Reason and Revelation

Abstract

Abstract This chapter discusses Schelling’s Philosophy of Revelation, the second major historical component of his positive philosophy. It explores Schelling’s conception of the relation between reason and revelation, against the background of the emergence of the new sub-discipline, “philosophy of religion,” in the late eighteenth century. It then discusses Schelling’s view of Christianity as the definitive liberation of human consciousness from the mythological process. This account is compared with Hegel’s conception of the coming of Christianity as a similarly pivotal moment in human history. Schelling’s philosophical Christology is then compared with Hegel’s, with regard to their respective conceptions of freedom, and of the relation between the human and the divine. Hegel’s effort to shore up Christian doctrine philosophically, and his insistence on the role of religion in grounding the state in social existence, are compared with Schelling’s view of the trajectory of modern religious consciousness, in the light of his anticipation of what he terms “philosophical religion.”