Hegel’s Trinitarian claim : a critical reflection

404 Pages·2012·2.018 MB·English

by  Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, Schlitt, Dale M.

Hegel’s Trinitarian Claim

Hegel’s Trinitarian Claim
A Critical Reflection
Dale M. Schlitt
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
Second Edition © 2012 State University of New York
First Edition © 1984 E. J. Brill
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever
without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic,
magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior
permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Production by Eileen Nizer
Marketing by Anne M. Valentine
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Schlitt, Dale M.
Hegel's Trinitarian claim : a critical reflection / Dale M. Schlitt.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 978-1-4384-4375-1 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4384-4374-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770–1831—Religion. 2. Trinity—History
of doctrines—19th century. I. Title.
231'.044092—dc23 2011045577
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Preface to the Paperback Edition ix
Abbreviations of Works by Hegel xv
Introduction: Hegel’s Trinitarian Claim xix
Part One
Logic—Hegel’s Reformulation of the
True Content of Trinity
1 Logic as Movement of Trinitarian Divine Subjectivity 3
1. Logic—the Movement of Pure Thought 3
2. The Movement of Self-determining Subjectivity 8
3. The Self-determining of the Divine Subject 14
4. The Necessarily Triadic Structure of the
Self-determining Divine Subject 19
5. The Logic as Elaboration of Hegel’s Trinitarian
Claim 21
2 Hegel’s Logic of Pure Thought 25
1. Through Etwas to Being 25
2. The Primordial, Elementary Movement of
Pure Thought 29
3. Summary Remarks on the Structure of Hegel’s
Dialectic 35
4. Critique of the Primordial, Elementary Movement
of Pure Thought 41
5. The Determinate Nature of Any Beginning—
Implications for Trinity 47
vi Contents
Part Two
Hegel’s Explicit Trinitarian Texts
3 Overview of Hegel’s Explicit Trinitarian Thought and a
Criterion for the Phenomenology 57
1. Transition to Hegel’s Explicit Trinitarian Texts 57
2. Hegel’s Syllogistically Structured Explicitly Trinitarian
Thought 59
3. Guiding Concerns in Approaching the Phenomenology 70
4. Toward a Criterion for Critiquing the Phenomenology 73
5. A Criterion for Hegel’s Argument in the
Phenomenology 79
4 The Incarnational Immediacy of Trinitarian Reconciliation
in the Phenomenology 83
1. Preliminary, Contextualizing Remarks 83
2. Reconciliation in Its Incarnational Immediacy and
Trinitarian Explicitation 85
3. Critique of Trinitarian Reconciliation in Its
Incarnational Immediacy 92
4. Implications for Trinity and for the Self 111
5 Trinitarian Reconciliation in Hegel’s Philosophy of
Religion Lectures 121
1. Introduction and Context 121
2. Syllogistically Structured Trinitarian Divine
Subjectivity in the 1827 Lectures 124
3. Critique of Trinitarian Reconciliation as Spiritual
Community 140
4. The Formal Triadic Structure of Becoming 149
Part Three
Reconstructing Hegel’s Trinitarian Envisionment
6 From Finite to Infinite 159
1. Recapitulative Overview 159
2. The Contours of Hegel’s Finite “and” Infinite 162
3. From Finitude to Triadically Structured Inclusive
Infinite 174
4. Toward a Reformulation of Hegel’s Trinitarian Claim 181
Contents vii
Postscript: From Thought to Experience 183
Notes 193
Bibliography 349
Index of Names 371

Preface to the Paperback Edition
I would like to thank the State University of New York Press for the
gracious offer to make this study available again, and now more widely,
with a paperback printing. I am especially grateful to Mr. Andrew Ken-
yon, Assistant Acquisitions Editor, for his encouragement of this project
and for his wise counsel and helpful guidance in carrying it out.
I believe the present study has stood the test of time over the years
since its first publication in 1984. Between then and now many excel-
lent studies have appeared on Hegel’s philosophy of religion and, more
specifically, several on Hegel’s philosophical reading of Trinity, including
what would today in theological circles be distinguished as “immanent”
and “economic” Trinity. Still, I would suggest that the presentations
made and argumentation carried out in the present study have not been
superseded in the intervening years since its first publication. Today I
would, though, after decades of pondering Hegel’s brilliant thought,
probably have written in a kinder and gentler tone. In line with my
overall reading of the continuing relevance of the present study, I in
fact took as something of at least a partial compliment the oral remark
by a respected Hegel scholar who, after reading the book, said that he
disagreed with my argument but could not point out any passages from
Hegel which I had misread or misrepresented.
Fortunately I was able, when carrying out this study, to profit
from the pioneering research of Reinhard Heede and especially that of
Walter Jaeschke in preparation for a critical text of Hegel’s Lectures on
the Philosophy of Religion, which he subsequently edited. I profited as
well from Peter C. Hodgson’s publication of a trustworthy and insightful
translation of parts of these Lectures. Luckily, Chapter Five of the present
study works with Hegel’s more fully developed lecture series of 1827 as
represented in the then available Lasson edition. This Lasson text is the
ix