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Full Idea
God is attainable in pure speculative knowledge alone and is only in that knowledge, and is only that knowledge itself, for He is Spirit; and this speculative knowledge is the knowledge of revealed religion.
Gist of Idea
The God of revealed religion can only be understood through pure speculative knowledge
Source
Georg W.F.Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit [1807], p.461), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 04 'Absolute'
Book Ref
Houlgate,Stephen: 'An Introduction to Hegel' [Blackwell 2005], p.100
A Reaction
If you were hoping to find out why Hegel believed in God, I fear this is the best evidence available. He is evidently opposed to natural theology. Hegel's language makes it very hard to grasp how we sees the nature of God.
| 16165 | For Aristotle God is defined in an axiom, for which there is no proof [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| 22734 | God is defended by agreement, order, absurdity of denying God, and refutations [Sext.Empiricus] |
| 12565 | God has given us no innate idea of himself [Locke] |
| 19328 | Without the principle of sufficient reason, God's existence could not be demonstrated [Leibniz] |
| 3950 | There must be a God, because all sensible things must be perceived by him [Berkeley] |
| 3951 | There must be a God, because I and my ideas are not independent [Berkeley] |
| 6957 | The objects of theological reasoning are too big for our minds [Hume] |
| 5607 | Only three proofs of God: the physico-theological (evidence), the cosmological (existence), the ontological (a priori) [Kant] |
| 21775 | The God of revealed religion can only be understood through pure speculative knowledge [Hegel] |
| 18991 | If the God hypothesis works well, then it is true [James] |
| 20694 | 'Natural theology' aims to prove God to anyone (not just believers) by reason or argument [Davies,B] |