In response to the Thu01Jan04 post by Maurizio Canfora (2 of 3):

> ...This [quote from the Introduction to Hegel's
> LECTURES ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY]
> is a very long quote, and I think that from the
> text is easy to understand that Hegel is not at all
> saying that World History is a Theodicy, or that a
> personal God (e.g. the Christian God) is governing
> our fate. Rather the opposite.

I must disagree, Maurizio, since such an understanding
is not at all easily derived from Hegel's text, rather,
such an understanding is a modern presupposition that is
often projected onto Hegel's words which are harmonious
with his dialectical and theological approach to History.

> First of all, this quote about Theodicy is included
> in a longer text analysing the origins and dialectical
> development of the vague concepts of "Nous" and
> "Providence", as general representations or intuitions
> of the general argument Hegel is defending: that
> "Reason" governs the world.

In this section, Maurizio, Hegel says that treating these
terms, 'Nous,' and 'Providence,' in an abstract manner
cannot clarify what he is trying to say. That is true.
As long as we remain in the Sunday school mode that uses
picture-thinking to deal with these concepts, we cannot
participate in Hegel's dialectical theological discussion
of the Absolute Truth.

However, Maurizio, Hegel also says in this same section
that the *same* is true of the term, 'Reason.' It is just
as easy to use the term 'Reason' in an abstract manner, and
take for granted what it means, and so jump to conclusions
that Hegel does not offer. For example, that Hegel prefers
materialism or secularism or empiricism or some other
dualist construct, instead of his dialectical and
metaphysical Reason.

> With a polemical reference to Kant and to the
> irrationalist systems of thought -- that establish either
> that it is impossible to know "the thing in itself" (God),
> or that the knowledge of this "thing in itself" (God) can
> be achieved only through a leap of faith -- Hegel recalls
> that through Christianism (the Religion of the becoming
> Man of God), God has become a familiar concept, and
> an object of direct knowledge.

Yes, Maurizio, but more than that. Hegel's ENCYCLOPEDIA
includes World History near the end -- near the highest
point of the Dialectical Phenomenology. Yet it is not
isolated from the rest of Absolute Knowledge that includes
Art and Theology. World History is illustrated in living
color by the Art and Religions of the nations. As for
Religion, it is certainly not only Christendom that has
made God a familiar concept -- this CONTENT is common
to all World Religions.

The point Hegel makes is that Christianity is the Revealed
Religion, that is, the Religion that has no more Secrets,
no unsolvable Mysteries. Everything is made plain (although
in picture-thinking form) that God has revealed the Divine
Purpose (of Freedom, Love, Harmony, Justice and personal
sacrifice) through the example of Jesus.

Yet the historical biography of Jesus has been modified (as
all the biographies of all the great religious leaders of
Earth have been piously modified) to include a fair amount
of Legend, Myth and picture-thinking about Miracles. Hegel's
Theology proceeds with Reason to discount the Miracles.
The Miracles are not the Message. They prove nothing.
(Indeed, others also performed miracles -- are they therefore
equal to Jesus for Hegel? Not at all.)

No, God has become Revealed, not merely a 'familiar concept.'
God, the Absolute Truth, the Thing-in-itself, the Spirit, has
been fully and completely *known* in the religion of Jesus.
Hegel liked to quote from the book of JOHN, "You shall know
God in Spirit and in Truth." You are right, Maurizio, to notice
that Hegel pushes against Kant in all these points. However,
you have not emphasized this point enough: for Hegel, the
Christian Religion has given humanity the Revelation of God
in History, albeit in picture-thinking form. Yet, as Hegel
said in his PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT (1807), the Cross itself
is the symbol of the death of the picture-thinking form.
Hegel says,

"The death of this picture-thought contains,
therefore, at the same time the death of the
Abstraction of the Divine Being, which is
not posited as Self. That death is the painful
feeling of the Unhappy Consciousness that
God Himself is dead." (Hegel, Ph.G, para 785)

See, Maurizio, Hegel deals with this problem directly, in
the most explicit terms. It is not an abstraction with Hegel.
The Revealed Religion itself contains the seeds of the death of
picture-thinking. This will help it advance toward the level
of Theodicy in Hegel's World History.

> Philosophy must recognise the underlying truth
> contained in Christianism: that God is incarnated in
> Man, that there is no separation between God and Man,
> that there is no transcendent reality escaping our rational
> knowledge.

This is an overstatement, Maurizio. History shows that
there *is* certainly a separation between God and Man,
and that is precisely why human civilization is plagued by
War and Violence and the Master/Slave relationship. Most
of our history is characterized by the *ignorance* of the
Unity, the Dialectical Reconciliation of God and Man, and
it is this *ignorance* which makes the separation.

This is an important point because the famous theologians,
David Strauss and Ludwig Feuerbach misrepresented Hegel
on this most urgent point. For them, Man is already God,
without any further development or change. That is folly,
and Hegel's philosophy has nothing to do with such folly.

The difference between the man, Jesus, and most other
people is the enormous development of Jesus -- the sacrifices
he made in the direction of Love, Peace, Honor, Justice and
Truth, and the enormous opposition that Jesus faced as the
Systemic Injustice of his time destroyed him.

Hegel is very clear on this point in his many other writings:
Humanity is a part of God, but Humanity does not *know* that
it is a part of God, and the Unconsciousness of this fact is
the basis of its actual separation, its ignorance, its folly
and its Master/Slave relationships with its ubiquitous Will
to Power. This hampers the human project along with the Unity
with God that Jesus (and all other religious leaders in all
the enduring world religions) has shown to the world. The
idea of Spirit must face an uphill battle against this
mountain of ignorance.

> Therefore Philosophy can use the same language of
> Religion, when it comes to this underlying truth; but
> this truth is very different from the one Sunday schools
> have bequeathed to us.

This is basically correct, Maurizio, and it reflects the words
of Hegel in many of his writings. Philosophy and Religion
have been enemies at certain points in the past, but they
have also been friends in rare moments. Hegel cites some
medieval Europeans theologians in this regard. Even in
the middle ages, God was not portrayed as an old man on
a throne in the sky by the greater theologians. They knew
what Spirit truly is. Theology has ever been superior to
Sunday school and its common picture-thinking forms.

> And in the end this "God" is just a metaphor for Reason.
>

No, Maurizio, this is incorrect; I disagree strongly. Your
term, 'just,' gives away your abstract meaning. Your term,
'metaphor,' does not recognize that for Hegel, God is Spirit,
and Spirit is Cosmic Reality. Hegel says about Revealed
Religion:

"Here, therefore, God is revealed as God is.
God is immediately present as Spirit. God
is attainable in pure speculative knowledge
alone, and *is* only in that knowledge itself,
for God is Spirit. And this speculative
knowledge is the knowledge of the Revealed
religion. Speculative knowledge knows God
as Thought or pure Essence, and knows this
Thought as simple Being and as Existence,
and knows Existence as the negativity of
itself, hence as Self, as Universal Self...
Only when Absolute Being is beheld as an
Immediate Self-consciousness is it known
as Spirit." (Hegel, Ph.G, trans. Miller,
para. 761)

Hegel's theology is part and parcel of his System. I do not
take his quotes out of context. There are far too many of
these kinds of statements by Hegel to ignore. The secular
interpreters of Hegel must soon deal with them.

God is no abstraction. Spirit is no abstraction. God and
Spirit are the concepts that we obtain *after* we have
surrendered all our abstractions. This is Hegel's message,
and it must be difficult to grasp, otherwise after 170 years
there would be less misunderstanding about Hegel and the
Theodicy that he perceives in the heart of World History.

. (continued)

Best regards,
--Paul Trejo