This god subsists without
sensible
shape.
Hegels Philosophy of the Historical Religions
hegel's philosophy of judaism 127 2.
The spirit of Judaism
Hegel's early work is essentially targeted at an evaluation of religion, the spirit of Judaism and Christianity, with respect to their disposition to produce unity and culture. like many of his friends at the Tu? binger Stift (schelling and Ho? lderlin) Hegel was very much infatuated by the greek civilization in which the humane and national religion of Beauty played an important role in the realization and unification of an integral and cohesive ethical life. But at the same time, notwithstanding this sincere admiration, he was already very much aware of the limitations of Helle- nism as a relevant example for his own time. already Plato had struggled in vain to safeguard the beautiful substantial unity of greek culture from the dangers of relativism (exemplified by the sophists). His solution, based on a philosophy of nature and theoria, eventually did not account for the emerging truth of subjectivity that eventually would have to destroy the naive happiness of the greek. This subjectivity and subjective freedom would necessarily have to develop further and further in history, in the context of Biblical Religion, through Reformation and enlightenment, up until the time of Kant and of Hegel himself.
it is against the pantheistic background of his nostalgic Hellenism of which he is already firmly convinced that, at least in its original form, it cannot and should not even return, that Hegel writes about the spirit of Christianity as it is born out of the theistic spirit of Judaism. Judaism (and Kantianism, because of its spiritual affinity to Judaism) is interpreted as representing a separation of god and nature; it represents a painful separation that is necessary with respect to the spiritual development of mankind. Christianity in turn, is interpreted as the healing introduc- tion of some remaining, viable aspects of the spirit of Hellenism (and its folk religion) into the estranged Biblical religion of the Jews. in short: the teachings of Christ are a synthesis of transcendent Jewish and immanent or this-worldly greek elements. "it is Hegel's thesis that Jesus teaches pan- theism of love which reconciles greek pantheism with Judaic and Kantian theism. "5
it is quite telling that Hegel develops his interpretation of love as the spirit of Christianity in flagrant contradiction to 'the loveless spirit of Judaism'. according to Hegel, Christianity arose out of the nothingness
5 Richard Kroner, 'Hegel's Philosophical development' in: g. W. f. Hegel, Early Theo- logical Writings, Knox and Kroner (eds. ), Philadelphia: university of Pennsylvania Press 1971, p. 10.
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and emptiness of the Jewish faith. although (indeed): "the fear of the lord is the beginning of all wisdom", and although it was as such a necessary stage in the development of the spirit (the spirit of unity and 'life'), the Jewish faith is the 'nullity' and the deserted barrenness that preceded the birth of Christianity; which is why Jesus, according to Hegel, had to start completely from scratch. according to Hegel, the Jews brought to mankind nothing but the ugly law and a senseless obedience without joy. Beauty, truth and goodness came from Christ only. These are, in essence, the same limitations that Hegel mentions some thirty years later, in his 1827 lectures on the philosophy of religion, although his formulations there sound somewhat more sympathetic. let us therefore follow care- fully his analyses of Judaism as he describes them in his extensive and thorough analysis of 1799.
in Jewish religion, spirit develops in extreme determination against nature and against the immediate unity with nature. it is only in rela- tion to this external and merely profane nature that a truthful reconcilia- tion can eventually be realized. as the result of this disenchantment (the Entgo? tterung of nature), people can be seen as individuals, not as divine incarnations. suns can be seen as suns, mountains as mountains; not as things with a soul and with a will of their own. in the earlier religious forms, the spiritual was still very much restricted by the natural. Neverthe- less, a terrible disaster must have ended this paradisiacal naivete? . accord- ing to Hegel, the faith of the old Testament was born from the experience of a terrible flood. This flood must have breached the original and secure mode of living in harmony with nature. The victims and witnesses (Noah) must have interpreted this flood as a cruel instrument of a strange god who used nature to punish mankind for its disobedience to him. Nature is merely an 'instrument' to this god. The god of the Jews does not 'partici- pate' in his creation, and nature has no intrinsic meaning to him. god is an absolute subject, not an object. This divine indifference towards being is mirrored in the way his people experience nature, their own personal nature as well as their neighbours' nature, as signifying absolutely noth- ing. and this already explains the characteristic urge of the Jewish people to independence, exclusiveness and disengagement.
The first act through which abraham became the progenitor of the nation was through a brutal act of disseverance (Trennung) that snapped the bonds of communal life and love. 6 indeed, god commanded him to
6 g. W. f. Hegel, 'The spirit of Christianity' in: Early Theological Writings, T. m. Knox/ R. Kroner, Philadelphia: university of Pennsylvania Press 1971, p. 185. The original text
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leave his land and his natural family (cf. gen. 12; 1). later on, this god demanded further proof of abraham's 'slavish' faith and obedience when he asked him to sacrifice his son. for this god abraham's natural, fatherly love for his son does not mean a thing. according to Hegel, the Jewish need of independence explains their contemporary wretchedness, which is the direct consequence of their stubborn rejection of the spirit of truth, beauty and reconciliation. Hegel compares the fate of the Jewish people with the fate of macbeth who divorced himself from nature by clinging to these strange and unnatural voices. it is because they brought their sufferings upon themselves, that Jewish history is not in the least com- parable to a greek tragedy. The Jews share the fate of macbeth who, in the service of alien 'beings' trampled and slaughtered others, as well as (finally) himself. 7
much of what Hegel says about the fate of Jewish faith comes down to the restrictions of the mosaic law in comparison and in contradis- tinction with the 'free', moral teaching of Christ in his sermon on the mount. 8 according to Hegel, the pure divine law is not our salvation but our prison. The rule of law represents a state particular to fallen man. The law is in fact the product of the destruction of the original, friendly unity of life. Through this destruction, life is transformed into an enemy that presents itself only in the form of a divine command. moreover, although this breach with nature is necessary, if we are not able to transcend this lifeless law, if we are not able to surrender our abstract juridical rights through love, grace and mercy, spiritual life is cursed and lost forever.
Through the promulgation of the divine law, justice is reduced to a formalistic righteousness in front of the law, that is, to simply doing what the law says must be done. in addition, although one can indeed try to be righteous in this way, one cannot possibly expect to be able to reconcile oneself with the law as law, with this strange, purely subjective god. in penal law for instance, the administration of punishment does not lead to an internal atonement and it cannot really mend the gap between the law and its subject; that is: between the universal and the individual. Pun- ishment only installs a feeling of impotence in the face of a lord with whom one has nothing in common and with whom one cannot possibly reconcile oneself. on the other hand, at the moment that the trespasser
in german: g. W. f. Hegel, 'der geist des Christentums' in Werke 1, frankfurt am main: suhrkamp 1986, p. 277.
7 Hegel, 'The spirit of Christianity', p. 205/297.
8 see for Hegel's interpretation of (what he sees as) the purely moral teachings of Christ: idem, pp. 205/297 ff.
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comes to understand that he has not simply broken the law (this alien being), but that he has in fact thereby disrupted his own (divine) life and integrity, this feeling will become a longing for what has been lost, and remorse and reconciliation with life can be set to work. only then the trespass reveals the totality and unity that it has injured, and shows what the trespasser himself is lacking now.
The Jewish law is universal, and only as such is it 'real'. it is nothing more than a mere duty (a Sollen) backed by fear and threat, which means that it is the downright contradiction of being (Sein). Christian love on the other hand is the fulfilment of the law. Without this love, law is just an unnatural and artificial command that comes from an external force with which one cannot reconcile oneself. Through love, law and duty (Pflicht) are potentially reconciled with our natural inclinations (Neigun- gen). Through this fulfilment, the abstract law, the law as law is in fact annihilated and made superfluous. The love of Christ liberates mankind from a 'jealous' and ruthless master who 'presents' himself only through the 'positivity' of his abstract-universal commandments. Through the rev- elation in the coming of Christ man is liberated from a purely transcen- dent god, a hidden god who keeps everything to himself and so only enslaves his people. Charity, the neighbourly love between people (friends and foes indiscriminately) is the true embodiment of the eternal love of god on a temporary scale, and it is in this incorporation that we can find the Kingdom of god.
it is not this strange and violent force that moves the individual towards eternity. instead, it is its own nature and destination. Through the love of Christ, at last one can learn to do good without being coerced; to conform freely and internally motivated, that is: instinctively and emphatically--to the law. Thus Christian love promises to restore man's dismembered life to (what looks like) its original (paradisiacal) integrity.
Because of their iconoclasm and their negative theology, the 'Jews' who stand witness to his message must (for ever) remain blind for its symbolic, eternal content. To the 'typical Jew' the grave is nothing but an empty grave and the message thereof cannot penetrate his hard heart and soul. The Jew turns everything to stone, petrifying and materializing spirit. To dry Jewish rationalism an individual is nothing more than just an individual, equal in value with every other individual. even family life is but dutiful fidelity. Judaism (and Kantianism) cannot understand the doctrine of incarnation. for the Jew the Word cannot become flesh and consequently, Jesus cannot have been the son of god, nor can anyone else ever be. according to Hegel, a Jew is not able to value empathy for his
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fellow man as a finite embodiment of the infinite. The spirit of the love of Christ cannot possibly be at home in the dungeon of the Jewish soul ('in dem Kerker einer Judenseele'),9 nor can it be at home in any 'subjective' philosophy that breathes an equally violent, Jewish atmosphere.
3. Kant
according to Hegel, Jesus delivered mankind from the positivity of the Jewish law by interpreting the relationship with god on the basis of the purity of the heart, the human will and its natural inclination to do the good. The universality of the law makes it strange and objective. it is a conceptual abstraction of the full life, which is where proper love resides. love refers to the unity of life in which we can recognize and affirm our duties as inner desires.
after the appearance of Christ (god's loving sacrifice) it is evil simply to continue to labour under the law. However, in the protestant philoso- phy of Kant especially, the ugliness of Jewish religion returns in a slightly different form. Kants abstract morality is a version of Judaism that pro- hibits the advent of ethical life. for Hegel Christian love cannot be com- manded; it is simply not in accordance with reason to think of a command to love one's neighbour as one loves oneself. To Hegel, this means that what sounds like a command is in reality not a proper command at all; it is a command only in respect to its grammatical form. 10 according to Hegel, already Kant must have seen the paradox within the command of neighbourly love. moreover, like Hegel Kant also sought a way to solve this problem. Nevertheless, the solution he found, his interpretation of the law as an aspect of religion within the bounds of reason, suffers from the same defect as the mosaic law. True love is freedom, and freedom is love. However, there is no truth in the commandments of the oT:
9 "How were they to recognize divinity in a man, poor things that they were, possessing only a consciousness of their misery, of the depth of their servitude, of their opposition to the divine, of an impassible gulf between the being of god and the being of men? spirit alone recognizes spirit. They saw in Jesus only the man, the Nazarene, the carpenter's son whose brothers and kinfolk lived among them; so much he was, and more he could not be, for he was only one like themselves, and they felt themselves to be nothing. The Jewish multitude was bound to wreck his attempt to give them the consciousness of something divine, for faith in something divine, something great, cannot make its home in a dunghill. The lion has no room in a nest, the infinite spirit none in the prison of a Jewish soul, the whole of life none in a withered leaf. " idem, p. 265/381.
10 idem, p. 212/324.
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Truth is something free, which we neither master nor are mastered by; hence the existence of god appears to the Jews not as a truth but as a com- mand. on god the Jews are dependent throughout, and that on which a man depends cannot have the form of a truth. Truth is beauty intellectu- ally represented; the negative character of truth is freedom. But how could they have an inkling of beauty who saw in everything only matter? How could they exercise reason and freedom who were only either mastered or masters? 11
To elaborate on the extensive sphere of influence of the Jewish spiritual- ity, Hegel refers to the 'Religion within the bounds of reason alone' (iV, 2, ? 3) where Kant says that there may be big differences between the sha- man and the european prelates, between the moguls and the Puritans, but that they all share the same principle of belief. They all obey to exter- nal commandments instead of the laws of their own reason, which is in fact what the Bible, with all its symbolism, asks from us. indeed, in the interpretation of Kant that brings love within the bounds of reason, the message of the commandment becomes very clear. We should obey to the categorical imperative as the ultimate commandment of reason: "act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. " love is a duty to which we obey in the freedom that wells up from the autonomy of our own will. moreover, i am not obliged to obey to a commandment of which i cannot recognize and affirm the practical rationality.
Nevertheless, for Hegel, Kant's internalization (Verinnerlichung) of the law does not take away its intrinsically 'Jewish', abstract and repressive character:
By this line of argument, however, positivity is only partially removed; and between the shaman of the Tungus, the european prelate who rules church and state, the Voguls, and the Puritans, on the one hand, and the man who listens to his own command of duty, on the other, the difference is not that the former make themselves slaves, while the latter is free, but that the former have their lord outside themselves, while the latter carries his lord in himself, yet at the same time is his own slave. for the particular-- impulses, inclinations, pathological love, sensuous experience, or whatever else it is called--the universal is necessarily and always something alien and objective. There remains a residuum of indestructible positivity which finally shocks us because the content which the universal command of duty acquires, a specific duty, contains the contradiction of being restricted and
11 idem, p. 196/288.
132
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universal at the same time and makes the most stubborn claims for its one- sidedness, i. e. , on the strength of possessing universality of form. Woe to the human relations which are not unquestionably found in the concept of duty; for this concept [. . . ] excludes or dominates all other relations. 12
in Kantian ethics, man is free and autonomous in the sense that he is liberated from the transcendent law of god; he is free to obey to the tran- scendental rules of his own autonomous reasoning. Kant's 'solution' is intrinsically contradictory, because in his theory the duty still refers to an opposition, while the will is thought to remove it. Kant manages only to distance himself from the heteronomy of a transcendent religion outside of the bounds of reason alone. instead of being enslaved to an external master, we are now enslaved to a master within. While love and truth in fact implicate the reconciliation of duty and inclination.
'love god above everything and thy neighbour as thyself ' was quite wrongly regarded by Kant as a 'command requiring respect for the law which com- mands love. ' and it is on this confusion of the utterly accidental kind of phraseology expressive of life with the moral imperative [. . . ] that there rests Kant's profound reduction of what he calls a command [. . . ] to his moral imperative. 13
The law as law destroys life. The Jew is dutifully subjected to the law; that is why he does not, and cannot love. love reconciles a man to his neighbour, and to himself. Jesus' command to love one's neighbour as one self, has a completely different meaning than the law of the Jews, and it is also not in the least in line with the Kantian imperative. Jesus' sermon on the mount considering the fulfilment of the law is in fact targeted at the negation of the law as law. The divine command compels us to a love that makes the law redundant; it appeals to an organic and natural affection towards the other.
This spirit of Jesus, a spirit raised above morality, is visible, directly attack- ing the laws, in the sermon on the mount, which is an attempt, elaborated in numerous examples, to strip the laws of legality, of their legal form. The sermon does not teach reverence for the laws; on the contrary, it exhibits that which fulfils the law but annuls it as law and so is something higher than obedience to law and makes law superfluous. 14
12 idem, pp. 211-212/323. 13 idem, p. 213/325. 14 idem, p. 212/324.
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To Hegel, the (in essence) 'Jewish' legalistic thinking of Kant represents nothing more than a transcendental metamorphosis of the aforemen- tioned 'unfulfilled eternity' of the old Testament. it is a 'finite infinity' (schlechte Unendlichkeit) as the later Hegel would call it, that is, an eter- nity that is cut off from truth, reality and nature. according to Hegel, Kant's conception of abstract law and 'pure' duty is a mere repetition of the law of the Pharisees. His conception is an incomplete, merely idealis- tic internalization ('Verinnerlichung') of the very same law that has judged and killed Jesus. 15
it is a sort of dishonour to love when it is commanded, i. e. , when love, some- thing living, a spirit, is called by name. To name it is to reflect on it, and its name or the utterance of its name is not spirit, not its essence, but some- thing opposed to that. only in name or as a word, can it be commanded; it is only possible to say: Thou shalt love. love itself pronounces no impera- tive. it is no universal opposed to a particular, no unity of the concept, but a unity of spirit, divinity. To love god is to feel one's self in the 'all' of life, with no restrictions, in the infinite. 16
4. The Jewish fate of Christianity--'Within the Bounds of Reason'
in the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion of 1827, Hegel repeats in a different form most of his early criticism on the important 'limitations' of Jewish faith, of 'the Religion of sublimity'. i tend to disagree with Hodg- son on the point where he says that in the later lectures the critique of Judaism is muted, and where he speaks of 'the favourable reassessment of Judaism' begun in 1824. 17 Certainly, 'invaluable' for the dialectical develop- ment of religion (that is not yet there in the early work) is the 'spiritually subjective unity' of the Jewish god; a unity that the greek gods lacked. indeed Hegel stands notably sympathetic to this divine unity that is abso- lute power, wisdom and purpose, and for which it merits the name of god.
This god subsists without sensible shape. "[i]t is withdrawn from
15 again, the mature Hegel remained with this early evaluation of 'the Jews', although later on, we often find a more 'sublime' form of antipathy. in the lectures on the Philoso- phy of History and also in the lectures on the Philosophy of Religion the Jewish religion ('die Religion der erhabenheit') represents a mere 'nothingness'. The birth of Christianity is the absolute negation of this negation.
16 idem, p. 247/363: "gott lieben ist sich im all des lebens schrankenlos im unendli- chen fu? hlen [. . . ]. "
17 see Hodgson, 'editorial introduction' to the Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Reli- gion. The Lectures of 1827, p. 55.
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the natural and so from the sensible realm, withdrawn both from exter- nal sensibility and from sensible representation. " (l2 27, 669/561) it is the highest philosophical concept that exists only for thought. "as thinking it subsists only for thinking, and therefore subsists in its [activity of] judg- ment. " (l2 27, 671/563)
god's wisdom involves the process of 'divine particularization'. god creates the world ex nihilo. However, creation at this stage is still relatively 'externally' connected to its creator. Creation is not yet that what is eter- nally and immanently developing within the idea of god. god is the ini- tiator of creation, not the result (creation is not this divine subject itself ). god can be known only to a certain extent, namely through his goodness and justice, the specific moments of his wisdom. (l2 27, 675/567) god is good in his relations to the world, in determining himself by creating a free and relatively autonomous world. "Justice in turn is the manifestation of the nullity or ideality of this finite [being], it is the fact that this finite being is not genuine independence. " (l2 27, 675/567) god is justice in that he does not abandon the world but maintains his relation to creation by means of a divine purpose. The world ought to be, and likewise it ought to transform itself and pass away. in this sense, 'the one' distinguishes Him- self from his determinations, or from His world; this is His justice. This is indeed a major step within the development of the spirit.
god is 'in' the world, but this identity does not take shape in a 'cheaply obtained' sensible form. Nature is in fact divested of divinity. (l2 27, 676/567) "god's appearance is at once grasped as sublimity that is supe- rior to appearance in [ordinary] reality. " (l2 27, 677/569) With regard to the greek god, human beings relate to the divine by relating themselves to nature. This identity of the ideal and the real leads to a blunting of differences. To Hegel the invaluable contribution of the Jewish Religion is that it 'liberated' god out of nature and beauty in this all too simplistic form. His determinations are merely independent natural objects. "Nature is submissive and manifests only god, but in such a way that god subsists at the same time outside this manifestation. " (l 1827, 366) god's purpose is to become known by consciousness. and the more determinate pur- pose is that the world should 'subjectively' manifest the divine by ethically proclaiming the glory of god, and by actively testifying to the holiness of god. (l2 27, 679/571) This legality or right is what is divine; it is something worldly within finite consciousness; that is, at the same time, decreed by god.
according to Hegel, god's purpose in creation, his wisdom, is in this stage still only abstract. The Jewish wisdom is merely abstract universality.
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The wisdom and self-determining of god does not yet include god's development. This development in the idea of god is first found in the religion where the nature of god is open and manifest. The defect of this idea at the present stage is that god is indeed the one, but yet is within himself only in the determinacy of this unity; he is not what is eternally self-developing within itself. This is still not a developed determination; to this extent, what we call wisdom is an abstraction, it is abstract universal- ity. (l2 27, 683/575)
The divine purpose of creation is that it conforms to divine law, both moral commandments and ceremonial laws. That is the service of the lord:
Because the purpose is still in fact abstract, the consequence is that the commandments, both those in force as properly religious and those of the cultus, appear only as something given by god, as something prescribed and immutable, something eternally and firmly posited. The purpose is still abstract; and when we speak of 'abstraction' in the purpose, we are referring to something immediate in its determinate being or existence--something subsisting in just this one way, something immutable. (l2 27, 686/578)
a human being is supposed to obey and do right, although in itself (in a more developed understanding) cultus involves the requirement that religious activities, like the carrying out of the divine law, be understood, and that their wisdom be known. "[Cultus] demands the insight that these activities are rational, that they have a connection with the particular- ity of human life and sensibilities (indeed, with its legitimate particular- ity). " (l2 27, 686/578) However, in the Jewish religion this wisdom has not been developed and recognized. in comparison to the god of the Con- summate Religion the god of the Jews is still insufficiently developed and 'revealed' within creation (god is still too sublime). The laws are simply to be obeyed and forever immutable: "the divine commandment is only an abstract precept of wisdom; in this mode it is not understood, it is done as something external. Because god is absolute power, the activities are intrinsically indeterminate, and for that reason they are external, being determined quite arbitrarily. " (l2 27, 687/578)
To Hegel the message of love seems to contain the solution to the abstract externality (the sublimity) of the Jewish ethos, the negation of which is (supposedly) implied in the spirit of Christianity and in the phi- losophy of history. as we have seen in the early Writings, love aims at an absolute reconciliation of opposites: individuality and universality; duty and inclination; god and man; subject and object. god has become man in His son Jesus Christ, and through the Holy spirit, we, as a people, can
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participate in His divine nature, which is love. The 'method of love' is already dialectical, although still in a non-logical sense, in the form of feeling. and although love as a feeling deploys unification, it does so in a merely restricted sense. and Christian love itself (love in a primitive, non- rational interpretation) has its share in developing new forms of separa- tion and demarcation.
in contradistinction to love, reflection seems to lead only to logical oppositions. That is why the early Hegel thinks it is only in spiritual terms that the divine can be spoken of. But he already recognizes the possible dangers of the merely spiritual form of religion. love and enthusiasm can also become an impediment to unification as they are confronted with the 'cold' and 'hard' world of (for instance) private property and prop- erty rights of unloving and selfish individuals. one cannot possibly deny these aspects of reality, and if unification is to be realized in the world, it has to be a unity that encompasses this impersonal sphere of negativity. Because it cannot accommodate this world (because it cannot account for this 'negative' dimension of life), spiritual love (love in unreflected, irra- tional form) eventually degenerates to the otherworldly 'positive religion' of a privileged sect that accordingly brings unity only to a certain extent, and beyond this to a new disunity and discord. This also is part of the fate of Christianity, that precisely in trying to present a direct alternative to it, unknowingly and involuntary shares in the fate of Judaism. it is only by passing through a logical and reasonable mediation of opposites, and not through bypassing these oppositions in sense of this immediate and unreflective love, that unity and freedom can be realized (which still is what the spirit of Christianity promises to do). Reconciliation is the truth of religion, but it only attains this truth in philosophy.
There is no truth in abstract law. laws are merely strange, transcendent, untimely and unchangeable. in his early work Hegel aims at saving the truth of the law by eliminating it; by means of a 'pantheism of love' that fulfils the law through a religious, non-logical synthesis of duty and incli- nation. in these early texts reflection necessarily means 'estrangement'. Nevertheless, love as a mere feeling is also restricted in its potential of bringing unity and life. Christian religion develops the message of Christ into an exclusive and even sectarian belief. in the hands of the apostles, the spirit of Christianity becomes a 'positive religion', an otherworldly enthusiasm that does not fit in with reality, and--in particular--comes into conflict with the order and the laws of the state. mere Christianity remains too 'subjective'. and it belongs to the fate of Christianity that it breathes new life into the spirit of Judaism, an enemy that supposedly
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was already defeated. left to itself, the spirit of Christianity deteriorates into a dogma and a codified belief that divides the world instead of unit- ing it. The purpose of Jesus' moral teaching (absolute reconciliation) can- not possibly be realized within the immediate boundaries of Christian religion. a purely feeling or 'aesthetic' religion of love eventually leads to disunity and disarray. Religion proper precedes philosophy, but eventu- ally (as history shows) it is not the way to reconciliation: "it is the fate [of Christian Religion] that church and state, piety and virtue, spiritual and worldly action can never dissolve into one. "18 The finite world remains to be merely finite (not infinite). The world remains to be merely a stage, a stairway to heaven and a passage to an eternity 'outside the world'.
The absolute idea is the unity of the concept of religion and reality, which is spirit. in this respect, the divine command is not 'true'. "Truth is beauty intellectually represented. "19 To act in love is one thing, but to be able to see it is another; every determinate 'object' here on earth is merely finite; confined to the restrictions and separation of reflective logic. But if this is so, how can one represent intellectually the living beauty and spirituality of love? indeed, we need to be able to objectify this love. How- ever, where is this unity to be found; where else than in the inner citadel of our subjective consciousness? What is the 'object' of love; where is this religious object that love as unity promises?
This is Hegel's research program from 1799 onwards; to rethink and conceptualize the inner truth of religion. The spiritual content of faith (the absolute) cannot be directly verified by the 'unspiritual', that is the sensible as such, (for instance) by miracles, sacraments and by Christ's empty grave, but only by the conformity of something 'positive' to what is ideal and rational. it is essential that the object would need to be in conformity to our own rational spirit. With this in mind Hegel more and more sacrifices Revelation and religion to reason and thought. Not the all-too-Jewish religion-proper but reason, some reasonable appropria- tion of religion, is thought be able to 'realize' the truth of Christianity; its spirit of life, the love and unity in which the unhappy consciousness of the abstract individual is 'consumed' by the intersubjectivity of the spiri- tual community. Reconciliation is to be found not in the individual heart (conscience), or within the confines of the church (or the cloister), but in
18 Hegel, ? spirit of Christianity? , p. 301/418. 19 idem, p. 196/288.
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objective spirit and reasonable freedom of ethical life (family; civil society and state) and its institutions.
Nevertheless, Hegel's decisive movement towards philosophy con- fronts him with the difficulty that the 'Jewish' spirit and fate of Christian- ity (the estrangement and the unhappy consciousness of religion) is also very much present within the confines of philosophy itself; especially in Kant, fichte and Jacobi. 20 according to the protestant tradition, 'the prin- ciple of the North', as Hegel calls it in Glauben und Wissen (1801), god and his divine wisdom cannot be known by man. Not only love is 'not true' in the sense that it cannot be known in an intellectual or theoretical sense. Knowledge of things as they are in themselves (das Ding an sich, the thing as god knows it) is not possible. Knowledge of god and of his divine knowledge is not possible. The reflexive subjectivity and the self- restriction of reason in Kant (and the others) are both fruits of the tree of Protestantism; both are counteracting the self-assured rationalism of scholasticism. in addition, this 'philosophical Protestantism' (die Reflex- ionsphilosophie der Subjektivita? t) makes a strong point of the division of faith and knowledge, of the finite and the infinite:
The great form of the world spirit, however, which has discovered itself in these philosophies, is the principle of the North and, from the religious point of view, of Protestantism, the subjectivity in which beauty and truth presents itself in feelings and dispositions, in love and understanding. Reli- gion builds its temples and altars in the heart of the individual, and sighs and prayers seek the god whose contemplation is forbidden because there is always the danger of the intellect, which would see the contemplated object as a thing, the forest as firewood. it is true that the inward must also become outward, the intention attain to reality in action, the immediate religious feeling express itself in outward movement, and the faith that flees
20 Cf. derrida, Glas, p. 34a, where he, in his accurate and patient reconstruction of Hegel's interpretation, refers to Kantianism as, 'structurally, a Judaism. ' The Christian god is a revealed god. god is god insofar as he knows himself. This knowledge is self-con- sciousness in man, man's knowledge of god, which proceeds to man's self-knowledge in god. Kant fails to comprehend this: for him god is not an object of knowledge; he doesn't see the relation between god and man. derrida: "To claim to found Christianity on reason and nonetheless to make non-manifestation, the being-hidden of god, the principle of this religion is to understand nothing about revelation. Kant is Jewish: he believes in a jealous, envious god. " idem, p. 213a. of course, one cannot simply consent to Hegel's suggestion that Kant is a Jew (derrida himself would never consent to this). Kant's internalization (Verinnerlichung) of the law, his 'subjective legalism' is more in accordance with modern- ism (enlightenment philosophy and religious liberalism), and certainly not so with ortho- dox Judaism and its insistence on the externality and alterity of the other. Cf. leo strauss, Philosophie und Gesetz. Beitra? ge zum Versta? ndnis Maimunis und seiner Vorla? ufer, Berlin: schocken Verlag 1935, esp. pp. 9-29.
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the objectivity of knowledge take objective form in thoughts, concepts and words; but the objective is very carefully distinguished by the intellect from the subjective, and it is the element which has no value and is nothing, just as the struggle of subjective beauty must be precisely to take all due precau- tions against the necessity of the subjectives becoming objective. [. . . ] it is precisely as a result of its fleeing the finite and holding fast to subjectiv- ity that it finds the beautiful turned altogether into things, the forest into firewood, pictures into things that have eyes and do not see, ears and do not hear, while the ideals that cannot be taken in wholly intelligible real- ity like sticks and stones become fabrications of the imagination and every relation to them is seen as empty play, or as dependence on objects and as superstition. 21
To Hegel, the final consequence of the principle of the North is the com- plete desecration of the natural and social world. Kant's 'Protestantism', his religion within the bounds of reason, cultivates an empty, otherworldly, deontological ethos, to the detriment of the urge to the reformation of this world. faith is made so sublime (or 'Jewish', in Hegel's perspective) that it becomes ineffective and even destructive for our daily life. Both spheres, the finite as well as the infinite, have to be connected to each other, and where religion proper leaves off, philosophy should take on the respon- sibility to finish what it started. Philosophy should try to recognize 'the rose of reason within the cross of reality'. it should try to close the gap between human and divine knowledge by transcending, through reason, the limitations of abstract reflexive understanding.
This is why Hegel since his early (frankfurter) writings has been look- ing for a dialectical synthesis in which the estrangement of understand- ing, the negativity of logical opposition (including the negativity of the law), is both recognized and saved as a moment in the argumentation, as well as eliminated in the unity of absolute science. Not religion but phi- losophy leads the way to life and unity. only a philosophy of the unity of identity and difference is able to realize what love promises.
for ethics to be true, it is necessary that it is real. To be real (wirklich), it must have grown out of the development of an intelligible historical- dialectical process. Certainly, the resulting Sittlichkeit also implies strict political laws and duties that simply confront the citoyen of a state; laws that this subject simply needs obey. Nevertheless, these laws are at least manmade, in contradistinction to the Jewish laws. Certainly, one simply
21 g. W. f. Hegel, 'glauben und Wissen' in: Hauptwerke in sechs Ba? nden, Bd. 1, darm- stadt: WBg 1999, p. 316 (my translation).
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needs to obey them. However, from an alternative perspective the 'posi- tive' laws and duties of a citizen are in fact rights that embody the idea, or realization of his freedom. moreover, these laws and rights should and can be recognized as such. freedom exists by means of this conscious participation in the state.
according to Hegel, there is a possible conceptual system in which the divine content is expressed in terms of the logical oppositions of under- standing. This system is implied in the unity of identity and difference, in the logical 'negation of the negation' such as only reason (Vernunft) can recognize and affirm. it is neither the divine command nor the love as a mere feeling, but reason and philosophy that can lead the way to rec- onciliation. although through religion-proper human consciousness and absolute divinity remain juxtaposed, religion also remains to represent an important dialectical and pedagogical image (Vorstellung) of the reconcil- iatory truth as it is comprehended in philosophy. 22
5. law and love: The alternative, Jewish Perspective
We cannot refrain from commencing a more critical evaluation of what we learned here from Hegel's (mature and premature) dialectical inter- pretation of Judaism. from a moral standpoint, it would not be right to do so. and Hegel himself would agree that a faithful reconstruction as such is not enough; that it fails to do justice to his philosophy of religion and his understanding of (the place of ) Judaism within the context of the development of spirit.
We must, i think, recognize that Hegel's account of the 'limitations' of Judaism reflects an anti-semitic sentiment long exhibited by european Christians. 23 according to Hegel, the jealous god of the Jews has no place in either absolute Religion or in absolute Knowledge. However, when we
22 Cf. what Hegel says at the end of his preface to the Philosophy of Right. The distinc- tive principle of Protestantism is the unwillingness to acknowledge anything which has not been justified by the subject itself. "What luther inaugurated as faith in feeling and in the testimony of the spirit is the same thing that the spirit, at a more mature stage of its development, endeavors to grasp in the concept so as to free itself in the present and thus to find itself therein. "
23 Cf. simon Critchley: "Hegel's attitude is perhaps philosophically anti-semitic, that is to say, the conceptual matrix of family, community, and property has no place for the Jew, if the latter is defined as the other to greco-Christian philosophical conceptuality. " Critchley, 'a commentary upon derrida's reading of Hegel in glas', Hegel after Derrida, ed. stuart Barnett, london/New york: Routledge 1998, p. 204.
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look at it closely, one cannot rule out the possibility that the problem here is not necessarily located in the 'object' of this sentiment (the god of the Jews, and Jewish faith), but in the narrow perspective of the subject thereof (Hegel himself). When one reads 'The spirit of Christianity', and the negative evaluation of the divine command in his mature Philosophy of Religion, it is hard to believe that Hegel did not see the irony and the paradox in his own representation of the incarnation. in addition, it is hard to understand how he could fail to notice the 'limitations' and pos- sible dangers associated with the internalization and annihilation of the law-as-law, as he would have it.
let me start off with a few critical questions and remarks on the con- cept of love that is of vital importance to Hegel's account of Christianity. according to Hegel, the Jew as a dutiful subject to the law does not, and cannot love. is not one of the dangers of love that one tends exclusively to reserve one's charity to those neighbours that fall within one's horizon, that is, with whom one can indeed easily, and emphatically, identify one- self? should we not at least try to extend our love to those who cannot simply be recognized as 'other selves', to those who cannot be seen to belong to our unity of life, and to those who are to remain (in this respect) somewhat strange and even 'opposed' to us? in respect to the dangers of any possible trade-off (a 'bad' incarnation), Jewish ethics and the impor- tance of the law for the Jewish faith deserve the benefit of the doubt. let me put it straightforward. least of all they cannot be ruled out as hateful and unloving for trying to cultivate a radical hospitality within the soul, a 'desert like emptiness' that is, for something and someone wholly strange and unexpected; something or someone that cannot possibly be reduced to and reconciled with the 'economy of the same'.
from a Jewish perspective the tables are turned. Hegel's obsession with the unity of life and with the reconciliation of the law with nature can be said to rest on an erotic form of love. a love that desires and 'takes' more than it is prepared to give. The immanent-transcendence of his 'spirit of Christianity' is an expression of a political kind of self-love, through which eternity proper and real love are being corrupted and betrayed.
Hegel's early work is essentially targeted at an evaluation of religion, the spirit of Judaism and Christianity, with respect to their disposition to produce unity and culture. like many of his friends at the Tu? binger Stift (schelling and Ho? lderlin) Hegel was very much infatuated by the greek civilization in which the humane and national religion of Beauty played an important role in the realization and unification of an integral and cohesive ethical life. But at the same time, notwithstanding this sincere admiration, he was already very much aware of the limitations of Helle- nism as a relevant example for his own time. already Plato had struggled in vain to safeguard the beautiful substantial unity of greek culture from the dangers of relativism (exemplified by the sophists). His solution, based on a philosophy of nature and theoria, eventually did not account for the emerging truth of subjectivity that eventually would have to destroy the naive happiness of the greek. This subjectivity and subjective freedom would necessarily have to develop further and further in history, in the context of Biblical Religion, through Reformation and enlightenment, up until the time of Kant and of Hegel himself.
it is against the pantheistic background of his nostalgic Hellenism of which he is already firmly convinced that, at least in its original form, it cannot and should not even return, that Hegel writes about the spirit of Christianity as it is born out of the theistic spirit of Judaism. Judaism (and Kantianism, because of its spiritual affinity to Judaism) is interpreted as representing a separation of god and nature; it represents a painful separation that is necessary with respect to the spiritual development of mankind. Christianity in turn, is interpreted as the healing introduc- tion of some remaining, viable aspects of the spirit of Hellenism (and its folk religion) into the estranged Biblical religion of the Jews. in short: the teachings of Christ are a synthesis of transcendent Jewish and immanent or this-worldly greek elements. "it is Hegel's thesis that Jesus teaches pan- theism of love which reconciles greek pantheism with Judaic and Kantian theism. "5
it is quite telling that Hegel develops his interpretation of love as the spirit of Christianity in flagrant contradiction to 'the loveless spirit of Judaism'. according to Hegel, Christianity arose out of the nothingness
5 Richard Kroner, 'Hegel's Philosophical development' in: g. W. f. Hegel, Early Theo- logical Writings, Knox and Kroner (eds. ), Philadelphia: university of Pennsylvania Press 1971, p. 10.
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and emptiness of the Jewish faith. although (indeed): "the fear of the lord is the beginning of all wisdom", and although it was as such a necessary stage in the development of the spirit (the spirit of unity and 'life'), the Jewish faith is the 'nullity' and the deserted barrenness that preceded the birth of Christianity; which is why Jesus, according to Hegel, had to start completely from scratch. according to Hegel, the Jews brought to mankind nothing but the ugly law and a senseless obedience without joy. Beauty, truth and goodness came from Christ only. These are, in essence, the same limitations that Hegel mentions some thirty years later, in his 1827 lectures on the philosophy of religion, although his formulations there sound somewhat more sympathetic. let us therefore follow care- fully his analyses of Judaism as he describes them in his extensive and thorough analysis of 1799.
in Jewish religion, spirit develops in extreme determination against nature and against the immediate unity with nature. it is only in rela- tion to this external and merely profane nature that a truthful reconcilia- tion can eventually be realized. as the result of this disenchantment (the Entgo? tterung of nature), people can be seen as individuals, not as divine incarnations. suns can be seen as suns, mountains as mountains; not as things with a soul and with a will of their own. in the earlier religious forms, the spiritual was still very much restricted by the natural. Neverthe- less, a terrible disaster must have ended this paradisiacal naivete? . accord- ing to Hegel, the faith of the old Testament was born from the experience of a terrible flood. This flood must have breached the original and secure mode of living in harmony with nature. The victims and witnesses (Noah) must have interpreted this flood as a cruel instrument of a strange god who used nature to punish mankind for its disobedience to him. Nature is merely an 'instrument' to this god. The god of the Jews does not 'partici- pate' in his creation, and nature has no intrinsic meaning to him. god is an absolute subject, not an object. This divine indifference towards being is mirrored in the way his people experience nature, their own personal nature as well as their neighbours' nature, as signifying absolutely noth- ing. and this already explains the characteristic urge of the Jewish people to independence, exclusiveness and disengagement.
The first act through which abraham became the progenitor of the nation was through a brutal act of disseverance (Trennung) that snapped the bonds of communal life and love. 6 indeed, god commanded him to
6 g. W. f. Hegel, 'The spirit of Christianity' in: Early Theological Writings, T. m. Knox/ R. Kroner, Philadelphia: university of Pennsylvania Press 1971, p. 185. The original text
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leave his land and his natural family (cf. gen. 12; 1). later on, this god demanded further proof of abraham's 'slavish' faith and obedience when he asked him to sacrifice his son. for this god abraham's natural, fatherly love for his son does not mean a thing. according to Hegel, the Jewish need of independence explains their contemporary wretchedness, which is the direct consequence of their stubborn rejection of the spirit of truth, beauty and reconciliation. Hegel compares the fate of the Jewish people with the fate of macbeth who divorced himself from nature by clinging to these strange and unnatural voices. it is because they brought their sufferings upon themselves, that Jewish history is not in the least com- parable to a greek tragedy. The Jews share the fate of macbeth who, in the service of alien 'beings' trampled and slaughtered others, as well as (finally) himself. 7
much of what Hegel says about the fate of Jewish faith comes down to the restrictions of the mosaic law in comparison and in contradis- tinction with the 'free', moral teaching of Christ in his sermon on the mount. 8 according to Hegel, the pure divine law is not our salvation but our prison. The rule of law represents a state particular to fallen man. The law is in fact the product of the destruction of the original, friendly unity of life. Through this destruction, life is transformed into an enemy that presents itself only in the form of a divine command. moreover, although this breach with nature is necessary, if we are not able to transcend this lifeless law, if we are not able to surrender our abstract juridical rights through love, grace and mercy, spiritual life is cursed and lost forever.
Through the promulgation of the divine law, justice is reduced to a formalistic righteousness in front of the law, that is, to simply doing what the law says must be done. in addition, although one can indeed try to be righteous in this way, one cannot possibly expect to be able to reconcile oneself with the law as law, with this strange, purely subjective god. in penal law for instance, the administration of punishment does not lead to an internal atonement and it cannot really mend the gap between the law and its subject; that is: between the universal and the individual. Pun- ishment only installs a feeling of impotence in the face of a lord with whom one has nothing in common and with whom one cannot possibly reconcile oneself. on the other hand, at the moment that the trespasser
in german: g. W. f. Hegel, 'der geist des Christentums' in Werke 1, frankfurt am main: suhrkamp 1986, p. 277.
7 Hegel, 'The spirit of Christianity', p. 205/297.
8 see for Hegel's interpretation of (what he sees as) the purely moral teachings of Christ: idem, pp. 205/297 ff.
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comes to understand that he has not simply broken the law (this alien being), but that he has in fact thereby disrupted his own (divine) life and integrity, this feeling will become a longing for what has been lost, and remorse and reconciliation with life can be set to work. only then the trespass reveals the totality and unity that it has injured, and shows what the trespasser himself is lacking now.
The Jewish law is universal, and only as such is it 'real'. it is nothing more than a mere duty (a Sollen) backed by fear and threat, which means that it is the downright contradiction of being (Sein). Christian love on the other hand is the fulfilment of the law. Without this love, law is just an unnatural and artificial command that comes from an external force with which one cannot reconcile oneself. Through love, law and duty (Pflicht) are potentially reconciled with our natural inclinations (Neigun- gen). Through this fulfilment, the abstract law, the law as law is in fact annihilated and made superfluous. The love of Christ liberates mankind from a 'jealous' and ruthless master who 'presents' himself only through the 'positivity' of his abstract-universal commandments. Through the rev- elation in the coming of Christ man is liberated from a purely transcen- dent god, a hidden god who keeps everything to himself and so only enslaves his people. Charity, the neighbourly love between people (friends and foes indiscriminately) is the true embodiment of the eternal love of god on a temporary scale, and it is in this incorporation that we can find the Kingdom of god.
it is not this strange and violent force that moves the individual towards eternity. instead, it is its own nature and destination. Through the love of Christ, at last one can learn to do good without being coerced; to conform freely and internally motivated, that is: instinctively and emphatically--to the law. Thus Christian love promises to restore man's dismembered life to (what looks like) its original (paradisiacal) integrity.
Because of their iconoclasm and their negative theology, the 'Jews' who stand witness to his message must (for ever) remain blind for its symbolic, eternal content. To the 'typical Jew' the grave is nothing but an empty grave and the message thereof cannot penetrate his hard heart and soul. The Jew turns everything to stone, petrifying and materializing spirit. To dry Jewish rationalism an individual is nothing more than just an individual, equal in value with every other individual. even family life is but dutiful fidelity. Judaism (and Kantianism) cannot understand the doctrine of incarnation. for the Jew the Word cannot become flesh and consequently, Jesus cannot have been the son of god, nor can anyone else ever be. according to Hegel, a Jew is not able to value empathy for his
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fellow man as a finite embodiment of the infinite. The spirit of the love of Christ cannot possibly be at home in the dungeon of the Jewish soul ('in dem Kerker einer Judenseele'),9 nor can it be at home in any 'subjective' philosophy that breathes an equally violent, Jewish atmosphere.
3. Kant
according to Hegel, Jesus delivered mankind from the positivity of the Jewish law by interpreting the relationship with god on the basis of the purity of the heart, the human will and its natural inclination to do the good. The universality of the law makes it strange and objective. it is a conceptual abstraction of the full life, which is where proper love resides. love refers to the unity of life in which we can recognize and affirm our duties as inner desires.
after the appearance of Christ (god's loving sacrifice) it is evil simply to continue to labour under the law. However, in the protestant philoso- phy of Kant especially, the ugliness of Jewish religion returns in a slightly different form. Kants abstract morality is a version of Judaism that pro- hibits the advent of ethical life. for Hegel Christian love cannot be com- manded; it is simply not in accordance with reason to think of a command to love one's neighbour as one loves oneself. To Hegel, this means that what sounds like a command is in reality not a proper command at all; it is a command only in respect to its grammatical form. 10 according to Hegel, already Kant must have seen the paradox within the command of neighbourly love. moreover, like Hegel Kant also sought a way to solve this problem. Nevertheless, the solution he found, his interpretation of the law as an aspect of religion within the bounds of reason, suffers from the same defect as the mosaic law. True love is freedom, and freedom is love. However, there is no truth in the commandments of the oT:
9 "How were they to recognize divinity in a man, poor things that they were, possessing only a consciousness of their misery, of the depth of their servitude, of their opposition to the divine, of an impassible gulf between the being of god and the being of men? spirit alone recognizes spirit. They saw in Jesus only the man, the Nazarene, the carpenter's son whose brothers and kinfolk lived among them; so much he was, and more he could not be, for he was only one like themselves, and they felt themselves to be nothing. The Jewish multitude was bound to wreck his attempt to give them the consciousness of something divine, for faith in something divine, something great, cannot make its home in a dunghill. The lion has no room in a nest, the infinite spirit none in the prison of a Jewish soul, the whole of life none in a withered leaf. " idem, p. 265/381.
10 idem, p. 212/324.
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Truth is something free, which we neither master nor are mastered by; hence the existence of god appears to the Jews not as a truth but as a com- mand. on god the Jews are dependent throughout, and that on which a man depends cannot have the form of a truth. Truth is beauty intellectu- ally represented; the negative character of truth is freedom. But how could they have an inkling of beauty who saw in everything only matter? How could they exercise reason and freedom who were only either mastered or masters? 11
To elaborate on the extensive sphere of influence of the Jewish spiritual- ity, Hegel refers to the 'Religion within the bounds of reason alone' (iV, 2, ? 3) where Kant says that there may be big differences between the sha- man and the european prelates, between the moguls and the Puritans, but that they all share the same principle of belief. They all obey to exter- nal commandments instead of the laws of their own reason, which is in fact what the Bible, with all its symbolism, asks from us. indeed, in the interpretation of Kant that brings love within the bounds of reason, the message of the commandment becomes very clear. We should obey to the categorical imperative as the ultimate commandment of reason: "act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. " love is a duty to which we obey in the freedom that wells up from the autonomy of our own will. moreover, i am not obliged to obey to a commandment of which i cannot recognize and affirm the practical rationality.
Nevertheless, for Hegel, Kant's internalization (Verinnerlichung) of the law does not take away its intrinsically 'Jewish', abstract and repressive character:
By this line of argument, however, positivity is only partially removed; and between the shaman of the Tungus, the european prelate who rules church and state, the Voguls, and the Puritans, on the one hand, and the man who listens to his own command of duty, on the other, the difference is not that the former make themselves slaves, while the latter is free, but that the former have their lord outside themselves, while the latter carries his lord in himself, yet at the same time is his own slave. for the particular-- impulses, inclinations, pathological love, sensuous experience, or whatever else it is called--the universal is necessarily and always something alien and objective. There remains a residuum of indestructible positivity which finally shocks us because the content which the universal command of duty acquires, a specific duty, contains the contradiction of being restricted and
11 idem, p. 196/288.
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universal at the same time and makes the most stubborn claims for its one- sidedness, i. e. , on the strength of possessing universality of form. Woe to the human relations which are not unquestionably found in the concept of duty; for this concept [. . . ] excludes or dominates all other relations. 12
in Kantian ethics, man is free and autonomous in the sense that he is liberated from the transcendent law of god; he is free to obey to the tran- scendental rules of his own autonomous reasoning. Kant's 'solution' is intrinsically contradictory, because in his theory the duty still refers to an opposition, while the will is thought to remove it. Kant manages only to distance himself from the heteronomy of a transcendent religion outside of the bounds of reason alone. instead of being enslaved to an external master, we are now enslaved to a master within. While love and truth in fact implicate the reconciliation of duty and inclination.
'love god above everything and thy neighbour as thyself ' was quite wrongly regarded by Kant as a 'command requiring respect for the law which com- mands love. ' and it is on this confusion of the utterly accidental kind of phraseology expressive of life with the moral imperative [. . . ] that there rests Kant's profound reduction of what he calls a command [. . . ] to his moral imperative. 13
The law as law destroys life. The Jew is dutifully subjected to the law; that is why he does not, and cannot love. love reconciles a man to his neighbour, and to himself. Jesus' command to love one's neighbour as one self, has a completely different meaning than the law of the Jews, and it is also not in the least in line with the Kantian imperative. Jesus' sermon on the mount considering the fulfilment of the law is in fact targeted at the negation of the law as law. The divine command compels us to a love that makes the law redundant; it appeals to an organic and natural affection towards the other.
This spirit of Jesus, a spirit raised above morality, is visible, directly attack- ing the laws, in the sermon on the mount, which is an attempt, elaborated in numerous examples, to strip the laws of legality, of their legal form. The sermon does not teach reverence for the laws; on the contrary, it exhibits that which fulfils the law but annuls it as law and so is something higher than obedience to law and makes law superfluous. 14
12 idem, pp. 211-212/323. 13 idem, p. 213/325. 14 idem, p. 212/324.
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To Hegel, the (in essence) 'Jewish' legalistic thinking of Kant represents nothing more than a transcendental metamorphosis of the aforemen- tioned 'unfulfilled eternity' of the old Testament. it is a 'finite infinity' (schlechte Unendlichkeit) as the later Hegel would call it, that is, an eter- nity that is cut off from truth, reality and nature. according to Hegel, Kant's conception of abstract law and 'pure' duty is a mere repetition of the law of the Pharisees. His conception is an incomplete, merely idealis- tic internalization ('Verinnerlichung') of the very same law that has judged and killed Jesus. 15
it is a sort of dishonour to love when it is commanded, i. e. , when love, some- thing living, a spirit, is called by name. To name it is to reflect on it, and its name or the utterance of its name is not spirit, not its essence, but some- thing opposed to that. only in name or as a word, can it be commanded; it is only possible to say: Thou shalt love. love itself pronounces no impera- tive. it is no universal opposed to a particular, no unity of the concept, but a unity of spirit, divinity. To love god is to feel one's self in the 'all' of life, with no restrictions, in the infinite. 16
4. The Jewish fate of Christianity--'Within the Bounds of Reason'
in the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion of 1827, Hegel repeats in a different form most of his early criticism on the important 'limitations' of Jewish faith, of 'the Religion of sublimity'. i tend to disagree with Hodg- son on the point where he says that in the later lectures the critique of Judaism is muted, and where he speaks of 'the favourable reassessment of Judaism' begun in 1824. 17 Certainly, 'invaluable' for the dialectical develop- ment of religion (that is not yet there in the early work) is the 'spiritually subjective unity' of the Jewish god; a unity that the greek gods lacked. indeed Hegel stands notably sympathetic to this divine unity that is abso- lute power, wisdom and purpose, and for which it merits the name of god.
This god subsists without sensible shape. "[i]t is withdrawn from
15 again, the mature Hegel remained with this early evaluation of 'the Jews', although later on, we often find a more 'sublime' form of antipathy. in the lectures on the Philoso- phy of History and also in the lectures on the Philosophy of Religion the Jewish religion ('die Religion der erhabenheit') represents a mere 'nothingness'. The birth of Christianity is the absolute negation of this negation.
16 idem, p. 247/363: "gott lieben ist sich im all des lebens schrankenlos im unendli- chen fu? hlen [. . . ]. "
17 see Hodgson, 'editorial introduction' to the Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Reli- gion. The Lectures of 1827, p. 55.
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the natural and so from the sensible realm, withdrawn both from exter- nal sensibility and from sensible representation. " (l2 27, 669/561) it is the highest philosophical concept that exists only for thought. "as thinking it subsists only for thinking, and therefore subsists in its [activity of] judg- ment. " (l2 27, 671/563)
god's wisdom involves the process of 'divine particularization'. god creates the world ex nihilo. However, creation at this stage is still relatively 'externally' connected to its creator. Creation is not yet that what is eter- nally and immanently developing within the idea of god. god is the ini- tiator of creation, not the result (creation is not this divine subject itself ). god can be known only to a certain extent, namely through his goodness and justice, the specific moments of his wisdom. (l2 27, 675/567) god is good in his relations to the world, in determining himself by creating a free and relatively autonomous world. "Justice in turn is the manifestation of the nullity or ideality of this finite [being], it is the fact that this finite being is not genuine independence. " (l2 27, 675/567) god is justice in that he does not abandon the world but maintains his relation to creation by means of a divine purpose. The world ought to be, and likewise it ought to transform itself and pass away. in this sense, 'the one' distinguishes Him- self from his determinations, or from His world; this is His justice. This is indeed a major step within the development of the spirit.
god is 'in' the world, but this identity does not take shape in a 'cheaply obtained' sensible form. Nature is in fact divested of divinity. (l2 27, 676/567) "god's appearance is at once grasped as sublimity that is supe- rior to appearance in [ordinary] reality. " (l2 27, 677/569) With regard to the greek god, human beings relate to the divine by relating themselves to nature. This identity of the ideal and the real leads to a blunting of differences. To Hegel the invaluable contribution of the Jewish Religion is that it 'liberated' god out of nature and beauty in this all too simplistic form. His determinations are merely independent natural objects. "Nature is submissive and manifests only god, but in such a way that god subsists at the same time outside this manifestation. " (l 1827, 366) god's purpose is to become known by consciousness. and the more determinate pur- pose is that the world should 'subjectively' manifest the divine by ethically proclaiming the glory of god, and by actively testifying to the holiness of god. (l2 27, 679/571) This legality or right is what is divine; it is something worldly within finite consciousness; that is, at the same time, decreed by god.
according to Hegel, god's purpose in creation, his wisdom, is in this stage still only abstract. The Jewish wisdom is merely abstract universality.
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The wisdom and self-determining of god does not yet include god's development. This development in the idea of god is first found in the religion where the nature of god is open and manifest. The defect of this idea at the present stage is that god is indeed the one, but yet is within himself only in the determinacy of this unity; he is not what is eternally self-developing within itself. This is still not a developed determination; to this extent, what we call wisdom is an abstraction, it is abstract universal- ity. (l2 27, 683/575)
The divine purpose of creation is that it conforms to divine law, both moral commandments and ceremonial laws. That is the service of the lord:
Because the purpose is still in fact abstract, the consequence is that the commandments, both those in force as properly religious and those of the cultus, appear only as something given by god, as something prescribed and immutable, something eternally and firmly posited. The purpose is still abstract; and when we speak of 'abstraction' in the purpose, we are referring to something immediate in its determinate being or existence--something subsisting in just this one way, something immutable. (l2 27, 686/578)
a human being is supposed to obey and do right, although in itself (in a more developed understanding) cultus involves the requirement that religious activities, like the carrying out of the divine law, be understood, and that their wisdom be known. "[Cultus] demands the insight that these activities are rational, that they have a connection with the particular- ity of human life and sensibilities (indeed, with its legitimate particular- ity). " (l2 27, 686/578) However, in the Jewish religion this wisdom has not been developed and recognized. in comparison to the god of the Con- summate Religion the god of the Jews is still insufficiently developed and 'revealed' within creation (god is still too sublime). The laws are simply to be obeyed and forever immutable: "the divine commandment is only an abstract precept of wisdom; in this mode it is not understood, it is done as something external. Because god is absolute power, the activities are intrinsically indeterminate, and for that reason they are external, being determined quite arbitrarily. " (l2 27, 687/578)
To Hegel the message of love seems to contain the solution to the abstract externality (the sublimity) of the Jewish ethos, the negation of which is (supposedly) implied in the spirit of Christianity and in the phi- losophy of history. as we have seen in the early Writings, love aims at an absolute reconciliation of opposites: individuality and universality; duty and inclination; god and man; subject and object. god has become man in His son Jesus Christ, and through the Holy spirit, we, as a people, can
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participate in His divine nature, which is love. The 'method of love' is already dialectical, although still in a non-logical sense, in the form of feeling. and although love as a feeling deploys unification, it does so in a merely restricted sense. and Christian love itself (love in a primitive, non- rational interpretation) has its share in developing new forms of separa- tion and demarcation.
in contradistinction to love, reflection seems to lead only to logical oppositions. That is why the early Hegel thinks it is only in spiritual terms that the divine can be spoken of. But he already recognizes the possible dangers of the merely spiritual form of religion. love and enthusiasm can also become an impediment to unification as they are confronted with the 'cold' and 'hard' world of (for instance) private property and prop- erty rights of unloving and selfish individuals. one cannot possibly deny these aspects of reality, and if unification is to be realized in the world, it has to be a unity that encompasses this impersonal sphere of negativity. Because it cannot accommodate this world (because it cannot account for this 'negative' dimension of life), spiritual love (love in unreflected, irra- tional form) eventually degenerates to the otherworldly 'positive religion' of a privileged sect that accordingly brings unity only to a certain extent, and beyond this to a new disunity and discord. This also is part of the fate of Christianity, that precisely in trying to present a direct alternative to it, unknowingly and involuntary shares in the fate of Judaism. it is only by passing through a logical and reasonable mediation of opposites, and not through bypassing these oppositions in sense of this immediate and unreflective love, that unity and freedom can be realized (which still is what the spirit of Christianity promises to do). Reconciliation is the truth of religion, but it only attains this truth in philosophy.
There is no truth in abstract law. laws are merely strange, transcendent, untimely and unchangeable. in his early work Hegel aims at saving the truth of the law by eliminating it; by means of a 'pantheism of love' that fulfils the law through a religious, non-logical synthesis of duty and incli- nation. in these early texts reflection necessarily means 'estrangement'. Nevertheless, love as a mere feeling is also restricted in its potential of bringing unity and life. Christian religion develops the message of Christ into an exclusive and even sectarian belief. in the hands of the apostles, the spirit of Christianity becomes a 'positive religion', an otherworldly enthusiasm that does not fit in with reality, and--in particular--comes into conflict with the order and the laws of the state. mere Christianity remains too 'subjective'. and it belongs to the fate of Christianity that it breathes new life into the spirit of Judaism, an enemy that supposedly
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was already defeated. left to itself, the spirit of Christianity deteriorates into a dogma and a codified belief that divides the world instead of unit- ing it. The purpose of Jesus' moral teaching (absolute reconciliation) can- not possibly be realized within the immediate boundaries of Christian religion. a purely feeling or 'aesthetic' religion of love eventually leads to disunity and disarray. Religion proper precedes philosophy, but eventu- ally (as history shows) it is not the way to reconciliation: "it is the fate [of Christian Religion] that church and state, piety and virtue, spiritual and worldly action can never dissolve into one. "18 The finite world remains to be merely finite (not infinite). The world remains to be merely a stage, a stairway to heaven and a passage to an eternity 'outside the world'.
The absolute idea is the unity of the concept of religion and reality, which is spirit. in this respect, the divine command is not 'true'. "Truth is beauty intellectually represented. "19 To act in love is one thing, but to be able to see it is another; every determinate 'object' here on earth is merely finite; confined to the restrictions and separation of reflective logic. But if this is so, how can one represent intellectually the living beauty and spirituality of love? indeed, we need to be able to objectify this love. How- ever, where is this unity to be found; where else than in the inner citadel of our subjective consciousness? What is the 'object' of love; where is this religious object that love as unity promises?
This is Hegel's research program from 1799 onwards; to rethink and conceptualize the inner truth of religion. The spiritual content of faith (the absolute) cannot be directly verified by the 'unspiritual', that is the sensible as such, (for instance) by miracles, sacraments and by Christ's empty grave, but only by the conformity of something 'positive' to what is ideal and rational. it is essential that the object would need to be in conformity to our own rational spirit. With this in mind Hegel more and more sacrifices Revelation and religion to reason and thought. Not the all-too-Jewish religion-proper but reason, some reasonable appropria- tion of religion, is thought be able to 'realize' the truth of Christianity; its spirit of life, the love and unity in which the unhappy consciousness of the abstract individual is 'consumed' by the intersubjectivity of the spiri- tual community. Reconciliation is to be found not in the individual heart (conscience), or within the confines of the church (or the cloister), but in
18 Hegel, ? spirit of Christianity? , p. 301/418. 19 idem, p. 196/288.
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objective spirit and reasonable freedom of ethical life (family; civil society and state) and its institutions.
Nevertheless, Hegel's decisive movement towards philosophy con- fronts him with the difficulty that the 'Jewish' spirit and fate of Christian- ity (the estrangement and the unhappy consciousness of religion) is also very much present within the confines of philosophy itself; especially in Kant, fichte and Jacobi. 20 according to the protestant tradition, 'the prin- ciple of the North', as Hegel calls it in Glauben und Wissen (1801), god and his divine wisdom cannot be known by man. Not only love is 'not true' in the sense that it cannot be known in an intellectual or theoretical sense. Knowledge of things as they are in themselves (das Ding an sich, the thing as god knows it) is not possible. Knowledge of god and of his divine knowledge is not possible. The reflexive subjectivity and the self- restriction of reason in Kant (and the others) are both fruits of the tree of Protestantism; both are counteracting the self-assured rationalism of scholasticism. in addition, this 'philosophical Protestantism' (die Reflex- ionsphilosophie der Subjektivita? t) makes a strong point of the division of faith and knowledge, of the finite and the infinite:
The great form of the world spirit, however, which has discovered itself in these philosophies, is the principle of the North and, from the religious point of view, of Protestantism, the subjectivity in which beauty and truth presents itself in feelings and dispositions, in love and understanding. Reli- gion builds its temples and altars in the heart of the individual, and sighs and prayers seek the god whose contemplation is forbidden because there is always the danger of the intellect, which would see the contemplated object as a thing, the forest as firewood. it is true that the inward must also become outward, the intention attain to reality in action, the immediate religious feeling express itself in outward movement, and the faith that flees
20 Cf. derrida, Glas, p. 34a, where he, in his accurate and patient reconstruction of Hegel's interpretation, refers to Kantianism as, 'structurally, a Judaism. ' The Christian god is a revealed god. god is god insofar as he knows himself. This knowledge is self-con- sciousness in man, man's knowledge of god, which proceeds to man's self-knowledge in god. Kant fails to comprehend this: for him god is not an object of knowledge; he doesn't see the relation between god and man. derrida: "To claim to found Christianity on reason and nonetheless to make non-manifestation, the being-hidden of god, the principle of this religion is to understand nothing about revelation. Kant is Jewish: he believes in a jealous, envious god. " idem, p. 213a. of course, one cannot simply consent to Hegel's suggestion that Kant is a Jew (derrida himself would never consent to this). Kant's internalization (Verinnerlichung) of the law, his 'subjective legalism' is more in accordance with modern- ism (enlightenment philosophy and religious liberalism), and certainly not so with ortho- dox Judaism and its insistence on the externality and alterity of the other. Cf. leo strauss, Philosophie und Gesetz. Beitra? ge zum Versta? ndnis Maimunis und seiner Vorla? ufer, Berlin: schocken Verlag 1935, esp. pp. 9-29.
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the objectivity of knowledge take objective form in thoughts, concepts and words; but the objective is very carefully distinguished by the intellect from the subjective, and it is the element which has no value and is nothing, just as the struggle of subjective beauty must be precisely to take all due precau- tions against the necessity of the subjectives becoming objective. [. . . ] it is precisely as a result of its fleeing the finite and holding fast to subjectiv- ity that it finds the beautiful turned altogether into things, the forest into firewood, pictures into things that have eyes and do not see, ears and do not hear, while the ideals that cannot be taken in wholly intelligible real- ity like sticks and stones become fabrications of the imagination and every relation to them is seen as empty play, or as dependence on objects and as superstition. 21
To Hegel, the final consequence of the principle of the North is the com- plete desecration of the natural and social world. Kant's 'Protestantism', his religion within the bounds of reason, cultivates an empty, otherworldly, deontological ethos, to the detriment of the urge to the reformation of this world. faith is made so sublime (or 'Jewish', in Hegel's perspective) that it becomes ineffective and even destructive for our daily life. Both spheres, the finite as well as the infinite, have to be connected to each other, and where religion proper leaves off, philosophy should take on the respon- sibility to finish what it started. Philosophy should try to recognize 'the rose of reason within the cross of reality'. it should try to close the gap between human and divine knowledge by transcending, through reason, the limitations of abstract reflexive understanding.
This is why Hegel since his early (frankfurter) writings has been look- ing for a dialectical synthesis in which the estrangement of understand- ing, the negativity of logical opposition (including the negativity of the law), is both recognized and saved as a moment in the argumentation, as well as eliminated in the unity of absolute science. Not religion but phi- losophy leads the way to life and unity. only a philosophy of the unity of identity and difference is able to realize what love promises.
for ethics to be true, it is necessary that it is real. To be real (wirklich), it must have grown out of the development of an intelligible historical- dialectical process. Certainly, the resulting Sittlichkeit also implies strict political laws and duties that simply confront the citoyen of a state; laws that this subject simply needs obey. Nevertheless, these laws are at least manmade, in contradistinction to the Jewish laws. Certainly, one simply
21 g. W. f. Hegel, 'glauben und Wissen' in: Hauptwerke in sechs Ba? nden, Bd. 1, darm- stadt: WBg 1999, p. 316 (my translation).
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needs to obey them. However, from an alternative perspective the 'posi- tive' laws and duties of a citizen are in fact rights that embody the idea, or realization of his freedom. moreover, these laws and rights should and can be recognized as such. freedom exists by means of this conscious participation in the state.
according to Hegel, there is a possible conceptual system in which the divine content is expressed in terms of the logical oppositions of under- standing. This system is implied in the unity of identity and difference, in the logical 'negation of the negation' such as only reason (Vernunft) can recognize and affirm. it is neither the divine command nor the love as a mere feeling, but reason and philosophy that can lead the way to rec- onciliation. although through religion-proper human consciousness and absolute divinity remain juxtaposed, religion also remains to represent an important dialectical and pedagogical image (Vorstellung) of the reconcil- iatory truth as it is comprehended in philosophy. 22
5. law and love: The alternative, Jewish Perspective
We cannot refrain from commencing a more critical evaluation of what we learned here from Hegel's (mature and premature) dialectical inter- pretation of Judaism. from a moral standpoint, it would not be right to do so. and Hegel himself would agree that a faithful reconstruction as such is not enough; that it fails to do justice to his philosophy of religion and his understanding of (the place of ) Judaism within the context of the development of spirit.
We must, i think, recognize that Hegel's account of the 'limitations' of Judaism reflects an anti-semitic sentiment long exhibited by european Christians. 23 according to Hegel, the jealous god of the Jews has no place in either absolute Religion or in absolute Knowledge. However, when we
22 Cf. what Hegel says at the end of his preface to the Philosophy of Right. The distinc- tive principle of Protestantism is the unwillingness to acknowledge anything which has not been justified by the subject itself. "What luther inaugurated as faith in feeling and in the testimony of the spirit is the same thing that the spirit, at a more mature stage of its development, endeavors to grasp in the concept so as to free itself in the present and thus to find itself therein. "
23 Cf. simon Critchley: "Hegel's attitude is perhaps philosophically anti-semitic, that is to say, the conceptual matrix of family, community, and property has no place for the Jew, if the latter is defined as the other to greco-Christian philosophical conceptuality. " Critchley, 'a commentary upon derrida's reading of Hegel in glas', Hegel after Derrida, ed. stuart Barnett, london/New york: Routledge 1998, p. 204.
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look at it closely, one cannot rule out the possibility that the problem here is not necessarily located in the 'object' of this sentiment (the god of the Jews, and Jewish faith), but in the narrow perspective of the subject thereof (Hegel himself). When one reads 'The spirit of Christianity', and the negative evaluation of the divine command in his mature Philosophy of Religion, it is hard to believe that Hegel did not see the irony and the paradox in his own representation of the incarnation. in addition, it is hard to understand how he could fail to notice the 'limitations' and pos- sible dangers associated with the internalization and annihilation of the law-as-law, as he would have it.
let me start off with a few critical questions and remarks on the con- cept of love that is of vital importance to Hegel's account of Christianity. according to Hegel, the Jew as a dutiful subject to the law does not, and cannot love. is not one of the dangers of love that one tends exclusively to reserve one's charity to those neighbours that fall within one's horizon, that is, with whom one can indeed easily, and emphatically, identify one- self? should we not at least try to extend our love to those who cannot simply be recognized as 'other selves', to those who cannot be seen to belong to our unity of life, and to those who are to remain (in this respect) somewhat strange and even 'opposed' to us? in respect to the dangers of any possible trade-off (a 'bad' incarnation), Jewish ethics and the impor- tance of the law for the Jewish faith deserve the benefit of the doubt. let me put it straightforward. least of all they cannot be ruled out as hateful and unloving for trying to cultivate a radical hospitality within the soul, a 'desert like emptiness' that is, for something and someone wholly strange and unexpected; something or someone that cannot possibly be reduced to and reconciled with the 'economy of the same'.
from a Jewish perspective the tables are turned. Hegel's obsession with the unity of life and with the reconciliation of the law with nature can be said to rest on an erotic form of love. a love that desires and 'takes' more than it is prepared to give. The immanent-transcendence of his 'spirit of Christianity' is an expression of a political kind of self-love, through which eternity proper and real love are being corrupted and betrayed.
