Hegel and the Spirit: Philosophy as Pneumatology.

Abstract

and the explores the meaning of Hegel's grand philosophical category, the category of Geist, by way of what Alan Olson terms a pneumatological thesis. Hegel's philosophy of spirit, according to Olson, is a speculative pneumatology that completes what Adolf von Harnack once called the orphan in Christian theology - the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Olson argues that Hegel's development of philosophy as pneumatology originates out of a deep appreciation of Luther's dialectical understanding of Spirit and that Hegel's doctrine of Spirit is thus deeply interfused with the values of Wurttemberg Pietism. Olson further maintains that Hegel's Enzyklopadie is the post-Enlightenment philosophical equivalent of a Trinitatslehre and that his Rechtsphilosophie is an ecclesiology. Thus and the demonstrates the truth of Karl Barth's observation that Hegel is the potential Aquinas of Protestantism. Exploring Hegel's philosophy of spirit in historical, cultural and personal religious context, the book identifies Hegel's relationship with Holderlin and his response to Holderlin's madness as key elements in the philosopher's relibious and philosophical development, especially with respect to the meaning of transcendence and dialectic.