In the other religions, God is still something other to what he reveals himself to be:… God is the inner and the unknown; he is not as he appears to consciousness. But precisely here [in the Christian religion it is maintained]: (α) that he appears, he reveals his own definition; (β) [that] precisely this appearing – implicitly of the universal, not in a fixed, finite determinate form but as subsumed, the transfigured divine world – is an appearing as he is. (God’s being is his action, his revelatory action itself.)[1]
[1] Hegel, The Christian Religion: Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, vol. 3, 64.
April 24, 2008 at 8:36 pm
Funny story: I read this to my Hegel-loathing, but Barth-adoring roommate (I cannot convince him against the idea of the totalizing-Hegel because of his love for Kierkegaard), and made him guess its origin. He guessed Barth. The revelation of its true origin was a smug silence from him, but all smiles on my end.
April 25, 2008 at 11:54 am
Troy,
That pretty much must prove my case. I’ll take that to be the effective test case! Not sure it’ll be accepted as evidence in my essay though…
May 27, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Hegel is at the origin of european thougth, although almost no one dares to explicitly quote him.
Heidegger used to repeat: “the truly post-hegelian era is still to come”.