American Academy of Religion

Hegel and the Christian God

Author(s): Thomas J. J. Altizer
Source: Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 59, No. 1 (Spring, 1991), pp. 71-91
Published by: Oxford University Press
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 Journalof the AmericanAcademyof Religion.LIX/1

Hegel and the Christian God

ThomasJ.J.Altizer

IF HEGELIS OUR only philosopherwho has attempted,and perhaps

even realized, a purely philosophical understandingof the uniquely
Christian God, that is a project that was never possible in the era of
Christendom,and impossible therein because that world was so pro-
foundly groundedin the classical world; hence its philosophical think-
ing was inevitably classical and Christian at once. Only nominalism
truly and finally challengedthat union, but nominalismwas itself a pri-
maryseed and groundof those forceswhich finallyeffecteda disintegra-
tion of Christendom,a disintegrationwhich is virtuallycomplete with
the occurrenceof the French Revolution. Now even if theologians as
early as Tertullianchallengedthe union of Athens and Jerusalem,that is
a challengewhich is never realizeduntil the disruptionof Christendom,
then occurringperhaps most decisively in Luther,for even the purest
Christianphilosopher of Christendom,Augustine, could not escape a
Neoplatonic ground, and Aquinas could resurrecta Christianphiloso-
phy only by embodying a new Aristotelianism,an Aristotelianismthat
itself was mediated to the Christianworld throughJudaism and Islam.
While Nietzsche couldjudge everypreviousform of Westernthinkingto
be a disguised form of theological thinking, and it is so if only because
every Western conception of Being is finally a conception of God, and
thus existence itself had been unthinkable in the West apart from the
existence of God, Nietzsche'sown proclamationof the death of God was
the consummationof Western philosophical thinking as a whole, and
hence at this crucialpoint it was in full continuitywith Hegelian think-
ing. Thus we confrontthe paradoxthat a purely Hegelianthinkingis at
once a pure negation of the transcendenceof God and yet an intended
realizationof what faith knows as the innermostlife of God, a life which
is death, for it is the ultimate sacrificeof an actual totalityof love, and
neverthelessthat death or crucifixionis resurrection,and is the resurrec-
tion of a totalitywhich is God and world or actualityat once.
Now it is vitally importantto realize that Hegel was the first and

ThomasJ.J.Altizeris Professorof Religionat the StateUniversityof New Yorkat Stony BrookStony

Brook, NY 11794-3725.

71

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72 Journalof the AmericanAcademyof Religion

perhaps only philosopher to center his thinking upon crucifixion and

resurrection;the fact that this never occurredwithin the world of Chris-
tendom is itself an all too significantsign of the non-Christiangroundof
that world, and if such thinking is possible only afterthe end of Chris-
tendom, it may well be that a uniquely Christiantheology is possible
only as a consequenceof the historicalrealizationof the death of God, a
realizationwhich is absolutelyfundamentalto the thinkingof Hegel and
Nietzsche alike. If Kierkegaardis the purest Christianthinker in the
modem world, no thinking is more deeply grounded in the end of
Christendomthan is Kierkegaardianthinking, for that thinking is an
Hegelian thinking, even if a reverse Hegelian thinking, and even as
Hegelian thinking it is grounded in the Incarnation as the absolute
center of thinking and history at once. Hegel createda thinking that is
simultaneously a purely logical and a purely historical thinking, and
while his interpretershave only begun to be able to unite the Phenome-
nologyof Spiritand the Scienceof Logic,there can be no doubt that this
union is fundamentalto a purely Hegelian thinking, and at no other
point is Hegelianthinking so unique in the historyof world philosophi-
cal thinking. For a uniquely Hegelian negation or sublation (Aufheben)
is logical and historicalat once, and purely logical and purelyhistorical
at once, and if that is a coincidentia
oppositorum, it is an identityof those
opposites which have been most estranged from and other than each
other in the modem world.
The Scienceof Logicpresents the appearanceof being a purely non-
historicalwork, but that is an illusion, and it is an illusion firstbecause
it so clearly could only have been written in the modem world. More-
over, Hegel himself again and again in the Scienceof Logiccorrelatesthe
science of logic and the phenomenologyof Spirit,a correlationwhich is
an essential correlation,and an essential correlationabove all because of
the absolute primacy of pure negation. At bottom the methods of the
science of logic and the phenomenologyof Spiritare identical, differing
only in so far as they occur in all too differentrealms or worlds, but
those worlds themselves are finally identical, and identical if only
because absolute Spirit is one spirit, and its very life or movement is a
pure negation which is one negation, even if that negation is a total
negation which is all and everything. Hegel was not only the first true
philosopherof history,but his philosophyis comprehensivelyhistorical,
and not least so in the Scienceof Logic,a science of logic whose very
movement and development is finally historical, for it moves from the
first moment of thinkingand of life until a full and final historicalapoc-
alypse, an apocalypsewhich is not only the totalityof a purely logical

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Altzer Hegeland the Christian
God 73

thinking but the totalityof an implicit historical consciousness as well.

So it is that both the beginning and the ending of the science of logic
and the phenomenologyof Spiritare in full correlationwith each other,
and that beginning and ending is the beginning and ending of an actual
and historicalevolution of consciousness, an evolution that has histori-
cally occurred, and an evolution that logically is absolutely necessary
and inevitable.
Hegel is our only thinkerwho has made the forwardmovement of
advance the very center and ground of pure thinking itself, and that
advanceis inseparablefrom the dark mysteryof Trieb,that primal urge
or instinct or drive, which Hegel can finally identify as the sole and
absolute force of pure reason, its supreme and sole Triebto find and
cognize itself by means of itself in everything. Triebis in large measure
adapted by Hegel from the mystical thinking of Jacob Boehme, as he
himself indirectly acknowledges in the Science of Logic, for it was
Boehmewho apparentlyfirst understoodthe creationitself as a negative
process of internal unrest or torment (Qual), a torment by which it
establishesits own negativenaturefrom out of an "other." Hegel's most
purely creative act of genius was in understandingthat "other," and
every"other,"as the necessaryand essential "other"of itself, so that not
only is "otherness"its own, but the realizationof that "otherness"is the
Triebof all process and life. If Triebis the darkestmysteryin Hegel's
system, it is that mysterywhich is the very essence of a purely Hegelian
thinking, for apart from that mysterythere would be no advance, and
thus finally no thinking or process at all. Indeed, the primal conflict or
Qual of Hegelian thinking may be understoodas an ultimatestruggleor
war with a primordialnothingness or emptiness, a "nothing" which
cannotbecome "being,"and cannot become being if only because of the
ultimacyand finality of its original or primordialidentity. For Triebor
Kenosisis the Hegelian answer to the metaphysicalquestion: why is
there any being at all, why not far rathernothingness?
Trieband kenosisare also the Hegeliangroundof evolutionand life, a
life which is at the very center of Godheaditself, and a life which real-
izes itself in the evolution of God. Hegel most clearly and most pro-
foundly realizes that evolution in the Phenomenology of Spirit,but this
evolution also occurs in the Scienceof Logic,as Spiritevolves from pure
immediacyto total actuality,an evolution that is the movementof abso-
lute Idea or Notion, and a movementthat is the consequenceof absolute
Trieb,a Triebor primal urge that is the innermost center or absolute
Spirit. In the Phenomenology of Spirit,Triebis openly and clearlykenosis,
a kenosisor self-emptyingwhich is an externalizationof Spirititself, as

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74 Journalof the AmericanAcademyof Religion

Spirit abandons the form of Substanceand becomes Subject,an aban-

donment which is the death of God, and a death of God which is the
consummation of Spirit's emptying itself into time and space. That
emptying is fully actual even if abstractin the Scienceof Logic,and it
occurs alreadyin the beginning of that science, where Hegel can say that
at the end of the development of absolute Spirit, absolute Spirit is
known as freelyexternalizingitself, abandoningitself to the shape of an
immediatebeing. But that abandonmentor kenosisis itself the negation
of negation, a negation in which the infinite becomes finite, thereby
finally realizing a concrete totality,and a concrete totalitywhich is the
totality of life. So it is that the absolute realizes itself in and as the
objective world; here its "other" is its own objectivity,an objectivity
which is realizedboth in nature and in Spirit,for nature and Spirit are
simply differentmodes of presenting its existence, just as art, religion,
and philosophy are simply differentmodes wherebyit apprehendsitself.
Thus at the opening of the final chapterof the Scienceof Logic,on the
absolute Idea, Hegel can say that logic exhibits the self-movementof the
absoluteIdea only as the originalword,which is an outwardizing or utter-
ance (Ausserung),but an utterance or expression that in being so
expressedhas immediatelyvanished as somethingouter (Ausseres). Yet
that vanishing is neverthelessa realizationof kenosisor self-emptying,a
kenosiswhich is Trieb,and therebyis absolute negativity.
Now even if the movementof the science of logic is the movementof
that pure absolutewhich can be identifiedas the eternalessence of God
before the creation,and thus is a purely abstractmovement,it is never-
theless an actualmovement, and an actualmovementwhich is a move-
ment of self-emptying. It is, indeed, the actualityof self-emptyingwhich
is actualityitself, and even if a purely logical self-emptyingis not an
historicallymanifestself-emptying,it is in full correlationwith that self-
emptying which is the domain of the phenomenology of Spirit, and
finallyneitheris fully real or actualapartfrom the other. So it is that the
originalwordof the science of logic is a kenotic or self-emptyingword
which in emptying itself immediatelyvanishes as something outer or
"other,"and is itself in thatveryvanishing,a vanishingwhich is its own
life and movement,a life which is Triebor kenosis. This is that absolute
life which the Phenomenology of Spiritknows as realizingitself in Spirit's
abandoning the form of Substance and becoming Subject,but in the
Scienceof Logicthat deep destiny of Spirit is present in the beginning,
and not only present in the beginning, but present as the beginning, a
beginning which is simultaneouslythe beginning and ending of move-
ment and life. Hence it is the beginning and ending of absoluteSpiritor

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Altzer Hegel and the ChristianGod 75

"God," a God who is actual only insofar as God "begins," and a God
whose beginning is beginning and ending at once.
Therecan be no doubt that Hegel intends the kenosisof the Phenome-
nologyof Spirit to be a purely philosophical realization of what faith
knows as crucifixion and resurrection,but in the Scienceof Logicthat
kenosispasses into a purelyabstractformof actuality,and if that actuality
is an abandonmentof itself, it is thereinand therebya self-negation,and
a self-negationwhich is a negation of negation, a negation of negation
which faith knows as the crucifixionor the death of God. This is that
movementor life which is the very center of the science of logic, just as
it is the deepest groundof a purely Hegelianthinking,but that thinking
is a thinking of what the Christianfaith knows as God, as Hegel again
and againdeclares,and if Hegel can identifythe Christianreligion as the
absolute religion, that is because he knows Christianityas the fullest
manifestexpression and realizationof absolute Spirititself. That is that
absolute Spiritwhich is finally the sole content and movement of both
the phenomenologyof Spiritand the science of logic, which from a the-
ological perspectiveis to say that this content and movement is finally
and solely the ChristianGod, and if this is our only purelyphilosophical
thinking which knows God only as the ChristianGod, this is that God
who is only self-emptyingor self-negation,and thereforecannot be the
God who is only God, or the God who is and only is an absolutely
transcendentimpassivity,or an absolutelysovereign majesty. The true
God who can be known as being "in-itself" (in sich), can only actually
be so known by the negativemovement of God's being "for-itself"(fir
sich), and that is a self-negatingor self-emptyingmovement, a move-
ment in which Spiritrealizes itself as Subjectonly by abandoningitself
as Substance,and that itself is the life or movement of Triebor kenosis.
Now if the God who is "in-itself" is illusory and unreal apartfrom
the God who is "for-itself,"theologically that can only mean that the
God who is the absolutelytranscendentGod is illusoryand unreal apart
from the CrucifiedGod, just as the power and the majestyof God are
illusoryand unrealapartfrom the love of God, for the Christianaffirma-
tion that God is love is inseparablefrom the uniquely Christianconfes-
sion of the passion and the death of God, and if that death is finally
resurrection,it is so only through the final ending of the God who is
God and only God, or the God who is simply and only "Being-in-itself."
In the ScienceofLogic,Hegel could know the God who is only God as the
"bad infinite," the infinite that cannot become finite, and if that is the
purely abstractGod, that abstractionis an empty or vanishing abstrac-
tion, and is so immediately in the very movement of absolute Spirit.

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76 Journalof the AmericanAcademyof Religion

Thus there is not and cannot be a God who is only "in-itself,"or a God
who is only God, and this because God is a "living God," a God who
cannot finally be solitary and alone, and cannot be so alone precisely
because God is God. But God is God only by not being only God, only
by not being pure transcendence,and that self-negation is present in
every act or actualizationof God, so that it is just as fully present in the
creationas it is in the crucifixion,a creationwhich is a final ending of a
purely transcendenttranscendence,just as the crucifixion is the final
ending of a purely religious transcendence. Neither transcendenceis
present as such in the science of logic, and if they do become presentin
the phenomenology of Spirit, this is a presence which is finally an
absence, for here their actualizationis inseparablefrom their negation,a
negation which is a true reversalof abstractspirit or the "bad infinite."
So it is that God is God only by not being God, for the ChristianGod
is God only by not being God, and if that is a uniquelyChristianidentity
of God, that is a God who is absent from Christianscholasticism,except
when that scholasticism undergoes its reversalwith the full advent of
nominalism and a uniquely Christian mysticism. If the Godhead of
Meister Eckhartis a Godhead which is not God, that is the Godhead
which is conceptuallyrealizedin Hegel's absolute Spirit,and if Eckhart
is one of Hegel's deeper sources or grounds,that is a groundwhich is a
uniquelyChristianground. Unfortunately,Hegel had little knowledgeof
or interest in medieval philosophy, just as he was largely ignorant of
medievalcultureas such, and far more so than of the Orientalworld, for
he could know the Oriental world as the antithesis of the Occidental
world. That antithesis, for Hegel, is most purely present in Hinduism,
for he could know Brahman-Atmanonly as a purely abstractpower,
where thereis no real categoryof being, and if this made possible for the
first time the separationof empirical self-consciousness from absolute
self-consciousness,as Hegel declaresin the section on Hinduism in the
lectureson the philosophy of religion, God now attainsproperobjectiv-
ity for the first time, and only now does the break between objectivity
and subjectivitybegin. Now God is manifestas Totality,but this totality
is essentially object, and is altogetherin opposition to human beings.
Their reconciliationand return from that abstractyet objective power
occurs only in the Incarnation,so that true incarnationis the abandon-
ment of all intrinsic objectivityor substance, an abandonmentending
the possibility of that submergence in unconsciousness which Hegel
knows as a union with Brahman-Atmanor Nirvana.
While that uniquely Orientalunion is the antithesisof the uniquely
Christian union with God, it is nevertheless a real even if abstract

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Altzer Hegel and the ChristianGod 77

union,and it does initiate that break between objectivityand subjectivity

which is consummatedin Christianity,a consummationwhich is the
final ending of all transcendentobjectivity,and now objectivityis known
for the first time as the realizationof subjectivity,and thereforeobjectiv-
ity perishes as an objectivitywhich is "in-itself." The perishing of that
objectivitycan be known by Hegel as the death of God, but if the death
of God which is the incarnationof God is historicallyrealized only in
the modem world, then it occurs in that UnhappyConsciousnesswhich
realizes itself by losing all the essence and substance of itself, a con-
sciousness which realizesitself by interiorlyrealizingthat GodHimselfis
dead (Phenomenology ofSpirit:785). This realizationis the inbreathingof
Spirit, whereby Substance becomes Subject, and if thereby Substance
becomes actual and universal Self-Consciousness,that is a self-con-
sciousness which dawns in the Incarnation,an incarnationwhich is the
advent of self-consciousness precisely because it is the ending of all
objectivesubstance. Thatincarnationis the ending of the objectiveGod,
a God who only now can be known as the "bad infinite," an infinite
which cannot be finite, and an infinite which ends when the true infi-
nite becomes finite, and if that is an incarnationeffecting a reconcilia-
tion with God, it is a reconciliationwhich is possible only when God
perishes as God, or perishes as that God who is only God.
The firstZusatzor lecture-notein the third part of the Encyclopaedia
of the Philosophical Sciencesinsists that the aim of all genuine science is
that mind shall recognize itself in everythingin heaven and on earth;
finally this can only be a comprehensiveknowledgeof mind in its abso-
lute infinitude,an infinitudethatwas given the world by Christianity,for
Christianityfirst gave to human consciousness a perfectlyfree relation-
ship to the infinite. Hegel can go on to declare (in the Zusatzto #381)
that Christiantheology itself conceives of God as Spirit, and contem-
plates Spiritnot as somethingquiescent,but as somethingwhich neces-
sarily enters into the process of distinguishing itself from itself, of
positing its Other, and which comes to itself only through this Other.
Thus God has revealed Himself through Christ, and fully and finally
throughChrist,a Christin whom the infinite becomes finite, and it is by
God's unity with the Son, "by this being-for-himselfin the Other,"that
God is absolute Spirit (Zusatz#383). Only Christianityknows God as
absolute Spirit, and thereby and therein only Christianityknows abso-
lute freedom,an absolute freedomwhich is realizedonly by the infinite
becoming finite, and if Hegel was the first philosopher of religion to
systematicallyrelateChristianityto the world religions,that is a relation-
ship in which Christianityis the absolute religion only by being the

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78 Journalof the AmericanAcademyof Religion

consummation of the world religions, a consummation which is the

realizationof absolute freedom.
Now there can be no doubt that Hegel's concept of absoluteSpiritis
fully intended to be a conceptualizationof the uniquely ChristianGod,
and if such a conceptualizationnever previouslyoccurredin the history
of thinking, or never occurredso as to center solely upon the uniquely
ChristianGod, that is a centeringwhich is a centeringupon the Incarna-
tion, and upon that incarnationand that incarnationalone which is the
death of the purelytranscendentGod. Here, the uniquelyChristianGod
is finally and fully God only in that death, and even if that death is
simultaneously the resurrectionof God, that resurrectionends every
actualitywhich is not at once the actualityof both the finite and the
infinite, and that ending is quite simply the Hegelian apocalypse. So it
is that the advent of that death and resurrectionis the center of world
history, and the center of consciousness as well, a consciousness which
in Christianityand Christianityalone becomes self-consciousness,and a
self-consciousnesswhich only fully realizes itself in the modem world.
That self-consciousness is finally the self-consciousness or the self-
knowledgeof God, for God is God only insofaras God knows or realizes
Himself, and that self-knowledgeof God is a self-consciousnessin man,
for it is our self-consciousnessor self-knowledgein God (Encyclopaedia
#564). Consequently,history itself is finally the history of God, a his-
tory which is theodicy, and is ultimatelythe theodicy of the uniquely
ChristianGod.
Hagel may even be understoodto be the first philosopherof history
because he was the first philosopher to center his thinking upon the
uniquely ChristianGod, and if therein Hegel is an Augustinianthinker,
and is so because of the primacy of self-consciousness in Hegel and
Augustine alike, self-consciousness in Hegelian thinking is a fully his-
toricalconsciousness,as it is not and cannotbe in Augustinianthinking,
and it is an historical consciousness precisely because it is centered
upon the Incarnation. Not until Hegel does thinking as such center
upon the Incarnation,but not until Hegel does pure thinking center
upon the uniquelyChristianGod, so that it is not until Hegel that think-
ing as thinking becomes historicalthinking, and a thinking that is his-
toricaland fully historicalbecause it is a thinkingin which the finite and
the infinite are united, and thereforeGod is God only in the historical
realizationof Himself. If the forwardmovementof historyis finally the
forwardmovementof God, just as the forwardmovementof the science
of logic is the forwardmovement of absolute Spirit,that forwardmove-
ment is an embodimentof the Triebor kenosisof God, a Triebor kenosis

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Altzer Hegel and the ChristianGod 79

which is God, for God is that pure or absolute negativitywhich is the

source and ground of all life and activity, a life and activitywhich is
finally the self-negation or the self-emptyingof God. That is the God
whom Christianityalone knows as absolute Spirit, an absolute Spirit
which is the pure otherness of itself, an otherness which is most fully
actual and manifest as such only in historical actuality,but that is the
very actualitywhich Christianityand Christianityalone knows as the
actualityof God.
Again and again, and throughouthis work, Hegel engages in a deep
theological conflict with both pure pantheism and pure agnosticism,
each of which he interpretsas a literal negation of the ChristianGod,
the one a negationof the actualityof both Christand the world, and the
other a negationof the deepest identityand activityof God. Perhapshis
deepest wrath was directed against the theologians of his day, theolo-
gians who maintainedthat God Himself is finally unknowable,a dogma
which Hegel insists is a refusalof the ChristianGod, and a refusalof the
Christian God because it is a refusal of both Christ and revelation.
While Hegel always treatedKantwith deep respect, and even did so at
this point, he was contemptuousof theological agnosticism,just as he
was contemptuousof the dominantpietism of his and our day, a pietism
which he knew as a literalinversionof Christianity.For the very exalta-
tion of religiousfeeling is a refusalof the revelationof God,just as it is a
refusalof the acts of God in history,and is, indeed, a regressionto a pre-
Christian religious world, a world which is innocent of the Christian
God. Hegel understoodthe theologiansof his day to be engagedin just
such a regression,just as, Protestantas he was, he understoodthe Cath-
olic Churchto be a regressionto paganism,and above all so because of
what he knew as the God of Catholicism, a God who could not truly
become incarnate. Now even if German pietism was grounded in the
Incarnation,Hegel insists that such a groundis illusoryif one believes in
the religiouslytranscendentGod, even as he maintained that religious
"belief" as such is a final barrierto pure insight. For it is religious
belief or imaginativerepresentationof any kind (Vorstellung)which is
finallynegatedby the Incarnation,an incarnationwhich is the ending of
that infinite which is only infinite, and thus the ending of all but an
absolute religion, a religion which is the absolute religion because it is
the ending of everyinfinite or beyond which is not totallypresent,a total
presence which is apocalypse.
Yet nothing is more elusive than an Hegelian apocalypse,an apoca-
lypse which is the beginning of the ending of historyitself, and an apoc-
alypse which seemingly realizes its own consummation in a purely

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80 Journalof the AmericanAcademyof Religion

Hegelianthinking. Hegel did not hesitate to identifyhis own era as the

final age of the Spirit,just as he reachedthe judgmentthat the absolute
philosophy which now is born is the unity of art and religion (Encyclo-
paedia#572), a unity in which the true contentof artand religionis now
the content of absolutephilosophy. So likewise the lectureson the phi-
losophy of history culminate with the last stage of history, a stage in
which secular life is the positive and definite embodimentof the King-
dom of God, and which quite simply is "ourworld"and "ourowntime."
And only now can it be known that world historyis the true theodicy,a
theodicy which has happened and is happening every day, and even if
that theodicyrealizesitself throughviolence and horror,that horroritself
is an expression of the "cunning of reason," and that cunning can be
demonstratedin a purely logical argument,which Hegel offers at the
conclusion of the second section of the second volume of the Scienceof
Logic. That section is devoted to the realized end of theology, wherein
Hegel posits the infinite progressof mediation, but that progresshas a
conclusion in which external purposivenessreally only comes to be a
means, and in the realizedend the means vanishes, and vanishes in that
concrete totalitywhich is the absolute Idea. That absolute Idea is the
ChristianGod, and the uniquely ChristianGod, a God who is declared
to be "purepersonality"at the conclusion of the Scienceof Logic,which
solely through the absolute dialectic which is its nature embraces and
holds everythingwithin itself.
If the conclusion of the Scienceof Logicis an apocalypse,and a Chris-
tian apocalypse,it is an apocalypsewhich is a circle in which the end is
the beginning. Butthat apocalypseis also the conclusion of the Phenom-
enologyof Spirit,wherein history is identified as Spirit emptied out into
time, a kenosisof itself which is that negative which is the negative of
itself. Historyis the contingentmanifestationof Spirit,but that contin-
gency when it is known through the phenomenology of spirit can be
realizedas the "Calvaryof absolute Spirit,"and that Calvaryor crucifix-
ion is the actualityof God, an actualityapartfrom which God would be
lifeless and alone. Finally,historyis apocalypse,an apocalypsewhich is
crucifixion,and is that crucifixionwhich is the very life or resurrection
of God. But if that is an apocalypsewhose ending is its beginning, is
that beginning the beginning of God, and therein the beginning of his-
tory itself? Indeed, are God and history two poles of that one absolute
which is absolute negativity,a negativitywhich is the negation of itself,
and thus a negativitywhich is absolute self-negation or self-emptying?
Now we know that history itself has a real beginning, and an actual
beginning, a beginning which is the beginning of real contingency,and

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Altzer Hegel and the ChristianGod 81

therefore a beginning which is the essential and intrinsic "other" of

absolute Spirit. If that "other"is inseparablefrom absolute Spirit, and
apartfrom that "other"the Godheaditself would be lifeless and alone,
then Godheaditself must begin, and begin as historyitself. Now even if
history is only the "externalization"of absolute Spirit, absolute Spirit
would not be and could not be itself apartfrom that externalization,and
that externalizationcannot be a maya or lila as it is in Hinduism, not a
mere appearanceor play, but ratherthat "laborof the negative"apart
from which God would not be God.
Hence, God must begin, and begin as that "other" which is the
"other"of God, and if Christianityalone knows that true "other"which
is the "other"of God, Christianityalone knows that beginningwhich is
the beginning of God. Thus only Christianityknows that historywhich
is the historyof God, a historywith an absolutebeginning and an abso-
lute ending, and a historywhich is finally the actualityof God. Yet is it
possible for an Hegelianlanguageand thinking to affirmthe act or acts
of God as real and actualacts? If the pure actualityof absoluteSpiritis a
totally immanent actuality,can or does that actualitytruly begin, or is
that beginning simply and only an eternallyrecurringor purely circular
beginning? Now if absolutebeginning contains mediationwithin itself,
a crucialargumentin the opening of Book One of the Scienceof Logic,is
it therein actually other than an unmediatedimmediacy? And would
such an actualothernessnecessarilyimply that an unmediatedimmedi-
acy in some deep sense is real, despite Hegel's continual insistence in
the Scienceof Logicthat thereis nothing whatsoeverthat does not equally
contain both immediacyand mediation,and that absoluteimmediacyis
absolutemediation? For if immediacyis always a mediatedimmediacy,
then how could mediation begin, and how could there be an absolute
beginning or genesis? Is that "other"throughwhich beginning occurs
eternallyother, and eternallyother as the "other"of absolute Spirit,so
that absoluteSpiritalways and necessarilyis the very othernessof itself?
For then it would appearthat God "begins"only in the sense that God
becomes manifest or actual as God, just as the negative movement of
Spirit'sbecoming its own "other"would then be simply and only a real-
ization of Spirit'sown original and eternal identity.
All of these questions are differentways of asking if the Hegelian
absolute can actually die. Is a purely Hegelian negation a negation
which is equally affirmationso that finally there is no real distinction
between affirmationand negation? Then an Hegelian logic would be a
Buddhistlogic just as an Hegelian phenomenologywould be an eternal
as opposed to an historicalphenomenology,for then there could be no

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82 Journalof the AmericanAcademyof Religion

actualnegationwhich is a real negation,or an actualnegationwhich is a

real loss or perishing. There would appearto be a profoundambiguity
at the very center of the Hegelian system, an ambiguitywhich can be
given a theologicalformulationby asking whether or not Hegel's abso-
lute Spirittruly is the ChristianGod, for even if Hegel clearlyintended
that identity,it does not follow that such an identityis actuallyrealized
in his system. Yet, more concretely,one could ask if the Hegeliandeath
of God is a philosophical conceptualizationof the Crucifixion,or is it a
conceptualizationof an eternallyrecurringending which is an eternally
recurringbeginning? If so, the crucifixionwould be an eternallyrecur-
ring event, just as the creation would be an eternally recurringevent,
neitherevent would be a once and for all event, and neitherevent would
be a unique act of God, and only act at all in the sense that it is an
eternallyrecurringact. PerhapsHegel's real distinctionfrom the Chris-
tian traditionthat preceded him is that he was the first purely pagan
thinkerin the Christianworld, and so pagan that he could even employ
a uniquelyChristianlanguageas a primaryway of realizinga purelypre-
Christianor post-Christianidentity. Yet to reachthis judgmentis also to
judge that Hegelian historical thinking is either pre-historicalor post-
historicalthinking, or perhaps a thinking so purely ahistoricalthat it is
pre-historicaland post-historicalat once. And if the historical as such
has a profoundly ambivalentor elusive identity in Hegelian thinking,
that is an elusiveness that is inseparablefrom the question of the Chris-
tian identity of the Hegelian God.
But the truthis that Hegelian thinking is such a profoundchallenge
to Christiantheological thinking that in its wake Christiantheology as
such has no assured or solid ground, apart from a pre-modem ortho-
doxy, and that is preciselythe theologicalorthodoxywhich collapsed in
the modem world. Moreover,it is Hegelianthinkingand its Kierkegaar-
dian consequence which has initiated theology into the ultimacyof the
Incarnation, an Incarnationwhich is Crucifixion, and a Crucifixion
which is Crucifixionand Resurrectionat once. Indeed, it is only in the
wake of Hegelianthinkingthat Christianthinkinghas become historical
thinking, or that the Bible itself became manifestto theologicalthinking
as a truly or fully historical revelation. Now it is not insignificantthat
the most powerfulChristiantheologiansof the twentiethcentury,Barth,
Bultmann, Tillich, and Rahner, are all profoundly ahistorical theolo-
gians, each of whom engaged in a deep negation of Hegelian thinking,
and each of whom finally affirmed a purely non-Hegelian God. The
same might well be said of the majorJewish thinkers of the twentieth
century, Rosenzweig, Buber, Levinas, and Derrida, so that one could

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Altzer: Hegel and the ChristianGod 83

characterizemodem theology as a whole as a profoundlyanti-Hegelian

thinking. Nevertheless, this is the very thinking that created modem
theology, and if modem theology is meaningless apart from Hegel, it
was Hegel who gave birth to a uniquely modem theological thinking.
Yet wholly absent from modem theological thinking, with the
profoundexception of Kierkegaardhimself, is a true theologicalaffirma-
tion of an Hegelian Triebor kenosis,and if that is the most distinctively
Christiangroundof Hegel's system, that is also the source of the actual-
ity of a purely Hegelian negation, a negation which is a self-negation,
and a self-negationwhich is a realizationof its own inherent "other."
While opposites may well be identicalin Hegel's system, they are identi-
cal as real opposites, and finally as opposites of absolute Spirititself. It
is precisely that opposition in absolute Spirititself which is the source
and groundof all movementand life, so that apartfrom that opposition,
and that absoluteopposition, absoluteSpiritwould be lifeless and alone,
and realityitself would be and could only be a purely abstractspirit or
totality. As Hinduism and Buddhismso fully demonstrate,it would be
world itself which would be absent or unreal apart from the "life" or
activityof absolute Spirit,and if world itself is truly actual and real, its
ultimategroundcannot be a pure passivityor an inactualemptiness,but
rathera ground which itself is absolute activityor movement. Nothing
is a deeper mysteryin the question of God than the natureand identity
of that absolute activityor actuality,and while Hegel could follow Spi-
noza in knowing that actualityas that one Substancewhich is an indi-
visible totality, he profoundly differed from Spinoza in knowing that
Substance as an absolute self-negation. At no other point is there a
deeper differencebetween Hegel and Spinoza,and if Spinoza and Hegel
are the deepest idealistic thinkers in the West, and also those thinkers
who createdour purest Western systems of thinking,they are also those
thinkerswho are our puresttheologicalthinkers,and the only ones who
give us total conceptions or totally comprehensiveconceptions of God.
Thus the questionof the identityof God is perhapsthe deepest ques-
tion posed by Hegel's system, and that question is inevitablythe ques-
tion of the presence or the absence in that system of the uniquely
ChristianGod, and at the very least that poses the question of the pres-
ence or absence therein of the CrucifiedGod. Hegel and Spinoza can
clearly be seen to deeply differ at this point, and even if Spinoza and
Hegel alike deeply affirmthe absolute love of God, just as each affirms
the absolute providenceof God, Spinoza'sGod is absolutelyindifferent
to the question of evil, whereas Hegel's God is a God who from the
beginning becomes alienatedfrom itself, therein withdrawinginto itself

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84 Journalof the AmericanAcademyof Religion

and becoming "self-centered,"and this "evil existence" is not in itself

alien to god, but rather essential to the very identity of God as God
(Phenomenology of Spirit:780). This purely negative movement of God,
which realizesthat God who is "being-in-itself,"is absolutelynecessary
to make possible the death of God, a death which reconciles absolute
essence with itself, a reconciliationwhich is the death of the purely
alienatedor the purely abstractGod (Phenomenology of Spirit:779). This
is that death which the conclusion of the Scienceof Logicknows as abso-
lute liberation,and that death is the Calvaryof absolute Spirit,a cruci-
fixion apart from which God would only be that purely abstractSpirit
which Hegel can discover in Hinduism and Spinoza alike.
Now there can be no question that the death of God is absolutely
essential to a purely Hegelian thinking, and that death is absolutely
essential and necessaryto that absolute Spiritwhich realizesitself as its
own "other,"but that othernessis the very opposite of everynon-Chris-
tian apprehension of the identity of God, so that nothing is more
uniquely Christianthan an affirmationof such an othemess. This is
clearly present in Hegel, and more decisively present in Hegel than in
any other thinkerexcept Nietzsche, and if Nietzsche and Hegel are those
thinkers who most deeply know the death of God, they are also those
thinkers who most deeply know the uniquely ChristianGod. Perhaps
nothing could offer more conclusive evidence of the absolute antithesis
between Christianityand a purely philosophical thinking, but the truth
is that Hegel and Nietzsche are also our greatesthistoricalthinkers,and
each realized a purely historical thinking that is a consequence of the
death of God, and an historicalthinking that can know the actualityof
history by knowing an absolute self-alienation or self-estrangement,a
self-estrangementwhich is the self-alienation of the very center and
ground of realityitself. While only Hegel could name and know that
ground as absolute Spirit, that self-alienation or self-negation is the
Hegeliangroundof all life and movement,an actualitywhich is the very
embodiment of the Triebor kenosisof absolute Spirit.
That Triebor kenosisis the ground of actuality,including most cer-
tainly historical actuality,and it is only the realizationof that ultimate
ground which makes possible the apprehensionof a purely contingent
historical actuality, an ultimate contingency that is impossible apart
from an ultimateself-negationor self-emptying. So it is that pure con-
tingency does not appear and become real in consciousness until the
historical realizationof the death of God, so that pure contingency as
such is impossible apartfrom an ultimateground, and impossible apart
from the self-negation or self-emptyingof that ground. It is precisely

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Altzer Hegel and the ChristianGod 85

because Hegel could so deeply know the death of God that he could
know such an historicalcontingency,and if he could know that contin-
gency as absolutenecessity, that is because he could know it as an actu-
ality that is finally the actualityof God. The Hegelian system is trulyan
empty system if it is empty of God, and empty if it is empty of the
CrucifiedGod, for it is only that death which is the ground of a purely
immanentconsciousnessand actuality,an actualitywhich is empty of all
metaphysicaland religioustranscendencejust because and only because
it is groundedin the death of God. But that death is absoluteliberation,
and even a liberationof God, for it reconciles the Godheadof God with
its own otherness, an othemess that is a real and actual othemess, and
an othemess whose very negation is an absolute liberationrealizingan
absolutefreedom,and a freedomwhich Hegel could know as a freedom
inauguratedby the Incarnation.
If Hegel alone conceptuallyknew the atonementas the atonementof
God with God, as the atonementof the inactiveand abstractGod which
is "in-itself" with the totally active and embodied God which is "for-
itself," this occurs only throughthe death of that abstractGod itself, a
death which is crucifixion,yes, but which is also the resurrectionof
concretetotalityinto absolutefreedom. Here, crucifixionis resurrection,
an identitywhich is firstproclaimedin Paul and the FourthGospel, and
thus an identity which is at the very center of an original Christianity,
but an identitywhich was not theologicallyrecovereduntil Hegel. And
it was recoveredby Hegel only by way of a passage throughthe death of
God, a passage which is a passage into the very depths of God, depths
which are nothing less than the kenosis of self-emptyingof the God-
head, and depths which release that Godheadinto the othemess of God-
head itself. That otherness certainly comprehends historical actuality,
and a totallyimmanenthistoricalactuality,indeed, an historicalactuality
which truly becomes or realizes itself only as a consequence of that
death, so that the death of God is the centerof history,and the centerof
that total historywhich is the evolution of freedomand of life. But that
center is also the center of a purely logical or purely conceptualthink-
ing, a thinkingwhich advancesonly by negatingor emptyingitself, and
a thinkingwhose method is pure negation, a pure negationor pure neg-
ativitywhich is the movement and activityof absolute Spirit itself, an
absolute Spiritwhich is absolute immediacyand absolute mediation at
once, but is so only as a consequenceof that primalurge or Triebwhich
is its innermostnature. Now if that Triebor thatkenosisis illusory,then
so likewise is the Hegelian system as a whole, for then self-negation
could not be an ultimateand absolutemovement,and the Hegeliansys-

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86 Journal of the AmericanAcademyof Religion

tem would unveil itself as being a system of that purely abstractSpirit

which Hegel himself, and even in the Scienceof Logic,could identify as
"Evil"(I, One, 3, c).
Hegel could know an ultimateaffirmationof purelyabstractSpiritas
the supreme and most stubbornerror,and that is an affirmationwhich
comprehends Brahman-Atman,Spinoza's Substance, and the God of
Christianscholasticism,for that is a Godheadwhich is absolutelyinac-
tive and quiescent, and a Godhead which is realized only by way of a
regressivewithdrawalfrom life. Nietzsche could know that withdrawal
as ressentiment,a ressentimentwhich is the source of what Nietzsche
knew as the ChristianGod, a God who is the very deificationof nothing-
ness (TheAntichrist:18).Hegel, too, could know that God as the Chris-
tian God, but thatis a God who is alienatedfrom the Godhead,and even
if that alienation is essential to the very life of the Godhead, it is an
alienation which finally negates itself, and that negation of negation is
absoluteliberation. Now if Hegel could realizea pure thinkingwhich is
a negation and transcendenceof Christianbelief, he neverthelesscon-
tinuallyinsists that pure belief is preservedin the dialecticalmovement
of pure negativity,and is preservedpreciselyby being transcended. So it
is that Hegel again and again calls upon the FourthGospel as his pri-
maryscripturalwitness, insisting that what thatgospel knows as Spiritis
what he knows as absoluteSpirit,a Spiritthat is a purelykenotic or self-
emptying Spirit, and a Spirit that is the incarnate Christ. But can we
believe that the Phenomenology ofSpiritand the Scienceof Logicare philo-
sophical embodimentsof the incarnateChrist,and thus embodimentsof
the uniquely ChristianGod?
Nothing is more distinctiveof Hegel than his resolute determination
to end all mystery,and above all to end the mysteryof God, a mystery
that his system knows to be ended with the Incarnation,an ending
which is finally the ending of all mysterywhatsoever. At this point it is
true that he is close to his deepest modem philosophical counterparts,
Spinozaand Nietzsche,but he is unlike Spinozaand Nietzschein know-
ing the ending of that mysteryas an act of God, and not only as an act,
but as that act by which the Godheadis most fully actualas itself. Now
if that act is the pure negation of the alienatedGod, or the God who is
and only is "in-itself,"that act is the ending of the beyond, or the end-
ing of that pure transcendencewhich cannot become incarnate,or that
"bad infinite" which is simply and only the opposite of the finite. It
might even be said that Hegel identifiesthe deepest evil with the deepest
mystery,and just as he could know the ground of evil as an absolute
solitude which is an absoluteisolation, that absolute solitude is absolute

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Altzer Hegeland the Christian
God 87

mystery,a mysterywhich is enacted with every enactment of evil. Yet

like Spinozaand Nietzsche,Hegel's deepest thinkingis an absoluteaffir-
mation of actuality,an affirmationcomprehendingevil itself, and even
the deepest evil, which Hegel can know as a means or a way by which
absolute Spiritrealizesitself. But Hegel, unlike Spinoza,althoughantic-
ipating Nietzsche, could know the deepest evil as being fully embodied
in the alienatedGod, and embodiedin the absolutesolitudeor the abso-
lutely solitary "I" of that God, an "I" that is wholly enclosed within
itself, and that absolute self-enclosureis absolute evil.
Historically,it must be remarkedthat no such image or idea of God
is present or is realized until the dawning of the modem world, for
unlike its apparentGnostic counterpart,this is an understandingof the
alien God as being finally a self-expression or self-realizationof the
redemptiveGod, and if here Hegel's own historicalsource is the mysti-
cal thinkingof Jacob Boehme,that thinkingis itself the expressionof an
imagerythat is as earlyas Bosch, and which realizedits supremelinguis-
tic and poetic triumphin Milton'sSatan. Miltonwas the first Christian
visionaryto apprehenda dialecticaland polar unity between Christand
Satan,so that the exaltationof Satanin ParadiseLost,the firstsuch exal-
tation in Christianlanguage,is inseparablefrom Milton'sapprehension
of the real and actual death of Christ, a death that is possible only
throughthe power of a wholly fallen yet neverthelesstriumphantSatan,
and a death that is the one and only source of freedom and grace. No
philosophical thinker until Hegel apprehended the pure negativityof
evil and death, a pure negativitythat is an ultimate and even divine
negativity,but a negativitythat is not historicallymanifest as such until
the advent of the modem world. This most decisively occurs for Hegel
in the FrenchRevolution,which he knew as the full birth of the modem
world, when a universalfreedom was first born, but initially that free-
dom is a cold and abstractuniversality,and the sole work and deed of
that universalfreedomis death, and a new death which has no inner or
interior significance whatsoever (Phenomenology ofSpirit:590). That is
the death which is a uniquelymodem death, and that is the deathwhich
is realizedin the uniquely modem realizationof the death of God, and
only with and in that realizationdoes consciousness fully and finally
become metaphysicallyand religiouslygroundless.
Thus it is not possible to apprehend an ultimate and a final death
until the advent of the modem world, and even if there are images of
that death in Christianart and iconography,these do no occur until the
ending of ancient or patristic Christianity,and they do not pass into
Christianthinking until the sixteenth century,and then above all so in

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88 Journalof the AmericanAcademyof Religion

Luther, a thinking which does not realize a philosophical expression

until Hegel. Hence the question of the Christianidentity of Hegelian
thinkingis inevitablyan historicalquestion, for it must be posed within
the historicalcontext of the modem world, for that is the only historical
world which has known both the ultimacy and the finality of death.
Aquinas could speak for the whole ancient traditionof Christiantheol-
ogy in maintainingthat God's natureeternallyremainsimpassible, and
thereforeChrist'spassion did not concernor affecthis Godhead(Summa
Theologica,III, 46, 8), and it is not until Milton'sDe DoctrinaChristiana
that a theologicaltreatisewill affirmthe full and actualdeath of Christ,a
death affectingthe whole of his nature,but preciselytherebya death that
is the sole source of redemption (I, xxi). Not even Lutheror Calvin
could breakwith the patristicdogmas of Christianity,and if this occurs
in the RadicalReformation,a reformationwhich was a primarysource
of the EnglishRevolution,that revolutionfinallygave birth to the French
Revolution,a revolutionwhich finally ended the ancient world. Only in
the context of that ending can Hegel be understoodhistorically,and that
inevitablyposes the question of whether or not Christianityitself can be
actualand real if it decisivelybreaksaway from or transcendsits histori-
cal origin and ground in the ancient world.
There can be no doubt that Hegel negatedthatground,even if this is
a negation which intends to be a preservationof that ground, but that
necessarilyposes the question of whether such a preservationis possi-
ble. In this perspective,the question of the Christianidentityof Hegel is
also the question of the possibilityof a uniquelymodem form and reali-
zation of Christianityitself, or the question of whetheror not it is possi-
ble that Christianitycan negateitself so as to transcenditself, or to move
beyond its originaland continuing expressions. That is the question of
whether or not Christianityis a forwardmoving form of faith, and an
historicallyevolvingfaith, a faith evolvingthroughits own deep transfor-
mation. No thinker poses this question more deeply than does Hegel,
but that question is not confined to the philosophical arena, for it
equally occurs in art and poetry,just as it also occurs in politics and
society. For this is to ask if Christianitycan transcendthe end of Chris-
tendom, and even more decisively be itself precisely throughthat end-
ing, an ending which would then be the ending of a deep negation of
Christianitywithin its own originalbody or world. Now it is true that
no other religious traditionposes such a question, and if this is true of
Christianity,then nothing else would make it so manifestlyunique,just
as nothing else could so manifestlyembody the uniquenessof the Chris-
tian God. And that is the question that here and now is at hand: is the

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Altzer Hegel and the ChristianGod 89

Christian God truly unique, and so finally unique that it has no true
counterpartsin the world religions? Nothing poses this question more
forcefullythan does the very symbol of the death of God, which is his-
toricallyunique in the history of religions, and historicallyunique as a
real and actualdeath, and as a final and ultimatedeath, and as that one
death which is the sole source of liberationand redemption.
Yet the truth is that this very symbol has historically evolved in
Christianity,for even if it is at the very center of the New Testament,it
virtually disappears in patristic or ancient Christianity, only being
reborn in early medieval art, and not triumphingin medieval art until
the fifteenthcentury,and only in the seventeenthcenturydoes it become
embodied in Christianpoetry in ParadiseLost, and not triumphingin
that poetryuntil the propheticand apocalypticpoetryof Blake,just as it
does not become embodied in philosophicalthinkinguntil Hegel. Thus
the death of God is not a dominantor a commandingsymbol in Christi-
anityuntil the adventof the modem world, and even then it only gradu-
ally evolves in the Christianconsciousnessand sensibility,not becoming
universallymanifest until the end of the eighteenth century, and then
only decisively so through the violence and the terror of the French
Revolution. Both Blakeand Hegel knew that revolutionas the historical
realizationof the death of God, and that is the very point at which the
ChristianChurchfully passes into the peripheryof history, so that the
FrenchRevolutionmost decisivelyembodies the end of Christendom. If
that ending embodieda terrorwhich horrifiedthe world, both Blakeand
Hegel could unveil that terroras a unique terrorinspired by the histori-
cal actualizationof the death of God, an actualizationwhich ended all
traditionalor given grounds of moralityand judgment,just as it ended
the establishedgrounds of politics and society. Here, the death of God
is not only an interiorevent, but a publiclyactualevent, and so actualas
to be a universalevent, for Hegel the firstuniversalevent in history,and
an event that within less than a centurywas destined to transformthe
world as whole. Now everyliving religioustraditionmust confrontthis
event, for this was the event which most profoundlyinaugurateda uni-
versal process of secularization,and a secularizationthat Hegel could
know as the positive embodiment of the Kingdomof God.
Here, we are very close to the deep "offense"of Hegel's system, an
"offense" even in a Pauline sense, for it was recreated as such by
Kierkegaard,who did so by employingan Hegelianlanguageand dialec-
tic, for now offense is manifest as an absolute negation of God, and
finally a self-negation of God. Kierkegaardunderstood this far more
deeply than did any subsequenttheologian,so that the absoluteparadox

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90 Journalof the AmericanAcademyof Religion

of the Incarnationis the paradoxof God's negationof God, a negationof

God which is a realizationof God, and a final realizationof God, but
neverthelessand preciselytherebya profoundoffense to everythingthat
is knowable as God and as God alone, and to everythingwhich is interi-
orly present in faith as God and as God alone. It was Kierkegaardwho,
following but going beyond Luther,discoveredthe absoluteoffense and
the absoluteparadoxof faith, and an offense and a paradoxwhich most
deeply assaults faith itself, for it is an absolute offense and an absolute
paradoxto the deepest faith in the pre-IncamateGod. So likewise is it
an absoluteoffense to a pre-modemChristianfaith, to all that faithlying
within the first two millennia of Christianhistory, so that Kierkegaard
demandeda contemporaneitywith Christthat is a leap out of that Chris-
tian history,and a leap that itself is possible only with the end of Chris-
tendom. All too significantly,Barthrenouncedhis earlierdiscipleshipto
Kierkegaardwhen he fully embarked upon his project of writing a
ChurchDogmatics,for Kierkegaardeven as Marxis at bottom an Hege-
lian thinker,and an Hegelianthinkerwho can finallyknow God only by
knowing the self-negationof God, a self-negationwhich is the Incarna-
tion, and is the Incarnationas an absolute and total offense.
Perhapsthe question of whether or not Hegel is a Christianthinker
is simply the questionof whetheror not Christianityis and only can be a
pre-modem form of faith. While it is true that this is an historicalques-
tion, it is simultaneouslya theological question as well, and it is most
clearlyand most forcefullya theologicalquestionin posing the question
of whether or not Christianityis grounded, and deeply and ultimately
grounded, upon the death or self-negation of God. Paradoxically,and
not so paradoxically,this is also the question of whetherChristianityis a
universalfaith or a particularand historicallyindividualfaith and move-
ment. For if Christianityis realizedin the death of God, it can pass into
or even realize a universal historical movement, a movement which
actuallyoccurredin full modernity,whereas if it is alien to that death it
is inevitablydestined to be a sectarianor historicallyisolated faith. No
thinker so deeply and so comprehensivelyunderstoodChristianityas a
universal faith as did Hegel; indeed, it is just that universalityof faith
which is the manifest center of his system, and if this is a system which
can enter or comprehend every realm, it is the only Western system
since Aristotle which has such a potentiality, and if the discovery of
Aristotlerevolutionizedmedieval theology, the discoveryof Hegel is no
less revolutionizingmodem theology, unless that theology follows its
scholasticprecedentby regressingto an abstractand sterileform. While
this is manifestlyoccurringin our own time, our time as well as the late

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Altzer Hegel and the ChristianGod 91

Middle Ages may well be a time of profoundtransformation,and if that

late medieval world gave birth to modernity, and a modernity which
both to the non-sectarian Protestantand to the modem Catholic is a
modernitywhich is Christianmodernity,then our time may well be giv-
ing birth to a universalfaith, and a universalfaith that will both negate
and transcendeverythingthat we have known as Christianity.

REFERENCES

Werke.Stuttgart:F. Frommann.
Hegel,G.W.F. Saimtilche
1927-1940

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