Single Idea 21797

[catalogued under 29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / a. Immortality]

Full Idea

The immortality of the soul must not be imagined as though it first emerges into actuality at some later time; rather it is a present quality. ...As pure knowing or as thinking, Spirit has the universal for its object - this is eternity.

Gist of Idea

Immortality does not come at a later time, but when pure knowing Spirit fully grasps the universal

Source

Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion [1827], III: 208), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 10 'Death'

Book Reference

Houlgate,Stephen: 'An Introduction to Hegel' [Blackwell 2005], p.265


A Reaction

An unusual view of immortality, which challenges orthodoxy. The idea seems to be that 'pure knowing' is a grasping of the pure reason which embodies nature, which in turn is the nature of God. You enter eternity, rather than reside in it?