This study is an attempt to examine the relationships between religious belief and the humanism of the Enlightenment in the philosophy of Hegel and of a group of thinkers who related to his thought in various ways during the 1840's. It begins with a study of the ways in which Hegel attempted to evolve a genuinely Christian humanism by his demonstration that the modern understanding of man as a free and rational subject derived its strength and validity from the union of God and human existence in the incarnation. The rest of this study is con cerned with two different forms of opposition to Hegel: first, the criti cal discipleship of the Young Hegelians and Moses Hess, who insisted that Hegel's notion of Christian humanism was false because religious belief was necessarily inimical to a clear consciousness of social evil and the determination to abolish it; second, the religious opposition to the Enlightenment in the thought of Schelling and Kierkegaard, which emphasized God's transcendence to human reason and the insig nificance of secular history. In the years leading up to the revolution of 1848, Hegel's synthesis was rejected in favour of the assertion of atheistic humanism or religious otherworldliness. Chapter One, after discussing the young Hegel's critique of the social and political effects of Christianity, examines the union of religi ous belief, speculative philosophy and the rational state in Hegel's mature system.

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Bibliographic Information

Book Title: Religion, Rationality and Community
Book Subtitle: Sacred and secular in the thought of Hegel and his critics
Authors: Robert Gascoigne
Series Title: International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-5051-1
Publisher: Springer Dordrecht
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive
Copyright Information: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht 1985
Hardcover ISBN: 978-90-247-2992-0Published: 31 May 1985
Softcover ISBN: 978-94-010-8736-0Published: 27 September 2011
eBook ISBN: 978-94-009-5051-1Published: 06 December 2012
Series ISSN: 0066-6610
Series E-ISSN: 2215-0307
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIV, 308
Topics: Modern Philosophy, History, general, Philosophy of Religion

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Table of contents (6 chapters)

Front Matter

Religion and Politics in the Philosophy of Hegel

Bauer: Atheistic Humanism and the Critique of Religious Alienation

Political Utopia and the Philosophy of Action

The Late Schelling: The Philosophy of Mythology and Revelation

Individualism and Religious Transcendence in Kierkegaard’s Thought

Conclusion

Back Matter

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