Hegel’s Recasting of the Theological Proofs

Abstract

This chapter clarifies Hegel’s discussions of the theological proofs in the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion. The author criticizes the “standard interpretation” of Hegel’s recasting of the theological proofs, which is that Hegel accepted the discrediting of the proofs as proofs as complete and given. The standard interpretation cannot survive a careful examination of Hegel’s last projected book, his incomplete (and virtually unknown) Lectures on the Proofs of the Existence of God. The most important insight is formulated by Hegel’s thesis that the three types of proof constitute an integral, organic whole, that the ontological proof supplements and completes the cosmological and teleological proofs. This organic whole is Hegel’s true infinite, in distinction from the spurious infinity. The author summarizes Hegel’s views on the ontological proof, and suggests how this proof unifies and grounds the others. It lifts them out of domain of the spurious infinite that ought to be.