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The Functionality of Christian Life: Problems of The Early Hegel's Epistemology of Religion*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 June 2015
Abstract
In this paper I want to explore a central line of reasoning in Hegel's early philosophy of religion, which he expounded in fragments he wrote while he was in Bern and Frankfurt in the 1790's. These fragments are known under the titles, Fragmente über Volksreligion und Christentum (dated around 1793–94), Die Positivität der christlichen Religion (1795–96), Entwürfe über Religion und Liebe, and a later essay entitled Der Geist des Christentums und sein Schicksat, they were written sometime between 1798 and 1800, a few years before Hegel published his seminal Jena texts, but they remained unpublished in his lifetime. These texts have, since Nohl's edition of 1907, come to be known collectively as Hegel's ‘theologische Jugendschriften’. I believe that they contain the inchoate system of Hegel's thought in general and his mature philosophy of religion in particular. My main claim here is that Hegel believes that there is an intimate relation between reason and religion, so much so in fact that one can argue that there is reason in religion.
In the first section of my paper, I elaborate on some general problems concerning the relation between faith and reason, in particular, concerning the criterion of truth and viewpoint-neutrality. In the second section, I introduce Hegel's well-known problematic of the sublation of conceptual oppositions, which in the context of an account of the positivity of religion he already articulates, in some form, in these early documents and which may provide a solution for the problems that, in the first section, I argue arise around the relation between faith and reason. This will be merely a rough outline. I subsequently discuss, very briefly, some central aspects of Kant's philosophy of religion, to which to an important extent Hegel's is indebted. In the fourth section, I go on to indicate, also very broadly, the sense in which Hegel attempts to improve upon Kant and thus apparently proves to be more consistent than him. I then raise an issue concerning Hegel's particularist position in his epistemology of religion, which does not sit well with the notion of rationality as viewpoint-neutral. To illustrate this, I look at Hegel's reading of the Eucharist. This is all very sketchy and is meant mainly to elucidate the sense in which, according to Hegel, there is reason in religion.
- Type
- The Young Hegel
- Information
- Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain , Volume 27 , Issue 1-2: number 53/54 , 2006 , pp. 107 - 124
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Hegel Society of Great Britain 2006
Footnotes
*
I first presented an early draft of this paper at the 2006 annual conference of the Hegel Society of Great Britain in Oxford. A subsequent draft was discussed during a meeting of the Metaphysics section in the Department of Philosophy of the University of Amsterdam. I thank the participants and discussants on both occasions for their comments. Special thanks are due to Kees Jan Brons.
References
Notes
1 See for these manuscripts Hegel, , Frühe Schriften, in Werke, ed. Moldenhauer, E. & Michel, K. M., vol. 1 (Frankfurt a/M: Suhrkamp, 1986)Google Scholar. Henceforth, all works mentioned above will be cited from this edition. An English translation of some of these manuscripts is available in Early Theological Writings (ETW), trans. & ed. Knox, T. M. and Kroner, R. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971, 1996)Google Scholar. Where available, I also give the page references in this edition, indicated by ETW followed by page numbers. However, all translations are my own.
2 See e.g. Philipse, Herman, Atheistisch manifest & De onredelijkheid van religie, with an introduction by Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2005)Google Scholar.
3 Cf. Pope Paul VI's ‘Declaration on the relation of the Church to non-Christian religions Nostra Aetate’ (1965), §2. [www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-aetate_en.html]
4 Cf. Philipse 2005, 130.
5 Faith and Knowledge, in G.W.F. Hegel, Gesammelte Werke (GW), vol. 4, Jenaer Kritische Schriften (Hamburg: Meiner), p. 316. Henceforth I refer to this edition as JKS, followed by page numbers.
6 JKS, 315.
7 As pointed out earlier, Catholicism adopts a rational norm of sorts by claiming that divine revelation is in line with natural reason but, as indicated, at the same time Catholicism violates the viewpoint-neutrality standard. Protestantism violates this last criterion by rejecting altogether reason as a standard for justifying faith, namely by maintaining that faith and reason exclude each other conceptually.
8 Cf. Philipse 2005.
9 See for this Jaeschke, Walter, Vernunft in der Religion (Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 1986), pp. 111–116 Google Scholar.
10 By employing the oxymoron ‘universal content’ I allude to the idea that, typically, religion has as its content not some empirical xto which a formal concept can be applied but something that eo ipso overdetermines any formal concept, namely the Absolute or the divine.
11 JKS, 325.
12 Put differently, Hegel's philosophy of religion is not a mere study of religion in terms of religious studies, or, religious anthropology, or even a historical genealogy of religion per se, rather it is an epistemology of religion, in that historical religions are valued in terms of their claim to truth, specifically in the context of their positive appearance.
13 Cf. Fragmente, 11, 16.
14 Der Geist, 370/ETW: 254. Hegel talks about a ‘pure feeling of life’ (371/ETW: 255); and he associates ‘pure life’ with the divine (372/ETW: 255), but also with being (371/ETW: 254). He also talks about ‘consciousness of pure life’ (370/ETW: 254) and, in the context of an account of the Last Supper, the living life of the Godhead’ (Grundkonzpt, 304), which is intimately related to ‘pure life’.
15 Cf. JKS, 327, where Hegel presents a more formal analysis of the relation between the identity of the understanding and difference, which can be extrapolated to the debate concerning faith and reason.
16 Der Geist, 370 note* /ETW: 254n.72.
17 Or more precisely productive imagination, which Hegel, I believe wrongly, regards as distinct from the spontaneous act of the understanding which he thinks is merely derivative of productive imagination (see JKS, 329; cf. my ‘Hegel on Kant's Synthetic A Priori in Glauben und Wissen ’, in Hegel-Jahrbuch 2005: Glauben und Wissen. Dritter Teil, eds. Arndt, A., Bal, K. & Ottman, H. [Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2005], pp. 176–82)Google Scholar.
18 See Grundkonzept, 309f.
19 Cf. e.g. Der Geist, 324f.
20 See Kant, , Critique of Pure Reason B130–31Google Scholar. I expound Kant's theory of a priori synthesis in Kant's Deduction from Apperception. On Identity, Objectivity, and Explanation (forthcoming).
21 See further section III below.
22 Evidently, by suggesting the sublation of the distinction between positive and natural religion Hegel is not out to reduce faith to reason or reason to faith, so that they simply conflate. In some way, religion symbolises a structure of self-understanding to reality, which only becomes explicit in reason. As Hegel points out in e.g. the Phenomenology of Spirit, religion still works with merely ‘representational’ terminology, or is a kind of ‘picture-thinking’, which shows that its implicitly reflexive structure in its relation to reality has not yet reached the stage of complete self-awareness. In other words, religion is not simply reason. A problem for Hegel, however, remains the issue concerning the transition from what has such an implicitly reflexive structure to explicit self-awareness, in short, the transition from religion to reason (this issue is particularly pertinent in the later sections of the Phenomenology that deal with this issue). Hegel argues that what is implicitly rational, viz., religion, is not yet explicitly reason, but he also appears to argue that the being made explicit is a function of religion itself (or is self-mediated by religion), not something executed from outside it. However, against Hegel it can be argued that it is not clear how religion at the same time remains implicit as to its relation to reality in contrast to philosophy and provides itself the means of becoming explicit, i.e., becoming fully self-aware, and hence becomes reason from within itself. Accordingly, it would seem that ‘making explicit’ is a mode that belongs uniquely to reason. Put simply, what is implicitly rational cannot of its own accord make itself explicitly rational. For Kant, at any rate, the perspective from which the rational end of religion is considered is consistently the perspective from reason (i.e. ‘within the boundaries of mere reason’), so that only religion insofar as it is the object of reason is the subject of study; and thus only religion as morality is, according to Kant, a candidate for such study.
23 The standard meaning of functionality is: ‘the quality of uniquely realising a purpose’, hence by the functionality of Christian life I mean the quality that uniquely realises Christian life. For, Hegel the functionality of Christian life and the functionality of religion tout court appear to conflate, for he sees the functionality of religion in terms of a form of fundamental self-understanding, which is no different to reason as such.
24 Kant, , Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, in Akademische Ausgabe (AA) (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1900–), vol. 6: 151 Google Scholar. Hereafter citations are from this edition. Translations are my own.
25 AA 6: 153 (emphasis added).
26 Cf. e.g. Habermas, Jürgen, ‘Religion in the Public Sphere’, in European Journal of Philosophy 14, 1 (2006): 1–25 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
27 Werke, p. 28.
28 In Kant's definition of religion, i.e., ‘the knowledge of all our duties as divine commands’, ‘no assertoric knowledge is required (not even of God's existence)’, merely a ‘problematic assent [problematisches Annehmen] (hypothesis)’ apropos of ‘the highest cause of things’ (AA 6: 153, 154 note). In regard to the object to which our morally commanding reason is directed a ‘free assertoric faith’ is presupposed, which requires Only the idea of God (ibid., Kant's emphasis) or God as ‘moral originator of the world [moralischem Welturhebei]’ (AA 6: 157). Kant's conception of religion thus does not conflict with atheism about the possibility of having theoretical (speculative) knowledge of the objective reality of God. Nevertheless, a rationalist in religious matters, who is a naturalist denying the possibility of speculative knowledge of supernatural divine revelation, cannot strictly speaking deny the ‘inner possibility of revelation tout court’ nor ‘the necessity of a revelation in general as a divine means to introduce the true religion’, ‘for no human being can decide on this through reason’ (AA 6: 155).
29 Kant makes a distinction between ‘divinely inspired faith’ and ‘pure rational faith’ (AA 6: 137, 138).
30 I am aware of Kant's own different distinction between considering religion in respect of its ‘first origin and its inner possibility’ (AA 6: 155, emphasis added) and considering religion ‘in respect of its capacity of being universally communicable [ihrer Beschaffenheit, allgemein mitteilbar zu sein] (ibid., 155.26–27). It is this latter consideration that is of importance for Kant, for the former consideration is the domain of revealed religion (theology). However, as Kant subsequendy explains, natural religion is not absolutely different from the true revealed religion, for the natural light of reason would lead one to revealed religion. Conversely, revealed religion must contain certain principles of natural religion to be able to be sustained over time, for otherwise one would require a continuous supernatural revelation.
31 Cf. AA 6: 167–8; Hegel refers to ‘popular religion’ in Fragmente or ‘positive religion’ in Positivität.
32 AA6: 158; cf. AA 6: 164.
33 AA 6: 167–68; cf. AA 6: 144.10–13.
34 AA 6: 168. Notice that Kant allows that ecclesial organisation can be realised through various ‘equally good forms’ (ibid.).
35 Cf. Jaeschke 1986, pp. 111–116, especially 113.1 do not agree with Jaeschke, who claims (115) that, at some point in his early development, Hegel ‘definitely rejects the ethico-theological reading’ of religion. While it is clear that Hegel wants to amend a Kantian-type moral religion, it is just too strong to claim, as Jaeschke does, that he completely rejects it.
36 See Fragmente, 17f., 70, 71, 75.
37 In Der Geist, Hegel concentrates on the supposed problems in Kant's practical philosophy.
38 Cf. Kant, AA 6: 151.10–12.
39 Fragmente, 83.
40 Ibid. The passage quoted continues: ‘…as in all else, even more so in what is moral, for otherwise it is only something coerced [Gezwungenes], something of which one discerns that it is not natural’.
41 See the Neufassung des Anfangs (1800) of the Positivität essay in Werke, 222.
42 Der Geist, 365/ETW: 249. In a similar context (Fragmente, 97), Hegel refers to unto mystica.
43 Der Geist, 367/ETW: 250.
44 See Der Geist, 365ff., 367. The Knox translation reads: ‘But because they eat the bread and drink the wine, because his body and his blood pass over into them, Jesus is in them all’ (ETW, p. 250), suggesting that the body and blood directly pass over into the disciples. Even as a symbolic, heterodox (non-Catholic) reading of the Last Supper, this is an unlikely interpretation. Therefore, I prefer to read the German passage ‘in sie übergeht’ as saying that the body and blood pass over or transmigrate into the bread and wine. This is also in conformity with Hegel's remark that the bread and wine are ‘mystical objects’ (Der Geist, 366/ETW: 250). See also note 47 below.
45 Grundkonzept, 304.
46 Der Geist, 364/ETW: 248.
47 Cf. Houlgate, Stephen, An Introduction to Hegel. Freedom, Truth, and History, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), 257 Google Scholar regarding the mature Hegel's interpretation of the Eucharist and its similarities with and differences from the Catholic conception. For Hegel, Houlgate argues, Christ is not objectively present ‘in the consecrated Host, independently of the state of mind, or faith, of the believer’, as it is on the Catholic conception of the Last Supper. ‘Christ is present in the Eucharist, for Hegel, but he is only present in the faith and spirit of the believer, not in the consecrated Host by itself. Notwithstanding the primacy of the spiritual character of Christ's presence in the community of the believers, in the Der Geist essay, however, Hegel does seem to hint at a more Catholic reading of the nature of the consecrated Host, for he asserts that ‘the wine and bread become mystical objects, in that Jesus calls them his body and blood’ (366/ETW: 250). A bit further on, Hegel states that Christ's ‘body and blood transmigrate into [the bread and wine] [in sie übergeht]’, suggesting Christ's literal presence in the Host (367/ETW: 250). Nevertheless, in the same passage, Hegel emphasises that it is the central role of the partaking of the Host, and so ‘the relation [Verhältnis] of the wine to them’ (emphasis added), rather than the converted objects wine and bread themselves to which the believers relate externally, which induces the ‘same feeling […] in all’ that shows their unity with Christ.
48 Grundkonzept, 304.
49 On my reading of Hegel, Hegel regards the Christian exemplar not as a mere image of the rational core idea of religion, among other possible religious images, but as exemplifying this idea uniquely. Similar to Catholicism, Hegel appears to hold that only the Christian faith is truly religion, whereas other religions only show some degree of truth.
50 Cf. Kant AA 6:156–57.
51 AA 6: 140.