Hegel and Christian Theology

Abstract

Abstract Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion is one of the most important resources from the nineteenth century for theology as it faces the challenges of modernity and postmodernity. A critical edition of these lectures was published in the 1980s, which makes possible a study of the text on a level of accuracy and insight hitherto unattainable. The present book (by the editor and translator of the critical edition) engages the speculative reconstruction of Christian theology that is accomplished by Hegel’s lectures, and it provides a close reading of the text as a whole. The first two chapters argue that Hegel’s philosophy of religion is a philosophical theology focused on the concept of spirit, and they provide an overview of his writings on religion prior to the philosophy of religion. The book analyses Hegel’s conception of the object and purpose of the philosophy of religion, his critique of the theology of his time, his approach to Christianity within the framework of the concept of religion, his concept of God, his reconstruction of central Christian themes (Trinity, creation, humanity, evil, Christ, Spirit, community), and his placing of Christianity among the religions of the world. The concluding chapter makes a case for the contemporary theological significance of Hegel by identifying currently contested sites of interpretation and their Hegelian resolution (focusing on the categories of spirit, wholeness, narrative, Christ, community, and pluralism). Hegel, it is argued, provides a basis for a revisioning of central doctrinal themes in contrast to the reigning dogmatisms of our time, namely philosophical agnosticism and religious fundamentalism. The book is being published concurrently with the reissuing by Oxford University Press of the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion.