The Functionality of Christian Life: Problems of The Early Hegel's Epistemology of Religion Dennis Schulting

Transcription

1

2 THE YOUNG HEGEL ON 'LIFE' AND 'LOVE' BULLETIN OF THE HEGEL SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN predominant direction toward the Idea; - flt is] consciousness, knowled g e of the ideal, not perception, not the enthusiasm of the heart, of feeling' (my translation). lsg Cf Ta&:-caoi;;, H Kotvevv1,qj <P/Maorp!a wv A;xu}a;v E.)J0veuv, as/i For the identity of the beautiful and the goo.cl in Plato see Symposium 204d-205a; at 206a we are told that eros is longing for the everlasting possession of the good. Accordingly, 'the lesson of the beautiful itself' (cxui:oo bi:e1vou -coo xo:j.oo µ&:6riµo:), which is the apex of the dialectic in the S y mposium (211c-e), co rresponds to the Foi;rn of the Good (-r; v too Clyo:600 ioso:v) in the &public (Re.rpub/ica, 508e). For this see W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, Vol. IV (Cambrid ge : Cambridge University Press, 1975), p For Plato's identification of Good and Beauty see also Grube, 'Plato's Theory ofbeauty', pp , esp. pp. 270, , Plato, Symposium 202b-d. 158 Sympotium 202e-203a. Diotima explains the status of Eros as an intennep.iary bet\:veen gods and humans as follows. Eros is the son of Pores and Penia-poros literally means resource as well as resourcefulness, while penia means poveny or lack of resources. He was conceived on the day of Aphrodite's birth. J\.fter the gods had dined, Penia came along as a beggar in this banquet and she stood at the door. Peros, drunk as he was, went to the garden of Zeus and fell asleep. Penia spotted him and, because she war poor, the thought entered her mind to have a child with Peros. She slept with him and Eros wa"s conceived (203b-c). As Eros was begotten on Aphrodite's birthd ay, like her he loves beauty. And, being a son of Peros and Penia, he is in tl::us intermediate position: like his mother he is po.or, not at all soft and beautiful, but tough, filthy, barefoot and homeless, sleeping outside in doorways and streets; :&om his father he inherited a longing for beauty and the good, courage, willingness to take risks and energy - like him he is a good hunter, always devises something, passionate for knowledge and resourceful, philosophising all his life, a great seducer, a magician and a sophist. Being neither immortal nor mortal, at one time he flourishes and lives, at another he dies, and then revives; he gains and then he loses, so that Eros is never either rich or poor. Similarly, he is midway betvreen 'wi.sdom and i gn orance, for the following reason: Of the gods no one philosophises or wishes to become wise for he is, and if someone else too is wise, he does not philosophise. (Here Plato uses the verb cptll.ocrotpw [= pbilosophise] litera.lly, to love wisdom.) But.the ignorant do not philosophise either, nor do they wish to become wise, because, being ignorant, they do not wish to have what they do not know they lack. (203c-204a). So Eros as a lover of beauty is also a lover of wisdom. namely a philosopher, for wisdom is the most beautiful (204b). 159 'Tcr<X1:cro,:;;, H KolVuJPt,i,j rf)wjoorpla TuJVA.xaJc,;v E},J..tjix,.w, era) Nobl, S. 377 (Fragment 9, entitled by Nahl 'Liebe und Religion); my translation. 161 Plato, Phaedms 251a. Cited by Hegel at Nahl, S C Harris, Hegel's Development: Toward the Sunli g ht, p G3 Nahl, S. 381; Knox, p See also Harris on this: Hegel's Development: Toward the Sunlight, p lgs Nahl, S. 306; Knox, p In particulat, Hegel is critical of Jesus's stance of 'wi.thdrawal from the world. Nahl, S. 286; Knox, p Vi.de 'Die Positlvitiit der christlichen Religion' in Nahl; "The Positivity of the Christian Religion', in Knox. See also 'Der Geist des Christentums und sein Schicksal', Nahl, SS ; "The Spirit of Christianity and its Fate', Knox, pp The Functionality of Christian Life: Problems of The Early Hegel's Epistemology of Religion Dennis Schulting Introduction In this paper I want to explore a central line of reasoning in Hegei's early philosophy of religion, whlch he expounded in fragments he 'iv!ote while he was in Bern and Frankfurt in the 1790's. These fragments are known under the titles, Fragmente iiber Volksreligion und Chri.rtentum (dated around ), Di, Posinvitiit d,r chtistlichen R.iligion ( ), Entwihfi Uber fuligi,on und Uebe, and a later essay entitled Der Geirt des Christentums µnd sez"n Schicksal, which was written sometime between i798 and 1800, a few years before Hegel published his seminal Jena texts, but they remained unpublished in his lifetime.1 These texts have, since Nohl's edition of 1907, come to be known collectively as Hegel's 'theologische Jugendschriften'. I believe that they contain the inchoate system of H gel's thought in general and his mature philosophy of religion in particular. My main claim here is that Hegel believes that there is an intimate relation between reason and religion, so much so.in fact that one can argue that there is reason in religion. In the first section of my paper, I elaborate on some general problems concerning the relation bet\veen faith and reason, in particular, concerning the criterion of truth and viewpoint-neutrality. In the second section, I introduce Hegel's well-known problematic of the sublati.on of conceptual oppositions, which in the context of an account of the positivity of religion he already articulates, in some form, in these early documents and which may provide a solution for the problems that, in the first section, I argue arise around the relation between faith and reason. This will be merely a rough outline. I subsequently discuss, very briefly, some central aspects of Kant's philosophy of religion, to which to an important extent Hegel's is indebted. In the fourth section, I go on to indicate, also very broadly, the sense in which Hegel attempts to improve upon Kant and thus apparently proves to be more consistent than him. I then raise an issue concero.ing Hegel's parti.cularist position in his epistemology of religion, which does not sit well th the notion of rationality as vi ewp o.int-neutral. To illustrate this, I look at Hegel ) s reading of the Eucharist. 'This is all very sketchy and is meant mainly to elucidate the sense in which, according to Hegel, there is reason in religion. I. The. Rationalists attempted to unify faith and reason on the premise that faith should submit to the natural light of reason (lumen naturale). Accordingly, they held that theology is subject to the demands of philosophy. Titls means that, for the Rationalists, the use of

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11