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Religion, Morality and Forgiveness in Hegel’s Philosophy

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Philosophy and Religion in German Idealism

Part of the book series: Studies in German Idealism ((SIGI,volume 3))

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References

  1. See, for example, Friedrich Nietzsche, Werke, ed. K. Schlechta, 3 vols (München: Carl Hanser Verlag 1969) 2:1143: “die Geburt des Christentums aus dem Geiste des Ressentiment;” 3:837: “[die] Vermoralisierung [des Altertums] ist die Voraussetzung, unter der allein das Christentum über dasselbe Herr werden konnte.”

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  2. Immanuel Kant, Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft (1784). Kant’s gesammelte Schriften, hrsg. von der preußischen, später deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften [hereafter quoted as Akad.-Ausg.] (Berlin: De Gruyter 1900sq.) Bd. 6, 153 [trans.: Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, trans. Th. M. Greene and H.H. Hudson (New York: Harper Torchbooks 1960) 142. See also Allen W. Wood, “Rational theology, moral faith, and religion,” in: The Cambridge Companion to Kant, ed. P. Guyer (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1992) 403 and 406–7, and Sir Malcolm Knox, The Layman’s Quest (London: George Allen and Unwin 1969) 99.

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  3. Martin Luther, Kommentar zum Galaterbrief — 1519, ed. W. Metzger, trans. I. Mann (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus 1984) 33.

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  4. Ibidem, 25.

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  5. Ibidem, 27. See also Luthers Vorreden zur Bibel, ed. H. Bornkamm (Frankfurt/M.: Insel Verlag 1983) 189–90: “Darum ist die Freiheit eine geistliche Freiheit, die nicht das Gesetz aufhebt, sondern darreicht, was vom Gesetz gefordert wird.”

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  6. Ibidem, 180 and 188. See also 172: “wo der Glaube ist, kann er sich nicht halten; er erweist sich, bricht heraus durch gute Werke.”

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  7. See Emil Fackenheim, The Religious Dimension in Hegel’s Thought (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1967) 148.

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  8. G.W.F. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte, erste Hälfte, ed. J. Hoffmeister, zweite Hälfte, ed. G. Lasson (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag 1968) 2:728.

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  9. G.W.F. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion, ed. W. Jaeschke, 3 vols (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag 1983–85) [hereafter VPR] 3:30–2 [trans.: Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, ed. P.C. Hodgson, trans. R.F. Brown, P.C. Hodgson and J.M. Stewart (Berkeley: University of California Press 1984–87) [hereafter LPR] 3:93–5.] Further references will be given in the form: VPR, 3:30–2 = LPR, 3:93–5.

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  10. VPR, 1:260 = LPR, 1:359.

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  11. VPR, 3:39, 32 = LPR, 3:103, 95.

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  12. VPR, 3:137–8=LPR, 3:205–6.

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  13. VPR, 3:134=LPR, 3:201–2. See also VPR, 3:135, 222, 228=LPR, 3:202–3, 298, 304–5.

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  14. Cf. VPR, 3:223=LPR, 3:299.

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  15. VPR, 3:135=LPR, 3:202.

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  16. VPR, 3:138=LPR, 3:206.

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  17. Cf. VPR, 3:138=LPR, 3:206.

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  18. VPR, 3:229=LPR, 3:306.

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  19. For Hegel’s full account of moral consciousness and will see G.W.F. Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, ed. E. Moldenhauer and K. Michel, Theorie Werkausgabe, vol 7 (Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp Verlag 1970) [hereafter GPR] 203-91 (§§ 105–41) [trans.: Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right, ed. Allen W. Wood, trans. H.B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1991) [hereafter PR] 135–86]. Further references will be given in the form: GPR, 203-91 (§§ 105–41)=PR, 135–86.

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  20. Cf.. VPR, 3:39, 41=LPR, 3:102, 104.

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  21. VPR, 3:134–5=LPR, 3:202. See also VPR, 3:33, 36, 224=LPR, 3:96, 99, 300.

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  22. VPR, 3:223 = LPR, 3:298. See Jeanette Bicknell, “The Individuality in the Deed: Hegel on Forgiveness and Reconciliation,” in: Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain, 37/38 (1998) 77.

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  23. See Bernard M.G. Reardon, Religion in the Age of Romanticism (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1985) 70: “The biblical myth of the fall is the ‘Mythus of Man’ in that it symbolizes [...] the process by which he becomes man in assuming full human responsibility.”

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  24. On this self-righteous moral will, see Hegel, GPR, 272–86 (§ 140 and Addition); PR, 176–84.

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  25. Cf. VPR, 3:229 = LPR, 3:305.

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  26. Hegel, GPR, 265 (§ 139 Addition); PR, 170. See also VPR, 3:259 = LPR, 3:336.

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  27. Cf. VPR, 3:229 = LPR, 3:305.

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  28. See VPR, 3:40–1, 139, 226 = LPR, 3:104, 207, 302.

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  29. VPR, 3:139 = LPR, 3:207.

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  30. VPR, 3:42, 40 = LPR, 3:106, 103.

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  31. See Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte, 2:729.

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  32. VPR, 3:245 = LPR, 3:322. See also Hegel, VPR, 3:47 = LPR, 3:110, and Bicknell, “The Individuality in the Deed,” cf. note 22, 79. For a more extensive account of Hegel’s interpretation of Christianity, see S. Houlgate, Freedom, Truth and History. An Introduction to Hegel’s Philosophy (London: Routledge 1991) 176–232.

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  33. VPR, 3:245–6 = LPR, 3:322.

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  34. VPR, 3:150 = LPR, 3:220.

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  35. VPR, 3:60 = LPR, 3:125.

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  36. A similar point is made, from a non-Hegelian perspective, by the theologian Keith Ward, The Christian Way (London: SPCK 1976) 51: “Jesus’ love was shown at its highest on the cross; and this shows the real cost of love. To love, we really have to give, to share.” In this respect — as, I believe, in most others — Hegel’s understanding of Christianity is quite orthodox.

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  37. VPR, 3:60 = LPR, 3:124-5.

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  38. See VPR, 3:235, 239, 249 = LPR, 3:311, 315, 326.

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  39. VPR, 3:151 = LPR, 3:220.

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  40. VPR, 3:61, 150 = LPR, 3:126, 219.

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  41. VPR, 3:63 = LPR, 3:128; translation emended; the Hodgson translation reads: “everyone dies on his own.” See also Andrew Shanks, Hegel’s Political Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1991) 40: “[Hegel’s] thinking represents, in effect, a radical insistence on the principle of the intrinsic ‘irreplaceability of the individual’; there can there-fore be no question here of Christ appearing as a’ substitute’, miraculously interposed between us and the otherwise implacable wrath of God.”

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  42. VPR, 3:61–2 = LPR, 3:126–7.

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  43. VPR, 3:71 = LPR, 3:135–6.

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  44. VPR, 3:67, 247 = LPR, 3:131, 324.

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  45. Elsewhere, I have argued that the Christ-like readiness to let go of our cherished conception of the fundamental categories of thought is the key to Hegel’s own logical method. See Houlgate, Freedom, Truth and History, cf. note 32, 65.

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  46. VPR, 3:76, 166, 247 = LPR, 3:140, 236, 324. See also Peter C. Hodgson, “Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel,” in: Nineteenth Century Religious Thought in the West, ed. N. Smart, J. Clayton, S. Katz and P. Sherry, 3 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1985) 1:106: “the resurrection-event constitutes a transition from the sensible presence of God in a single individual to the spiritual presence of God in the community of faith;” and Henry S. Harris, Hegel’s Ladder, 2 vols (Indianapolis: Hackett 1997) 2:692: “The Savior is resurrected in his community here and now. It is not a historic event of far away and long ago.” For my review of Harris’ extraordinary book, see S. Houlgate, “Absolute Forgiveness,” in: Radical Philosophy, 96 (July/August 1999) 44–6.

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  47. VPR, 3:85, 255-6, 260 = LPR, 3:150, 333, 337. In this respect Hegel is an orthodox Lutheran. See Luthers Vorreden zur Bibel, cf. note 5, 182: “Glaube ist ein göttlich Werk in uns, das uns wandelt und neu gebiert aus Gott.”

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  48. VPR, 3:85, 165, 262 = LPR, 3:150, 235, 339.

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  49. VPR, 3:92–3 = LPR, 3:157.

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  50. VPR, 1:344 = LPR, 1:456.

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  51. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte, 2:880.

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  52. VPR, 3:260 = LPR, 3:337.

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  53. VPR, 1:249 = LPR, 3:349, my [S.H.] emphasis

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  54. VPR, 1:88–9, 333 = LPR, 1:180, 445.

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  55. VPR, 3:288 = LPR, 3:372.

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  56. VPR, 3:187 = LPR, 3:261. See also VPR, 3:260 = LPR, 3:337: “the Holy Spirit is equally the subject’s spirit to the extent that the subject has faith.” According to Cyril O’Regan, in claiming that God and humanity become one in faith, Hegel departs from Luther’s position and comes close to that of Meister Eckhard; see The Heterodox Hegel (Albany: SUNY Press 1994) 219–20, 245, 254, 260. Walter Jaeschke maintains that Hegel’s identification of the human and the divine in faith is more likely to have been prompted by his early study of Spinoza; see Die Vernunft in der Religion (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: frommann-holzboog 1986) 344. For my review of the English edition of Jaeschke’s book, see The Owl of Minerva, 23 (1992) 183–88.

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  57. See also Robert Gascoigne, Religion, Rationality and Community. Sacred and Secular in the Thought of Hegel and his Critics (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff 1985) 44: “The subject becomes himself spirit, member of the Kingdom of God, only if he allows the process of divine life to be realized in himself.”

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  58. GPR, 418 2 § 270) = PR, 293.

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  59. VPR, 1:79 = LPR, 1:170.

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  60. VPR, 1:293 = LPR, 1:398.

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  61. VPR, 3:269 = LPR, 3:346.

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  62. VPR, 3:17, 126, 245-6 = LPR, 3:78, 193, 322.

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  63. See G.W.F. Hegel, Wissenschaft der Logik, ed. E. Moldenhauer and K. Michel, 2 vols Theorie Werkausgabe, vols 5 and 6 (Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp Verlag 1969) 6:277, where reason or the Begriff is described as “freie Liebe.”

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  64. VPR, 3:201 = LPR, 3:276.

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  65. GPR, 236, 250-1 (§§ 125, 133-4) = PR, 153, 161.

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  66. VPR, 3:91–2 = LPR, 3:156, my [S.H.] emphasis

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  67. VPR, 3:236 = LPR, 3:315.

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  68. VPR, 3:234 = LPR, 3:310. See Bicknell, “The Individuality in the Deed,” cf. note 22, 79.

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  69. VPR, 3:92 =; LPR, 3:156.

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  70. VPR, 3:165–6 = LPR, 3:235-6.

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  71. Christ does not just feel obliged to love and so, in that sense, is not a moral being. Yet Christ’s love actually fulfils the demand of morality that we further the welfare of others and so, in this sense, can be called a moral love (VPR, 3:53 = LPR, 3:118).

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  72. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte, 2:737.

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  73. See also Luthers Vorreden zur Bibel, cf. note 5, 190: “Auf diese Weise hat uns Christus vom Gesetz frei gemacht. Darum ist’s nicht eine wilde fleischliche Freiheit, die nichts tun solle, sondern die viel und allerlei tut und von des Gesetzes Fordern und Schuld ledig ist” (my [S.H.] emphasis).

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  74. VPR, 1:342 = LPR, 1:455: “The love that God is exists within actuality as conjugal love.”

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  75. VPR, 3:230 = LPR, 3:307.

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  76. GPR, 418, 425 (§ 270) = PR, 293, 299. According to Hegel, the only person who can pardon people and exempt them from legal punishment, when they have broken the law, is the monarch; see GPR, 454-5 (§ 282 and Addition); PR, 325-6. The church cannot issue such pardons.

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  77. VPR, 3:56, 259-60, 287 = LPR, 3:121, 337, 371.

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  78. Here, once again, Hegel is close to Luther; see Luthers Vorreden zur Bibel, cf. note 5, 182: “Aber weil wir an Christum glauben und des Geistes Anfang haben, ist uns Gott so günstig und gnädig, daß er solche Sünde nicht achten noch richten will.”

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  79. VPR, 3:248 = LPR, 3:324-5. In contrast to Jeanette Bicknell, I do not believe that through forgiveness (as interpreted by Hegel) “individuality in the deed vanishes,” but rather that individuals are saved from simply being reduced to their deeds; see Bicknell, “The individuality in the Deed,” cf. note 22, 80.

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  80. VPR, 1:260=LPR, 1:360. See Shanks, Hegel’s Political Theology, cf. note 41, 40.

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  81. William Desmond suggests that Hegel explains away or “rationalizes” evil by interpreting it as a necessary moment in the development of dialectical reason in history; see Desmond, “Evil and Dialectic” in: New Perspectives on Hegel’s Philosophy of Religion, ed. David Kolb (Albany: SUNNY Press 1992) 165. Desmond counters this “Hegelian” interpretation of evil by arguing (in Kiekegaardian fashion) that evil is in fact always my singular responsibility and not merely the consequence of some universal, rational process (172). On my reading, however, Hegel’s point is not to diminish my responsibility for my evil acts: even if I owe who I am to society, history and reason, I am still the one who must bear responsibility for my actions. Hegel’s principal point is that responsible individuals are always free to be good, whatever evil they may have committed. This consciousness of freedom is what Hegel understands by a sense of being “forgiven.” Desmond’s own view of forgiveness comes close to the one I am attributing to Hegel. “One owns up in singular absolute responsibility,” he writes, “not only in order to accept the deed as mine, but to ask for release from its evil, to be absolved, to be forgiven” (173, my [S.H.] emphasis). As far as I can tell, however, Desmond does not acknowledge that Hegel actually shares a similar view of forgiveness.

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  82. Luthers Vorreden zur Bibel, cf. note 5, 52.

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  83. VPR, 3:248, 287 = LPR, 3:324–5, 371.

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  84. VPR, 1:334 and 3:259 = LPR, 1:446 and 3:336–7.

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  85. Ward, The Christian Way, cf. note 36, 38.

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  86. VPR, 3:288=LPR, 3:372.

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  87. See Matthew 12:31, Mark 3:29, and Luke 12:10.

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  88. VPR, 3:165, 77=LPR, 3:235, 141.

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  89. See Harris, Hegel’s Ladder, cf. note 46, 2:115, 521–2.

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  90. VPR, 3:74=LPR, 3:138.

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  91. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte, 2:891–2.

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  1. Stephen Houlgate
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  1. Catholic University of Louvain, Louvain, Belgium

    William Desmond  & Paul Cruysberghs  & 

  2. Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Ernst-Otto Onnasch

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Houlgate, S. (2005). Religion, Morality and Forgiveness in Hegel’s Philosophy. In: Desmond, W., Onnasch, EO., Cruysberghs, P. (eds) Philosophy and Religion in German Idealism. Studies in German Idealism, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-2325-1_5

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