geheimnisses in der katholischen Theologie, and Bemerkungen zum dogmatischen Traktat “De Trinitate,” in Schriften zur Theologie, IV (Einsiedeln: Benziger Verlag, 1964), 5199Google Scholar and 103–33; and Über die Möglichkeit des Glaubens heute, Schriften, V (Einsiedeln: Benziger, 1964), 1153Google Scholar. And Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics I/I (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1936)Google Scholar.

15 I, 84f.

16 III, 12.

17 III, 69.

18 III, 70.

19 I, 82f., and II, 122f.

20 Crites, 210, and see Crites' discussion of the preparation process, 206–10.

21 See Man's Condition, ch. 7 and Part Two, passim, where I argue that a view of the world process as evolutionary and unified provides Rahner with a fitting context for this enterprise.

22 III, 74.

23 III, 75. My emphasis.

24 III,79.

25 III, 92f.

26 III, 91 and n. I.

27 III, 72f.

28 “And like as when a great king has entered into some large city and taken up his abode in one of the houses there, such city is at all events held worthy of high honor, nor does any enemy or bandit any longer descend upon it and subject it; but, on the contrary, it is thought entitled to all care, because of the king's having taken up his residence in a single house there; so, too, has it been with the monarch of all. For now that he has come to our realm, and taken up his abode in one body among his peers, henceforth the whole conspiracy of the enemy against mankind is checked, and the corruption of death which before was prevailing against them is done away.” On the Incarnation of the Word, in Christology of the Later Fathers, ed. Hardy, E. R. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1954), 63Google Scholar.

29 III, 99.

30 III, 87.

31 III, 109.

32 III, 122.

33 III, 124.

34 III, 132.

35 III, 148.

36 III, 151.