RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
I'm all for bashing Hegel, but ad Hitlerum statements probably don't advance the discussion. He might be the most insidiuous thing in the modern world, but statements like that are impossible to prove.
Hegelianism
- Thread starter Claudiu
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The ad Hitlerum thing is merely to illustrate the point that whether or not Hegel intended it, the popular interpretation of his historical progression led to the attitude that the current zeitgeist must be good and, in its theological expression, must be the will of God. This is why the theology of the German Christian movement was constantly appealing to historical inevitability, and it's why Barth and Bonhoeffer ended up completely eschewing natural theology. "History" became a loaded term in German academia.
Again, the question is, why was it Darwin's theory in particular which captured the western imagination? Why not an earlier theory? Well, latent Hegelianism is a fairly good reason---evolution fits nicely into Hegelian models, particularly interpreted through a materialist-Marxist (as opposed to idealist) lens.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
While I am unconvinced, I will admit that is an interesting idea and makes for a better line of approach than seeing Nazi connections.
As an adherent of Scottish Common Sense Realism I am certainly no friend of Hegel. Some of his vocabulary I have found helpful and that's the extent of it.
I haven't studied Alfred Whitehead's philosophy, but I wonder how it fits or relates to Hegel's. I am only vaguely familiar with process philosophy/theology (the idea that reality is constructed by events - or the process - rather than substances). It seems to go against Scholastic, Aristotelian and classical metaphysics.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
Wolfhart Pannenber does a good job dealing with Whitehead in Metaphysics and the Idea of God.
As a question of hermaneutics, I'll just say here that when Barth, Bonhoeffer, and Kierkegaard are understood as primarily attacking and reacting to latent Hegelianism in the church, they make more sense, even though we would still have problems with say, the latent Pelagianism of Kierkegaard or the flawed theory of revelation in Barth and Bonhoeffer.
Also, a point of clarification: I am not claiming that Hegel was responsible for Nazism. I am saying that his idea of inevitable historical progress, popularized and dumbed-down, was a contributing factor in the acceptance of the German Christian movement. One can also make the claim that Kantian ethics led many to stand idly by because of misplaced scruples applied foolishly as categorical imperatives.
Oh absolutely---we just have to be self-aware about the terminology, particularly in German theology and philosophy of the 19th and 20th centuries.
If you are trying to underscore the fact that Kierkegaard emphasized human freedom and personal responsibility, I can kind of see where you're coming from. But I don't know if I would classify Kierkegaard as a latent Pelagian in terms of his final view on sin, faith, and ultimately salvation.
If you take him as systematic theology, he tends to look at faith as an act of the will. I don't think the Pelagian tendency is intentional on his part, but I think it's there.
Isn't faith an act of the will?
No, it's a gift of God. It is that which enables acts of the will and reorients the will toward love of and trust in God.
At any rate we're way off-topic with Hegel.
Alright, I'll PM you.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
For any who are interested, Michael Horton has a fantastic discussion of Hegel in Covenant and Eschatology. He points out where Hegel is correct pace Kant: why bother with a noumenal distinction if it is never attainable; and postmodernism: historicism at the very least implies a divine telos.
And then he points out some good problems with Hegel: his ontology is an overcoming estrangment.
And then he points out some good problems with Hegel: his ontology is an overcoming estrangment.
Alan D. Strange
Puritan Board Senior
What a fun discussion! How do I miss these things?
Hegel is seminal for understanding our world; he was quite brilliant, though ultimately blazingly wrong!
I often think about how Plato sought to resolve the one and many question by placing the key insight of Parmenides in his world of forms and Heraclitus in his world of matter. Aristotle brings form down into matter, seeking, in a sense, to harmonize Parmenides and Heraclitus (seeing that Plato didn't really do that simply by separating them).
Similarly in modern (not contemporary) philosophy, one can think of Descartes' (and company's) affinity with Plato's rationalism and Locke (and company's, especially Hume's) affinity with Aristotle's empiricism. Since it was Hume who awoke Kant from his "dogmatic slumbers" one can think of Kant resolving Descartes and Rationalism to his upper story (the noumenal realm) and Locke, Hume, and so forth to the lower story (the phenomenal realm). Hegel, Aristotle-like, sought to bring that upper story down into the lower, or, as he would put it, "to immanentize the Absolute."
Hegel seeks to read all of history as verifying this approach, with Christian theology reconceived as an expression of his philosophy. In that way, he did enormously influence philosophy and theology, along some of the lines that Philip suggests. It's interesting to raise the question of Hitler: was he coming off of Hegel or Nietzsche, often taken to be the leading anti-Hegelian? Many Nietzsche scholars have, of course, not only challenged the thesis of his influence on Hitler (I think it was there, albeit twisted--Hitler was a parvenu whom Nietzsche would not have begun to recognize as an ubermensch), but have even challenged the notion that Nietzsche was anti-Hegelian, some arguing that he simply picked up and modified Hegel in particular ways.
We can speak of Hegel's influence, as has been done here, on a number of problematic thinkers. I find his influence, however, on not just the most obvious of liberals but on figures like Philip Schaff and John W. Nevin to be quite interesting. Ah, German idealism: what an interesting, brilliant, and misleading approach.
Peace,
Alan
Hegel is seminal for understanding our world; he was quite brilliant, though ultimately blazingly wrong!
I often think about how Plato sought to resolve the one and many question by placing the key insight of Parmenides in his world of forms and Heraclitus in his world of matter. Aristotle brings form down into matter, seeking, in a sense, to harmonize Parmenides and Heraclitus (seeing that Plato didn't really do that simply by separating them).
Similarly in modern (not contemporary) philosophy, one can think of Descartes' (and company's) affinity with Plato's rationalism and Locke (and company's, especially Hume's) affinity with Aristotle's empiricism. Since it was Hume who awoke Kant from his "dogmatic slumbers" one can think of Kant resolving Descartes and Rationalism to his upper story (the noumenal realm) and Locke, Hume, and so forth to the lower story (the phenomenal realm). Hegel, Aristotle-like, sought to bring that upper story down into the lower, or, as he would put it, "to immanentize the Absolute."
Hegel seeks to read all of history as verifying this approach, with Christian theology reconceived as an expression of his philosophy. In that way, he did enormously influence philosophy and theology, along some of the lines that Philip suggests. It's interesting to raise the question of Hitler: was he coming off of Hegel or Nietzsche, often taken to be the leading anti-Hegelian? Many Nietzsche scholars have, of course, not only challenged the thesis of his influence on Hitler (I think it was there, albeit twisted--Hitler was a parvenu whom Nietzsche would not have begun to recognize as an ubermensch), but have even challenged the notion that Nietzsche was anti-Hegelian, some arguing that he simply picked up and modified Hegel in particular ways.
We can speak of Hegel's influence, as has been done here, on a number of problematic thinkers. I find his influence, however, on not just the most obvious of liberals but on figures like Philip Schaff and John W. Nevin to be quite interesting. Ah, German idealism: what an interesting, brilliant, and misleading approach.
Peace,
Alan
Thanks for the post.
I like the bit where you mention how the philosophies relate: Pre-Socratics - Plato - Aristotle ... Descartes/Kant - Locke/Hume - Hegel.
Yes, German Idealism! (It's a shame we don't really cover that bit of history of thought in America as we ought to. We mainly just stick with the analytic side and go from there, as if that's all there is. Very Anglo-American of us.)
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
Ironically, it was German Idealism that reconvinced me of the Filioque and moved me out of Eastern Orthodoxy's orbit.
Alan D. Strange
Puritan Board Senior
That's not too, ironic, Jacob! I could see how that (together with other expressions of Western philosophy) could move one away from the irrationalism and mysticism of the East.
In a different, but not wholly unrelated vein, when I was a teenager under the preaching of the gospel, the Spirit used something in Shakespeare (Hamlet) to draw me back to the truth to which I had stopped my ears. I was too arrogant to hear God's Word and He was kind and loving enough to use something in literature to which I would listen to subdue me to hear and receive the truth as it was preached.
Peace,
Alan
In a different, but not wholly unrelated vein, when I was a teenager under the preaching of the gospel, the Spirit used something in Shakespeare (Hamlet) to draw me back to the truth to which I had stopped my ears. I was too arrogant to hear God's Word and He was kind and loving enough to use something in literature to which I would listen to subdue me to hear and receive the truth as it was preached.
Peace,
Alan
From what I can see, he had the idea that past doctrines must be reconstructed to better fit the present. This non-foundational approach seems to be fairly Hegelian, or at least postmodern.
That's more Benthamite utilitarianism plus American pragmatism, really.
Ah, yes, American pragmaticism. So American.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
Somewhat tangential but I maintain relevant is a comment I saw in Frei's Eclipse of Biblical Narrative. Noting that Hegel is notoriously difficult, he pointed out, as others have done, that one can read Goethe's Faustus: Part 1 as an aesthetic commentary on Hegel's Phenomenologie. I read Faustus earlier this year and while a 1:1 correspondence isn't there, it certainly makes sense that way. Mephistoles can be seen as the Spirit of Negation.
Goethe's Faust part 1 was published in 1806. Phenomenologie was published in 1807. If anything, Goethe influenced Hegel.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
Thank you for the factual correction. I was quoting Frei, in any event. I think the larger point stands: German idealism isn't unique to Hegel. In many ways he simply refined the system. Some of his ideas--like the kernel and the husk--were employed long before him (and continue today in American bible studies).
My comment relates to the legal aspect. I think the law today is thought of in a Hegelian sort of way by many. Instead of having a Protestant sort of conception of it, we have a more innovative one. By that I mean that law before, like Protestantism, was thought of as having an original meaning that is still applicable today. One could think of the debate over the Constitution in these terms. Conservatives will try to retain the original meaning as formulated by the founders. Progressives will assume a more stretchy type meaning, or even complete disregard (sometimes things are reversed and you'll see Conservatives have more disregard). Also, we hear a lot about the "consciousness of the people." According to these folks the court is some legal drama through which we, as a collective whole, shape our values etc. In some ways that's true. We reflect our values and commitments through our legal system and culture in general. But that's not the exclusive role of the legal system. In the classical sense, it is a place for the execution of justice (however imperfect) based on a standard that's thought of as transcendent. I think it's the idea of the transcendent, or natural law aspect that is lost.
Edit: I guess the "Protestant" way of thinking is not so exclusive. The Roman Catholics and the natural law concept can still be transcendent, at least in the sense that it comes from God and is unchanging.
Edit: I guess the "Protestant" way of thinking is not so exclusive. The Roman Catholics and the natural law concept can still be transcendent, at least in the sense that it comes from God and is unchanging.
Claudiu, that's partly true, but it has more to do with post-modern methods of interpretation than with Hegelianism as such. Traditionally a Hegelian view of law would tend to work through established legislative bodies, as is the norm in continental Europe. However, in the common-law systems of the Anglophone world, the relationship between judicial and legislative functions is more complex, given that a judge is expected to interpret the spirit of the law and consider traditions of interpretation in his or her decision. However, with the rise first of pragmatic and then of post-modern interpretation, the notion of a fixed "spirit" of the law is seen as outmoded, and instead the old principles of common law are discarded in favour of the current zeitgeist. In other words, Hegelianism is only one of a number of factors contributing to the decline of our legal system.
Ditto. I don't think it's purely a Hegelian thought behind it. But the general concept or spirit seems to be there. Mostly, it's the post-modernism of today.
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