Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born in Germany in 1770 and formed his philosophical thinking thought during the turmoil of the French Revolution. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a philosopher in Geneva, developed speculations about freedom and the General Will which influenced Hegel to a large degree. In his early years, Hegel anticipated making the confusing concepts of philosophy more available to the general public.
He attended a leading seminary and received theological credentials but had problems with the restrictive nature of Protestant theology. Notwithstanding his early ambition to make formal philosophy more available to the public, his arguments are very difficult for the average reader to follow. Nevertheless, his works had great success in winning over theologians in Europe and the United States.
Hegel emphasized “Spirit” (Geist) in his writings. Hegel presented Geist as humankind coming to know itself through a historical process. Hegel is often associated with dialectics. Dialectic theory goes back to Plato but Hegel refined previous speculations representing world history as a series of dialogues by demonstrating that each new idea contained elements of the previous paradigms.
Modern theology, as opposed to orthodox Biblical teaching, is to a large extent, the offspring of Hegel. Hegel acted as a hinge that opened many universities and seminaries to concepts that had a profound influence on education in many spheres of endeavor (especially the big Presbyterian-funded Ivy League universities (such as Harvard & Yale) and many law schools. Harvard Law adopted the Socratic method of legal education invented by Langdell, Dean of Harvard Law from 1870-1895.
Langdell’s “dialectical” Socratic method, still used today in most law schools, involved the law professor asking questions about judicial case law and reasoning. Although there is no evidence that Christopher Langdell was a Hegelian, he was profoundly influenced by Darwin’s theories and believed that law evolved in ways that sound very much like Hegel’s theory about the General Will and the development of the State as an organic result of historical processes.
Most people tend to focus on the practical as opposed to theoretical aspects of life. This causes many of us to underestimate the pervasive impact of certain philosophies in many spheres of life. By equating case law with common law, a whole new orientation to jurisprudence developed at Harvard. Eventually, the change in emphasis at Harvard impacted legal education throughout most law schools and transformed the architecture of American law.
One of my critics suggested that, despite not being an expert in theology or philosophy, I post this article explaining why Hegel is relevant today. Hegel uses religious sounding terminology that seems to say that the State is the ultimate expression of the divine mind. Hegel’s vast philosophical undertakings have a religious connotation. By means of conflicting cultural forces, human culture becomes progressively conscious of freedom. As expressed in the General Will, the State is posited to be the highest expression of such consciousness.
Many so-called “mainstream” denominations saw their Bible schools taken over by Hegelianism disguised as Modern theology — what many might call Liberal theology. Karl Marx based his dialectical materialism on Hegel’s dialectal theories. Opposing natural forces evolve into social forces manifested in conflict between social classes. Hegel’s major works, including the Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) and the Science of Logic (1812–1816), detail his vision of world history as progress toward the consciousness of freedom. Segments of both Catholic and Protestant church organizations have promoted Liberation Theology which can be simplified as Marxism camouflaged as deliverance from economic and social oppression.
However, Hegel’s influence is not limited to such Marxist “theology.” There is a pantheistic element to modern theology that is embedded in Hegel’s approach to Spirit as the driving force behind social evolution.
In 1806, Napoleon battled Prussian troops in the Battle of Jena. On the day before the battle, Napoleon entered the city of Jena. Hegel recounted his impressions with the use of the term Weltseele (“world-soul”) in reference to Napoleon (“the world-soul on horseback”, die Weltseele zu Pferde).
“I saw the Emperor – this world-soul – riding out of the city on reconnaissance. It is indeed a wonderful sensation to see such an individual, who, concentrated here at a single point, astride a horse, reaches out over the world and masters it.”
In Bamberg, Hegel was editor of a pro-French newspaper where he praised Napoleon. It is evident that he saw Napolean as an expression of the Spirit of the Age. Zeitgeist (or the Spirit of the Age) was introduced to the European public by Johann Herder and Johann Goethe. Hegel preferred to talk about the National Spirit (Volkgeist) and World Spirit (Weltgeist). Needless to say, Hegel’s influence was profound and divisive. After his death, his followers split into opposing political movements. The Marxists and Anarchists on the Left adapted his dialectical method for attacking religion and society. Fascists and Nazis also had roots in Hegel’s claims that the State expressed the General Will or Volkgeist.
In the twentieth century, Hegel has been associated with critical theory (Critical Legal Studies and Critical Race Theory), and provided elements of French existentialism. How many people realize that Sartre was an ardent Marxist who supported brutal Communist dictatorships, including Castro’s Cuba, during the time Sartre was being lionized along with Mao and Che Guevera, on universities across Europe and America!
Hegel had a particular attraction to the subject of cultural unity. “Unity of life” with oneself, with others, and with nature related to the highest good. The oneness with nature was a strong element of German Romanticism. Division (Entzweiung) or alienation (Entfremdung) was also a salient factor in Rousseau’s philosophy. Rousseau, who considered himself to be a follower of John Calvin most of his life, argued that private property corrupted society and alienated modern mankind in ways that make society corrupt and perverted by selfish ambition.
Notwithstanding Rousseau’s profession of Calvinist faith, he denied the concept of original sin and claimed that humanity is ennobled when humanity is closest to nature. Hegel made no secret that Rousseau laid the groundwork for many of Hegel’s speculations. The violent events of the French Revolution that Hegel mostly extolled were summoned from the thoughts of philosophers, of whom Rousseau was preeminent. It isn’t immediately apparent to most people that the French Revolution manifested the spirit of revolution against traditional social institutions, including private ownership of real estate, that embodies Marxist-Leninism.
If we get some feedback to these notes on Hegel, we hope to demonstrate the impact of Hegelian thought within some seminaries where Modern Theology has become endemic. Hegel discussed “failures of recognition” by which he meant not recognizing the humanity of other people. Such alienation demands reflection upon the past as a way “to understand what is required of us at the present.” The re-interpretation of “religion as the collective reflection of the modern community on what ultimately counts for it” sounds suspiciously like Critical Theory.
In theology, this is known as “Higher Criticism” by which, for example, Scriptural prophecy that has been fulfilled is deemed to have been inserted into the Bible after prophetic events have already occurred. Hegel demonstrates the point about Modern Theology and Higher Criticism by asserting that this “historically, socially construed philosophical account of that whole process” elucidates the genesis of a distinctly “modern” standpoint. Comments will be appreciated. We expect to look next at some history of modern seminary and Bible schools to see how Hegel’s ideas came to make camp there and why pantheism, Statism (including but not limited to Socialism), and Hegelian thought are all birds with similar feathers that flock together.
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