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Single Idea 21775

[filed under theme 28. God / B. Proving God / 1. Proof of God ]

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.

The 28 ideas from 'Phenomenology of Spirit'

21776 Philosophy aims to reveal the necessity and rationality of the categories of nature and spirit [Hegel, by Houlgate]
22035 The structure of reason is a social and historical achievement [Hegel, by Pinkard]
15611 I develop philosophical science from the simplest appearance of immediate consciousness [Hegel, by Hegel]
21774 Genuine idealism is seeing the ideal structure of the world [Hegel, by Houlgate]
21773 Experience is immediacy, unity, forces, self-awareness, reason, culture, absolute being [Hegel, by Houlgate]
22033 Hegel tried to avoid Kant's dualism of neutral intuitions and imposed concepts [Hegel, by Pinkard]
5647 Hegel claims knowledge of self presupposes desire, and hence objects [Hegel, by Scruton]
5648 For Hegel knowledge of self presupposes objects, and also a public and moral social world [Hegel, by Scruton]
22034 Modern life needs individuality, but must recognise that human agency is social [Hegel, by Pinkard]
21987 History is the progress of the consciousness of freedom [Hegel]
20741 Consciousness is shaped dialectically, by opposing forces and concepts [Hegel, by Aho]
6917 God is the essence of thought, abstracted from the thinker [Hegel, by Feuerbach]
6915 Hegel made the last attempt to restore Christianity, which philosophy had destroyed [Hegel, by Feuerbach]
21770 Consciousness is both of objects, and of itself [Hegel]
21771 Consciousness derives its criterion of knowledge from direct knowledge of its own being [Hegel]
22082 Truth does not appear by asserting reasons and then counter-reasons [Hegel]
21775 The God of revealed religion can only be understood through pure speculative knowledge [Hegel]
8927 Philosophy moves essentially in the element of universality [Hegel]
8928 The Absolute is not supposed to be comprehended, but felt and intuited [Hegel]
8929 In the Absolute everything is the same [Hegel]
7077 The true is the whole [Hegel]
8930 The in-itself must become for-itself, which requires self-consciousness [Hegel]
8931 The movement of pure essences constitutes the nature of scientific method [Hegel]
8932 Truth does not come from giving reasons for and against propositions [Hegel]
8933 Science confronts the inner necessities of objects [Hegel]
8934 Being is Thought [Hegel]
8935 Without philosophy, science is barren and futile [Hegel]
8936 Human nature only really exists in an achieved community of minds [Hegel]