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OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 29/11/2021, SPi
An Introduction to
Hegel’s Lectures on the
Philosophy of Religion
The Issue of Religious Content in the
Enlightenment and Romanticism
JON STEWART
1
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3
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Acknowledgements
Parts of the Introduction were presented at the seminar ‘Die religiöse Krise im 19.
Jahrhundert: Religionsphilosophie von Kant bis Nietzsche’ at the Department of
Philosophy at the Pázmány Péter Catholic University in Piliscsaba, Hungary, 6
March 2009. Different versions of this same paper were also given at formal talks
at the Committee on Social Thought, at the University of Chicago, 8 October
2009, and at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Portland, 15
October 2009. Parts of Chapter 7 were presented at the seminar ‘The Crisis of
Religion in the Nineteenth Century: Then and Now’ at the Department of
Philosophy at Szeged University in Hungary, 30 March 2010.
Parts of the Introduction were published as ‘Hegel’s Teleology of World
Religions and the Disanalogy of the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion’ in
Acta Kierkegaardiana, vol. 4, Kierkegaard and the Nineteenth Century Religious
Crisis in Europe (Šala: Kierkegaard Society in Slovakia and Toronto: Kierkegaard
Circle, Trinity College 2009, pp. 17–31). Parts of Chapter 3 appeared previously as
‘Hegel and Jacobi: The Debate about Immediate Knowing’ (in the Heythrop
Journal: A Bimonthly Review of Philosophy and Theology, vol. 59, no. 5, 2018,
pp. 761–9) and ‘Hegel’s Criticism of Schleiermacher and the Question of the
Origin of Faith’ (in Filozofia, vol. 73, no. 3, 2018, pp. 179–90). Some of this
material also appeared previously as ‘Hegel’s Criticism of the Enlightenment
and Romanticism: The Problem of Content in Religion’ (in Filozofia, vol. 70, no. 4,
2015, pp. 272–81). An earlier version of Chapter 7 was published as ‘Hegel’s
Treatment of the Development of Religion after Christianity: Islam’ in Acta
Kierkegaardiana, vol. 5, Kierkegaard: East and West, Šala: Kierkegaard Society in
Slovakia and Toronto: Kierkegaard Circle, Trinity College 2011, pp. 42–56.
A previous version of Chapter 8 appeared in print as ‘Hegel’s Philosophy of
Religion and the Question of “Right” and “Left” Hegelianism’ in Politics,
Religion and Art: Hegelian Debates, ed. by Douglas Moggach, Evanston:
Northwestern University Press 2011, pp. 66–95. I am thankful to these journals
and publishers for allowing me to reprint some of this material here in substan-
tially modified form.
I would also like to express my gratitude to Katalin Nun Stewart who read
different parts of the text and provided valuable feedback and suggestions. Katalin
also developed the idea for the cover design for this work. I would also like to
acknowledge the great help and support of my friends and colleagues at the
Institute of Philosophy at the Slovak Academy of Sciences: Peter Šajda, Róbert
Karul, Jaroslava Vydrová, and František Novosád. I am grateful to Samuel
OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 29/11/2021, SPi
vi
Abraham for affording me the opportunity to try out some of this material in the
classroom in the context of a course on the modern world at the Bratislava
International School of Liberal Arts in the autumn of 2019.
This work was produced at the Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak
Academy of Sciences. It was supported by the Agency APVV under the project
“Philosophical Anthropology in the Context of Current Crises of Symbolic
Structures,” APVV-20-0137.
OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 29/11/2021, SPi
Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Abbreviations of Primary Texts xi
Introduction 1
0.1 Religion and Hegel’s View of Systematic Philosophy 2
0.2 Hegel’s Published Corpus and System 3
0.3 The First Collected Works Edition: The Publication of the Lectures 8
0.4 A Problem with Hegel’s Historical Account 12
0.5 The Editions of Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion 15
0.6 The Theses of the Present Study 19
1. The Enlightenment’s Criticism of Religion: Theology 22
1.1 The Crisis with the Emergence of the Sciences 23
1.2 Deism 26
1.3 Voltaire: A Rational Understanding of Religion 30
1.4 Reimarus: The Crisis of Biblical Studies 36
2. The Enlightenment’s Criticism of Religion: Philosophy 49
2.1 Lessing: The Crisis of History 49
2.2 Hume: Criticism of the Proofs of God’s Existence 59
2.3 Kant: The Limits of Reason and the Moral Foundation of Religion 62
2.4 Hegel’s Criticism of Kant 72
2.5 Hegel and the Enlightenment 77
3. Romanticism: The Retreat to Subjectivity 79
3.1 Rousseau: Conscience and the Pure Heart 80
3.2 Jacobi: Discursive Knowledge and Immediate Certainty 84
3.3 Hegel’s Criticism of Jacobi 91
3.4 Schleiermacher: Intuition and Immediate Feeling 95
3.5 Hegel’s Criticism of Schleiermacher 101
3.6 The Romantics and the Forms of Subjectivity 105
3.7 Hegel’s Philosophy of Religion and Romanticism 113
4. Hegel’s Approach and Method 115
4.1 The Criticism of the Enlightenment: Ignorance of the Divine 115
4.2 The Criticism of Romanticism: The Split between Thinking
and Feeling 119
4.3 The Problem of Content 121
4.4 The Relation of Philosophy to Religion: Concepts and
Picture-thinking 123
4.5 The Goal of Seeing the Rational in Religion 126
4.6 The Determination of Objectivity: The Internal Criterion 128
4.7 Faith and Knowledge 131
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viii
Bibliography 245
Index of Names 271
Index of Subjects 274
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List of Illustrations
Aesthetics Hegel’s Aesthetics. Lectures on Fine Art, vols 1–2, trans. by T. M. Knox,
Oxford: Clarendon Press 1975, 1998.
Dokumente Dokumente zu Hegels Entwicklung, ed. by Johannes Hoffmeister, Stuttgart:
Frommann 1936.
EL The Encyclopaedia Logic. Part One of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical
Sciences, trans. by T. F. Gerats, W. A. Suchting, H. S. Harris, Indianapolis:
Hackett 1991.
ETW Early Theological Writings, trans. by T. M. Knox, Fragments trans.
by Richard Kroner, Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1948;
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 1975.
Hamann Hegel on Hamann, trans. by Lisa Marie Anderson, Evanston: Northwestern
University Press 2008.
Hegel’s Library Verzeichniß der von dem Professor Herrn Dr. Hegel und dem Dr. Herrn
Seebeck, hinterlassenen Bücher-Sammlungen, Berlin: C. F. Müller 1832.
(Referenced by entry number and not page number.) (This work is
reprinted in ‘Hegels Bibliothek. Der Versteigerungskatalog von 1832’,
ed. by Helmut Schneider in Jahrbuch für Hegelforschung, vols 12–14,
2010, pp. 70–145.)
Hist. of Phil. Lectures on the History of Philosophy, vols 1–3, trans. by E. S. Haldane,
London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner 1892–96; Lincoln and London:
University of Nebraska Press 1995.
Jub. Sämtliche Werke. Jubiläumsausgabe, vols 1–20, ed. by Hermann Glockner,
Stuttgart: Friedrich Frommann Verlag 1928–41.
LHP Lectures on the History of Philosophy: The Lectures of 1825–1826, vols
1–3, ed. by Robert F. Brown, trans. by Robert F. Brown and
J. M. Stewart, with the assistance of H. S. Harris, Berkeley: University
of California Press and Oxford: Oxford University Press 1990–2009.
LPE Lectures on the Proofs of the Existence of God, ed. and trans. by Peter
C. Hodgson, Oxford: Clarendon Press 2007.
LPR Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, vols 1–3, ed. by Peter C. Hodgson,
trans. by Robert F. Brown, P. C. Hodgson and J. M. Stewart with the
assistance of H. S. Harris, Berkeley: University of California Press
1984–87.
LPWH Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, vols 1–3, ed. and trans. by
Robert F. Brown and Peter C. Hodgson, with the assistance of William
G. Geuss, Oxford: Clarendon Press 2011–.
LPWHI Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, Introduction, trans. by
H. B. Nisbet, with an introduction by Duncan Forbes, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press 1975.
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All translations from the Bible come from the New Revised Standard Version.
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Introduction
One beautiful starry evening, we stood, the two of us, at a window, and I, a young
person of twenty-two, having just eaten well and drunken coffee, spoke raptur-
ously about the stars, calling them the habitations of the blessed. The master [sc.
Hegel], however, mumbled to himself, “The stars, ho! hum! the stars are just
leprous spots glowing on the sky.” For God’s sake—I cried—is there no happy
place up there to reward virtue after death? Hegel just stared at me with his pale
eyes and said cuttingly, “You took care of your sick mother, and you didn’t poison
your brother. Do you really expect to receive a tip?” After these words, he looked
around anxiously but seemed to grow calm soon afterwards when he saw that it
was only Heinrich Beer approaching him to invite him to a round of whist.¹
Beer was one of Hegel’s trusted friends, and so the philosopher was relieved to see
that their conversation had not been overheard by someone who might report it to
the authorities. Hegel’s anxiety reveals much about his disposition to issues
concerning religion. He was acutely aware of the sensitive nature of religious
topics at the time. Likewise, he knew that there were no protections for professors
even of the highest rank, who could be fired instantly if they were perceived to
¹ Heinrich Heine, ‘Geständnisse,’ in Vermischte Schriften, vols 1–3, Hamburg: Hoffmann und
Campe 1854, vol. 1, pp. 61–2; ‘From Confessions,’ in On the History of Religion and Philosophy in
Germany and Other Writings, ed. by Terry Pinkard and trans. by Howard Pollack-Milgate, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press 2007, p. 206.
An Introduction to Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion: The Issue of Religious Content in the Enlightenment and
Romanticism. Jon Stewart, Oxford University Press. © Jon Stewart 2022. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192842930.003.0001
OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 28/11/2021, SPi
have crossed certain lines. This anecdote suggests that Hegel was guarded with
respect to issues of religion and took some care to dissemble his true views.
This provides insight into the complexity of any attempt to interpret his
statements on religion in a straightforward manner. Hegel’s philosophy of religion
is a complex subject that involves a large number of texts. Although he is known
as a philosopher, Hegel had theological training and was interested in issues
concerning religion all of his life. His philosophy cannot be separated from his
religious views. His views on religion are intricately interwoven with the rest of
his system. The present work attempts to offer an introduction to this body of
material with a focus on the most extensive statement of his views on religion,
namely, his Berlin Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion.
The work is premised on the idea that Hegel’s intuitions about the nature of
religion are largely motivated by the main trends in religion at the time, namely,
what he perceived as the crisis of religion that arose as a result of new ways of
thinking in the periods of the Enlightenment and Romanticism. Thus, I will try to
present his philosophy of religion as a reaction to key elements in these well-
known intellectual movements. I believe that this approach allows us to make
sense of Hegel’s philosophy of religion and provides a broad appreciation for the
nature of religious thought during his time.
² Hegel, PhS, p. 3; Jub., vol. 2, p. 14. ³ Hegel, PhS, p. 13; Jub., vol. 2, p. 27.
⁴ Hegel, EL, § 14; Jub., vol. 8, p. 60. ⁵ Hegel, PhS, p. 11; Jub., vol. 2, p. 24.
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3
together in an elegant or convenient manner, but rather each individual part has
a necessary relation to all the other parts. Thus, it has a specific and necessary
place in the system. Philosophy represents a closed system that exhausts its
subject matter. If anything were left out, then there would be something essential
missing in the account it gives of the particular elements. Philosophy must thus
include an account of everything. From this it follows that one cannot understand
the nature of any individual part without having some sense of its role vis-à-vis the
other parts.
Hegel’s understanding of these relations is dialectical. One concept necessarily
presupposes another in the way that being presupposes nothingness, the one
presupposes the many, and unity presupposes plurality. Thus, one concept leads
to another. For Hegel, this means that the systematic structure is dynamic rather
than static in nature. He explains, ‘The science of [the Absolute] is essentially a
system, since what is concretely true is so only in its inward self-unfolding and in
taking and holding itself together in unity, i.e., as totality.’⁶ In science the concepts
organically develop into one another in a necessary manner that Hegel attempts to
trace. This development follows the rules of Hegel’s well-known dialectic, accord-
ing to which specific concepts necessarily posit their opposite. In this way con-
cepts develop or unfold and are in a constant movement.
Hegel also applies this reasoning to his account of the different world religions,
which collectively develop the concept of the divine. The different peoples of
world history are related to one another, each playing its own special role in the
development of spirit. Their conceptions of the divine are likewise interrelated
and, according to Hegel, can be traced and understood when the proper philo-
sophical approach is used. Given Hegel’s clear methodological statements about
the systematic nature of his philosophy, it is odd that his philosophy of religion is
usually treated either in a piecemeal fashion or in abstraction from the other parts
of his thought. It is rarely understood in relation to, for example, his philosophy of
history or his aesthetics, although there is significant overlap in the themes that are
treated. Here a great opportunity has been missed for gaining a better under-
standing of Hegel’s views on the different world religions.
⁷ See, for example, Hans Friedrich Fulda, Das Problem einer Einleitung in Hegels ‘Wissenschaft der
Logik’, Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann 1965. Otto Pöggeler, Hegels Idee einer Phänomenologie des
Geistes, Freiburg and Munich: Karl Alber 1973. Johannes Heinrichs, Die Logik der Phänomenologie des
Geistes, Bonn: Bouvier 1974.
⁸ Hegel, System der Wissenschaft. Erster Theil, die Phänomenologie des Geistes, Bamberg and
Würzburg: Joseph Anton Goebhardt 1807.
⁹ Hegel, Wissenschaft der Logik, vols 1–3, Nuremberg: Johann Leonard Schrag 1812–16.
¹⁰ Hegel, Encyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse, Heidelberg: August
Oßwald’s Universitätsbuchhandlung 1817.
¹¹ Hegel, Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundrisse. Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts,
Berlin: Nicolaische Buchhandlung 1821.
¹² See, for example, Fulda, Das Problem einer Einleitung in Hegels ‘Wissenschaft der Logik’. Horst
Henning Ottmann, Das Scheitern einer Einleitung in Hegels Philosophie. Eine Analyse der
‘Phänomenologie des Geistes’, Munich: Verlag Anton Pustet 1973.
¹³ See Otto Pöggeler, ‘Die Komposition der Phänomenologie des Geistes,’ in Materialien zu Hegels
Phänomenologie des Geistes, ed. by Hans Friedrich Fulda and Dieter Henrich, Frankfurt am Main:
Suhrkamp 1973, pp. 329–90. Hans Friedrich Fulda, ‘Zur Logik der Phänomenologie von 1807,’ ibid.,
pp. 391–425.
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5
¹⁴ I have tried to argue this in more detail in my The Unity of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit:
A Systematic Interpretation, Evanston: Northwestern University Press 2000.
¹⁵ Hegel had this systematic structure in mind from a fairly early period as is evidenced by the so-
called Jenaer Systementwürfe or what is also known as the Realphilosophie, that is, drafts of a
philosophical system that he worked on during his years in Jena prior to writing the Phenomenology.
The overall outlines of the system that appear in these drafts bear a general similarity to the
Encyclopedia. These works are as follows in German: Jenaer Systementwürfe, vols 6–8 of Gesammelte
Werke, ed. by the Rheinisch-Westfälische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Hamburg: Felix Meiner
1968ff. The English translations are as follows: G. W. F. Hegel. The Jena System, 1804–5. Logic and
Metaphysics, translation edited by John W. Burbidge and George di Giovanni, Kingston and Montreal:
McGill-Queen’s University Press 1986. The Jena Lectures on the Philosophy of Spirit (1805–6) in Hegel
and the Human Spirit, trans. by Leo Rauch, Detroit: Wayne State University Press 1983. First
Philosophy of Spirit in G. W. F. Hegel, System of Ethical Life and First Philosophy of Spirit, ed. and
trans. by H. S. Harris and T. M. Knox, Albany, New York: SUNY Press 1979.
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Der Vorrat an organischen Stoffen im See erneuert sich also
durch das Hinzukommen neuer Materien, welche die weggeführten
ersetzen. Es ist klar, dass der grösste Teil der Stoffe durch den
Abfluss dem See entzogen wird. Das gestattet uns annähernd die
Intensität eines solchen Stoffwechsels im Lac Leman, der uns als
Beispiel gedient, zu berechnen. Die Wassermasse dieses Sees
beträgt 89000 Millionen cm; die Wassermasse, die jährlich durch die
Rhône bei Genf abfliesst, beträgt etwa 10000 Millionen; die jährlich
abfliessende Wassermasse ist also ungefähr der neunte Teil der
Totalmasse; es wird somit durch den Abfluss jährlich ungefähr ein
Neuntel des Vorrates an organischen Stoffen entzogen. Da noch die
Stoffe in Rechnung gebracht werden müssen, die in der Atmosphäre
aufgehen oder die im Alluvium fossilisiert werden, so können wir
sagen, dass die organischen Stoffe höchstens sieben oder acht
Jahre im See verweilen, um den lokalen Kreislauf unter den
verschiedenen ihn bewohnenden Wesen zu vollenden, bevor sie in
den grossen Cyklus der allgemeinen Weltzirkulation zurückkehren.
Ein See stellt uns also nach dem Dargelegten ein beschränktes,
mit Wasser gefülltes Becken dar, das, obschon es im Vergleich mit
dem Meerwasser süss ist, doch auf je ein Liter
150–250 mg aufgelöste mineralische Salze,
10 „ organische Stoffe,
20–25 cc Gase
enthält. Dieses Wasser enthält ausserdem schwebenden
organischen und mineralischen Staub, dessen Menge vom
Wasserstand der Zuflüsse und von ihrer Natur (Gletscherbäche,
Moorwasser etc.) abhängt.
Diese Materien bilden einen Vorrat, der durch die
atmosphärischen Niederschläge und die Gewässer der Zuflüsse
erhalten wird; ein Teil dieser Stoffe wird durch den Abfluss entzogen
oder verliert sich in der atmosphärischen Luft. Allein Zufuhr und
Abfuhr heben sich auf und die Zusammensetzung des Wassers
bleibt immer dieselbe.
Dieser Vorrat dient zur Ernährung zahlreicher und mannigfaltiger
Organismen, welche den beiden Reichen der organischen Welt
angehören, den verschiedenen Typen: von den Wirbeltieren und
Dikotyledonen an bis zu den Protozoen, Algen, Protisten und den
Mikroben.
Diese verschiedenen Typen zusammen lebender Wesen
absorbieren organische Stoffe und bilden neue; durch die
Wechselbeziehungen entgegengesetzter Funktionen ergänzen sie
sich in der Konsumtion und Restitution der Vorratssubstanzen
gegenseitig. In dieser Hinsicht ist ein See ein Mikrokosmos, eine
abgeschlossene Welt, die sich selbst genügt. Aber zugleich greift er
mittels seiner Zuflüsse und seines Abflusses in die allgemeine
Kreisbewegung des Erdballes ein. In dieser Hinsicht ist der See
nichts weniger als isoliert, sondern gehört mit zum Ganzen des
Universums.
Indem wir uns auf das obige, über die allgemeine Biologie
Gesagte stützen, ziehen wir folgende Schlüsse:
1. Der organische Stoff vollzieht seinen Kreislauf unter den
verschiedenen Wesen verschiedener Typen, welche im
beschränkten Raume eines Süsswassersees neben einander leben.
2. Dieser dem See angehörende organische Stoff ist nicht
absolut und für immer in diesem verhältnismässig kleinen Raume
lokalisiert, sondern er tritt als Glied in den grossen Cyklus des
allgemeinen Kreislaufes ein, welcher die verschiedenen Regionen
des Erdballes durch die Ströme, den Ozean und die Atmosphäre
verbindet.
Die Algen.