this commandment can alone explain the enthusiasm which the Jewish people, in there moral period, felt for their
religion
when comparing themselves with others, or the pride inspired by mohammedanism.
Hegels Philosophy of the Historical Religions
they play an important role in his depreciative attitude against Catholi- cism.
However, no matter how much they have upset Hegel, these experi- ences belong to the vicissitudes of the lives of people, and do not concern Catholic religion as such.
on a philosophical level, Hegel's critical remarks about Catholic religion result from what he considers to be its most problematic aspect, Catholi- cism's remaining stuck in the sensuous world. the clearest manifestation of this is the Catholic doctrine of the eucharist. as said above, Hegel con- siders it as the place par excellence, where the ways of both major Chris- tian confessions part. in the eucharist, Christ is believed to be present in the host, once it is consecrated by the priest, in a bodily, un-spiritual and external fashion. He situates the truth of Christian religion in its spiritual and inward nature, which implies letting the sensuous element to pass away. it cannot be held on to as some sort of relic or holy image, but must be allowed to pass into new forms, whereby it is remembered and re- enacted,75 as happens in the lutheran celebration of the lord's Supper.
74 Hegel, Enzyklopa? die3 ? 552 a. [Hegel, Philosophy of Mind, p. 285]. it is important to notice that both the tone and the content of this passage is much sharper in the 1830 edi- tion of the Encyclopaedia than in its edition of 1827.
75 Hodgson, Hegel and Christian Theology, p. 178.
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But Hegel's by far most stinging critique concerns the political aspect of Catholic religion. He suspects the Catholic Church of being incapable to really accept the neutral character of the modern state with regard to specific religious confessions. His suspicion was considerably enhanced by the general fear that the forces of restoration and what he considered to be their natural alley, Catholicism, would put an end to the achieve- ments of the French revolution, especially to the principle of religious freedom; the evolution of Hegel's ideas about the relation between reli- gion and politics in the second half of the 1820s illustrates this. it is clear that Hegel's critique of the un-free character of Catholic religion goes well beyond some specific elements of its anti-modern political attitudes; espe- cially at the end of his life he is convinced that Catholicism is fundamen- tally unwilling to accept the idea of freedom as the ultimate principle of the modern state.
although Hegel's attitude with regard to Catholicism is by and large a depreciative one, it has to be noted that he appreciates various spe- cific aspects of Catholic religion, especially the way in which medieval theology has emphasized the unity of faith and reason. in his lectures on Philosophy of Religion Hegel states that theology essentially concerns "the understanding of the religious content,"76 and explicitly values 'older Catholic theologians', such as eckhart, for their speculative approach of god. in this respect Catholic theology compares favourably by Prot- estantism's tendency of keeping philosophy and theology strictly apart from each other. But Hegel's his positive evaluation of Catholicism in this respect takes only a marginal place in his works (he mentions it only in his lectures on philosophy of religion and the history of philosophy), and does not seem to have any implications for his general idea about Catho- lic religion, just like his critique of the separation of faith and reason in the Protestant Church does not affect his appreciation of the 'Protestant principle'. that is why i did not include this aspect of Hegel's thought in my analysis of his view on Catholic religion.
However, Hegel's stress on the necessity for Christian religion to radi- cally annihilate all sensuousness, and his critique of Catholicism for being unable to fulfil this requirement illustrates a bias in his interpretation of Catholic doctrine. the most explicit and well-known phrasing of this annihilation of all sensuousness is the passage of the death of god, but the historical experience of the empty grave as the result of the crusades is
76 Hegel, Vorlesungen 3, p. 247; see also Hegel, Theorie-Werkausgabe 20, pp. 54 f.
? hegel on catholic religion 205
another example of it. in Hegel's view, these moments of absolute negativ- ity have to be experienced in their utmost harshness in order to be able to serve as a turning-point in the manifestation of the true, spiritual nature of Christianity. to quote again a famous passage from Faith and Knowl- edge: "the highest totality can and must achieve its resurrection solely from this harsh consciousness of loss, encompassing everything. "77 in fact, Hegel's phrase of the death of god stems from a famous lutheran choral from 1641 by Johann Rist, O Darkest Woe. the beginning of the second strophe runs as follows: "o sorrow dread! god himself is dead, on the cross He has died. "78 although Hegel interprets this phrase philosophically, his use of it implies that he takes a typical lutheran view of reconciliation as his point of departure, and clearly interprets Catholic religion from this perspective, thereby showing that he is unable to interpret Catholic reli- gion in its own right.
? 77 Hegel, Gesammelte Werke 4, pp. 413 f. [Hegel, Faith and Knowledge, pp. 190-1]. 78 J. Rist, O Traurigkeit: ? o grosse not! gott selbst ist tot, am Kreuz ist er gestorben? .
A religion After ChristiAnity? hegel's interpretAtion of islAm between JudAism And ChristiAnity
gerrit steunebrink
1. introduction
the interpretation of islam in hegel's philosophy of religion poses us for a problem. for there is no chapter about islam is his Lectures on the Phi- losophy of Religion. islam is mentioned there with a few words in the mar- gin of Judaism and Christianity. how can you dedicate a chapter in this book to hegel's philosophical interpretation of the religion of islam? At the other hand: islam is very present in special chapters in hegel's lec- tures on the philosophy of history, on the history of philosophy and on the philosophy of Art. moreover, he quotes very enthusiastically islamic mysticism in the last chapter of the encyclopaedia!
however, why is it then so absent in his Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion? the main reason is that islam does not fit into the evolutionary scheme that hegel applies on the history of religions. for in this scheme Christianity is the absolute and therefore final religion that completes and ends the history of religions. After the final absolute religion, a new religion cannot again come into being. islam came into existence after Christianity and therefore contradicts the system. muslims themselves usually do not forget to add that after islam a new world religion did not make its entrance anymore. so now, islam can claim to be the final and absolute religion!
so hegel has the same problem with islam that all Christians have with islam: what is the sense of a new religion after Christianity? fortunately, hegel does not give the traditional answer that islam is just a bad copy of Judaism and Christianity and that the prophet mohammed is an imposter. however, why did hegel dedicate ample chapters to islam in his other works, and only there?
hegel presents islam in his Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion not as a new, specific religion, but, just like Judaism, as a 'religion of the sub- lime', that means a religion of the overwhelming existence of the infinite god that threatens the (semi)autonomy and freedom of the finite world. therefore, hegel thinks that islam is not a new religion, but just a kind of
208 gerrit steunebrink
Judaism and specifically 'denationalized' Judaism. And that is why he did not dedicate a specific chapter in the lectures on philosophy of religion to islam. but as a universal, 'denationalized' type of Judaism, islam came into existence after Christianity and therefore it is, according to hegel, a part of the history of the Christian world. therefore, it should be described and interpreted in the context of the history of the Christian world. in fact, hegel turns the effects islam historically had on western culture into the reason of its existence, into the goal of history. that is the reason why hegel speaks about islam in function of the history of europe, of euro- pean philosophy and of european literature. therefore, islam is exten- sively present in the lectures on the philosophy of history, on the history of philosophy and on the philosophy of fine Art (Aesthetics). it functions there as a rival for Christianity. for by its universality islam is at the same level of Christianity. moreover, on that level it is a challenge for Christi- anity to realize its true spirit. 1 thus, it plays a role in the formation of the modern european states at the end of the middle Ages. it mediated the greek philosophical text to the west in that time and the discovery of its poetry inspired modern literature in the eighteenth century. so hegel has not just a shared long-standing european antipathy to islam, as sometimes is said. 2 the attitude towards islam is a mix of criticism and admiration. one feels in his admiration, especially in his lectures on the philosophy of history and in his Aesthetics, the influence of the enthusiastic discovery of the oriental world by the romantics.
in his Aesthetics hegel's admiration for islam by far excels his criticism. An important shift in his approach to islam newly manifests itself there too. for hegel now separates islam from Judaism and unites islamic mys- tical poetry with its indian and Christian counterparts. here and in the encyclopaedia hegel quotes those mystical texts in the context of a critical elaboration on the concept of pantheism. he uses them positively in order to establish a kind of universal consensus that the (differential) identity relation between god and the world is what all religions and philosophy together want to express. in this sense, mysticism is the international essence or the internationale of the world religions. this idea softens to
1 see peter C. hodgson, Hegel & Christian Theology. A Reading of the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, oxford: oxford university press 2005, pp. 199, 206.
2 hodgson, Hegel & Christian Theology, p. 206. hodgson is right in saying that islam did not fit in hegel's scheme, but not in saying that hegel had a long-standing antipathy to islam.
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a certain extent hegel's teleological scheme. but of course, Christianity realizes most excellently this identity as an identity in difference.
in the next paragraphs, we will first present the Kantian background of the idea of the sublime and important concepts related to it, like fanati- cism and enthusiasm, which sometimes cause misunderstanding. then we will go through the several lectures on the philosophy of religion, the philosophy of history, the history of philosophy and on fine Art. At the end of each section and in the conclusion we will give a critical evaluation of hegel's thought related to the actuality of his interpretation.
2. the sublime, enthusiasm and fanaticism
because islam is characterized by hegel as a religion of the sublime, it is necessary to explain what hegel means by the sublime. therefore, we have to go back to Kant. for his analysis of the sublime is hegel's point of departure. moreover, it is Kant who mentions Judaism and islam as examples of a 'sublime' conception of god. how surprising it may sound, but in this analysis Kant developed an affirmative theory of religious feel- ing. moreover, in that context Kant rehabilitated another feeling that was scorned by enlightenment philosophers, the feeling called 'enthusiasm'. this rehabilitation shows itself in hegel too.
Kant's notion of the sublime is a part of his ethical transformation of the reintroduction of basic platonic ideas in aesthetics of intelligible beauty and the divine by english philosophers like shaftesbury. 3 enthusi- asm and fanaticism belong to that context too.
Kant mitigates this platonism by saying that experience of an idea is not a positive 'intellectual' intuition, but still a sensual one, only a negative one. that distinguishes it from the positive sensual experience of beauty. it is the experience of the gap between the faculty of the senses and that of reason. it is the experience of the senses that the senses themselves cannot grasp the intelligible. Kant distinguishes two types of this kind of
3 Cf. immanuel Kant, immanuel, Critique of Judgment, translated by James Creed meredith, revised edition by nicolas walker, oxford: oxford university press 2007, p. 101. to the same greek contexts belong words like 'enthusiasm' and 'fanaticism' cf. shaft- esbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 'the sociable enthousiasts', in: Shaftesbury Standard Edition, bad Canstatt: frommann holzboog 1981. ii, 1, pp. 177-199. see the lemmata Enthu- siasmus, Erhaben, das Erhabene and Fanatisch, Fanatismus in: Historisches Wo? rterbuch der Philosophie, darmstadt: wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft 1972, bd. ii, pp. 525-528, 624-635, 904-908.
? 210 gerrit steunebrink
experience, the mathematical one and the dynamical one. both play a role in hegel's use of the sublime in the characterization of islam.
the sublime is defined as something that is 'great' above all compari- son, absolute, non-comparative magnum. one feels the nearness to the platonic idea that does not have a gradual relation to the appearances. for Kant this idea is only a reflexive idea of emerging from the reflec- tion on the activity of measuring. this non-comparative greatness mani- fests itself concretely in the deregulation of all sensible comparison. the mathematical experience of the sublime manifests itself in the activity of measuring according to an absolute standard. our actual measuring and counting can never grasp something absolute great, because it presup- poses not only plurality, but also unity of greatness of as a measure. every measure presupposes a kind of absolute measure again, that cannot be imagined by the capacity of the sense, the power of imagination. in the face of the true infinity, this endeavour is deemed to fail. however, the endeavour itself is not without sense. it is an expression of the voice of reason that every experience of something given asks for a totality that is infinity and a unity. nevertheless, this idea is purely ideal, not given in the 'Anschauung', therefore unimaginable. it puts to the test the limits of imagination. its conception of nature as a totality prompts in us this idea as an underlying ideality that is infinite and a unity at the same time. therefore, the sublime is not in an object of nature, but an idea in the mind of a person that contemplates nature and estimates his experiences in the light of the idea. in nature itself, it is of course especially limitless nature, nature devoid of form, an ocean for example, that causes in us the feeling of the sublime. 4
in an ethical perspective the quality of the feeling of our discontinue relation to the ideal world is called 'Achtung'. 5 the experience of the sub- lime is in line with this feeling. however, sensible-aesthetical experience, the experience of the sublime is essentially related to sensual pleasure ('lust'). nevertheless, it is a mixed pleasure, because this essentially nega- tive experience cannot produce pleasure in the normal, positive sense of the word. therefore, Kant explains that the 'overkill' of the senses by the sublime produces an unpleasant feeling that at the same is enjoyed. it is pleasure mediated by unpleasure. this combination of negative and
4 Kant, Critique of Judgement, pp. 75-76.
5 Cf. John h. Zammito, The Genesis of Kant's Critique of Judgment, Chicago: university of Chicago press 1992, p. 283.
? a religion after christianity? 211
positive feelings is typical for the experience of the 'dynamical sublime, that is of the supersensible idea as overwhelming power.
the dynamical experience of the sublime is the experience of an over- whelming nature that threatens me in my sensible, concrete existence, but at the same time reminds me of my supersensible ethical essence and destiny. it is an aesthetical, contemplative experience, so from a safe dis- tance, not an experience of a real destruction by nature. nevertheless, it is a 'moving' contemplation. the starry heaven above me, the experience of the infinity of the oceans, only limited by the sky horizon, arouses in me a contemplative mood. to contemplate the thundering waterfalls arouses in me feelings of safeness and threat at the same time.
nature in this case is the occasion for the experience of the transcen- dent 'sublime' ideas of god and the immortality of my soul. in this line Kant, following burke, reinterprets the feelings of terror and pain that accompany the feeling of the sublime especially with regard to religion. for burke he sublime is the vast, infinite in nature that arouses a feeling of 'astonishment' that is filled with horror. A feeling familiar to it is 'awe'. 6 'Awe' is the positive feeling of power as the sublime.
with the help of this idea, Kant criticizes the enlightenment think- ers that condemned religion with the words of lucretius, who said that human feelings of pain and terror created the gods. for Kant, this is only true for superstition. true religion transcends that level and discovers in nature the supernatural reality of the sublime.
Confronted with the ideas man feels the insufficiency of his sense and the imagination to grasp this idea of reason. therefore, it is the feeling of something terrifying and attractive at the same time, according to Kant. 7 the sublime invites us therefore to appreciate it insofar is it is against the interest of our senses. therefore, this feeling is related not only to ideas in general, but to the idea of the good in particular.
in this context, he rehabilitates the religious feeling of 'enthusiasm', of being 'inspired'. like the idea of the sublime, this feeling, and 'fanati- cism' too, belongs to the platonic world of feelings related to transcendent ideas. these kind of feelings were condemned in circles of enlightenment
6 edmund burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, edited with an introduction and notes by Adam philips, oxford: oxford univer- sity press 1998, p. 62.
7 one feels the vicinity of Kant to the later philosopher of religion rudolf otto, who described the religious experience of the 'holy' as something 'tremendum et fascinosum', terrifying and attractive at the same time.
? 212 gerrit steunebrink
thinking. According to John locke, enthusiasm is the resource of all trou- ble causing self-made prophets. 8 Voltaire criticized islam as an enthusi- astic rage.
influenced by shaftesbury, Kant gives the notion of 'enthusiasm' a posi- tive turn by means of the idea of the sublime and distinguishes it from the superstitious feeling of 'schwaermerei' or fanaticism. the source of inspiration called enthusiasm is the idea of the good. because the sub- lime transcends all senses, it stimulates us by 'enthusiasm' to transcend our resistance sensible nature is offering and, as morality does, to 'violate' our senses. therefore, the sublime has to do with the power of our heart, inspired by moral laws, to transcend obstacles of our sensuality. that 'emotional' power is enthusiasm. therefore, enthusiasm is ? the idea of the good connected with affect. ? 9 without this affect there is not a thing really done good, as shaftesbury already said. 10 fanaticism for Kant is a delusion that searches for a vision beyond all bounds of sensibility. 11 rousseau, in his E? mile, says of fanaticism what Kant says of enthusiasm and praises it as the courage to risk your life at the service of the most sublime virtues. 12 hegel uses both words together, both participating in the positive and negative aspects of the sublime.
then Kant adds an often-quoted phrase that expresses essentially hegel's understanding of Judaism and islam too:
perhaps there is no more sublime passage in the Jewish law than the com- mandment: thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any like- ness of any thing that is in heaven or on earth, or under the earth, etc.
this commandment can alone explain the enthusiasm which the Jewish people, in there moral period, felt for their religion when comparing themselves with others, or the pride inspired by mohammedanism. 13
Kant's theory of the sublime and enthusiasm was influential. it lies at the basis of schleiermacher's and rudolf otto's theory of religious experience. it inspired herder to a new view on the relation between a religion and its natural 'habitat', for example the 'formless desert' where mohammad's
8 John locke, An essay concerning human understanding, i, ii, london/new york: everyman's library 1974, ii, pp. 288-296.
9 Kant, Critique of Judgment, p. 102.
10 shaftesbury, Letter on Enthousiasm, shaftesbury standard edition, hrsg. gerd hem-
merich und wolfgang benda, stuttgart: fromman-holzboog 1981, p. 372. 11 Kant, Critique of Judgment, p. 105.
12 Jean-Jacques rousseau, E? mile, paris: garnier-flammarion 1966, p. 408. 13 Kant, Critique of Judgment, p. 104.
? a religion after christianity? 213
imagination received in (contemplative) solitude his visions. 14 it influ- enced herder, goethe and hegel in their positive understanding of the 'stretch' of religious imaginative power (phantasy) that reaches its limits in the sublime and becomes distorted or grotesque. it created a positive view on the imaginary world of primitive and oriental religion. it created, although wrongly, the idea that islam does not know any form of picto- rial art. therefore, the attention, not totally wrongly, turned to poetry as the true vehicle of the sublime. because of the aesthetic background of the reflection on the sublime, religious texts, primitive myths and the old testament were now appreciated as literature.
3. islam in the lectures of philosophy of religion
this idea of the sublime as transcending radically at finite reality, and at the same time tendentionally nullifying it, is the point of departure of hegel's description of Judaism and islam.
Judaism is first of all called the 'religion of the sublime' but at the end, islam is the true universal religion of the sublime. the common notion of the religions of the sublime is the conception of god as spiritual and as one. As 'one' the god of Judaism transcends the plurality of gods of greek polytheism. in greek polytheism the divine is still submerged in the unity with especially human nature and its virtues, but in the religion of the sublime, the divine withdraws itself from nature, from human nature too and the different spiritual powers are concentrated in 'the one'. not the identity of god with these manifestations, but the difference is the central issue.
the difference is 'thinking' and even 'subject' at the one side, and nature and finiteness at the other. god is a spiritual subjective unity and, therefore, for the first time deserves for us the name of 'god'. we clearly recognize Kant's idea of the sublime. god himself is not so much sublime, but his relation to the material, sensual world makes him sublime, for he manifests him self negatively in the material world, in nature, in finitude. in relation to the divine, the material world shows its radical insufficiency, its finitude, its 'nothingness' in relation to god. the essential characteris- tic of the sublime is 'power'. in this sense, the god of the sublime is not substance anymore, but 'subjective'. it may surprise the reader to find the
14 J. g. herder, Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit, frankfurt am main: deutscher Klassiker Verlag 1989, p. 300.
? 214 gerrit steunebrink
word 'subjective' here, for very often in hegel the 'sublime' conception of god as unity belongs to the idea of 'substance', the world of spinoza and of pantheism. we will meet this world in the section about hegel's Aes- thetics. god as subject manifests himself fully in Christianity. however, a first step to this conception is made here in as far god is conceived as power that posited the natural finite world. (l2 27, 670/561) nevertheless, this finite world has no independency at all. it is nothing compared to its creator. therefore, this positing is neither a self-positing of god in his reality, as is the case with the Christian god.
As a subject this 'positing' god is thinking, which means that the content of this absolute power is 'wisdom'. because in god the reason- able determinations of freedom as well as the ethical determinations are united in one goal. therefore, an essential mark of god is 'holiness'. he alone is 'holy'. holiness is a characteristic only of god, not of the gods. Kant is fully present in all those determinations. this god has no sensual outwardness, and therefore images are impossible, for it is a pure thinking subjectivity. this wise thinking, himself determining and judging god is a creator-god. he is the creator of the world as something outside him.
however, in the religion of the sublime the relation between god and the world is an external one. god as the 'one and only' has no plurality in itself, does not dwell in plurality, unless by debasing it to accidental- ity. it is by god's undeserved goodness that creation exists and god's jus- tice shows that creation has no subsistency against god. god is called sublime not as such, but because of his negative relation to the world. the characteristic of sublimity is determined by god's negative relation to the world. here again Kant's influence is clear. Kant's experience of the sublime is ontologized. it is in the negation of the sensual world that the sublime has its own identity. in relation to god, the creation itself is always only a dependent and accidental reality. god makes the creation feel its nothingness. for hegel this means that this creation is not the true self-determination of god. this is only the case in the Christian god who realizes his self-determination as creation in himself, which means the forthcoming of the son. therefore, the Christian god is an internal plural unity, which means a concrete unity.
what is said here about the religion of the sublime is equally true for Judaism and for islam. both are religions of 'the one and only' that has no positive relation to its creation and for whom his creation has no subsis- tency. he is the 'always other' for whom all finitude is 'nothing'.
for the relation to man, this means that man is characterized by 'fear for god' and offering 'servitude' and not by freedom in the full sense of
a religion after christianity? 215
the word. now 'fear of god' is not only negative, it has an aspect of free- dom. hegel stresses this aspect especially in his Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion of 1824. the 'fear for god' liberates man from his particular interest and makes it possible for him to go for the one and only true goal. therefore, 'fear' is a 'moment' of freedom. therefore, with an aside to schleiermacher, it has nothing to do with a feeling of total dependency. (l2 24, 444/344) he repeats a Kantian formulation by saying that the fear of god liberates man of al his dependencies; that is of being restricted by particular interests. it is the freedom of self-interest. (l2 27, 679/571) this 'fear' resembles very much enthusiasm. however, the good still is done, not so much because it is a commandment of his 'reason', but because it is a commandment of god. that is the element of heteronomy in the reli- gion of the sublime. According to hegel, in Jewish religion and in islam lack of freedom is the basis of the relation with god. in Christianity free- dom is the basis.
however, what is the difference between Judaism and islam? more- over, which role does Christianity play in hegel's determination of that difference? the specific 'national' exclusive relationship between god and the Jewish people is 'denationalized' by islam. (m2, 158/64; l2 24, 437-438/337) to a certain extent, this difference seems to be marginal. islam is just 'denationalized Judaism'. however, this 'denationalization' is a step forward. Judaism misconceived the notion of god as the 'one' by inferring from its uniqueness a relation to only one people. therefore, 'nationalism' is essential for Judaism. hegel mentions indeed the universal perspectives present in the psalms and the prophetic books, but for hegel these are later developments, that do not really change the basic con- ception of the Jewish people as the 'chosen people'. (l2 27, 683-686/557, footnote) however, Christianity, although it can be conceived as a fam- ily and in that sense a nation too, wants that god should be known and honoured everywhere. interestingly, hegel does not describe Christianity as 'denationalized Judaism' as he does with islam. that is because Chris- tianity, distinct from Judaism, is the religion of freedom, while islam, still being Judaism, is the religion of heteronomy and unfreedom. Although denationalized, islam is still Judaism and therefore at the same time the real counterpart of Christianity, for because of its universalism, it is at the same level of Christianity. hegel says very clearly in his lectures of 1824:
here there is no limitation to a particular people; humanity relates itself to the one as purely abstract self-consciousness. this is the characteristic of the islamic religion. in it Christianity finds its antithesis, because it occupies a sphere equivalent to that of the Christian religion. it is a spiritual religion
gerrit steunebrink
like the Jewish, but its god is (available) for self-consciousness only within the abstract knowing spirit. its god is on a par with the Christian god to the extent that no particularity is retained. Anyone, from any people, who fears god, is pleasing to him, and human beings have value only to the extent that they take as their truth the knowledge that this is the one, the essence. the differentiation of subjects according to their station in life or class is sublated; there may be classes, there may be even slaves, but this is merely accidental. (l3 24, 242-243/172)
nevertheless, characteristic for Christianity is the reintegration of fini- tude and plurality within god, by which the gulf between the finite and the infinite is bridged and the finite obtains its own value and concrete reality. the basic expression of the Christian god as this unity of unity and plurality, of the infinite and the finite is for hegel the dogma of the trinity.
so it is in the conception of trinity that Christianity is opposed to islam. the antithesis consists in the fact that in Christianity, spirituality is developed concretely within itself and is known as trinity, as spirit; "and that human history, the relationship to the one, is likewise a concrete his- tory, (. . . ). " (idem) because Christianity has trinity, the history of man is a concrete history. however, islam hates and condemns all concreteness. "its god is the absolute one, in relation to whom human beings retain for themselves no purpose, no private domain, nothing peculiar to them- selves. " (idem) hegel continues to show that this conception of god has specific consequences for the anthropology of islam:
inasmuch as they exist, humans do in any case create a private domain for themselves in their inclinations and interests, and these are all the more savage and unrestrained in this case because they lack reflexion. but cou- pled with this is also the complete opposite, namely, the tendency to let everything take its own course, indifference with respect to every purpose, absolute fatalism, indifference to life; no practical purpose has any essential value. but since human beings are in fact practical and active, their purpose can only be to bring about the veneration of the one in all humanity. thus the religion of islam is essential fanatical. (idem)
hegel wants to say that because of its abstract conception of divine unity, islam cannot cope with concrete unity of unity and plurality in man of his passions either. because no reflexion can bring the passions into unity, there is the extremism of either following the passions wildly or doing nothing, fatalism. next to fatalism comes fanaticism. for man still is a practical being wanting to realize goals. therefore, the only goal of a mus- lim life can be to evoke in all human beings the feeling of the veneration
216
a religion after christianity? 217
of the one. therefore, the islamic religion is essentially fanatic. hegel con- cludes his thoughts with a comparison of islam with enlightenment think- ing of god. for the enlightenment thinks god to as the one, the 'highest being' without any determination and qualification. in this respect, islam resembles very much enlightenment reflection. nevertheless, the differ- ence is, that in the enlightenment, that glorifies reflexion, finite human subjective reflexion is the cause of the 'emptiness' of the idea of god, while in islam this emptiness is threatening all human reflexion. indeed hegel looks to the religions from the east from the point of view of spinoza and Kant, two eminent enlightenment thinkers, the first one as a thinker of an undifferentiated, unsubjective substance, the second one as a thinker of the duality of spirit and matter, reason and senses and so on. now those religions reflect him back his own perspective. but coming back to hegel's anthropology of islam, what does fanaticism mean in this context?
4. islam, monotheism and fanaticism in the
Lectures on Philosophy of Religion
for hegel all abstract monotheism is fanatic, which means that not only islam, but also Judaism is fanatic too. the Jews are 'fanatic in 'stubborn- ness', which means that they develop a fanatic mode of defence and stick- ing to their god if they feel attacked in their religion. islam is known by 'fanaticism of conversion', for as a denationalized', universal Judaism, it tries to convert everybody to the faith in the one. hegel's careful exclu- sion of Christianity from fanatic monotheism feeds the suspicion that he is engaged in a controversy not familiar for us about the fanatic character of monotheism in general. indeed david hume developed in his influen- tial The natural History of Religion (1757) the theory that all monotheism is fanatic. Comparing the monotheistic religions Judaism, islam and Chris- tianity with graeco-roman polytheism, he comes to the conclusion that all monotheism is exclusive and does not accept other gods. so therefore, monotheism is fanatic. to the contrary, graeco-roman polytheism has an easy relation to other gods and integrated easily the gods of other peoples in its pantheon. 15 the book was translated into german very early in 1759 and was known by Kant. Kant and hegel certainly read what
15 david hume, 'the natural history of religion' in: david hume, Writings on Religion, ed. Anthony flew, ilinois: open Court publishing Company 1992, pp. 145-148.
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rousseau said about these questions in the chapter about 'civil religion' in his The social contract. he reproaches the Christians for breaking the bond between the laws and the gods in every nation, which the romans respected and integrated in the empire. 16 hegel mentions this behaviour of greeks and romans dealing with the fanaticism of Jews and muslims. (l2 27, 683/575 footnote) however, hegel relates fanaticism exclusively to the religions of the sublime, because they are not capable to think plural- ity in unity. specifically the idea of the trinity shows that the Christian god integrates plurality and therefore Christianity is never called a fanatic religion.
to this, we have to add, as we already said in the paragraph about the sublime, that fanaticism is for hegel not just something negative, because it is related to the positive aspects of the sublime, as well as to the nega- tive. therefore, he does not use the Kantian distinction between 'enthusi- asm' as something positive and 'fanaticism' as something negative. hegel is more in line with rousseau. nothing great is done without it, according to rousseau, and it enables it to risk death for sublime virtues. fanaticism as relating yourself to the sublime, as affectingly striving for the one, is positive insofar man in this relation transcends, finite, particular interests, fear of death and so on, but negative insofar as it nullifies all finite, deter- mined things. this interpretation of fanaticism in islam is dominant in hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of History. however, before we go over to that chapter we will first give a short evaluation of hegel's interpreta- tion of islam in his Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion.
5. evaluation: denationalization, monotheism and trinity
to describe islam as 'denationalized Judaism' is adequate to a certain extent. the prophet muhammad considered himself to be a prophet in the tradition of the Jewish prophets and of Christianity. it recognizes Abraham as a common ancestor and, like Judaism and Christianity but different from other religions in the middle east, it repudiated the phenomenon of human sacrifice. on the other hand, Christianity is 'denationalized' or 'universalized' Judaism too. hegel opposes both islam and Christianity as universal religions against Judaism as a nationalistic religion. however, islam is 'universalized Judaism' and Christianity is not. Christianity really
16 Jean-Jacques rousseau, Du contrat social, paris: union ge? ne? rale d'E? ditions 1973, p. 208.
? a religion after christianity? 219
transcends Judaism. nevertheless, Christians from the beginning con- ceived themselves as children of the common ancestor. they consider Christ to be foretold by the prophets, especially the prophets that mani- fest the universalizing tendencies of Judaism. for hegel those universal- izing tendencies were marginal to the idea of the 'chosen people' and to the idea of the given law. however, the Christians did not think so from the beginning! for them it was and is the real and legitimate outcome and fulfilling of the Jewish religion. 17 nevertheless, of course, Christianity is in a different way 'universalized Judaism' as islam is.
Christianity universalized Judaism by abolishing the mosaic law. in a polemic with Judaism, it used the 'Jewish' argument, that the father of Judaism himself, Abraham, living before moses, did not know that law. islam did the other way around. it universalized Judaism by denationaliz- ing and so universalizing the law. the problem here is hegel's interpreta- tion of Judaism. hegel does not like Judaism enough to be able to say that Christianity is 'universalized Judaism'. in some texts, in his Aesthetics for example, hegel even seems to like islam more than Judaism.
not only because of his Christian teleology, but also because of a lack of sources, hegel did not go in debate with the self-conception of islam in relation to Judaism and Christianity. islam considers itself to be the synthesis of Judaism and Christianity. it succeeded to overcome the one- sidedness of both religions. Judaism is a legal religion within the world, while Christianity is a spiritual, mystical religion that leaves the world, as becomes clear in the phenomenon of monasticism. therefore, muslims welcome the reformation, because protestantism abolished monasticism and brought Christianity again in the world. but because the result of this reformation was secularism,18 it becomes clear that Christianity cannot find the right equilibrium between spirituality and law. therefore, islam is the right synthesis of both Judaist innerworldliness and Christian outer- worldliness. especially with regard to the relation between protestantism and secularism and the absence of monasticism, hegel could have had a nice discussion with muslims. because of this discussion, hegel should
17 lustiger, Jean-marie, Le choix de Dieu, Entretiens avec Jean-Louis Missika et Dominique Wolton, paris: edition de fallois 1987 p.
on a philosophical level, Hegel's critical remarks about Catholic religion result from what he considers to be its most problematic aspect, Catholi- cism's remaining stuck in the sensuous world. the clearest manifestation of this is the Catholic doctrine of the eucharist. as said above, Hegel con- siders it as the place par excellence, where the ways of both major Chris- tian confessions part. in the eucharist, Christ is believed to be present in the host, once it is consecrated by the priest, in a bodily, un-spiritual and external fashion. He situates the truth of Christian religion in its spiritual and inward nature, which implies letting the sensuous element to pass away. it cannot be held on to as some sort of relic or holy image, but must be allowed to pass into new forms, whereby it is remembered and re- enacted,75 as happens in the lutheran celebration of the lord's Supper.
74 Hegel, Enzyklopa? die3 ? 552 a. [Hegel, Philosophy of Mind, p. 285]. it is important to notice that both the tone and the content of this passage is much sharper in the 1830 edi- tion of the Encyclopaedia than in its edition of 1827.
75 Hodgson, Hegel and Christian Theology, p. 178.
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But Hegel's by far most stinging critique concerns the political aspect of Catholic religion. He suspects the Catholic Church of being incapable to really accept the neutral character of the modern state with regard to specific religious confessions. His suspicion was considerably enhanced by the general fear that the forces of restoration and what he considered to be their natural alley, Catholicism, would put an end to the achieve- ments of the French revolution, especially to the principle of religious freedom; the evolution of Hegel's ideas about the relation between reli- gion and politics in the second half of the 1820s illustrates this. it is clear that Hegel's critique of the un-free character of Catholic religion goes well beyond some specific elements of its anti-modern political attitudes; espe- cially at the end of his life he is convinced that Catholicism is fundamen- tally unwilling to accept the idea of freedom as the ultimate principle of the modern state.
although Hegel's attitude with regard to Catholicism is by and large a depreciative one, it has to be noted that he appreciates various spe- cific aspects of Catholic religion, especially the way in which medieval theology has emphasized the unity of faith and reason. in his lectures on Philosophy of Religion Hegel states that theology essentially concerns "the understanding of the religious content,"76 and explicitly values 'older Catholic theologians', such as eckhart, for their speculative approach of god. in this respect Catholic theology compares favourably by Prot- estantism's tendency of keeping philosophy and theology strictly apart from each other. But Hegel's his positive evaluation of Catholicism in this respect takes only a marginal place in his works (he mentions it only in his lectures on philosophy of religion and the history of philosophy), and does not seem to have any implications for his general idea about Catho- lic religion, just like his critique of the separation of faith and reason in the Protestant Church does not affect his appreciation of the 'Protestant principle'. that is why i did not include this aspect of Hegel's thought in my analysis of his view on Catholic religion.
However, Hegel's stress on the necessity for Christian religion to radi- cally annihilate all sensuousness, and his critique of Catholicism for being unable to fulfil this requirement illustrates a bias in his interpretation of Catholic doctrine. the most explicit and well-known phrasing of this annihilation of all sensuousness is the passage of the death of god, but the historical experience of the empty grave as the result of the crusades is
76 Hegel, Vorlesungen 3, p. 247; see also Hegel, Theorie-Werkausgabe 20, pp. 54 f.
? hegel on catholic religion 205
another example of it. in Hegel's view, these moments of absolute negativ- ity have to be experienced in their utmost harshness in order to be able to serve as a turning-point in the manifestation of the true, spiritual nature of Christianity. to quote again a famous passage from Faith and Knowl- edge: "the highest totality can and must achieve its resurrection solely from this harsh consciousness of loss, encompassing everything. "77 in fact, Hegel's phrase of the death of god stems from a famous lutheran choral from 1641 by Johann Rist, O Darkest Woe. the beginning of the second strophe runs as follows: "o sorrow dread! god himself is dead, on the cross He has died. "78 although Hegel interprets this phrase philosophically, his use of it implies that he takes a typical lutheran view of reconciliation as his point of departure, and clearly interprets Catholic religion from this perspective, thereby showing that he is unable to interpret Catholic reli- gion in its own right.
? 77 Hegel, Gesammelte Werke 4, pp. 413 f. [Hegel, Faith and Knowledge, pp. 190-1]. 78 J. Rist, O Traurigkeit: ? o grosse not! gott selbst ist tot, am Kreuz ist er gestorben? .
A religion After ChristiAnity? hegel's interpretAtion of islAm between JudAism And ChristiAnity
gerrit steunebrink
1. introduction
the interpretation of islam in hegel's philosophy of religion poses us for a problem. for there is no chapter about islam is his Lectures on the Phi- losophy of Religion. islam is mentioned there with a few words in the mar- gin of Judaism and Christianity. how can you dedicate a chapter in this book to hegel's philosophical interpretation of the religion of islam? At the other hand: islam is very present in special chapters in hegel's lec- tures on the philosophy of history, on the history of philosophy and on the philosophy of Art. moreover, he quotes very enthusiastically islamic mysticism in the last chapter of the encyclopaedia!
however, why is it then so absent in his Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion? the main reason is that islam does not fit into the evolutionary scheme that hegel applies on the history of religions. for in this scheme Christianity is the absolute and therefore final religion that completes and ends the history of religions. After the final absolute religion, a new religion cannot again come into being. islam came into existence after Christianity and therefore contradicts the system. muslims themselves usually do not forget to add that after islam a new world religion did not make its entrance anymore. so now, islam can claim to be the final and absolute religion!
so hegel has the same problem with islam that all Christians have with islam: what is the sense of a new religion after Christianity? fortunately, hegel does not give the traditional answer that islam is just a bad copy of Judaism and Christianity and that the prophet mohammed is an imposter. however, why did hegel dedicate ample chapters to islam in his other works, and only there?
hegel presents islam in his Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion not as a new, specific religion, but, just like Judaism, as a 'religion of the sub- lime', that means a religion of the overwhelming existence of the infinite god that threatens the (semi)autonomy and freedom of the finite world. therefore, hegel thinks that islam is not a new religion, but just a kind of
208 gerrit steunebrink
Judaism and specifically 'denationalized' Judaism. And that is why he did not dedicate a specific chapter in the lectures on philosophy of religion to islam. but as a universal, 'denationalized' type of Judaism, islam came into existence after Christianity and therefore it is, according to hegel, a part of the history of the Christian world. therefore, it should be described and interpreted in the context of the history of the Christian world. in fact, hegel turns the effects islam historically had on western culture into the reason of its existence, into the goal of history. that is the reason why hegel speaks about islam in function of the history of europe, of euro- pean philosophy and of european literature. therefore, islam is exten- sively present in the lectures on the philosophy of history, on the history of philosophy and on the philosophy of fine Art (Aesthetics). it functions there as a rival for Christianity. for by its universality islam is at the same level of Christianity. moreover, on that level it is a challenge for Christi- anity to realize its true spirit. 1 thus, it plays a role in the formation of the modern european states at the end of the middle Ages. it mediated the greek philosophical text to the west in that time and the discovery of its poetry inspired modern literature in the eighteenth century. so hegel has not just a shared long-standing european antipathy to islam, as sometimes is said. 2 the attitude towards islam is a mix of criticism and admiration. one feels in his admiration, especially in his lectures on the philosophy of history and in his Aesthetics, the influence of the enthusiastic discovery of the oriental world by the romantics.
in his Aesthetics hegel's admiration for islam by far excels his criticism. An important shift in his approach to islam newly manifests itself there too. for hegel now separates islam from Judaism and unites islamic mys- tical poetry with its indian and Christian counterparts. here and in the encyclopaedia hegel quotes those mystical texts in the context of a critical elaboration on the concept of pantheism. he uses them positively in order to establish a kind of universal consensus that the (differential) identity relation between god and the world is what all religions and philosophy together want to express. in this sense, mysticism is the international essence or the internationale of the world religions. this idea softens to
1 see peter C. hodgson, Hegel & Christian Theology. A Reading of the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, oxford: oxford university press 2005, pp. 199, 206.
2 hodgson, Hegel & Christian Theology, p. 206. hodgson is right in saying that islam did not fit in hegel's scheme, but not in saying that hegel had a long-standing antipathy to islam.
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a certain extent hegel's teleological scheme. but of course, Christianity realizes most excellently this identity as an identity in difference.
in the next paragraphs, we will first present the Kantian background of the idea of the sublime and important concepts related to it, like fanati- cism and enthusiasm, which sometimes cause misunderstanding. then we will go through the several lectures on the philosophy of religion, the philosophy of history, the history of philosophy and on fine Art. At the end of each section and in the conclusion we will give a critical evaluation of hegel's thought related to the actuality of his interpretation.
2. the sublime, enthusiasm and fanaticism
because islam is characterized by hegel as a religion of the sublime, it is necessary to explain what hegel means by the sublime. therefore, we have to go back to Kant. for his analysis of the sublime is hegel's point of departure. moreover, it is Kant who mentions Judaism and islam as examples of a 'sublime' conception of god. how surprising it may sound, but in this analysis Kant developed an affirmative theory of religious feel- ing. moreover, in that context Kant rehabilitated another feeling that was scorned by enlightenment philosophers, the feeling called 'enthusiasm'. this rehabilitation shows itself in hegel too.
Kant's notion of the sublime is a part of his ethical transformation of the reintroduction of basic platonic ideas in aesthetics of intelligible beauty and the divine by english philosophers like shaftesbury. 3 enthusi- asm and fanaticism belong to that context too.
Kant mitigates this platonism by saying that experience of an idea is not a positive 'intellectual' intuition, but still a sensual one, only a negative one. that distinguishes it from the positive sensual experience of beauty. it is the experience of the gap between the faculty of the senses and that of reason. it is the experience of the senses that the senses themselves cannot grasp the intelligible. Kant distinguishes two types of this kind of
3 Cf. immanuel Kant, immanuel, Critique of Judgment, translated by James Creed meredith, revised edition by nicolas walker, oxford: oxford university press 2007, p. 101. to the same greek contexts belong words like 'enthusiasm' and 'fanaticism' cf. shaft- esbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 'the sociable enthousiasts', in: Shaftesbury Standard Edition, bad Canstatt: frommann holzboog 1981. ii, 1, pp. 177-199. see the lemmata Enthu- siasmus, Erhaben, das Erhabene and Fanatisch, Fanatismus in: Historisches Wo? rterbuch der Philosophie, darmstadt: wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft 1972, bd. ii, pp. 525-528, 624-635, 904-908.
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experience, the mathematical one and the dynamical one. both play a role in hegel's use of the sublime in the characterization of islam.
the sublime is defined as something that is 'great' above all compari- son, absolute, non-comparative magnum. one feels the nearness to the platonic idea that does not have a gradual relation to the appearances. for Kant this idea is only a reflexive idea of emerging from the reflec- tion on the activity of measuring. this non-comparative greatness mani- fests itself concretely in the deregulation of all sensible comparison. the mathematical experience of the sublime manifests itself in the activity of measuring according to an absolute standard. our actual measuring and counting can never grasp something absolute great, because it presup- poses not only plurality, but also unity of greatness of as a measure. every measure presupposes a kind of absolute measure again, that cannot be imagined by the capacity of the sense, the power of imagination. in the face of the true infinity, this endeavour is deemed to fail. however, the endeavour itself is not without sense. it is an expression of the voice of reason that every experience of something given asks for a totality that is infinity and a unity. nevertheless, this idea is purely ideal, not given in the 'Anschauung', therefore unimaginable. it puts to the test the limits of imagination. its conception of nature as a totality prompts in us this idea as an underlying ideality that is infinite and a unity at the same time. therefore, the sublime is not in an object of nature, but an idea in the mind of a person that contemplates nature and estimates his experiences in the light of the idea. in nature itself, it is of course especially limitless nature, nature devoid of form, an ocean for example, that causes in us the feeling of the sublime. 4
in an ethical perspective the quality of the feeling of our discontinue relation to the ideal world is called 'Achtung'. 5 the experience of the sub- lime is in line with this feeling. however, sensible-aesthetical experience, the experience of the sublime is essentially related to sensual pleasure ('lust'). nevertheless, it is a mixed pleasure, because this essentially nega- tive experience cannot produce pleasure in the normal, positive sense of the word. therefore, Kant explains that the 'overkill' of the senses by the sublime produces an unpleasant feeling that at the same is enjoyed. it is pleasure mediated by unpleasure. this combination of negative and
4 Kant, Critique of Judgement, pp. 75-76.
5 Cf. John h. Zammito, The Genesis of Kant's Critique of Judgment, Chicago: university of Chicago press 1992, p. 283.
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positive feelings is typical for the experience of the 'dynamical sublime, that is of the supersensible idea as overwhelming power.
the dynamical experience of the sublime is the experience of an over- whelming nature that threatens me in my sensible, concrete existence, but at the same time reminds me of my supersensible ethical essence and destiny. it is an aesthetical, contemplative experience, so from a safe dis- tance, not an experience of a real destruction by nature. nevertheless, it is a 'moving' contemplation. the starry heaven above me, the experience of the infinity of the oceans, only limited by the sky horizon, arouses in me a contemplative mood. to contemplate the thundering waterfalls arouses in me feelings of safeness and threat at the same time.
nature in this case is the occasion for the experience of the transcen- dent 'sublime' ideas of god and the immortality of my soul. in this line Kant, following burke, reinterprets the feelings of terror and pain that accompany the feeling of the sublime especially with regard to religion. for burke he sublime is the vast, infinite in nature that arouses a feeling of 'astonishment' that is filled with horror. A feeling familiar to it is 'awe'. 6 'Awe' is the positive feeling of power as the sublime.
with the help of this idea, Kant criticizes the enlightenment think- ers that condemned religion with the words of lucretius, who said that human feelings of pain and terror created the gods. for Kant, this is only true for superstition. true religion transcends that level and discovers in nature the supernatural reality of the sublime.
Confronted with the ideas man feels the insufficiency of his sense and the imagination to grasp this idea of reason. therefore, it is the feeling of something terrifying and attractive at the same time, according to Kant. 7 the sublime invites us therefore to appreciate it insofar is it is against the interest of our senses. therefore, this feeling is related not only to ideas in general, but to the idea of the good in particular.
in this context, he rehabilitates the religious feeling of 'enthusiasm', of being 'inspired'. like the idea of the sublime, this feeling, and 'fanati- cism' too, belongs to the platonic world of feelings related to transcendent ideas. these kind of feelings were condemned in circles of enlightenment
6 edmund burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, edited with an introduction and notes by Adam philips, oxford: oxford univer- sity press 1998, p. 62.
7 one feels the vicinity of Kant to the later philosopher of religion rudolf otto, who described the religious experience of the 'holy' as something 'tremendum et fascinosum', terrifying and attractive at the same time.
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thinking. According to John locke, enthusiasm is the resource of all trou- ble causing self-made prophets. 8 Voltaire criticized islam as an enthusi- astic rage.
influenced by shaftesbury, Kant gives the notion of 'enthusiasm' a posi- tive turn by means of the idea of the sublime and distinguishes it from the superstitious feeling of 'schwaermerei' or fanaticism. the source of inspiration called enthusiasm is the idea of the good. because the sub- lime transcends all senses, it stimulates us by 'enthusiasm' to transcend our resistance sensible nature is offering and, as morality does, to 'violate' our senses. therefore, the sublime has to do with the power of our heart, inspired by moral laws, to transcend obstacles of our sensuality. that 'emotional' power is enthusiasm. therefore, enthusiasm is ? the idea of the good connected with affect. ? 9 without this affect there is not a thing really done good, as shaftesbury already said. 10 fanaticism for Kant is a delusion that searches for a vision beyond all bounds of sensibility. 11 rousseau, in his E? mile, says of fanaticism what Kant says of enthusiasm and praises it as the courage to risk your life at the service of the most sublime virtues. 12 hegel uses both words together, both participating in the positive and negative aspects of the sublime.
then Kant adds an often-quoted phrase that expresses essentially hegel's understanding of Judaism and islam too:
perhaps there is no more sublime passage in the Jewish law than the com- mandment: thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any like- ness of any thing that is in heaven or on earth, or under the earth, etc.
this commandment can alone explain the enthusiasm which the Jewish people, in there moral period, felt for their religion when comparing themselves with others, or the pride inspired by mohammedanism. 13
Kant's theory of the sublime and enthusiasm was influential. it lies at the basis of schleiermacher's and rudolf otto's theory of religious experience. it inspired herder to a new view on the relation between a religion and its natural 'habitat', for example the 'formless desert' where mohammad's
8 John locke, An essay concerning human understanding, i, ii, london/new york: everyman's library 1974, ii, pp. 288-296.
9 Kant, Critique of Judgment, p. 102.
10 shaftesbury, Letter on Enthousiasm, shaftesbury standard edition, hrsg. gerd hem-
merich und wolfgang benda, stuttgart: fromman-holzboog 1981, p. 372. 11 Kant, Critique of Judgment, p. 105.
12 Jean-Jacques rousseau, E? mile, paris: garnier-flammarion 1966, p. 408. 13 Kant, Critique of Judgment, p. 104.
? a religion after christianity? 213
imagination received in (contemplative) solitude his visions. 14 it influ- enced herder, goethe and hegel in their positive understanding of the 'stretch' of religious imaginative power (phantasy) that reaches its limits in the sublime and becomes distorted or grotesque. it created a positive view on the imaginary world of primitive and oriental religion. it created, although wrongly, the idea that islam does not know any form of picto- rial art. therefore, the attention, not totally wrongly, turned to poetry as the true vehicle of the sublime. because of the aesthetic background of the reflection on the sublime, religious texts, primitive myths and the old testament were now appreciated as literature.
3. islam in the lectures of philosophy of religion
this idea of the sublime as transcending radically at finite reality, and at the same time tendentionally nullifying it, is the point of departure of hegel's description of Judaism and islam.
Judaism is first of all called the 'religion of the sublime' but at the end, islam is the true universal religion of the sublime. the common notion of the religions of the sublime is the conception of god as spiritual and as one. As 'one' the god of Judaism transcends the plurality of gods of greek polytheism. in greek polytheism the divine is still submerged in the unity with especially human nature and its virtues, but in the religion of the sublime, the divine withdraws itself from nature, from human nature too and the different spiritual powers are concentrated in 'the one'. not the identity of god with these manifestations, but the difference is the central issue.
the difference is 'thinking' and even 'subject' at the one side, and nature and finiteness at the other. god is a spiritual subjective unity and, therefore, for the first time deserves for us the name of 'god'. we clearly recognize Kant's idea of the sublime. god himself is not so much sublime, but his relation to the material, sensual world makes him sublime, for he manifests him self negatively in the material world, in nature, in finitude. in relation to the divine, the material world shows its radical insufficiency, its finitude, its 'nothingness' in relation to god. the essential characteris- tic of the sublime is 'power'. in this sense, the god of the sublime is not substance anymore, but 'subjective'. it may surprise the reader to find the
14 J. g. herder, Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit, frankfurt am main: deutscher Klassiker Verlag 1989, p. 300.
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word 'subjective' here, for very often in hegel the 'sublime' conception of god as unity belongs to the idea of 'substance', the world of spinoza and of pantheism. we will meet this world in the section about hegel's Aes- thetics. god as subject manifests himself fully in Christianity. however, a first step to this conception is made here in as far god is conceived as power that posited the natural finite world. (l2 27, 670/561) nevertheless, this finite world has no independency at all. it is nothing compared to its creator. therefore, this positing is neither a self-positing of god in his reality, as is the case with the Christian god.
As a subject this 'positing' god is thinking, which means that the content of this absolute power is 'wisdom'. because in god the reason- able determinations of freedom as well as the ethical determinations are united in one goal. therefore, an essential mark of god is 'holiness'. he alone is 'holy'. holiness is a characteristic only of god, not of the gods. Kant is fully present in all those determinations. this god has no sensual outwardness, and therefore images are impossible, for it is a pure thinking subjectivity. this wise thinking, himself determining and judging god is a creator-god. he is the creator of the world as something outside him.
however, in the religion of the sublime the relation between god and the world is an external one. god as the 'one and only' has no plurality in itself, does not dwell in plurality, unless by debasing it to accidental- ity. it is by god's undeserved goodness that creation exists and god's jus- tice shows that creation has no subsistency against god. god is called sublime not as such, but because of his negative relation to the world. the characteristic of sublimity is determined by god's negative relation to the world. here again Kant's influence is clear. Kant's experience of the sublime is ontologized. it is in the negation of the sensual world that the sublime has its own identity. in relation to god, the creation itself is always only a dependent and accidental reality. god makes the creation feel its nothingness. for hegel this means that this creation is not the true self-determination of god. this is only the case in the Christian god who realizes his self-determination as creation in himself, which means the forthcoming of the son. therefore, the Christian god is an internal plural unity, which means a concrete unity.
what is said here about the religion of the sublime is equally true for Judaism and for islam. both are religions of 'the one and only' that has no positive relation to its creation and for whom his creation has no subsis- tency. he is the 'always other' for whom all finitude is 'nothing'.
for the relation to man, this means that man is characterized by 'fear for god' and offering 'servitude' and not by freedom in the full sense of
a religion after christianity? 215
the word. now 'fear of god' is not only negative, it has an aspect of free- dom. hegel stresses this aspect especially in his Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion of 1824. the 'fear for god' liberates man from his particular interest and makes it possible for him to go for the one and only true goal. therefore, 'fear' is a 'moment' of freedom. therefore, with an aside to schleiermacher, it has nothing to do with a feeling of total dependency. (l2 24, 444/344) he repeats a Kantian formulation by saying that the fear of god liberates man of al his dependencies; that is of being restricted by particular interests. it is the freedom of self-interest. (l2 27, 679/571) this 'fear' resembles very much enthusiasm. however, the good still is done, not so much because it is a commandment of his 'reason', but because it is a commandment of god. that is the element of heteronomy in the reli- gion of the sublime. According to hegel, in Jewish religion and in islam lack of freedom is the basis of the relation with god. in Christianity free- dom is the basis.
however, what is the difference between Judaism and islam? more- over, which role does Christianity play in hegel's determination of that difference? the specific 'national' exclusive relationship between god and the Jewish people is 'denationalized' by islam. (m2, 158/64; l2 24, 437-438/337) to a certain extent, this difference seems to be marginal. islam is just 'denationalized Judaism'. however, this 'denationalization' is a step forward. Judaism misconceived the notion of god as the 'one' by inferring from its uniqueness a relation to only one people. therefore, 'nationalism' is essential for Judaism. hegel mentions indeed the universal perspectives present in the psalms and the prophetic books, but for hegel these are later developments, that do not really change the basic con- ception of the Jewish people as the 'chosen people'. (l2 27, 683-686/557, footnote) however, Christianity, although it can be conceived as a fam- ily and in that sense a nation too, wants that god should be known and honoured everywhere. interestingly, hegel does not describe Christianity as 'denationalized Judaism' as he does with islam. that is because Chris- tianity, distinct from Judaism, is the religion of freedom, while islam, still being Judaism, is the religion of heteronomy and unfreedom. Although denationalized, islam is still Judaism and therefore at the same time the real counterpart of Christianity, for because of its universalism, it is at the same level of Christianity. hegel says very clearly in his lectures of 1824:
here there is no limitation to a particular people; humanity relates itself to the one as purely abstract self-consciousness. this is the characteristic of the islamic religion. in it Christianity finds its antithesis, because it occupies a sphere equivalent to that of the Christian religion. it is a spiritual religion
gerrit steunebrink
like the Jewish, but its god is (available) for self-consciousness only within the abstract knowing spirit. its god is on a par with the Christian god to the extent that no particularity is retained. Anyone, from any people, who fears god, is pleasing to him, and human beings have value only to the extent that they take as their truth the knowledge that this is the one, the essence. the differentiation of subjects according to their station in life or class is sublated; there may be classes, there may be even slaves, but this is merely accidental. (l3 24, 242-243/172)
nevertheless, characteristic for Christianity is the reintegration of fini- tude and plurality within god, by which the gulf between the finite and the infinite is bridged and the finite obtains its own value and concrete reality. the basic expression of the Christian god as this unity of unity and plurality, of the infinite and the finite is for hegel the dogma of the trinity.
so it is in the conception of trinity that Christianity is opposed to islam. the antithesis consists in the fact that in Christianity, spirituality is developed concretely within itself and is known as trinity, as spirit; "and that human history, the relationship to the one, is likewise a concrete his- tory, (. . . ). " (idem) because Christianity has trinity, the history of man is a concrete history. however, islam hates and condemns all concreteness. "its god is the absolute one, in relation to whom human beings retain for themselves no purpose, no private domain, nothing peculiar to them- selves. " (idem) hegel continues to show that this conception of god has specific consequences for the anthropology of islam:
inasmuch as they exist, humans do in any case create a private domain for themselves in their inclinations and interests, and these are all the more savage and unrestrained in this case because they lack reflexion. but cou- pled with this is also the complete opposite, namely, the tendency to let everything take its own course, indifference with respect to every purpose, absolute fatalism, indifference to life; no practical purpose has any essential value. but since human beings are in fact practical and active, their purpose can only be to bring about the veneration of the one in all humanity. thus the religion of islam is essential fanatical. (idem)
hegel wants to say that because of its abstract conception of divine unity, islam cannot cope with concrete unity of unity and plurality in man of his passions either. because no reflexion can bring the passions into unity, there is the extremism of either following the passions wildly or doing nothing, fatalism. next to fatalism comes fanaticism. for man still is a practical being wanting to realize goals. therefore, the only goal of a mus- lim life can be to evoke in all human beings the feeling of the veneration
216
a religion after christianity? 217
of the one. therefore, the islamic religion is essentially fanatic. hegel con- cludes his thoughts with a comparison of islam with enlightenment think- ing of god. for the enlightenment thinks god to as the one, the 'highest being' without any determination and qualification. in this respect, islam resembles very much enlightenment reflection. nevertheless, the differ- ence is, that in the enlightenment, that glorifies reflexion, finite human subjective reflexion is the cause of the 'emptiness' of the idea of god, while in islam this emptiness is threatening all human reflexion. indeed hegel looks to the religions from the east from the point of view of spinoza and Kant, two eminent enlightenment thinkers, the first one as a thinker of an undifferentiated, unsubjective substance, the second one as a thinker of the duality of spirit and matter, reason and senses and so on. now those religions reflect him back his own perspective. but coming back to hegel's anthropology of islam, what does fanaticism mean in this context?
4. islam, monotheism and fanaticism in the
Lectures on Philosophy of Religion
for hegel all abstract monotheism is fanatic, which means that not only islam, but also Judaism is fanatic too. the Jews are 'fanatic in 'stubborn- ness', which means that they develop a fanatic mode of defence and stick- ing to their god if they feel attacked in their religion. islam is known by 'fanaticism of conversion', for as a denationalized', universal Judaism, it tries to convert everybody to the faith in the one. hegel's careful exclu- sion of Christianity from fanatic monotheism feeds the suspicion that he is engaged in a controversy not familiar for us about the fanatic character of monotheism in general. indeed david hume developed in his influen- tial The natural History of Religion (1757) the theory that all monotheism is fanatic. Comparing the monotheistic religions Judaism, islam and Chris- tianity with graeco-roman polytheism, he comes to the conclusion that all monotheism is exclusive and does not accept other gods. so therefore, monotheism is fanatic. to the contrary, graeco-roman polytheism has an easy relation to other gods and integrated easily the gods of other peoples in its pantheon. 15 the book was translated into german very early in 1759 and was known by Kant. Kant and hegel certainly read what
15 david hume, 'the natural history of religion' in: david hume, Writings on Religion, ed. Anthony flew, ilinois: open Court publishing Company 1992, pp. 145-148.
? 218 gerrit steunebrink
rousseau said about these questions in the chapter about 'civil religion' in his The social contract. he reproaches the Christians for breaking the bond between the laws and the gods in every nation, which the romans respected and integrated in the empire. 16 hegel mentions this behaviour of greeks and romans dealing with the fanaticism of Jews and muslims. (l2 27, 683/575 footnote) however, hegel relates fanaticism exclusively to the religions of the sublime, because they are not capable to think plural- ity in unity. specifically the idea of the trinity shows that the Christian god integrates plurality and therefore Christianity is never called a fanatic religion.
to this, we have to add, as we already said in the paragraph about the sublime, that fanaticism is for hegel not just something negative, because it is related to the positive aspects of the sublime, as well as to the nega- tive. therefore, he does not use the Kantian distinction between 'enthusi- asm' as something positive and 'fanaticism' as something negative. hegel is more in line with rousseau. nothing great is done without it, according to rousseau, and it enables it to risk death for sublime virtues. fanaticism as relating yourself to the sublime, as affectingly striving for the one, is positive insofar man in this relation transcends, finite, particular interests, fear of death and so on, but negative insofar as it nullifies all finite, deter- mined things. this interpretation of fanaticism in islam is dominant in hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of History. however, before we go over to that chapter we will first give a short evaluation of hegel's interpreta- tion of islam in his Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion.
5. evaluation: denationalization, monotheism and trinity
to describe islam as 'denationalized Judaism' is adequate to a certain extent. the prophet muhammad considered himself to be a prophet in the tradition of the Jewish prophets and of Christianity. it recognizes Abraham as a common ancestor and, like Judaism and Christianity but different from other religions in the middle east, it repudiated the phenomenon of human sacrifice. on the other hand, Christianity is 'denationalized' or 'universalized' Judaism too. hegel opposes both islam and Christianity as universal religions against Judaism as a nationalistic religion. however, islam is 'universalized Judaism' and Christianity is not. Christianity really
16 Jean-Jacques rousseau, Du contrat social, paris: union ge? ne? rale d'E? ditions 1973, p. 208.
? a religion after christianity? 219
transcends Judaism. nevertheless, Christians from the beginning con- ceived themselves as children of the common ancestor. they consider Christ to be foretold by the prophets, especially the prophets that mani- fest the universalizing tendencies of Judaism. for hegel those universal- izing tendencies were marginal to the idea of the 'chosen people' and to the idea of the given law. however, the Christians did not think so from the beginning! for them it was and is the real and legitimate outcome and fulfilling of the Jewish religion. 17 nevertheless, of course, Christianity is in a different way 'universalized Judaism' as islam is.
Christianity universalized Judaism by abolishing the mosaic law. in a polemic with Judaism, it used the 'Jewish' argument, that the father of Judaism himself, Abraham, living before moses, did not know that law. islam did the other way around. it universalized Judaism by denationaliz- ing and so universalizing the law. the problem here is hegel's interpreta- tion of Judaism. hegel does not like Judaism enough to be able to say that Christianity is 'universalized Judaism'. in some texts, in his Aesthetics for example, hegel even seems to like islam more than Judaism.
not only because of his Christian teleology, but also because of a lack of sources, hegel did not go in debate with the self-conception of islam in relation to Judaism and Christianity. islam considers itself to be the synthesis of Judaism and Christianity. it succeeded to overcome the one- sidedness of both religions. Judaism is a legal religion within the world, while Christianity is a spiritual, mystical religion that leaves the world, as becomes clear in the phenomenon of monasticism. therefore, muslims welcome the reformation, because protestantism abolished monasticism and brought Christianity again in the world. but because the result of this reformation was secularism,18 it becomes clear that Christianity cannot find the right equilibrium between spirituality and law. therefore, islam is the right synthesis of both Judaist innerworldliness and Christian outer- worldliness. especially with regard to the relation between protestantism and secularism and the absence of monasticism, hegel could have had a nice discussion with muslims. because of this discussion, hegel should
17 lustiger, Jean-marie, Le choix de Dieu, Entretiens avec Jean-Louis Missika et Dominique Wolton, paris: edition de fallois 1987 p.
