Hegel's Trinitarian Claim , livre ebook

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
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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
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 Kenyon, 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 excellent 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 Still, I would suggest that the presentations made and argumentation carried out in the present study have not been superseded in the intervening years since its first publication.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 one which ended up serving as primary reference for the 1827 lecture series in Jaeschke's German edition and its full English translation edited by Hodgson.
I remain convinced Hegel was right in claiming that to think God as Subject and as personal one must think of God as Trinity. Given his own criteria for making his case, though, he was not able to defend that claim successfully in the public realm of thought and discourse, at least not in the way in which he argued it. In carrying out this study, it seemed strategically wise and indeed necessary not only to treat Hegel's reading of Trinity more indirectly in his Phenomenology of Spirit and directly in his Encyclopedia and Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion , but also to consider seriously his Science of Logic . For Hegel's entire mature encyclopedic system is a form of argument in favor of his trinitarian claim. So, working with his Logic , the presentation of incarnation in the Phenomenology , and his development of the idea of community in the Christian religion proved to be a good way to cover in this critical reflection all three of Hegel's “trinitarian” moments.
While, then, the original study seems to me to maintain its relevance, republishing it now provides a welcome occasion to make it more readily available and to enhance the text in several ways. For example, this Preface is new, as is the Postscript. The Bibliography has been updated to include references to works which have come to my attention especially, but not only, concerning Hegel on Trinity. Some of them may touch rather tangentially the question of Trinity and are included more because they caught my philosophical fancy. Perhaps, though, at a certain point in life after longer reflection and study, this more serendipitous approach will have some value. In light of suggestions and remarks made over the years, I have here and there added a short phrase in the text itself or in notes to help clarify a particular point. This new printing provides as well an opportunity to correct some of the typographical and stylistic errors found in the first, hardcover edition.
There are, however, several points raised by reviewers and others over the years which I would like to address more directly here in the Preface since these points have to do with the overall approach the present study takes and the argumentation it presents. Addressing these points will help underscore, at least indirectly, my ever-increasing admiration for Hegel's extraordinary genius, permit highlighting one or the other aspect of my overall reading of Hegel, and further clarify my argument concerning his philosophical interpretation of Trinity and the way in which it unfolds.
The first of these points is the proposal that my criticism of Hegel is based ultimately on comparison with some “elusive theological orthodoxy.” 1 To proceed in such a comparative mode was not at all my intention. In fact I did try to make it clear that my criticism took the form of an immanent critique of Hegel's thought, a critique based on and working with his own criteria for successful argumentation. The text reads, for example, at the beginning of Section Four in Chapter Three : “Criteria for an internal critique of Hegel's works in general must arise out of what Hegel in fact wrote, from the project he proposed to carry through and what he understood himself to be doing at the time of the writing itself.” Hence the study was meant first and foremost as a philosophical exercise. If Hegel was not successful in arguing his position on Trinity in the way in which he did, and if in fact his position could not be argued in the way in which he propose to do it, then there would be little need to consider introducing it, at least as he argued it, directly into theological discourse.
With reference to this immanent critique, we could well note another approach William Desmond has brilliantly worked out at some length over the years. He writes: “… one cannot judge Hegel just in terms of the immanent coherence of his claims…. Rather, one must have dwelled in the ambiguous plurivocity of being religious, enacted philosophical reflection about the ultimate astonishments and perplexities there occasioned, strained one's soul to the utmost to remain true to the God that is God … While internal instabilities and even incoherencies in Hegel are not unimportant, there is something more important—fidelity to the ‘matter itself.’” 2 Though this abbreviated quotation cannot begin to do justice to Desmond's thought, it does give a taste of his approach. I would myself, however, give more weight to an immanent critique, at least as a first step in a process of working with and beyond Hegel, since such a critique, among other considerations, allows us to learn from him and his brilliant proposal rather directly while then working to go beyond him. After all, as just mentioned in a similar vein, if Hegel were able to argue successfully in the public realm his trinitarian position in the way in which he presented it, it would seem hard to resist embracing that position, especially since he claimed his position was in principle inclusive and to have left nothing outside its purview.
Several eminently qualified reviewers of the hardcover edition of the present volume have raised various points whose consideration will help us clarify certain aspects of the argument presented in the present study.
Emilio Brito 3 has suggested that carrying out an immanent critique of Hegel and concluding that his theory led to untenable contradictions seemed a little naive, given the extraordinary coherence of Hegel's speculative thought. Brito suggests, rather, that it would be better to appeal to an alternative experience whose intelligibility can be shown. However, I would hold that one is in fact being more faithful to Hegel in pursuing, perhaps inevitably a bit naively, an immanent critique of his thought. After all, an immanent critique is at least in part the way in which Hegel approached the thought of his predecessors. To exemplify this we can note his treatment of Kant's philosophy, in which he finds so much to admire and yet where he points to contradictions not resolved in that philosophy. 4
In Chapter Three of the present study, I understand Hegel, in his 1830 Encyclopedia , §§ 567–571, to be describing the three “trinitarian” moments in terms of syllogisms. Brito argues that, contrary to my interpretation, those moments prior to that of individuality, but especially the moment of “immanent” Trinity, are only virtually syllogistic. 5 It is true that the first sentence in § 571, speaking of three syllogisms constituting one syllogism, is varyingly interpreted to indicate either all thr