Over the past two centuries, the landscape of Western philosophy has been shaped by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, a force that every new thinker grapples with. Hegel stands as the defining philosopher of the historical shift to modernity, a period that bears striking resemblances to our own. Born on August 27, 1770, just nineteen years before the French Revolution, an event that would profoundly shape his thinking. Throughout his life, he would toast the storming of the Bastille on the 14th of July, declaring it to be the guiding principle of his philosophy.
Hegel had a varied career. In 1788, he enrolled in the theological school of the University of Tübingen, intending to become a Lutheran minister. However, he became dissatisfied with his studies and the strict form of religious orthodoxy that he was taught. As a result, he lost interest in theology and instead focused on studying philosophy. Subsequently, he became a newspaper editor and then a headmaster before becoming an academic professor. Intellectually, he was adventurous, but otherwise, he was respectable and conventional. He ascended the academic ladder and reached the topmost branch – head of the University of Berlin – in 1830 (when he was 60). He died the following year.
Hegel was a radical reformer, advocating for a constitutional monarchy rather than the absolute monarchy that ruled Germany at the time. Despite being vilified as the philosopher of German nationalism and other negative labels (mainly by those who have not read his work), Hegel has been a significant influence on major radical political and social movements of the 19th and 20th centuries. There are two main reasons for Hegel's central place in these movements. First, he was the first to show how social reality is constructed by ideology and is not a natural order. Thus, movements such as Marxism, Feminism, the Civil Rights Movement, Postcolonialism, and gender studies have drawn essential ideas from Hegel for their own purposes. Secondly, it was Hegel who first proposed the idea that concepts are developed through human actions and are not just confined to the brain but are also evident in human activities and the tools we use. Through participating in activities, concepts take shape and become tangible so that people can consciously understand and grasp them as thoughts. This insight has been crucial for understanding the social and psychological dimensions of human society.
Hegel's contribution to understanding social and historical progress is profound. He developed the dialectical method, a powerful tool for analysing arguments and identifying gaps in logic. This method recognises that every idea or argument contains its own opposite. In other words, we are never out of contradictions. According to Hegel, social, political, or theological progress occurs not despite but because of contradictions. He proposed that contradiction is not external but inherent in every thought, idea, and worldview. This insight considers contradictions as a catalyst for progress rather than obstacles.
Finally, Hegel has had a significant impact on Christian theology. He is often called the “Protestant Aquinas”. Perhaps one of his most controversial and best-known concepts is the “death of God,” inspiring a philosophical movement of Christian atheism or Christian Marxism. According to Hegel, what dies on the cross is not only the earthly-finite representative of God but God himself, the very transcendent God beyond. Hegel suggests that the true meaning of the incarnation is that God Himself died on the Cross, and with him, any appeal that humanity might make to the transcendent beyond.
In Hegel’s work, the concept of God begins with the Father but undergoes a transformation through the incarnation. The Father ceases to be the Father and becomes the Son, who in turn becomes the Holy Spirit after the moment of Crucifixion. The Holy Spirit represents the universal community or the church of believers. Scholars conclude that for Hegel, the idea of the Holy Spirit has no agency outside the community of believers who believe in it. The ultimate lesson of Hegel is that the finite existence of mortal humans is the only site of the Holy Spirit, the site where the Spirit achieves its full potential.
Usually, we interpret religion as a way to find meaning in life. We often focus on the small details of everyday life and feel uncertain about the outcomes. We make choices, hoping that God will make things work out in our favour. However, for Hegel, the significance of Christ's death is quite the opposite: It represents God's belief in us. It's an extraordinary belief in us, where God entrusts us with the responsibility, saying, "I leave it to you. The Holy Ghost, the community of believers, you have to do it.” The Hegelian gesture is not that we trust God; the message is rather that God trusts us, leaving it over to us to do the job.
Very helpful understanding that philosophy.