John Burbidge

The Word Became Flesh or The Orthodox Hegel

Certain men, rejecting the truth, are introducing among us false stories and vain genealogies, which serve rather to controversies than to Gods work of building up in faith. By their craftily constructed rhetoric they lead astray the minds of the inexperienced, and take them captive, corrupting the oracles of the Lord, and being evil expounders of what was well spoken. Thus did Irenaeus of Lyons initiate his treatise on the Refutation and Overthrow of the Knowledge Falsely So-called, commonly called Adversus Haereses . The targets of his polemic were the Gnostics: Valentinus, Marcion, Cerinthus and Basilides; among whom, for our purposes, we shall concentrate simply on Valentinus. According to Irenaeus, the Valentinians held that “neither was the Word made flesh, nor Christ, nor the Saviour who was made out of all the Aeons. For they allege that the Word and Christ never came into this world, and that the Saviour was neither incarnate nor suffered, but that he descended as a dove [that is, at his baptism] upon that Jesus who was made by dispensation, and when he has proclaimed the unknown Father ascended again into the Pleroma [that is, when Jesus said, ‘Into thy hands I commend my spirit.’] It is important to notice the distinction Valentinus draws between Christ, the divine Son (who simply appropriates the human Jesus for a time), and the Jesus who was born of Mary and died on Calvary. They are not to be simply identified.

Concept and Time in Hegel

To formulate a philosophy of time is not easy, even though it would seem to be the basic requirement for any philosophy which attempts to comprehend the world of nature or of history. The problem is briefly posed: Can the conceptual framework of philosophical thought do justice to the dynamic character of time? The purpose of this paper is not to provide a definitive answer to this question. Its aim is more limited. By discussing carefully the way in which Hegels philosophy related conceptual thought to time, it hopes to provide new perspectives on this vexing philosophical problem.