I. The institutional division of labour between religion and philosophy in Hegel

The significance that religious phenomena have within Hegel's system is underlined by the fact that Hegel treats religion in its relation to philosophy quite prominently in the opening section of his Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences. Although Hegel defines the scope of philosophy by drawing comparisons to other sciences (e.g., mathematics, jurisprudence, physics, or science of historyFootnote ⁶), it is the suggestion of an affirmative relation between philosophy and religion that serves as the starting point in the encyclopaedic presentation of his philosophical system. In §1 of the Encyclopaedia, Hegel writes:

In this introductory passage religion is the central point of reference for Hegel's characterization of philosophy according to which religion and philosophy share a common universe of discourse. The unique feature that allows for the discrimination of religion and philosophy is the form in which they grasp their objects, and not these objects themselves. As Hegel highlights, religion and philosophy can be distinguished by contrasting the religious form of representation (Vorstellung) with philosophy's conceptual thinking (Begreifen). In line with this, it has become commonly accepted to summarize Hegel's position regarding the relationship of religion to philosophy in terms of an identity of content and a difference of form.Footnote ⁸ What was at issue here was not alone—and presumably not even primarily—the assumption that religion and philosophy share the aim of trying to understand how things like God, nature and human spirit hang together, but the more controversial thesis that religion and philosophy hold the same view as regards the truth of God, nature and the self.Footnote ⁹ Hegel advances such a claim at the end of his Encyclopaedia in the chapter on the absolute spirit:

In this paper I want to contribute to the understanding of this more controversial thesis by arguing that Hegel is committed to the idea of an institutional division of labour between religion and philosophy. To do so, I will first show that there is textual evidence that lends support to the general idea of such a division of labour regarding Hegel's conception of religion and philosophy (section I.i). Secondly, I will specify and confine the scope of his claim. This is necessary because of Hegel's highly ambiguous use of the word ‘religion’. Depending on the context the term ‘religion’ can refer to (1) all kinds of faith and forms of life including particular rituals, prayers etc.; (2) reflective forms of thinking about religion and God, i.e. theology (see Enc: §564A/GW 20: 550 and Enc: §2A/GW 20: 41); (3) particular forms of religion, for example the Christian religion; and at times also (4) all forms of cultural self-understanding which to Hegel encompasses art, religion and philosophy. The latter meaning is pertinent when he speaks of the sphere of absolute spirit in general as ‘[r]eligion, as this supreme sphere may be in general designated’ (Enc: §554A/GW 20: 542). In light of Hegel's ambiguous use of the word ‘religion’, I will show that Hegel's thesis of the same content of religion and philosophy is restricted only to a particular religion, namely the Christian religion (see section I.ii).

I.i The general idea of a division of labour between religion and philosophy

The general idea of a division of labour between religion and philosophy is backed by a passage from the preface to the second edition of Hegel's Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, where Hegel writes the following:

Before going into details, it is crucial to note that Hegel is not merely describing a given state of affairs but articulating a normative expectation that is meant to suggest that a particular organization of society is a feasible and desirable structure. The overarching theme of this passage is the question of how people can relate to the truth. According to Hegel there is more than one such possibility. Truth is available via philosophy, but also by means of religion.Footnote ¹⁰ Hegel characterizes religion and philosophy as ‘two languages, one of them the language of emotions and representation, the other the language of the concrete concept’ (GW 20: 13; my translation). Conceptual and representational thinking are different forms of thinking which are more or less easy to employ. While conceptual thinking, the characteristic of (speculative) philosophy, is depicted as a laborious activity and therefore only undertaken by some specialists, Hegel seems to suggest that representational thinking is a form of thinking one acquires rather easily, namely through one's religious socialization. Hegel makes it quite clear that the philosophical form of conceptual thinking is the more fitting form for grasping the truth, whereas (religious) representations are (by definition) one-sided and abstract. However, he does not conclude from this that religion thereby becomes superfluous or unreasonable. On the contrary, Hegel affirms that there can be the same content in two different languages. Thus, according to him it is perfectly reasonable that the life of a philosopher is only chosen by some people and not by everyone. What might be the reason for this?

To account for this, one needs to note that Hegel does not claim a general superiority of either philosophy or conceptual thinking. He conceives conceptual thinking as the superior form of consciousness but only in a certain respect, namely regarding epistemic and justificatory aims. Besides these theoretical aims there are other aims for which philosophy is less well suited or unsuited at all. For example, when Hegel distinguishes between a general (religious) and a special (philosophical) consciousness of truth he suggests that religion is superior to philosophy because the religious language with its images and narrative elements is much more accessible and intelligible for people of different educational backgrounds whereas the occupation with philosophical concepts remains reserved for a special class of people. The thesis that Hegel makes use of such a division between scientific and impersonal aims on the one hand and cultural and personal needs on the other is backed by various remarks of Hegel's, for example in the Encyclopaedia by his indication of the exceptional position and the ‘incomprehensibility of philosophy’ (‘die Unverständlichkeit der Philosophie’) (Enc: §3/GW 20: 42; my translation), but also in the famous annotation to §270 of his Elements of the Philosophy of Right where religion is depicted as the institution in service of personal hope and consolation (see EPR: §270A/GW 14,1: 213 and EPR: §241/GW 14,1: 192) that resonates with an earlier remark from the Phenomenology of Spirit in which he strictly criticized any kind of Erbaulichkeit through philosophy but in no way precluded the possibility that others, theologians or poets for example, tend to such needs (see PhG: 14). This shows that the assumption of the exceptional epistemic position that Hegel ascribes to philosophy is by no means incompatible with the existence of other (non-scientific) functions that religion can serve better than philosophy. Rather, Hegel is far from thinking that philosophy could be able to replace the social and consolatory function of religion in any satisfactory way. Or to put it positively, Hegel's assumption is that religion and philosophy are two social practices or institutions that can complement each other in a fruitful way exactly because each institution serves aims and needs well that the other is less suited for. If there is such a division of labour, religion and philosophy must not conflict with each other.Footnote ¹¹ For philosophers the truth will be of scientific interest and part of the need to provide satisfying justifications for our beliefs, whereas for the religious believer the truth is first and foremost something that has existential value in an individual life. They employ the same content, as Hegel says, and still do so in different ways.

I.ii The Absolute as spirit as the content of the Christian religion

The question that has remained unanswered so far is the question of what content exactly Hegel has in mind which is supposed to be the same in religion and in philosophy. A passage that provides information about this is the annotation to §384 from the third edition of Hegel's Encyclopaedia from 1830 where he writes:

The Absolute is Mind (Spirit) this is the supreme definition of the Absolute. To find this definition and to grasp its meaning and burthen was, we may say, the ultimate purpose of all education and all philosophy: it was the point to which turned the impulse of all religion and science: and it is this impulse that must explain the history of the world. The word Mind (Spirit) and some glimpseFootnote ¹² of its meaning was found at an early period: and the spirituality of God is the lesson of Christianity. It remains for philosophy in its own element of intelligible unity to get hold of what was thus given as a mental image, and what implicitly is the ultimate reality; and that problem is not genuinely, and by rational methods, solved so long as liberty and intelligible unity is not the theme and the soul of philosophy. (Enc: §384A/GW 20: 382−83)

In this passage Hegel sketches a common perspective for all ‘education and all philosophy […] all religion and science’ by claiming that all these different practices and institutions have sought for ‘the supreme definition of the Absolute’ (Enc: §384A/GW 20: 382). Hegel often uses the term ‘definition’ in a derogatory manner to criticize deficient or arbitrary ways of attributing meaning. But this negative connotation does not apply to the passage at hand because here Hegel praises the Christian religion for having grasped God (or the absolute) as something spiritual and for having done so ‘at an early period’ (Enc: §384A/GW 20: 383). In consideration of Hegel's ambiguous use of the term ‘religion’, it is important to note that his praise is directed to the Christian religion in the broadest sense of the term, namely to the cultural and social tradition named Christianity, but not to Christian theology. That Hegel is far from praising the theological interpretation of Christian dogmas is supported by his repeated critique of the methodological deficits of Christian theology as lacking ‘seriousness’ (GW 20: 28) and being unable to provide a speculative justification for concepts like ‘God’ and ‘reason’ (see Enc: §564A/GW 20: 550).Footnote ¹³ On the whole, §384 is illuminating for specifying Hegel's rather general thesis of the identity of religion and philosophy as a claim about the identity of the Christian religion and Hegel's speculative philosophy with regard to a specific content, namely the thesis that the Absolute needs to be grasped as something spiritual.

Despite his praise for the Christian religion, Hegel also criticizes it for its deficient representation of the Absolute as spirit. That to Hegel the religious form is yet in deficit has to do with the fact that religion has the content (the idea of God or the Absolute as spirit) only in the form of representation and not in that of conceptual thinking. The religious form involves a narration with temporal and local reference, and it evokes images of a concrete story taking place for the presentation of its doctrines: the idea of father and son, the contrast between heaven and earth, the passion of Christ, etc. Hegel claims this form to be deficient because it is always in danger of isolating episodes from the encompassing story. Philosophy must, therefore, dispense of the formal deficits of the Christian representation of spirit, disengage with its narrative presentation and instead make explicit the logical structure it involves. Still, the needs of the Christian community can only be addressed successfully by resorting to the language of images and representations, not by the abstract language of philosophical concepts. Only when measured by the standards of philosophical justification does the form of representation become a deficit that needs to be overcome. The following table provides an overview of Hegel's conception of religion and philosophy in terms of their common areas of interest, their content as well as their different epistemic forms:

So far, the relationship between religion and philosophy has been explained in terms of a specialization of social practices and linguistic competences that answer different human needs and lead to an institutional division of labour. However, on an intrapersonal level Hegel's ideal is not specialization but ‘[h]uman wholeness’ (Houlgate Reference Houlgate2005: 211) or well-roundedness. Instead of specializing on a single form of consciousness, a good life is one that exhausts the whole range of human faculties. In the next section I explain in what way human wholeness can be understood as an intrapersonal division of labour among different forms of consciousness and I discuss the problems that the idea of human wholeness raises for Hegel's philosophy of religion.

II. Human wholeness as an intrapersonal division of labour among different forms of consciousness

The focus of this section lies on the intrapersonal analogue to Hegel's institutional division of labour. The aim is to show that this kind of dividing labour within the subject's mental make-up serves as the foundation for Hegel's conception of human wholeness. A first result of the last section was that religion and philosophy can be understood as two different ways of dealing with truth, which—according to Hegel—can exist side by side qua division of responsibilities and competences. In this section I discuss the question of whether such a coexistence of religion and philosophy is also convincing when we interpret it in terms of an intrapersonal division of labour. The question is whether we can read Hegel's conception of religion and philosophy not only as a conception about different social practices, but also as a conception of complementary social roles held by one and the same person. Such a complementary reading of religion and philosophy is suggested by Stephen Houlgate:

Houlgate discusses the three forms of Hegel's absolute spirit (art, religion and philosophy) (see Enc: §§553–77/GW 20: 542–71) by sketching their respective relations to the forms of subjective spirit that constitute them (intuition, representation, and (conceptual) thinking) (see Enc: §§445–68/GW 20: 439–65). Houlgate refers to the specific claims of human sensory perception, imagination and thinking. Each institution of absolute spirit (art, religion and philosophy) serves to satisfy a particular need of our psychological constitution as human beings: Art meets ‘the claims of our senses and creative imagination’ (Houlgate Reference Houlgate2005: 211), religion meets our needs for narratives and symbols, and philosophy meets the claim of our capacity for abstract and rational ‘thinking’. Each institution makes its contribution to a comprehensive self-realization of human individuals and thereby adds to ‘[h]uman wholeness’ (Houlgate Reference Houlgate2005: 211) in a particular and irreducible way. This form of self-realization constitutes its own, intrapersonal division of labour. It is a division of labour not among different individuals or institutions, but among different psychological capacities within a human being.

However, these remarks allow for two different readings. They leave open whether within the framework of such an intrapersonal division of labour the contribution is ultimately made (a) by the three forms of the subjective spirit (intuition, representationFootnote ¹⁵ and thinking) or (b) by the three forms of the absolute spirit, namely by a certain form of art, a certain form of religion (the Christian religion) and a particular form of philosophy (namely Hegel's speculative philosophy).

Those who advocate reading (a) make a much more modest claim as they merely demand that human beings realize their different subjective potentials in one way or another by immersing themselves in different forms of consciousness and thus adding to the richness of human self-realization. According to this reading, the subjective capacities could be sufficiently satisfied, for example, through visits to a museum (intuition), the membership in a reading circle on the modern English novel (imagination and representation) and the private reading of philosophical classics (conceptual thinking). This reading finds support in Hegel's Psychology where he introduces intuition, representation and (conceptual) thinking as three forms of subjective spirit and argues that true satisfaction needs to be found in the ‘totality’ of these forms:

Reading (b), however, makes a much more ambitious claim. It implies that human self-realization must take place in very specific ways, namely through the participation in a particular form of art, by belief and participation in the Christian religion and by the occupation with speculative philosophy. Textual evidence in support of the claim that Hegel is committed to this more ambitious reading is provided within the context of his doctrine of absolute spirit. It shows that Hegel is interested in the contributions of a particular form of art, religion and philosophy, namely ‘the Ideal’ (Enc: §556) and ‘the beauty of classical art’ (Enc: §561), the Christian dogmatics of the so called ‘revealed religion’ (Enc: §564) and ‘speculative’ philosophy (Enc: §573A). In the conclusion of the section on absolute spirit Hegel emphasizes that philosophical ‘cognition of the necessity’ is restricted to these ‘two forms’ (Enc: §573), i.e. the said forms of classical art and Christian religion. Furthermore, the adequacy of reading (b) is underlined by Hegel's preferential treatment of the ‘Protestant conscience’ (Enc: §552A) within the section on objective spirit.

From a contemporary point of view reading (a) might present itself as the more attractive approach. Besides being the less demanding approach, it leaves room for a reasonable variety of individual self-realization as long as subjective faculties are not neglected at the cost of others (for example by leading a life in an overly intellectualistic manner). The general idea that a flourishing life is a life committed to human wholeness can be found in the works of Friedrich Schiller who argued for the unity of duty and inclination in On Grace and Dignity, and it is also discernible in the writings of Left Hegelian authors like Ludwig Feuerbach and Karl Marx. For example, the lion's share of Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity is meant to account for the full range of human qualities that are mistakenly projected onto an infinite being in religion, but are meant to be retrieved by mankind for its harmonious self-realization. According to Feuerbach this is due to the fact that ‘[t]o a complete man belong the power of thought, the power of will, the power of affection’ (EC: 3). A similar idea is presupposed by Marx in his conception of the universal actualization of human species-being in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts from 1844.Footnote ¹⁶ Nevertheless, the evidence yielded by Hegel's doctrine of absolute spirit suggests that Hegel would not have been satisfied with just any kind of self-realization. For the reasons mentioned above reading (b) provides a more adequate reconstruction of his position on self-realization. However, if Hegel is committed to reading (b) he is also confronted with difficulties that might arise from the individual's attempt to reconcile the belief in Christian representations with the knowledge of speculative philosophy. Strauss's critique can serve as an example for the Left Hegelians’ departure from Hegel and his confident belief in a reconciliation of religion and philosophy. Moreover, Strauss has provided one of the most convincing internal critiques of the tensions inherent to the idea of a speculative elevation of religion, to which Hegel himself can be said to have paid insufficient attention. Strauss's critical considerations are the topic of the next section.

III. Strauss's interpretation of Christology and his critique of Hegel

The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined by David Friedrich Strauss is a critical examination of the Gospels that is meant to reveal their mythological character. Although the greater part of the book is concerned with a detailed analysis of the historical credibility of the Gospels and their view of Jesus Christ, the Life of Jesus quickened the interest not only of contemporary theologians, but also of non-theologians like Friedrich Engels and Arnold Ruge as well as of lay readers (see Linstrum Reference Linstrum2010: 597–604). Strauss's book was thus able to provoke a discussion that went beyond an exclusively theological readership.Footnote ¹⁷

In his preface to the first German edition Strauss sketches the general aim of his investigation by considering and criticizing two alternative approaches to the life of Jesus that according to him have become ‘antiquated’ (LoJ: xxix): On the one hand he opposes the supernatural interpretation of the biblical texts for it too readily accepts the descriptions of supernatural events and is thus unable to meet modern standards of interpretation. On the other hand he rejects the naturalist (or rationalist) approach in its attempt to explain the miracles by means of natural causes as it also misses the point of the Gospels when it reads them as primarily historical (see LoJ: xxix). Strauss himself aims at what he identifies as the ‘mythical point of view’ (LoJ: 39).Footnote ¹⁸ While he openly concedes that he is not the first to have adopted this point of view, he deems himself to be the first to make use of it as a general approach to the evangelical texts: The mythical theory ‘has long been applied to particular parts of that history, and is here only extended to its entire tenor’ (LoJ: xxix). Within Strauss's approach the Gospel histories are read less as descriptions of historical events, than as collective expressions of the early Christian church (see Toews Reference Toews1985: 261f.). It is due to this that an adequate inquiry into the Gospels must thus distinguish the literal from the spiritual meaning of the biblical texts. It is by reference to this distinction that Strauss also tries to clarify his scientific intentions and forestall critics who might suspect him of a subversion of Christian faith:

The concluding dissertation of his extensive investigation is famous for Strauss's eventual considerations of the practical consequences that follow from his mythological analysis as regards the professional exercise of priesthood. While Strauss does not deny that the biblical narratives have a true content, he holds that they do express their truth in the wrong form, namely in the form of representations and stories, and he assumes that this is the reason why these stories became myths. So, even though it is true to say that the concluding dissertation is no direct or explicit critique of Hegel's philosophy of religion, there is clear evidence that Strauss uses Hegel's distinction between the form and content of religious belief to structure his interpretation of Christology. This allows us to relate Strauss's discussion to Hegel's conception of a division of labour between religion and philosophy. In §151 of the concluding dissertation, for example, Strauss draws on the distinction between the historical and spiritual form of Christology:

The aim of my remaining reflections is to show to what extent Strauss's comments pose a challenge when related to Hegel's attempt to reconcile religion and philosophy.

In §152, the final section of The Life of Jesus, Strauss discusses the ‘Relation of the critical and speculative theology to the church’ (LoJ: 781). In this section he identifies different options open to the critical (or speculative) theologian when he seriously considers the conflict between Strauss's speculative theology and the exoteric doctrine of the Church. According to Strauss there are four options available to the critical theologian.

As a first option he could try ‘to elevate the church to his own point of view, and for it, also, to resolve the historical into the ideal’ (LoJ: 782). Parallel to Hegel's sublation of religion into philosophy this would mean to reduce all religious representations to their speculative conclusions about God as spirit. According to Strauss this is ‘an attempt which must necessarily fail, because to the Church all those premises are wanting on which the theologian rests his speculative conclusions’ (LoJ: 782). As already seen in Hegel, these speculative conclusions about God and the Absolute are far too abstract (in the non-Hegelian meaning of the word), not to mention unintelligible to non-philosophical members of the church. If the philosophical truth of the religious representation ‘can be possessed only by a few’ (LoJ: 781), as Strauss emphasizes, the first option is not a real option. The speculative truth is of no avail when measured by the needs of an ordinary member of the Church.

According to Strauss, ‘[t]he second and opposite measure would be, to transport himself to the point of view of the church, and for the sake of imparting edification ecclesiastically, to descend from the sphere of the ideal into the region of the popular conception’ (LoJ: 782). However, conflicts are likely to arise from the fact that the theologian would have to preach religion ‘under the form of a history’, although he does ‘not believe in the reality of that event as a single sensible fact’ (LoJ: 782):

Moreover, the theologian would not only lose his credibility in the eyes of his church. It is quite likely that he will also suffer a loss of personal integrity, that is he will ‘appear a hypocrite to himself also’ (LoJ: 783), for only pretending to believe in the resurrection as a historical fact.Footnote ¹⁹

From this follows a third and more radical option, namely the ‘desperate course, of forsaking the ministerial office’ (LoJ: 783). According to Strauss, this option could be actualized quite easily: ‘he [the critical theologian] has only to descend from the pulpit, and mount the professor's chair, where he will not be under the necessity of withholding his scientific opinions from such as are destined to science’ (LoJ: 783). Although it might be a possible solution for some theologians to resign their spiritual office in order to focus on philosophical questions, Strauss argues that it would not be desirable as a general solution. This is because ‘it could not be held good for the church, that all those who pursue criticism and speculation to the results above presented, should depart from their position as teachers’ (LoJ: 783).

Instead of recommending to ‘abandon theology’ (LoJ: 783), Strauss proposes a fourth option to the critical theologian ‘which offers a positive mode of reconciling the two extremes, the consciousness of the theologian, and that of the church’:

According to this fourth option the biblical history might step by step become less important than the truths derived from it, but as Strauss states also this solution cannot overcome the problem that the theologian might in the end be seen as a hypocrite who is dishonest about what he really thinks about the historical events the Bible refers to (see LoJ: 784). So eventually the fourth option is not a viable option to provide a reconciliation of religion and philosophy either.Footnote ²⁰ Instead, as Strauss himself suggests, the adequate conceptualization of religion remains an open question: ‘we have shown that our age has not arrived at a certain decision on this subject’ (LoJ: 784).

Strauss's particular contribution to the elucidation of the division of labour in Hegel's philosophy of religion is his systematic exploration of the social role of the theologian in relation towards his church. Although Strauss has not shown that Hegel has actually ‘misconstruct[ed]’ (LoJ: 783) the theologian's role within his conception of a division of labour between religion and philosophy, the reflections in his concluding dissertation can help to uncover that the (proper) interpretation of the social role of the theologian is actually a blind spot in Hegel's account which would have deserved more attention on the part of Hegel.