HEGEL,G.W.F.- Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion Volume I INTRODUCTION and THE CONCEPT OF RELIGION Berlin 1821 1831 Peter Hodgson Berkeley 1984

GEORG WILHELM FRIED RICH HEGEL

LECTURES ON THE

PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

VOLUME I

INTRODUCTION

and

THE CONCEPT OF RELIGION

Edited by

PETER C. HODGSON

Translated by R. F.

P. C. HODGSON, and J. M. with the assistance of J. P. FITZER and H. S. HARRIS

BROWN,

STEWART

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

Berkeley, Los Angeles, London

LECTURES

on the

PHILOSOPHY

of RELIGION

University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England

This edition is the result of collaborative work on the part of Ricardo Ferrara (Conicet, Argentina), Peter C. Hodgson (Van­ derbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee), and Waiter ]aeschke (Ruhr-Universitat, Bochum), who have shared equally in the preparation of the text. The German text on which this trans­ lation is based is copyrighted © by Felix Meiner Verlag GmbH., Hamburg, 1983. A German edition, edited by Walter ]aeschke, and a Spanish edition, edited by Ricardo Ferrara, are appearing concurrently with the English edition. Copyright © 1984 by The Regents of the University of California First

-

P~oerback ~-r-

Printing 1995

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831. Lectures on the philosophy of religion. Translation of: Vorlesungen iiber die Philosophie der Religion. Includes index. Contents: v. 1. The concept of religion. 1. Religion-Philosophy-Addresses, essays, lectures. I. Hodgson, Peter Crafts, 1934-. 11. Title. B2939.E5B76 1984 201 83-9132 ISBN 0-520-20371-2 (v. 1) Printed. in the United States of America 1 234 5 6 789 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

e

DEN FREUNDEN HEGELS

CONTENTS

PREFACE

XI

ABBREVIATIONS, SIGNS, AND SYMBOLS

XVII

FREQUENTLY CITED WORKS

XXI

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION

1

1

8

20

33

40

52

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Hegel's Lectures and the Philosophy of Religion The Sources of the Lectures Previous Editions Basic Principles of the Present Edition The Method of Editing the Texts Principles of Translation 7. The Structure and Development of

Hegel's "Introduction" 8. The Structure and Development of

"The Concept of Religi£.n"

,0

58

68

(iNTRODUCTION HEGEL'S LECTURE MANUSCRIPT

Preface 1. On the Purpose of the Philosophy of Religion 2. The Relation of the Philosophy of Religion

to Religion 3. Opposition between Religious Consciousness

and the Rest of Consciousness 4. Need for the Reconciliation of Religion

and Cognition 5. Division of the Subject

VII

83

83

86

89

92

104

109

CONTENTS

1824 Preface 1. The Relation of the Philosophy of Religion

to the Whole of Philosophy [2. The Position of the Philosophy of Religion

vis-a-vis the Needs of Our Time 3. The Relationship of the Philosophy of Religion

I

to Positive Religion 4. Preliminary Questions 5. Survey of the Stages of Our Discussion THE LECTURES OF 1827 Preface 1. Comparison of Philosophy and Religion

with Regard to Their Object 2. The Relationship of the Science of Religion

to the Needs of Our Time 3. Survey of the Treatment of Our Subject

THE LECTURES OF

r

r

113

113

115

121

129

132

141

149

149

151

154

174

/'

PART I.(THE CONCEPT OF RELIG~ "--- .

HEGEL'S LECTURE MANUSCRIPT

A. The Concept of Religion in General B. Scientific Conception of the Religious Standpoint 1. The Distinction between External

and Internal Necessity 2. Speculative Definition of the Concept of Religion 3. The Religious Relationship as the Unity of

Absolute Universality and Absolute Singularity C. Necessity of This Standpoint D. The Relationship of Religion to Art and Philosophy 1. Intuition 2. Representation 3. Thought THE LECTURES OF 1824 A. Empirical Observation

viii

185

185

199

199

204

207

221

233

234

238

250

257

258

CONTENTS

1. Immediate Knowledge 2. Feeling 3. Consciousness in More Determinate Form 4. The Relationship of the Finite and the Infinite 5. Transition to the Speculative Concept B. The Speculative Concept of Religion 1. Definition of the Concept of Religion 2. The Necessity of the Religious Standpoint 3. The Realization of the Concept of Religion a. The Theoretical Relationship: The Representation of God b. The Practical Relationship: The Cultus THE LECTURES OF 1827 A. The Concept of God B. The Knowledge of God 1. Immediate Knowledge 2. Feeling 3. Representation 4. Thought a. The Relationship of Thought and Representation b. The Relationship of Immediate and Mediated Knowledge c. Religious Knowledge as Elevation to God C. The Cultus

261 268 277 288 310 314 314 319 324 328 336 365 366 380 385 390 396 403 404 407 414 441

APPENDIXES \

THE RELATIONSHIP OF RELIGION TO THE STA~~"\ ACCORDING TO THE LECTURES OF

1831

451

EXCERPTS FROM A TRANSCRIPT OF THE LECTURES OF \,

1831

BY DAVID FRIED RICH STRAUS~ ..........

.-"

PAGINATION OF THE ORIGINAL SOURCES INDEX

IX

461 475 485

PREFACE The appearance of the first volume of this new English edition of Hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion is the result of a dream and of journey. Nearly a decade ago, I began dreaming of the possibility of an alternative to the outmoded translation of an outmoded edition of a work of seminal importance for the whole of modern theology, philosophy of religion, and religious thought. One summer I began on my own a translation of the third volume of Lasson's edition, thinking primarily of a classroom text for courses like mine on Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century. When others heard of my work through the Nineteenth Century Theology Group of the American Academy of Religion, the plan was expanded to include the entire work, to be prepared by a team of translators for publication in the new Texts and Translations Series of the Academy. Such a project could have been launched only in a state of in­ nocence respecting current Hegel scholarship. Through the good offices of Professor Richard Crouter, I was put in touch with the Hegel Archive, located at' the Ruhr University in Bochum, West Germany, and in particular with Dr. WaIter ]aeschke, a member of the editorial staff, who in 1970 had written an unpublished thesis on Hegel's philosophy of religion at the Free University of Berlin, demonstrating that not only the original Werke editions of 1832 and 1840, on which the 1895 English translation was based, but also Lasson's supposedly more critical edition of 1925-1929, were marred by serious defects. About the same time, I learned that two other scholars had been planning for several years to publish a new

a

XI

PREFACE

edition of the lectures in both German and English-a plan that, as it turned out, never materialized. After several months of inde­ cision, it was agreed that I would complete my translation of the third part, for which Lasson provided a more adequate text, cor­ recting the most serious problems on the basis of materials to be furnished by Jaeschke. This would be a study edition, designed merely to fill the gap until the newly edited texts could appear in the historical-critical edition, being prepared at the Hegel Archive, in the 1990s. This study edition was published by Scholars Press in 1979 under the title The Christian Religion, and will be reissued in thoroughly revised and retranslated form as volume 3 of the present edition. However, there was widely shared dissatisfaction with having to wait another fifteen years before the project could be resumed. A century and a half after the appearance of the first edition of Hegel's philosophy-of-religion lectures in 1832, there was still lacking an edition of these lectures adequate to the demands of critical inter­ pretative scholarship. This lack had been expressed rather sharply during the preceding decade of Hegel scholarship, especially in Germany. But the need could not have been met even today were it not for a fortunate development, namely, the recent discovery of important new sources. A decade earlier, only Hege!'s original manuscript of 1821 and the lecture series of 1824 could have been included in a new edition, but today the last two series, those of 1827 and 1831, can also be taken into account (the latter only in outline form). Just at the time that photocopies of the newly dis­ covered manuscripts were being acquired by the Archive, strong interest was being expressed not only in a new English edition (on my part) but also in a new Spanish edition, on the part of Professor Ricardo Ferrara of the University of Buenos Aires. In the fall of 1980, Waiter Jaeschke, Ricardo Ferrara, and I met in Bochum and agreed to proceed immediately with plans for a new edition to be published concurrently in German, English, and Spanish. Jaeschke was completing his work on the critical edition of the Wissenschaft der Logik and would have time to devote to the new project. The key editorial work would be done by him, with as much assistance as possible from Ferrara and me. Not only would the editorial XII

PREFACE

burden be lightened somewhat, but this would be a unique venture in international collaboration. We agreed that the fundamental principle of the new edition should be that the four lecture series-1821, 1824, 1827, 1831­ would be separated and published as autonomous units on the basis of a complete reediting of the sources. Hegel's conception and ex­ ecution of the lectures differed so significantly on each of the oc­ casions he delivered them that it was impossible to conflate materials from different years into an editorially constructed text, as was attempted both in the Werke and by Lasson, without de­ stroying the structural integrity of the lectures and thus emascu­ lating the textual context in terms of which valid interpretative judgments could be rendered. This basic weakness has skewed all previous attempts at interpreting Hegel's lectures on the philosophy of religion. We also agreed that our editorial methods would be similar to, or at least congruent with, those being employed by the historical­ critical edition, the Gesammelte Werke, which is being prepared at the Hegel Archive in Bochum on behalf of the Academy of Sciences of Rhineland-Westphalia in association with the Deutsche For­ schungsgemeinschaft, and being published by Felix Meiner Verlag, Hamburg. From the point of view of the critical edition, it would be advantageous to acquire experience in editing Hegel's lectures (none of which he published himself) in advance of the definitive treatment they would receive in the Gesammelte Werke, since in fact the critical principles for this task remained to be worked out. Moreover, editions of two dif(erent sorts were needed in any case. In the Gesammelte Werke, HegeJ's lectures will be dispersed into several volumes. One volume, for which WaIter ]aeschke has been assigned editorial responsibility, will contain all of HegeJ's own lecture manuscripts, including not only that on the philosophy of religion but also manuscripts on philosophy of right, philosophy of history, logic and metaphysics, aesthetics, etc. Several other vol­ umes will contain the student transcripts or notebooks of lectures given over a period of years. Because of this dispersal in the critical edition, the texts on a specific topic such as the philosophy of religion will need to be drawn together in another series and pubXlIl

PREFACE

lished as a unit. Normally this would be done after the critical edition had appeared. But in view of the urgent demand for these materials, and in order to gain the requisite experience, Meiner Verlag agreed to launch without delay a second series. G. W. F. Hegel, Vorlesungen: Ausgewahlte Nachschriften und Manuskripte ("Hegel's Lectures: Selected Transcripts and Manuscripts"). Part 1 of the Vorlesungen uber die Philosophie der Religion was the first volume to appear in this series in 1983, with Parts 2 and 3 scheduled for publication in 1984 and 1985. The English translation of this work is intended as the one and only critical edition in English. It will be unnecessary and inappro­ priate to reproduce the German historical-critical edition with its massive apparatus and dispersed chronological arrangement, not only on the grounds of practicality but also because scholars needing such specialized information should be competent in German. Fu­ ture revisions of the English edition will be needed only if significant new manuscript finds occur. Rather than a yet more critical edition in English, we intend to issue an abridged edition in paperback when the three volumes of the present work have been completed; probably in 1986 or 1987. In 1981, the National Endowment for the Humanities awarded a three-year translation grant to underwrite the basic expenses of preparing the English edition, of which I was designated project director and editor. A translation team was assembled, the per­ manent members of which are: Professor Robert F. Brown of the University of Delaware, whose previous scholarly work has been in the area of Schelling studies; Mr. J. Michael Stewart of Farnham, England, formerly acting chief of the English translation section of UNESCO, Paris, and an interested student of Hegel since his studies in German and philosophy at Cambridge and London; and the editor, who was introduced to Hegel research through earlier studies on Ferdinand Christian Baur and David Friedrich Strauss. Brown has translated the 1827 lectures and the appendix on religion and state; Stewart has translated the 1824 lectures and the Strauss ex­ cerpts of 1831, checking the other translations as well; while the editor's responsibility has been for Hegel's lecture manuscript. Dur­ ing the 1981-82 academic year, Professor joseph P. Fitzer of St. john's University, jamaica, N. Y., shared in the translation of the

XIV

PREFACE

1824 lectures. Professor H. S. Harris of Glendon College, York University, Toronto, a distinguished Hegel scholar and translator, has served as a demanding and faithful consultant to the project by thoroughly criticizing and revising all our translation drafts. His contribution has been indispensable, but the editor must assume final responsibility for the form in which the materials appear in print. A detailed account of translation principles is provided in Sec. 6 of the Editorial Introduction. Financial support has been provided by several other sources in addition to the Endowment. In 1980-81, my research leave at the Hegel Archive was supported by the German Fulbright Commission, the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, the Association of Theological Schools, and the Vanderbilt University Research Council. I am appreciative of the hospitality afforded by the Archive and its staff during this period. The Fritz Thyssen Stiftung of Cologne generously provided the matching gift required by NEH, which permitted a further leave in the fall of 1983. Additional research expenses have been met by the Vanderbilt Research Council, by the University of Delaware's General University Research Program, and by supplementary grants from the National Endowment for the HlImanities. For the generosity of support from all these sources I am profoundly grateful. The many persons who have contributed in so many different ways to this project evoke an awareness that th_e .ilssociatiop__C!f H~gel's friends is not limited to that group of colleagues and students who gathered shortly after his death to bring out an edition of his works. Above all, I am indebted to the friendship of Waiter ]aeschke, who was so receptive and willing to share this project with non-Germans, who worked so unremittingly to make it succeed, and who was so personally hospitable during my visits to Bochum; and to that of Ricardo Ferrara, whose philological skills, scholarly expertise, and collegial spirit made an invaluable contribution. The English translators and the consultant-Robert Brown, Michael Stewart, H. S. Harris-have worked harmoniously and with the utmost dedication, although for the most part the mails and the telephone have been our only link, dis'pers~d as_ w~are_in thre~~o.!1!1Jries_~_n~Uu~ities. Indispensable support was provided in Bochum by GudruJ1J