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The Reality of Religion in Hegel’s Idealist Metaphysics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 September 2016

Paolo Diego Bubbio
Paolo Diego Bubbio*
Affiliation:
Western Sydney University, [email protected]
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Abstract

In this paper, I explore the question of the reality of God for Hegel. I first consider the contemporary interpretative debate on Hegel’s metaphysics and the implications of this debate for the Hegelian conception of God. I then advocate a ‘qualified revisionist’ approach to Hegel, and, as a further qualification to such an approach, I suggest an interpretation of the objective reality that Hegel attributes to God as mediated objectivity. I analyse how Hegel’s ‘mediated objectivity’ applies to religious representations, suggesting that a figural reading of the kind theorized by philologist Erich Auerbach should be adopted. Finally I reconstruct Hegel’s distinction between the image (Bild) of God, the concept (Begriff) of God, and the Idea (Idee) of God, and I argue that the answer to the question of the objective reality of God in Hegel’s philosophy of religion can be retrieved in the process according to which the concept turns into the Idea.

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Articles
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Hegel Bulletin , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , October 2016 , pp. 232 - 257
Copyright
© The Hegel Society of Great Britain 2016 

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