He studied theology at the theological school of the University of T ü bingen, and the theology given to him by his teacher was no longer the conservative theology of the past, but the kind of Christianity that had at least adapted to Enlightenment thought. It was basically rationalist, but also had a bit of biblical naturalism in theism. However, in Hegel's view, his intellectual religion was not only dull and impoverished compared to the colorful and vibrant Greek world, but also detached from the spirit and the needs of his generation.
He, like Heidegger when he was studying, pursued philosophy that could meet the spiritual needs of people in our time.
He compared Christianity with Greek religion, believing that Greek religion is rooted in the spirit of the Greek nation and forms a part of Greek culture. Christianity is a religion of books, based on the Bible, and is a product of a first-class race that is incompatible with the souls of the Germanic people. In addition, Christianity ignores human happiness and freedom and is insensitive to beauty.
However, Hegel's early passion for Greek creativity and culture was soon softened by his study of Kantian philosophy. Why is he not as enthusiastic about the Greek spirit as he was at the beginning, because he believes that the Greek spirit lacks moral depth. In his view, Kant provided this moral depth and a sincere factor, while also elaborating on an ethical religion.
Hegel believed that what he expressed was the ultimate concern of biblical religion, but he did not mean that humanity would have moral depth only after Kant. In fact, he was also the founder of Christianity and, like Kant, emphasized morality.
In his biography of Jesus written in 1795, Germans at that time liked to write the biography of Jesus. Westeros also wrote the biography of Jesus. In his 1795 biography of Jesus, he portrayed Jesus as a moral teacher and expounded on a Kantian morality.
The reason why Jesus preached was because the Jewish people had a habit of believing that all religious and moral insights were inspired by God and came from a divine source. Therefore, in order to convince the Jews to fully listen to him, Jesus had to say that he was God's messenger. However, in reality, Jesus Christ's intention was neither to become the sole mediator between God and man, nor to instill the doctrine of revelation.
In Hegel's writings, Jesus Christ is a rationalist, which is not a truly religiously recognized Jesus Christ, but rather an image of Jesus Christ created by himself. However, during the Frankfurt period, Hegel's attitude towards Christianity changed, and this article reflects the spirit and fate of Christianity.
In this article, Judaism and its legalist morality are the objects of criticism. Why does Legalism, also known as Church Law, criticize Jews in Judaism and Cultivism?
Because we know that Christianity originated from Judaism, and for Jews, God is the master and man is the slave, and man must execute the will of his master. But he said that Christianity is different. For Christianity, God is love, and he lives in the hearts of people. The alienation between people is overcome through the unity of love and the life of love.
Kant insisted on moral law and obligation, emphasizing that we humans must overcome our own passions and impulses. Hegel now sees this as problematic, and at this time Hegel began to say that he pays more attention to the emotional aspect of human beings. He believes that Kant's pure rationalist morality is also problematic.
And it also has its own subjective color, it's just that the master is not God, but the so-called absolute command, which is our human free will, and there are also problems here. So, when Hegel was young, his thinking was very complex and open. It didn't mean that there were only others. He would stand in one direction for a long time, change places, and then look at the problem in the opposite direction. This was a basic practice of his dialectics later on.
He acknowledges that morality is a struggle, but his ideal is that morality should no longer be a matter of obedience as we understand it. In short, morality should no longer be a matter of obeying laws, but should become a spontaneous expression of life itself participating in an infinite divine life.
However, how can one participate in the spontaneous expression of a sacred life on their own? This is not stated. He said that Christianity does not eliminate moral content, but rather removes the form of what he calls law and replaces the motivation of obeying the law with the motivation of love. The concept of law is derived from Judaism.
Why do we need to be moral? Because we are love, our motivation is not that I should obey the law unconditionally, but that I should obey love unconditionally. In 1800, Hegel also wrote some fragmented notes, which later became known as a system notes. These things were very important, although they have not yet been included in the 20 volume works of the Frankfurt master Hegel. It is only in these few years that he sorted them out.
However, this note is important and may not necessarily be a summary of a complete system as thought by Hegelian researchers such as Roland and Dilthey from the last century to the 19th century, but it is also very interesting.
At this point, Hegel had already seen that the fundamental opposition between modern culture and modernity was characterized by a series of oppositions. He had already seen too much in the differences between Kant, Schelling, and Fichte's systems. He was truly a genius.
Now we will talk about the characteristics of modernity, emphasizing rationality or something, and its biggest problem now is the binary transformation. He said that the biggest problem now is binary division.
At that time, he cited many divisions between subject and object, between man and nature, and a series of divisions. However, in the fragments of this system, the notes stated that the fundamental result of this series of divisions is the division between finite and infinite. This is very profound. On the one hand, people may say the opposition between sensibility and reason, the opposition between nature and humanity, or something like that. How could he say that all these oppositions ultimately come down to finite and infinite.
Ordinary people still cannot understand the opposition between finite and infinite. He said that his whole life is to deal with it, to solve how to overcome these oppositions.
A great philosopher is like this. He doesn't think of things as they are, or there are some people like us who claim to want to create a system. You can create a system, are you creating a system for the sake of creating a system, or do you have problems? To be honest, a true great philosopher must have a fundamental diagnosis of this era. Heidegger is higher than the Frankfurt School, and in this regard, the Frankfurt School's diagnosis is also a bit of a matter of things, such as personality alienation or the commodification of technology.
Heidegger doesn't talk about these things. Heidegger talks about existence, and those who understand will speak deeply. Those who don't understand will speak nonsense. Who are you lying to? Why are you going around with me? I might as well watch Marcu's critique of late capitalism with ease. Heidegger is like a German philosopher.
Hegel said that the problem is that if we put ourselves in the position of an observer, the movement of life is to us like a diversity of infinite organization composed of finite individuals, that is, nature. In fact, we can describe nature as a reflective or understanding form of life.
This premise is to put us humans into nature. So, do we see ourselves as bystanders or as parties involved? Later on, Dewey was greatly influenced by Hegel when he was young, and he specifically developed a theory of epistemology called critical bystanders in Dewey's philosophy.
I see myself as an observer. If we see ourselves as observers, of course, the world must be subject and object with subjectivity and objectivity. All these distinctions come from the so-called, scientific, humanistic, valuable, and factual. Why do all these binary oppositions not exist for Greeks?
Because they believe they are a part of the universe. Why didn't our ancestors exist?
Because ancient people believed that, like the Greeks, they were a concept of the unity of all things, which we have forgotten today. Hegel certainly acknowledges that individual things, including us as individuals, are constantly changing and subject to extinction, but we must view thought itself as a form of life. Individuals are meant to disappear, but in human thinking, we should consider them as a form of life. Life, of course, refers to the great life of the universe, and it is this kind of thinking that imagines the unity between things as an infinitely created life, the kind of relationship that constitutes the universe.
He is an infinitely created life, not to say that the cosmic entity is an infinitely created life. This is what sets Hegel apart from all other philosophers. Such a process, he will not die, life will not die, and it will affect a limited number of individuals. Creative life, the dissemination it contains, is not a purely abstract concept when we can call it God and God.
However, we must say that God and God are one entity, a unity of things, a unity of the universe, and a unity between things in the universe. In addition, Hegel said that we must also define it as spirit. Unity does not refer to the connection between finite things, nor does it refer to a purely abstract concept of life, nor is it an abstract commonality. It is the unity of various complex activities, and this is life!
So, what is Hegel's concept of life?
He is the unified thing of the universe, which is life, but belongs to the living unity of complexity. He unifies all limited things from within, rather than eliminating them, which is impossible at this point. Later, due to the concept of Hegelian spirit, we have been discussing Hegelian reform philosophy, and this concept of Hegelian spirit has been of great significance in the development of Hegelian philosophy.
