hegel's characterization of the pantheism of islamic mysticism resembles surprisingly very much what he expects from Christianity: "in pantheism, on the other hand, the immanence of the divine in objects exalts mundane, natural and human
existence
itself into a more independent glory of its own.
Hegels Philosophy of the Historical Religions
what hegel fascinates in the philosophy of the medabberim, is exactly the denial of the substantial character of the finite world.
here he finds the theological-philosophical position of islam that justified him to interpret the islam as a religion of the sublime, that is a religion in which the Absolute as 'the one' is absolutely dominating , either giving a shadow of autonomy to the finite world, nor to mans' reason and actions.
it belonged to the repertoire of early islamic theologians, so hegel quotes maimonides again, to deny the possibility of certain knowledge of things, because one could always think the opposite. they interpreted the world as a collection of atoms without any relation, so that all conjunc- tions are something accidental. it does not belong to the nature of things to have this or that accidentent. the accidents itself are just coming up and passing away, all dependent of the creative force of god. it is just a matter of habit that fire moves upward, that the earth is moving around a centre. god could have arranged it otherwise. hegel is naming the clas- sical topics of that theological discussion. 43 because in this position only god himself is a 'substantial being' hegel's association with pantheism is understandable: "this pantheism, if you want spinozism, is the position, the general point of view of oriental poets, historians and philosophers. "44
43 for an up to date exposition of these discussions see: william montgomery watt and michel marmura, Der Islam I, II, III, stuttgart-berlin: Kohlhammer 1985, bd. ii in: 'die religionen der menschheit' bd. 25, pp. 368 ff.
44 hegel, Vorlesungen u? ber die Geschichte der Philosophie, ii, p. 519.
? a religion after christianity? 231
hegel characterizes the islamic worldview in general with this word. for him, this 'spinozistic' worldview represents the idea of the sublime. god as the only, the persistent one is, in its abstract negativity, the basic con- cept of the oriental world of representations.
for the qualification of the islamic world as pantheism hegel relies on f. A. g. tholuck who published in 1821 one of the first books on islamic mysticism in europe called Sufism or the Pantheistic Theosophy of the Per- sians (sufismus sive theosophia persarum pantheistica). 45 Another book he wrote, quoted by hegel, was Anthology of Oriental Mysticism (blu? ten- sammlung aus der morgenla? ndischen mystik). we put aside now the topic of pantheism. it is an essential issue in the next and last part of this essay. first, we have to ask: is hegel's lecture of the history of Arabic philosophy adequate? in addition, if the answer is 'no', as the reader may presume, how is it the possible that hegel still hits an essential mark in his concep- tion of the islamic worldview?
9. evaluation: philosophy and religion of the sublime
what is true and what is false in this representation of islamic philosophy? As we already said, hegel underestimates the classical islamic philoso- phy of the middle Ages, by saying that they were only commentators of Aristotle. Avicenna, for example, contributed to western thinking by the unaristotelian distinctions between essence and existence and his ideas of contingency. of course, hegel's presentation of a theological school as 'the islamic philosophy' is wrong.
but at the other hand, this theological position became influential through the work of al-ghazali, a very important thinker in the world of islam, sometimes called a 'church father' or 'the thomas Aquinas of islam'. 46 hegel just mentions the name of al-ghazali among the commentators of Aristotle, as if he was just another philosopher. this was normal for a long time. As the first part of his The incoherence of the Philosophers (some- times translated as the Refutation of the Philosophers or The destruction of the Philosophers), al-ghazali wrote a book on 'The goals of philosophy', in
45 for tholuck and the reception of islamic mysticism in the west, especially of rumi, see franklin d. lewis, Rumi, Past and Present, East and West, oxford: one world 2000, pp. 506 ff.
46 see for criticism of this epitheta too: montgomery watt and marmura, Der Islam, ii, pp. 408 ff.
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which he summarized the philosophical positions he wanted to attack. it was translated in latin separately in the twelfth century, without the prologue in which al-ghazali exposed his goals, and for a long time this was the only book that was known. therefore he was regarded, for exam- ple by thomas of Aquinas, as a philosopher and an Aristotelian. 47 in the fourteenth century, the second part seemed to be translated and edited together with Averroes' critical commentary called The Incoherence of the Incoherence (sometimes translated as the Refutation of the Refutation or The Destruction of the Destruction). nevertheless, for a long time al ghaza- lis criticism of the philosophers was only known by the criticism of this criticism by Averroes. 48
tenneman too interprets him as a philosopher and as a sceptic very near to greek scepticism. however, he tells us too that al-ghazali was a sceptic not just because he wanted to be a sceptic, but because of theo- logical motives. he wanted to defend the possibility of miracles. never- theless, tennemans complains about the fact that he did not have at his disposal the original sources. he knows al-ghazali only from the refuta- tion of his thoughts by Averroes in his 'incoherence'. 49 but tenneman was right about the theological motives of al-ghazali. According to the modern point of view, al ghazali was not just another islamic Aristoteliz- ing philosopher, but a mystical theologian who criticized philosophy and theology using philosophy to combat philosophy with its own arms. 50 the inspiration for this criticism was the position described by maimonides as the position of the Asharites against the mutazila. so he mobilized the criticism of the mutakallimun against philosophy and especially against rational theology. his target was the philosophy of Avicenna. he is indeed famous for a criticism of causality that resembles very much that of david hume. therefore, he was called in old times, as hegel does a sceptic. how- ever, the aim and the source of his criticism of causality was not scep- ticism, but to prove the absolute omnipotence of god as first cause in
47 louis gardet, L'islam, religion et communaute? , paris: descle? e de brouwer 1967.
48 Charles burnett, 'Arabic into latin: the reception of Arabic philosophy into western europe', in: peter Adamson and richard taylor (eds. ) The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge university press 2005, pp. 370-405, p. 396. beatrice h. Zedler, 'introduction' in: Averroes' Destructionum Philosophiae Algazelis in the Latin version of Calo Calonymos, edited by beatrice Zedler, milwaukee: the marquette university press 1961, pp. 1-65.
49 tenneman, Geschichte der Philosophie, bd. 8, p. 404. 50 montgomery watt and marmura, der islam, ii, pp. 408 ff.
? a religion after christianity? 233
all causal relations in our finite world. therefore, he denied the reality, the (semi) autonomy of secondary causes. Al ghazali's position became dominant, 'orthodox' so to speak, in islamic thinking at the costs of the Aristotelians. After al ghazali came Averroes who attacked him again. he was the last great representative of the Aristotelian mediaeval tradition. As a special, isolated thinker, not known by hegel and tennemann, one has to mention ibn Khaldum 1332-1406, a social philosopher and philoso- pher of history.
often it is said that al ghazali dealt a definite blow to the development of islamic philosophy, that because of him islamic philosophy did not survive the middle Ages. to say that after al ghazali islamic philosophy ended, is exaggerated. but it is true that, because it lost its Aristotelian combination with the sciences, it could not make the transition to the modern sciences and continued its existence in combination with the- ology and especially mysticism. not Aristotelism, but neo-platonism in combination with mysticism became dominant, which provokes some- times the question of it being still philosophy.
therefore, hegel had a point, in as far as al ghazali's position, stress- ing the omnipotence of god at the cost of the (semi) autonomy of the world, became dominant in islam,51 hegel rightly highlighted the posi- tion of the mutakallimun and described islam properly as a religion of the sublime. Combining these ideas with persian mysticism as he knew it from tholucks' work, was not wrong either. there is indeed familiarity between them. 52
however, this stressing of the omnipotence was not the point of the philosophers, so much as of theologians in discussion with the philoso- phers. this islamic view on the unsustainability of all natural laws is a well-known topic in catholic circles that always opposed it to Aquinas' idea of the semi-autonomous reality of secondary causes. this 'rational- ism' of catholicism was the background of the famous or notorious speech of pope benedict XVi in regensburg in 2006, in which he criticized this islamic worldview because of its irrationality.
51 And one should not exaggerate al--ghazali's voluntarism. generally, in his thought gods wisdom prevails over his omnipotency. see william J. Courtnay, 'the Critique on natural Causality in the mutakallimun and nominalism' in william J. Cournay, Covenant and Causality in Medieval Thought, london: Variorum reprints 1984, pp. 77-94.
52 therefore a special chapter about persian poets in his book about al ghazali in: ber- nard Carra de Vaux, Ghazali A. H. 450505/1058-1111 (Algazel) Amsterdam: philo press 1974 (first edition 1902) p. 273.
? 234 gerrit steunebrink
in modern times, however, the dominant position of al ghazali is dis- cussed again. modern thinkers try to open the course of the history of islamic philosophy again by re-opening the debate between Avicenna, al-ghazali and Averroes, especially regarding problems of nature, natural sciences and with regard to natural law as the source of human rights. 53 so islamic philosophy is certainly not at its end. Just like it tried to cope with greek thought in the past, it tries now to digest modern western thinking.
10. islam in the lectures on fine Art
islamic art is dealt with in the part about oriental art. this type of art is called symbolic art. islamic art belongs to the 'symbolism of the sublime', which is the title of chapter ii. in the first part of that chapter, section A is dedicated to the 'pantheism of art', the second part is entitled: Art of the sublime. both parts belong to the 'symbolism of the sublime'. in part A, indian, islamic and Christian mystical poetry are ranked together. part b is as such dedicated to Judaism, to the Creator god, the world of the old testament and the psalms. hegel separates Judaism from pantheism. pantheism is the affirmative mode of the religion of the sublime. we find it in india, in mysticism of the mohammedan persian poets and again also in the deeper inwardness of thought and sentiment in the Christian west. 54 however, both islamic and Judaic art belong to the 'symbolism of the sub- lime'. because the sublime transcends all sensual possibilities, hegel con- cludes that pictorial art cannot exist in Judaism and islam. so the art of the sublime is essentially literature. here we see the grave consequences of Kant's dictum that 'thou shalt make no images' was the most 'sublime' word of the old testament. nevertheless, islamic pictural art exists in fact, non-figurative and figurative. the prohibition does not mean that man should not try to paint an image of god, but first of all that man should not try to imitate god as a creator. it focuses essentially on sculptures
53 see: Al-djabiri (Al-Jabri, Al-gabiri), muhammad 'Abid, Arab-islamic philosophy, A Contemporary Critique, Austin texas: middle east monograph series no. 12 1999. see also: hendrich, geert, Islam und Aufkla? rung, Der Modernediskurs in der arabischen Philoso- phie, darmstadt: wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft 2004. Ku? gelgen, Anke von, Averroes und die arabische Moderne; Ansa? tze zu einer Neubegru? ndung des Rationalismus im Islam, leiden 1994.
54 g. w. f. hegel, Hegel's Aesthetics, Lectures on Fine Art, i, ii translated by t. m. Knox, oxford: Clarendon press 1998, Vol. i, p. 364.
? a religion after christianity? 235
of human beings and animals that because of their three-dimensionality resemble mostly normal creatures. 55 in paintings of humans and animals therefore, all plastical perspective has to be avoided.
the pantheistic mood of a human being is characterized as 'enlarge- ment of the mind' and the Jewish sublime mood gives an 'elevation of the mind'. in hebrew poetry, we encounter in the negative praise of god sublimity in the strict sense of the word. hegel is criticizing this negativity that reduces the creation to an ornament. 56 but at the same time, hegel highlights as special Jewish the fact that nature and the human being are for the first time just what they are, just nature and man as such bereft of god.
what hegel is praising in islamic pantheism is, to the contrary, the presence of god in the finite. so here, Judaism and islam are separated, while both were intimately linked together in hegel's description of the islamic mind in his Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion. moreover, in his History of Philosophy he blamed islamic 'pantheistic' philosophy for the same thing he blames Judaism for in his Aesthetics.
nevertheless, in the lectures on Aesthetics, the tone towards islam is totally different. the positive attitude to islam of hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of History comes back. the perspective on pantheism is in general positive. moreover, this cannot be understood as just a matter of hotho's way of text edition, for the position he defends here is identical with the position at the end of the encyclopaedia. there too hegel quotes indian and islamic mystical poetry together. both are dealt with together positively within the context of a discussion about pantheism and the true (Christian) god. spinoza's idea of god is the background of the discussion about pantheism. therefore, islam as a religion of 'substance' is distin- guished from Christianity as a religion of 'subjectivity'. Judaism does not play any role there. 57
let us look first to hegel's interpretation of pantheism and then to his specific estimation of islamic 'pantheistic' poetry. for hegel the word pan- theism is, in essence, an impossible word. by the part 'pan', meaning 'all'
55 doris behrens-Abousef, Beauty in Arabic Culture, princeton: markus wiener publish- ers 1999, pp. 109, 135. see also: ettinghausen, richard, 'the man-made setting, islamic art and architecture', in: bernard lewis, The world of Islam, london: thames and hudson 1992, pp. 57-89, 62.
56 hegel, Aesthetics, p. 375.
57 g. w. f. hegel, Enzyklopaedie der philosophischen Wissenschaften, i, ii, iii, frankfurt: suhrkamp 1970, iii, ? 572, pp. 378-393.
? 236 gerrit steunebrink
or 'everything', it suggests that 'everything is god', so, that 'this house', 'that book' and so on 'is god'. that is utterly nonsense. no philosopher and especially spinoza ever represented that position.
however, when you take the 'pan' as the 'totality' or the one substance in all individuals, it makes sense, but then there is nothing wrong with it. it says just that god is the perfection of everything in everything, the abso- lute being the truth, the goodness itself in all finite good individual things. so it says nothing more than that the finite is the finite from the infinite and vice versa. 58 As hegel says in the encyclopaedia, this pantheism is in fact monotheism. 59 nevertheless, the difference is this that pantheism abstracts from particularity and individuality. All individual finite things are passing away for the absolute. indian pantheism expresses this iden- tity of the one and general substance, according to hegel, in the words of Krishna in the bhagavad--gita, when Krishna is saying that among all existents he is always the most excellent: "Among the stars i am the shin- ing sun (. . . ), among the letters i am the vowel A, amongst seasons of the year the blossoming spring. " etc. however, for hegel's taste this kind of litany becomes monotonous and boring. 60 nevertheless, in islamic poetry pantheism has developed in a higher a more free subjective way. hegel focuses especially on the work of the persian poets rumi (1207-1273) and hafiz (hafis) (1320-1389), indeed until now two very famous muslim mys- tics, early translated and very influential in the west. moreover, especially in this muslim pantheism is an estimation of the finite world possible that is not possible in the art of the sublime in the strict sense. for art of the sublime, Judaism, the finite world is only an ornament of god.
specifically in islamic pantheistic poetry, the presence of god in the finite world is at the service of that world.
hegel's characterization of the pantheism of islamic mysticism resembles surprisingly very much what he expects from Christianity: "in pantheism, on the other hand, the immanence of the divine in objects exalts mundane, natural and human existence itself into a more independent glory of its own. "61 hegel men- tions in this respect especially the poetry of hafiz. rumi is praised for the freedom of his feeling, transcending all petty interests, in which he still retains his substantial freedom and wins his self-identification with god. hafiz is praised because he was able to ensoul objects like the rose, the
58 hegel, Aesthetics, p. 271. 59 idem, p. 385.
60 idem, p. 367.
61 idem, p. 368.
? a religion after christianity? 237
nightingale, the wine, the candle , the flame, which western poets handle in a more prosaic and ornamental way. hegel opposes this 'objectivity' of feeling of the persian poetry to western poetry as more shut in upon itself and therefore subjective. however, he praises goethe, for goethe appropri- ated this islamic attitude of feeling free in objectivity in his famous book the West-Oestlicher Diwan, in which he constructed an encounter between european and islamic poetry by writing himself oriental poetry. At the end of his lectures about Aesthetics hegel praises this attitude of 'objec- tive humour' as the true attitude for modern poetry. 62 hegel uses islamic poetry as a critique of western romantic poetry and promotes, by means of islamic poetry, goethe as the true poet of 'objective' humour, that is an attitude of being 'in 'things and at the same time being 'above' them. his own idea of 'divine' life as losing and winning yourself in finiteness he found back in goethe's famous line 'stirb und werde' that is inspired by islamic symbolism. in this way, hegel thinks that islamic poetry influ- ences and contributes to western developments.
in his comparison of islam mysticism with Christian mysticism hegel stresses the 'true' subjective character of Christian mysticism. like orien- tal pantheism, it lives from the unity of the finite and the infinite, but it develops this pantheistic unity as a feeling of gods presence in subjective consciousness. hegel's example is Angel silesius. 63 he expressed in won- derful mystical power of representation the substantial existence of god in things and the unification of the self with god and god with human subjectivity, while eastern pantheism stresses more the absorption of the self in everything that is best and most splendid and emphasizes the self sacrifice of the subject in the contemplation of the one substance. Another Christian favourite is meister eckhart. (l1 24, 347-348/248)
this 'universal' mysticism comes back at the end of the encyclopaedia in his self-defence against the attack of pantheism. hegel again quotes the bhagavad-gita and, in extenso, his favourite, the 'excellent' rumi. he refers to tholuck, who in hegel's view interpreted the pantheism of persian poetry so well, but forgot all his understanding of religion when dealing with philosophy and theology. 64 hegel has to have difficulties with tholuck, for he criticized the idea of trinity, hegel's darling idea, as an idea with foreign non-Christian origins. 65 but hegel takes tholuck's
62 idem, p. 610.
63 idem, p. 371.
64 hegel, Enzyklopaedie, pp. 384-388. 65 hodgson, o. c. (see footnote 1), p. 62.
? 238 gerrit steunebrink
positive understanding of pantheistic persian poetry as a means to defend his view on pantheism, religion and philosophy. for in hegel's positive understanding of pantheism, pantheism means at least that there is a rela- tion, an identity, not unqualified, between god and the world, the infinite and the finite, the one and the many. hegel does not accept the definition of religion as the recognition of a god just as such, without any qualifica- tion, as can be found in all religions. it is very easy to unite all religions in this definition, because it does not say anything. for hegel god is totally different from a highest being, because this is a being next and opposed to other beings and therefore not all beings encompassing god. 66 panthe- ism gives a better clue to the unity of all religions and to the endeavour of philosophy: "the point of departure of all those (pantheistic) modes of representation and systems is the one and common need of all religions and philosophies of to make a representation of god and then of the rela- tion between him and the world. "67 this relation is a differential identity relation. it is the quality of this relation, that is of identity and difference that determines the differences between the religions. in the pantheistic systems, the world seems to disappear in the infinite. so the deficiency of those systems is that they do not determine the one and common sub- stance as subject and as 'spirit'. moreover, in Christian religion this deter- mination is represented by the trinity. nevertheless, hegel still prefers this unsatisfying pantheism above 'faith' (Glaube) and the abstract reflex- ivity of the enlightenment. therefore, for hegel, that pantheistic mysti- cism, well understood, of india, islam and Christianity is the expression of a common core business of all religion and philosophy.
here we hear the heartbeat of hegel's own philosophy and religios- ity. he feels himself confirmed by mystical poetry. of course he and we 'know' already that the relation of the infinite and the finite is the deter- mining factor of religion, but now the mysticism of the world religions witnesses it.
11. evaluation: islamic Art and pantheism
how real is this admiration for and how plausible is this interpretation of islamic mysticism? hegel was in the lucky circumstance that he had good sources. tholuck and Von hammer purggstall were german and
66 hegel, Enzyklopaedie, pp. 381-382. 67 idem, p. 389.
? a religion after christianity? 239
Austrian pioneers in the field of islamic religion, culture and politics. he used translations of the famous german poet ru? ckert, who still is con- sidered to be a master translator, inside and outside germany. goethe's West-oestlicher Divan was a good source too. normally muslims do not like orientalising literature. however, for goethe they make an exception. for some muslims goethe even was a crypto-muslim. we saw already that sir mohammad iqbal loved goethe's representation of islam. he loved hegel's dynamic interpretation of rumi too. the famous expert on islamic mysticism, Annemarie schimmel, does not hesitate to quote goethe's Diwan in almost all her works as a true representation of the spirit of islamic poetry. 68 therefore, hegel was in good company. the admiration is well founded.
it manifests the romantic strand in hegel's thought. goethe himself made the transition from classicism to romanticism in his Diwan, in his admiration for non-western and non-classicistic literature.
in addition, ever since islamic poetry was discovered by german and english romantics, it belonged to the treasures of world literature and never failed to attract new readers. it was the favourite access to islam for Christians. especially the figure of rumi is almost an icon of alternative religiosity in the west. only the qualification of islamic poetry as panthe- ism is old fashioned. Already muslim reform thinkers like iqbal protested against a pantheistic conception of islam by muslims themselves, because it stimulated fatalism. According to louis massignon, islam and islamic mysticism is essentially 'testimonial monism', the 'monism' of a lover testifying of his beloved: 'you are the only one'. only with regard to the mystical thinker ibn Arabi one sometimes still speaks of pantheism or of 'existential monism', but certainly not of rumi, whose spiritual world is very testimonial, dynamic and personal as hegel knew. 69
but with the inadequate qualification of pantheism, he still could discover something typical of, for example, hafiz' poetry. when hegel stresses that his poetry is ensouling the whole world of finite things by god's presence, and gives them their own place, he reproduces in his own way a typical feature of that literature. in hafiz you never know whether the poem is about god and mystical rapture or just about wine, drunk- enness and the tavern. still modern interpreters estimate the dictum of
68 Cf. Annemarie schimmel, As Through a Veil, Mystical Poetry in Islam, new york: Columbia university press 1982, pp. 49, 216 note 17.
69 for a critical discussion see, Annemarie schimmel, The Mystical Dimensions of Islam, Chapel hill, north Carolina: the university of north Carolina press 1975, p. 267.
? 240 gerrit steunebrink
ru? ckert that hafiz always expresses by means of sensual realities a super- sensible realm of being. 70 the question is of course whether this poetical technique of hafiz has something to do with hegel's idea of the (semi) autonomy of the finite world. moreover, hegel makes things complicated by using this poetry, mediated by goethe, in a polemic with modern 'sub- jectivist' trends in german literature of his days. however, hegel's analysis of the problem of pantheism, his stressing of the relational character of finiteness and infinity as such, is still of vital importance for the under- standing of religion. moreover, hegel rightly uses mysticism as testimonial evidence.
Conclusion
what strikes us most in hegel's dealing with islam, is how modern already the religious world is his days was. the discussion about the fanatic char- acter of islam, or of all monotheism, is going on since then. the hindu philosopher and first president of india, s. radhakrishnan, writing in times of muslim separatism and Christian missions, again praised the greek and romans and reproached islam and Christianity for intolerance. At the same time, he tried to unite all religions by mysticism. 71 in modern times, the former president of iran, Khatami, tried to find access to the western world by sufism. hegel's enthusiasm for sufism and the bhagavad-gita elu- cidates the saying of the poet heinrich heine (1779-1856), that it was fash- ionable among german students of his time to learn sanskrit and to read hegel. 72 the romantic enthusiasm for mysticism, including islamic sufism, as the internationale of all religion and philosophy, present in the bud in hegel's thought, is a returning phenomenon in modern european history. it manifested itself again heavily between the two world wars and once more in the 'hippy' sixties of the twentieth century. reincarnated in the 'sixties', hegel himself could have been, for a while, a long-haired student-, striving for a better world, reading mystical texts and, god knows, smok- ing a joint. At the end, of course, hegel criticized romanticism heavily and did not want to give in to its innate tendency to take refuge to another
70 J. Ch. bu? rgel, 'einleitung', in: muhammad schams Ad-din hafis, Gedichte aus dem Diwan, ed. J. Ch. bu? rgel, stuttgart: reclam 1972, pp. 3-31.
71 s. radhakrishnan, A Hindu View of Life, london: Allan and unwinn 1964 (first edition 1927), pp. 37-40.
72 dierk mo? ller, 'nachwort' in: heinrich heine, Ideen, Das Buch Le Grand, stuttgart: reclam 1972, pp. 75-96, 82.
? a religion after christianity? 241
world, to idealized oriental cultures or to the greek and mediaeval past. therefore, he went back to Christianity as the cultural source of his own place and time, the reality he wanted to understand. this of course does not justify his neglect of the islam as a genuine religion in his lectures on the philosophy of religion. Certainly not acceptable is his interpretation of islam in function of Christian-european evolution. A good comparison of religion starts with the destruction of teleological schemes, as was done by romantics like herder and hermeneutical thinkers like dilthey. never- theless, hegel certainly was a romantic too and reaped the fruits of that movement. the positive emphatic understanding hegel has of islam, his genuine and appropriate admiration for islamic mystical poetry is due to this romantic background. hegel read all he could read about islam and other religions in his days, but sciences, like 'history of religions', 'compar- ative sciences of religions', were not really developed at that time. from that point of view, it is amazing that hegel could develop sometimes such a sympathetic understanding of islam.
Hegel and Protestantism lu de Vos
1. introduction
in the text 'Concerning an accusation of Public disparagement of the Catholic religion' (U? ber eine Anklage wegen o? ffentlicher Verunglimpfung der katholischen Religion), Hegel claims to be born, to be educated and to live as a lutheran, and to give courses at a lutheran university. 1 such a state- ment shows that Hegel remains a lutheran Protestant, while also being a philosopher who claims to present truth philosophically. this leads to the question, what could be the philosophical value and thus the true ratio- nality of lutheran Protestantism as a specific form of Christian religion. 2 is this denomination realy as prominent in Hegel's writings and courses, as it seems to be in his personal letters? 3 a simple observation, however, seems to contradict Hegel's Protestant claim: at least in his courses on the philosophy of religion (and what were a better place to show it? ), Hegel focuses only on how the lutheran confession gives the most insightful interpretation of the Christian eucharist. moreover, his interpretation of religion more generally seems eclectic and transconfessional. 4 is Hegel fundamentally a Protestant; or is he first and foremost a speculative phi- losopher? moreover, how are these two roles linked together?
Hegel was in fact born and educated in a Protestant family, followed the courses at the Stift in tu? bingen to become a preacher, and gave les- sons on religion at the Protestant Gymnasium in nurnberg, a Protestant city in Catholic Bavaria. However, these biographical details do not suf- ficiently address the questions about the rationality and philosophical
1 g. W. F. Hegel, Berliner Schriften, Werke 11, Frankfurt am main: suhrkamp Verlag 1970, pp. 68-70; this text is part of a defensive answer against an attack by a roman-Catholic priest, following Hegel's courses given at the University of Berlin.
2 let us be prudent from the beginning: the notions of Protestantism (and of other Christian denominations) discussed here are only those of the beginning of the 19th cen- tury, not those of our--hopefully more ecumenical--time.
3 see P. Jonkers, ? Hegel on Catholic religion? (in this volume).
4 P. Hodgson, Hegel and Christian Theology, oxford: oxford University Press 2005, p. 193.
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importance of Protestantism as such. even the claim (given only in e2)5 that religion and philosophy have the same content, is too vague to be helpful on this point.
to answer the question on the relative significance of Hegel's Protes- tantism and his philosophical presentation of it, i will focus on Hegel's later period (1827-1831), the period that follows immediately after the (either personal or strategic) confession quoted above. 6 Hegel's presenta- tion of Christianity (even of its highest form--Protestantism) is too dif- ferentiated to summarize effectively in one paper. 7 the publications on which i will focus are the second and third versions of the Encyclopaedia (e2 from 1827 & e3 of 1830), some book-reviews from the Jahrbu? cher fu? r wissenschaftliche Kritik (16: 17-310) and the latin Oratio (Speech for the Celebration of the Jubilee of the Confessio Augustana, 1830; 16: 311-322). the most interesting and important texts for our purposes here will be the courses on the philosophy of religion from 1827 and 1831 (the latter of which is only extant in summaries),8 and the further courses on the Proofs of the existence of god (1829; 18: 215-218 & 228-336) and on his- tory (1830/31, with a new introduction-manuscript, 18: 119-214) from this period. 9 even as Hegel's work progresses further (it is visible in the
5 to be clear on the difference: Encyclopedia (1817) (further e1) gives no parallel claim, but stresses the beginning of philosophy (such as the Science of Logic), and only from the second Preface of the same book (1827), is there a difficult discussion with people of simple faith. the third Preface (1830), on the contrary, may be read as a full discussion with all those who cannot distinguish between religious forms 'of the catechism' and the task of philosophical thinking, a discussion, which has its origin in the criticisms of anonymous writers as well as of non-philosophers, refuted by Hegelian Recensions.
6 the basis of this restriction is that Hegel (by 1827) seems to have elaborated a good deal of his philosophical problems. He is neither under academic pressure as he was when writing e1, nor under the stress of the competition with schleiermacher as he was when composing his first course on religion (1821). instead, he was at the pinnacle of his renown, but even then still under harsh criticism, just on the point of the Christianity of his phi- losophy (on the issue of his or schelling's pantheism).
7 even the quote from the handbook, that religion could or should be the representa- tion of absolute knowing is, as position within the framework of the PhSp, limited to that book or time. moreover, even there it should be said, that it is not religion, but religious, speculative knowledge (9: 407), which is the first content containing aspect of absolute knowing.
8 it would be very useful and interesting to find a new student notebook of the course on religion of 1831, to be certain of the changes in structure and content of the concept and of the elaboration of religion there.
9 i'm quoting here in each case Hegel's writings from the Gesammelte Werke with Volume and page number (the encyclopedia with e2 or e3 and ? , if necessary also with a (=remarks)); the Courses (Vorlesungen, Hamburg: meiner Verlag 1983 ff ) are cited by V{olume} and page; the course on world-history, g. W. F. Hegel, Die Philosophie der Geschichte, 1830/31 -Heimann, Hrsg. Kl. Vieweg, mu? nchen: Fink 2005 (quoted as Vie and page).
? hegel and protestantism 245
structure of the concept of religion as well as in the new introduction to the philosophy of history), he has reached such maturity that things are as clear as possible; and in fact there is a consistency in his philosophical view on Protestantism, that it renders Hegel's struggle with the reality of the different aspects of Protestantism coherent. 10
insofar as lutheran Protestantism is a religious, Christian phenomenon, this paper will inquire into the program of the Hegelian philosophy of religion, in four stages. 1) it will determine the place of religion and Chris- tianity within Hegel's general philosophical program. 2) it will argue that the Protestant or lutheran form of Christianity is a more complex phe- nomenon than is expressed by its denominational particularity; it also has a special significance for world-history in general. 3) thirdly, this paper will address some possible religious objections to Hegel's philosophical program or approach. 4) Finally, there will follow a short conclusion in which the main Hegelian thesis will reappear, that a philosophy (even of religion) cannot be sufficiently criticised by religious means alone.
2. Hegel's Program of a Philosophy of religion
Hegel's philosophy of religion is not (Christian) theology. it is not apolo- getic. its concern is not the metaphysical validity of a specific religion, nor is this its main topic. it is not a part (i.
it belonged to the repertoire of early islamic theologians, so hegel quotes maimonides again, to deny the possibility of certain knowledge of things, because one could always think the opposite. they interpreted the world as a collection of atoms without any relation, so that all conjunc- tions are something accidental. it does not belong to the nature of things to have this or that accidentent. the accidents itself are just coming up and passing away, all dependent of the creative force of god. it is just a matter of habit that fire moves upward, that the earth is moving around a centre. god could have arranged it otherwise. hegel is naming the clas- sical topics of that theological discussion. 43 because in this position only god himself is a 'substantial being' hegel's association with pantheism is understandable: "this pantheism, if you want spinozism, is the position, the general point of view of oriental poets, historians and philosophers. "44
43 for an up to date exposition of these discussions see: william montgomery watt and michel marmura, Der Islam I, II, III, stuttgart-berlin: Kohlhammer 1985, bd. ii in: 'die religionen der menschheit' bd. 25, pp. 368 ff.
44 hegel, Vorlesungen u? ber die Geschichte der Philosophie, ii, p. 519.
? a religion after christianity? 231
hegel characterizes the islamic worldview in general with this word. for him, this 'spinozistic' worldview represents the idea of the sublime. god as the only, the persistent one is, in its abstract negativity, the basic con- cept of the oriental world of representations.
for the qualification of the islamic world as pantheism hegel relies on f. A. g. tholuck who published in 1821 one of the first books on islamic mysticism in europe called Sufism or the Pantheistic Theosophy of the Per- sians (sufismus sive theosophia persarum pantheistica). 45 Another book he wrote, quoted by hegel, was Anthology of Oriental Mysticism (blu? ten- sammlung aus der morgenla? ndischen mystik). we put aside now the topic of pantheism. it is an essential issue in the next and last part of this essay. first, we have to ask: is hegel's lecture of the history of Arabic philosophy adequate? in addition, if the answer is 'no', as the reader may presume, how is it the possible that hegel still hits an essential mark in his concep- tion of the islamic worldview?
9. evaluation: philosophy and religion of the sublime
what is true and what is false in this representation of islamic philosophy? As we already said, hegel underestimates the classical islamic philoso- phy of the middle Ages, by saying that they were only commentators of Aristotle. Avicenna, for example, contributed to western thinking by the unaristotelian distinctions between essence and existence and his ideas of contingency. of course, hegel's presentation of a theological school as 'the islamic philosophy' is wrong.
but at the other hand, this theological position became influential through the work of al-ghazali, a very important thinker in the world of islam, sometimes called a 'church father' or 'the thomas Aquinas of islam'. 46 hegel just mentions the name of al-ghazali among the commentators of Aristotle, as if he was just another philosopher. this was normal for a long time. As the first part of his The incoherence of the Philosophers (some- times translated as the Refutation of the Philosophers or The destruction of the Philosophers), al-ghazali wrote a book on 'The goals of philosophy', in
45 for tholuck and the reception of islamic mysticism in the west, especially of rumi, see franklin d. lewis, Rumi, Past and Present, East and West, oxford: one world 2000, pp. 506 ff.
46 see for criticism of this epitheta too: montgomery watt and marmura, Der Islam, ii, pp. 408 ff.
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which he summarized the philosophical positions he wanted to attack. it was translated in latin separately in the twelfth century, without the prologue in which al-ghazali exposed his goals, and for a long time this was the only book that was known. therefore he was regarded, for exam- ple by thomas of Aquinas, as a philosopher and an Aristotelian. 47 in the fourteenth century, the second part seemed to be translated and edited together with Averroes' critical commentary called The Incoherence of the Incoherence (sometimes translated as the Refutation of the Refutation or The Destruction of the Destruction). nevertheless, for a long time al ghaza- lis criticism of the philosophers was only known by the criticism of this criticism by Averroes. 48
tenneman too interprets him as a philosopher and as a sceptic very near to greek scepticism. however, he tells us too that al-ghazali was a sceptic not just because he wanted to be a sceptic, but because of theo- logical motives. he wanted to defend the possibility of miracles. never- theless, tennemans complains about the fact that he did not have at his disposal the original sources. he knows al-ghazali only from the refuta- tion of his thoughts by Averroes in his 'incoherence'. 49 but tenneman was right about the theological motives of al-ghazali. According to the modern point of view, al ghazali was not just another islamic Aristoteliz- ing philosopher, but a mystical theologian who criticized philosophy and theology using philosophy to combat philosophy with its own arms. 50 the inspiration for this criticism was the position described by maimonides as the position of the Asharites against the mutazila. so he mobilized the criticism of the mutakallimun against philosophy and especially against rational theology. his target was the philosophy of Avicenna. he is indeed famous for a criticism of causality that resembles very much that of david hume. therefore, he was called in old times, as hegel does a sceptic. how- ever, the aim and the source of his criticism of causality was not scep- ticism, but to prove the absolute omnipotence of god as first cause in
47 louis gardet, L'islam, religion et communaute? , paris: descle? e de brouwer 1967.
48 Charles burnett, 'Arabic into latin: the reception of Arabic philosophy into western europe', in: peter Adamson and richard taylor (eds. ) The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge university press 2005, pp. 370-405, p. 396. beatrice h. Zedler, 'introduction' in: Averroes' Destructionum Philosophiae Algazelis in the Latin version of Calo Calonymos, edited by beatrice Zedler, milwaukee: the marquette university press 1961, pp. 1-65.
49 tenneman, Geschichte der Philosophie, bd. 8, p. 404. 50 montgomery watt and marmura, der islam, ii, pp. 408 ff.
? a religion after christianity? 233
all causal relations in our finite world. therefore, he denied the reality, the (semi) autonomy of secondary causes. Al ghazali's position became dominant, 'orthodox' so to speak, in islamic thinking at the costs of the Aristotelians. After al ghazali came Averroes who attacked him again. he was the last great representative of the Aristotelian mediaeval tradition. As a special, isolated thinker, not known by hegel and tennemann, one has to mention ibn Khaldum 1332-1406, a social philosopher and philoso- pher of history.
often it is said that al ghazali dealt a definite blow to the development of islamic philosophy, that because of him islamic philosophy did not survive the middle Ages. to say that after al ghazali islamic philosophy ended, is exaggerated. but it is true that, because it lost its Aristotelian combination with the sciences, it could not make the transition to the modern sciences and continued its existence in combination with the- ology and especially mysticism. not Aristotelism, but neo-platonism in combination with mysticism became dominant, which provokes some- times the question of it being still philosophy.
therefore, hegel had a point, in as far as al ghazali's position, stress- ing the omnipotence of god at the cost of the (semi) autonomy of the world, became dominant in islam,51 hegel rightly highlighted the posi- tion of the mutakallimun and described islam properly as a religion of the sublime. Combining these ideas with persian mysticism as he knew it from tholucks' work, was not wrong either. there is indeed familiarity between them. 52
however, this stressing of the omnipotence was not the point of the philosophers, so much as of theologians in discussion with the philoso- phers. this islamic view on the unsustainability of all natural laws is a well-known topic in catholic circles that always opposed it to Aquinas' idea of the semi-autonomous reality of secondary causes. this 'rational- ism' of catholicism was the background of the famous or notorious speech of pope benedict XVi in regensburg in 2006, in which he criticized this islamic worldview because of its irrationality.
51 And one should not exaggerate al--ghazali's voluntarism. generally, in his thought gods wisdom prevails over his omnipotency. see william J. Courtnay, 'the Critique on natural Causality in the mutakallimun and nominalism' in william J. Cournay, Covenant and Causality in Medieval Thought, london: Variorum reprints 1984, pp. 77-94.
52 therefore a special chapter about persian poets in his book about al ghazali in: ber- nard Carra de Vaux, Ghazali A. H. 450505/1058-1111 (Algazel) Amsterdam: philo press 1974 (first edition 1902) p. 273.
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in modern times, however, the dominant position of al ghazali is dis- cussed again. modern thinkers try to open the course of the history of islamic philosophy again by re-opening the debate between Avicenna, al-ghazali and Averroes, especially regarding problems of nature, natural sciences and with regard to natural law as the source of human rights. 53 so islamic philosophy is certainly not at its end. Just like it tried to cope with greek thought in the past, it tries now to digest modern western thinking.
10. islam in the lectures on fine Art
islamic art is dealt with in the part about oriental art. this type of art is called symbolic art. islamic art belongs to the 'symbolism of the sublime', which is the title of chapter ii. in the first part of that chapter, section A is dedicated to the 'pantheism of art', the second part is entitled: Art of the sublime. both parts belong to the 'symbolism of the sublime'. in part A, indian, islamic and Christian mystical poetry are ranked together. part b is as such dedicated to Judaism, to the Creator god, the world of the old testament and the psalms. hegel separates Judaism from pantheism. pantheism is the affirmative mode of the religion of the sublime. we find it in india, in mysticism of the mohammedan persian poets and again also in the deeper inwardness of thought and sentiment in the Christian west. 54 however, both islamic and Judaic art belong to the 'symbolism of the sub- lime'. because the sublime transcends all sensual possibilities, hegel con- cludes that pictorial art cannot exist in Judaism and islam. so the art of the sublime is essentially literature. here we see the grave consequences of Kant's dictum that 'thou shalt make no images' was the most 'sublime' word of the old testament. nevertheless, islamic pictural art exists in fact, non-figurative and figurative. the prohibition does not mean that man should not try to paint an image of god, but first of all that man should not try to imitate god as a creator. it focuses essentially on sculptures
53 see: Al-djabiri (Al-Jabri, Al-gabiri), muhammad 'Abid, Arab-islamic philosophy, A Contemporary Critique, Austin texas: middle east monograph series no. 12 1999. see also: hendrich, geert, Islam und Aufkla? rung, Der Modernediskurs in der arabischen Philoso- phie, darmstadt: wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft 2004. Ku? gelgen, Anke von, Averroes und die arabische Moderne; Ansa? tze zu einer Neubegru? ndung des Rationalismus im Islam, leiden 1994.
54 g. w. f. hegel, Hegel's Aesthetics, Lectures on Fine Art, i, ii translated by t. m. Knox, oxford: Clarendon press 1998, Vol. i, p. 364.
? a religion after christianity? 235
of human beings and animals that because of their three-dimensionality resemble mostly normal creatures. 55 in paintings of humans and animals therefore, all plastical perspective has to be avoided.
the pantheistic mood of a human being is characterized as 'enlarge- ment of the mind' and the Jewish sublime mood gives an 'elevation of the mind'. in hebrew poetry, we encounter in the negative praise of god sublimity in the strict sense of the word. hegel is criticizing this negativity that reduces the creation to an ornament. 56 but at the same time, hegel highlights as special Jewish the fact that nature and the human being are for the first time just what they are, just nature and man as such bereft of god.
what hegel is praising in islamic pantheism is, to the contrary, the presence of god in the finite. so here, Judaism and islam are separated, while both were intimately linked together in hegel's description of the islamic mind in his Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion. moreover, in his History of Philosophy he blamed islamic 'pantheistic' philosophy for the same thing he blames Judaism for in his Aesthetics.
nevertheless, in the lectures on Aesthetics, the tone towards islam is totally different. the positive attitude to islam of hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of History comes back. the perspective on pantheism is in general positive. moreover, this cannot be understood as just a matter of hotho's way of text edition, for the position he defends here is identical with the position at the end of the encyclopaedia. there too hegel quotes indian and islamic mystical poetry together. both are dealt with together positively within the context of a discussion about pantheism and the true (Christian) god. spinoza's idea of god is the background of the discussion about pantheism. therefore, islam as a religion of 'substance' is distin- guished from Christianity as a religion of 'subjectivity'. Judaism does not play any role there. 57
let us look first to hegel's interpretation of pantheism and then to his specific estimation of islamic 'pantheistic' poetry. for hegel the word pan- theism is, in essence, an impossible word. by the part 'pan', meaning 'all'
55 doris behrens-Abousef, Beauty in Arabic Culture, princeton: markus wiener publish- ers 1999, pp. 109, 135. see also: ettinghausen, richard, 'the man-made setting, islamic art and architecture', in: bernard lewis, The world of Islam, london: thames and hudson 1992, pp. 57-89, 62.
56 hegel, Aesthetics, p. 375.
57 g. w. f. hegel, Enzyklopaedie der philosophischen Wissenschaften, i, ii, iii, frankfurt: suhrkamp 1970, iii, ? 572, pp. 378-393.
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or 'everything', it suggests that 'everything is god', so, that 'this house', 'that book' and so on 'is god'. that is utterly nonsense. no philosopher and especially spinoza ever represented that position.
however, when you take the 'pan' as the 'totality' or the one substance in all individuals, it makes sense, but then there is nothing wrong with it. it says just that god is the perfection of everything in everything, the abso- lute being the truth, the goodness itself in all finite good individual things. so it says nothing more than that the finite is the finite from the infinite and vice versa. 58 As hegel says in the encyclopaedia, this pantheism is in fact monotheism. 59 nevertheless, the difference is this that pantheism abstracts from particularity and individuality. All individual finite things are passing away for the absolute. indian pantheism expresses this iden- tity of the one and general substance, according to hegel, in the words of Krishna in the bhagavad--gita, when Krishna is saying that among all existents he is always the most excellent: "Among the stars i am the shin- ing sun (. . . ), among the letters i am the vowel A, amongst seasons of the year the blossoming spring. " etc. however, for hegel's taste this kind of litany becomes monotonous and boring. 60 nevertheless, in islamic poetry pantheism has developed in a higher a more free subjective way. hegel focuses especially on the work of the persian poets rumi (1207-1273) and hafiz (hafis) (1320-1389), indeed until now two very famous muslim mys- tics, early translated and very influential in the west. moreover, especially in this muslim pantheism is an estimation of the finite world possible that is not possible in the art of the sublime in the strict sense. for art of the sublime, Judaism, the finite world is only an ornament of god.
specifically in islamic pantheistic poetry, the presence of god in the finite world is at the service of that world.
hegel's characterization of the pantheism of islamic mysticism resembles surprisingly very much what he expects from Christianity: "in pantheism, on the other hand, the immanence of the divine in objects exalts mundane, natural and human existence itself into a more independent glory of its own. "61 hegel men- tions in this respect especially the poetry of hafiz. rumi is praised for the freedom of his feeling, transcending all petty interests, in which he still retains his substantial freedom and wins his self-identification with god. hafiz is praised because he was able to ensoul objects like the rose, the
58 hegel, Aesthetics, p. 271. 59 idem, p. 385.
60 idem, p. 367.
61 idem, p. 368.
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nightingale, the wine, the candle , the flame, which western poets handle in a more prosaic and ornamental way. hegel opposes this 'objectivity' of feeling of the persian poetry to western poetry as more shut in upon itself and therefore subjective. however, he praises goethe, for goethe appropri- ated this islamic attitude of feeling free in objectivity in his famous book the West-Oestlicher Diwan, in which he constructed an encounter between european and islamic poetry by writing himself oriental poetry. At the end of his lectures about Aesthetics hegel praises this attitude of 'objec- tive humour' as the true attitude for modern poetry. 62 hegel uses islamic poetry as a critique of western romantic poetry and promotes, by means of islamic poetry, goethe as the true poet of 'objective' humour, that is an attitude of being 'in 'things and at the same time being 'above' them. his own idea of 'divine' life as losing and winning yourself in finiteness he found back in goethe's famous line 'stirb und werde' that is inspired by islamic symbolism. in this way, hegel thinks that islamic poetry influ- ences and contributes to western developments.
in his comparison of islam mysticism with Christian mysticism hegel stresses the 'true' subjective character of Christian mysticism. like orien- tal pantheism, it lives from the unity of the finite and the infinite, but it develops this pantheistic unity as a feeling of gods presence in subjective consciousness. hegel's example is Angel silesius. 63 he expressed in won- derful mystical power of representation the substantial existence of god in things and the unification of the self with god and god with human subjectivity, while eastern pantheism stresses more the absorption of the self in everything that is best and most splendid and emphasizes the self sacrifice of the subject in the contemplation of the one substance. Another Christian favourite is meister eckhart. (l1 24, 347-348/248)
this 'universal' mysticism comes back at the end of the encyclopaedia in his self-defence against the attack of pantheism. hegel again quotes the bhagavad-gita and, in extenso, his favourite, the 'excellent' rumi. he refers to tholuck, who in hegel's view interpreted the pantheism of persian poetry so well, but forgot all his understanding of religion when dealing with philosophy and theology. 64 hegel has to have difficulties with tholuck, for he criticized the idea of trinity, hegel's darling idea, as an idea with foreign non-Christian origins. 65 but hegel takes tholuck's
62 idem, p. 610.
63 idem, p. 371.
64 hegel, Enzyklopaedie, pp. 384-388. 65 hodgson, o. c. (see footnote 1), p. 62.
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positive understanding of pantheistic persian poetry as a means to defend his view on pantheism, religion and philosophy. for in hegel's positive understanding of pantheism, pantheism means at least that there is a rela- tion, an identity, not unqualified, between god and the world, the infinite and the finite, the one and the many. hegel does not accept the definition of religion as the recognition of a god just as such, without any qualifica- tion, as can be found in all religions. it is very easy to unite all religions in this definition, because it does not say anything. for hegel god is totally different from a highest being, because this is a being next and opposed to other beings and therefore not all beings encompassing god. 66 panthe- ism gives a better clue to the unity of all religions and to the endeavour of philosophy: "the point of departure of all those (pantheistic) modes of representation and systems is the one and common need of all religions and philosophies of to make a representation of god and then of the rela- tion between him and the world. "67 this relation is a differential identity relation. it is the quality of this relation, that is of identity and difference that determines the differences between the religions. in the pantheistic systems, the world seems to disappear in the infinite. so the deficiency of those systems is that they do not determine the one and common sub- stance as subject and as 'spirit'. moreover, in Christian religion this deter- mination is represented by the trinity. nevertheless, hegel still prefers this unsatisfying pantheism above 'faith' (Glaube) and the abstract reflex- ivity of the enlightenment. therefore, for hegel, that pantheistic mysti- cism, well understood, of india, islam and Christianity is the expression of a common core business of all religion and philosophy.
here we hear the heartbeat of hegel's own philosophy and religios- ity. he feels himself confirmed by mystical poetry. of course he and we 'know' already that the relation of the infinite and the finite is the deter- mining factor of religion, but now the mysticism of the world religions witnesses it.
11. evaluation: islamic Art and pantheism
how real is this admiration for and how plausible is this interpretation of islamic mysticism? hegel was in the lucky circumstance that he had good sources. tholuck and Von hammer purggstall were german and
66 hegel, Enzyklopaedie, pp. 381-382. 67 idem, p. 389.
? a religion after christianity? 239
Austrian pioneers in the field of islamic religion, culture and politics. he used translations of the famous german poet ru? ckert, who still is con- sidered to be a master translator, inside and outside germany. goethe's West-oestlicher Divan was a good source too. normally muslims do not like orientalising literature. however, for goethe they make an exception. for some muslims goethe even was a crypto-muslim. we saw already that sir mohammad iqbal loved goethe's representation of islam. he loved hegel's dynamic interpretation of rumi too. the famous expert on islamic mysticism, Annemarie schimmel, does not hesitate to quote goethe's Diwan in almost all her works as a true representation of the spirit of islamic poetry. 68 therefore, hegel was in good company. the admiration is well founded.
it manifests the romantic strand in hegel's thought. goethe himself made the transition from classicism to romanticism in his Diwan, in his admiration for non-western and non-classicistic literature.
in addition, ever since islamic poetry was discovered by german and english romantics, it belonged to the treasures of world literature and never failed to attract new readers. it was the favourite access to islam for Christians. especially the figure of rumi is almost an icon of alternative religiosity in the west. only the qualification of islamic poetry as panthe- ism is old fashioned. Already muslim reform thinkers like iqbal protested against a pantheistic conception of islam by muslims themselves, because it stimulated fatalism. According to louis massignon, islam and islamic mysticism is essentially 'testimonial monism', the 'monism' of a lover testifying of his beloved: 'you are the only one'. only with regard to the mystical thinker ibn Arabi one sometimes still speaks of pantheism or of 'existential monism', but certainly not of rumi, whose spiritual world is very testimonial, dynamic and personal as hegel knew. 69
but with the inadequate qualification of pantheism, he still could discover something typical of, for example, hafiz' poetry. when hegel stresses that his poetry is ensouling the whole world of finite things by god's presence, and gives them their own place, he reproduces in his own way a typical feature of that literature. in hafiz you never know whether the poem is about god and mystical rapture or just about wine, drunk- enness and the tavern. still modern interpreters estimate the dictum of
68 Cf. Annemarie schimmel, As Through a Veil, Mystical Poetry in Islam, new york: Columbia university press 1982, pp. 49, 216 note 17.
69 for a critical discussion see, Annemarie schimmel, The Mystical Dimensions of Islam, Chapel hill, north Carolina: the university of north Carolina press 1975, p. 267.
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ru? ckert that hafiz always expresses by means of sensual realities a super- sensible realm of being. 70 the question is of course whether this poetical technique of hafiz has something to do with hegel's idea of the (semi) autonomy of the finite world. moreover, hegel makes things complicated by using this poetry, mediated by goethe, in a polemic with modern 'sub- jectivist' trends in german literature of his days. however, hegel's analysis of the problem of pantheism, his stressing of the relational character of finiteness and infinity as such, is still of vital importance for the under- standing of religion. moreover, hegel rightly uses mysticism as testimonial evidence.
Conclusion
what strikes us most in hegel's dealing with islam, is how modern already the religious world is his days was. the discussion about the fanatic char- acter of islam, or of all monotheism, is going on since then. the hindu philosopher and first president of india, s. radhakrishnan, writing in times of muslim separatism and Christian missions, again praised the greek and romans and reproached islam and Christianity for intolerance. At the same time, he tried to unite all religions by mysticism. 71 in modern times, the former president of iran, Khatami, tried to find access to the western world by sufism. hegel's enthusiasm for sufism and the bhagavad-gita elu- cidates the saying of the poet heinrich heine (1779-1856), that it was fash- ionable among german students of his time to learn sanskrit and to read hegel. 72 the romantic enthusiasm for mysticism, including islamic sufism, as the internationale of all religion and philosophy, present in the bud in hegel's thought, is a returning phenomenon in modern european history. it manifested itself again heavily between the two world wars and once more in the 'hippy' sixties of the twentieth century. reincarnated in the 'sixties', hegel himself could have been, for a while, a long-haired student-, striving for a better world, reading mystical texts and, god knows, smok- ing a joint. At the end, of course, hegel criticized romanticism heavily and did not want to give in to its innate tendency to take refuge to another
70 J. Ch. bu? rgel, 'einleitung', in: muhammad schams Ad-din hafis, Gedichte aus dem Diwan, ed. J. Ch. bu? rgel, stuttgart: reclam 1972, pp. 3-31.
71 s. radhakrishnan, A Hindu View of Life, london: Allan and unwinn 1964 (first edition 1927), pp. 37-40.
72 dierk mo? ller, 'nachwort' in: heinrich heine, Ideen, Das Buch Le Grand, stuttgart: reclam 1972, pp. 75-96, 82.
? a religion after christianity? 241
world, to idealized oriental cultures or to the greek and mediaeval past. therefore, he went back to Christianity as the cultural source of his own place and time, the reality he wanted to understand. this of course does not justify his neglect of the islam as a genuine religion in his lectures on the philosophy of religion. Certainly not acceptable is his interpretation of islam in function of Christian-european evolution. A good comparison of religion starts with the destruction of teleological schemes, as was done by romantics like herder and hermeneutical thinkers like dilthey. never- theless, hegel certainly was a romantic too and reaped the fruits of that movement. the positive emphatic understanding hegel has of islam, his genuine and appropriate admiration for islamic mystical poetry is due to this romantic background. hegel read all he could read about islam and other religions in his days, but sciences, like 'history of religions', 'compar- ative sciences of religions', were not really developed at that time. from that point of view, it is amazing that hegel could develop sometimes such a sympathetic understanding of islam.
Hegel and Protestantism lu de Vos
1. introduction
in the text 'Concerning an accusation of Public disparagement of the Catholic religion' (U? ber eine Anklage wegen o? ffentlicher Verunglimpfung der katholischen Religion), Hegel claims to be born, to be educated and to live as a lutheran, and to give courses at a lutheran university. 1 such a state- ment shows that Hegel remains a lutheran Protestant, while also being a philosopher who claims to present truth philosophically. this leads to the question, what could be the philosophical value and thus the true ratio- nality of lutheran Protestantism as a specific form of Christian religion. 2 is this denomination realy as prominent in Hegel's writings and courses, as it seems to be in his personal letters? 3 a simple observation, however, seems to contradict Hegel's Protestant claim: at least in his courses on the philosophy of religion (and what were a better place to show it? ), Hegel focuses only on how the lutheran confession gives the most insightful interpretation of the Christian eucharist. moreover, his interpretation of religion more generally seems eclectic and transconfessional. 4 is Hegel fundamentally a Protestant; or is he first and foremost a speculative phi- losopher? moreover, how are these two roles linked together?
Hegel was in fact born and educated in a Protestant family, followed the courses at the Stift in tu? bingen to become a preacher, and gave les- sons on religion at the Protestant Gymnasium in nurnberg, a Protestant city in Catholic Bavaria. However, these biographical details do not suf- ficiently address the questions about the rationality and philosophical
1 g. W. F. Hegel, Berliner Schriften, Werke 11, Frankfurt am main: suhrkamp Verlag 1970, pp. 68-70; this text is part of a defensive answer against an attack by a roman-Catholic priest, following Hegel's courses given at the University of Berlin.
2 let us be prudent from the beginning: the notions of Protestantism (and of other Christian denominations) discussed here are only those of the beginning of the 19th cen- tury, not those of our--hopefully more ecumenical--time.
3 see P. Jonkers, ? Hegel on Catholic religion? (in this volume).
4 P. Hodgson, Hegel and Christian Theology, oxford: oxford University Press 2005, p. 193.
? 244 lu de vos
importance of Protestantism as such. even the claim (given only in e2)5 that religion and philosophy have the same content, is too vague to be helpful on this point.
to answer the question on the relative significance of Hegel's Protes- tantism and his philosophical presentation of it, i will focus on Hegel's later period (1827-1831), the period that follows immediately after the (either personal or strategic) confession quoted above. 6 Hegel's presenta- tion of Christianity (even of its highest form--Protestantism) is too dif- ferentiated to summarize effectively in one paper. 7 the publications on which i will focus are the second and third versions of the Encyclopaedia (e2 from 1827 & e3 of 1830), some book-reviews from the Jahrbu? cher fu? r wissenschaftliche Kritik (16: 17-310) and the latin Oratio (Speech for the Celebration of the Jubilee of the Confessio Augustana, 1830; 16: 311-322). the most interesting and important texts for our purposes here will be the courses on the philosophy of religion from 1827 and 1831 (the latter of which is only extant in summaries),8 and the further courses on the Proofs of the existence of god (1829; 18: 215-218 & 228-336) and on his- tory (1830/31, with a new introduction-manuscript, 18: 119-214) from this period. 9 even as Hegel's work progresses further (it is visible in the
5 to be clear on the difference: Encyclopedia (1817) (further e1) gives no parallel claim, but stresses the beginning of philosophy (such as the Science of Logic), and only from the second Preface of the same book (1827), is there a difficult discussion with people of simple faith. the third Preface (1830), on the contrary, may be read as a full discussion with all those who cannot distinguish between religious forms 'of the catechism' and the task of philosophical thinking, a discussion, which has its origin in the criticisms of anonymous writers as well as of non-philosophers, refuted by Hegelian Recensions.
6 the basis of this restriction is that Hegel (by 1827) seems to have elaborated a good deal of his philosophical problems. He is neither under academic pressure as he was when writing e1, nor under the stress of the competition with schleiermacher as he was when composing his first course on religion (1821). instead, he was at the pinnacle of his renown, but even then still under harsh criticism, just on the point of the Christianity of his phi- losophy (on the issue of his or schelling's pantheism).
7 even the quote from the handbook, that religion could or should be the representa- tion of absolute knowing is, as position within the framework of the PhSp, limited to that book or time. moreover, even there it should be said, that it is not religion, but religious, speculative knowledge (9: 407), which is the first content containing aspect of absolute knowing.
8 it would be very useful and interesting to find a new student notebook of the course on religion of 1831, to be certain of the changes in structure and content of the concept and of the elaboration of religion there.
9 i'm quoting here in each case Hegel's writings from the Gesammelte Werke with Volume and page number (the encyclopedia with e2 or e3 and ? , if necessary also with a (=remarks)); the Courses (Vorlesungen, Hamburg: meiner Verlag 1983 ff ) are cited by V{olume} and page; the course on world-history, g. W. F. Hegel, Die Philosophie der Geschichte, 1830/31 -Heimann, Hrsg. Kl. Vieweg, mu? nchen: Fink 2005 (quoted as Vie and page).
? hegel and protestantism 245
structure of the concept of religion as well as in the new introduction to the philosophy of history), he has reached such maturity that things are as clear as possible; and in fact there is a consistency in his philosophical view on Protestantism, that it renders Hegel's struggle with the reality of the different aspects of Protestantism coherent. 10
insofar as lutheran Protestantism is a religious, Christian phenomenon, this paper will inquire into the program of the Hegelian philosophy of religion, in four stages. 1) it will determine the place of religion and Chris- tianity within Hegel's general philosophical program. 2) it will argue that the Protestant or lutheran form of Christianity is a more complex phe- nomenon than is expressed by its denominational particularity; it also has a special significance for world-history in general. 3) thirdly, this paper will address some possible religious objections to Hegel's philosophical program or approach. 4) Finally, there will follow a short conclusion in which the main Hegelian thesis will reappear, that a philosophy (even of religion) cannot be sufficiently criticised by religious means alone.
2. Hegel's Program of a Philosophy of religion
Hegel's philosophy of religion is not (Christian) theology. it is not apolo- getic. its concern is not the metaphysical validity of a specific religion, nor is this its main topic. it is not a part (i.
