Martin Wendte

Mystical Foundations of Politics? Luther on God’s Presence and the Place of Human Beings

This article opens up a dialogue between two strands of Luther research, which until now have had limited contact: a German strand interested in the influence of Luther’s mystical education on his Reformation theology, and a German and Anglo-American strand concerned with Luther’s doctrine of the three estates and understanding of politics, emphasising in particular God’s constant activity in our daily life. This article has a twofold aim: first, to undertake a historical reconstruction of the influence of mysticism on the late Luther, and second to draw some systematic conclusions for our contemporary situation. The conclusion emphasises that the mystical tradition helps us to gain a better understanding of God’s manifold present activities, namely, because it helps us to perceive that God does not work through spoken words alone, but also through gestures, gazes and other embodied activities.

Der Hegelsche Staat und die Vernunft der Religion

Der Staat ist eine „gottliche Institution“ (Hegel 1995a, 264) – diese und andere Spitzensatze Hegels haben dazu gefuhrt, dass Hegels Zuordnung von Staat und Religion bisweilen als vormodern und damit als irrelevant fur die gegenwartigen Debatten angesehen wird. In Wahrheit jedoch prasentiert Hegel ein Th eorieangebot, das – mit einigen Modifikationen – auch fur die heutige, postsakulare Situation mit ihrer Ruckkehr der Religion in den offentlichen Raum attraktiv ist. Um das anzudeuten und um Hegels Position einfuhrend in groben Zugen zu skizzieren, sei Hegels Ansatz mit aktuellen Diskussionen zur Zuordnung von Staat und Religion in Verbindung gebracht.

Revelation, Reason and Reality

In his dissertation, Joris Geldhof (currently professor for sacramentology at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium) reflects on one of the most pressing and deep theological questions of Christianity in modern times: How can revelation be defended as rational? Since the rise of modernity, leading philosophers have attacked the concept of revelation as heteronomous, irrational and, for epistemological reasons, impossible. For Christianity itself, though, the appeal to revelation is simply indispensable. The task, then, is to develop a concept of revelation that fulfils two requirements: it must be in accordance with the Christian tradition and it must be defensible against its modern philosophical critique. To develop such a concept of revelation, Geldhof procedes in four chapters: after some general considerations in the first chapter, he presents the typically modern critique of revelation by Karl Jaspers. The longest and most important third chapter presents the concepts of revelation developed by the later Schelling and the later Baader as views defensible against the modern critique, while the fourth chapter develops the contemporary significance of revelation for the public realm, for community building and for a theology of revelation. To present these chapters in more detail: The first, brief chapter is called ‘Defining Revelation. Some Explorations into the History of Ideas.’ (1–19) After hinting at some etymological, semantic and biblical backgrounds, Geldhof presents an overview of the concept of revelation in the history of thought. The concept of revelation reached its prominent place in the beginning of modernity, with an interesting dialectics: ‘The more the defenders of Christian faith drew on revelation, the more the opponents took offence at it. [. . . ] I dare to conclude that the problem of revelation is inextricably linked to the rise of the modern paradigm of thinking. Perhaps, regarded from a historical-theological and systematic-theological perspective, the Christian revelation is the sole problem of modernity.’ (9) Before Geldhof scrutinises the relationship of revelation and modernity in greater detail, he stresses the importance of revelation, for three reasons: Christianity derives its identity as well as its content from it, and it is legitimised by it. Thus, Geldhof defines revelation as ‘that without which Christianity cannot be thought.’ (19) Why, then, is revelation attacked by modernity? The second chapter (21–66) presents Karl Jaspers’ critique of revelation and explains why Jaspers’ critique can be seen as typical of modern philosophy as a

Monarchie des Geistes? Gegen den impliziten Hegelianismus in der gegenwärtigen Theologie

Zusammenfassung Der Aufsatz beleuchtet die Aktualität Hegels, indem er zeigt, dass viele systematische Theologen der Gegenwart mit Hegels Grundstruktur operieren. Die Grundstruktur besteht in der absoluten Vermittlung differenter Momente und bildet das organisierende Prinzip vieler im 20. Jahrhundert entworfenen Trinitätslehren. Da meist nicht erkannt wird, woher diese Grundstruktur stammt, kann vom »impliziten Hegelianismus« in der gegenwärtigen Theologie gesprochen werden. Es ist die These dieses Aufsatzes, dass der implizite Hegelianismus abzulehnen ist, da Hegels Grundstruktur denkerisch unhaltbar ist. Um diese These zu begründen, wird zuerst Hegel selbst exegetisiert und sodann aus theologischer wie aus philosophischer Perspektive kritisiert. Danach werden die gemachten Beobachtungen für die Hermeneutik des gegenwärtigen Diskurses genutzt, indem die Trinitätslehre von Gisbert Greshake auf ihren impliziten Hegelianismus hin durchsichtig gemacht wird. Abschließend wird der Ansatz einer solchen Trinitätslehre skizziert, die durch eine zu Hegel alternative Grundstruktur geprägt ist. Summary This article examines the actuality of Hegel by showing that many contemporary systematic theologians work with a Hegelian basic structure. The basic structure consists in the absolute mediation of different moments and is the organizing principle of a whole number of doctrines of the trinity developed in the 20th century. Normally, these theologians are unaware of their Hegelian heritage, so that the phenomenon may be called an “implicit Hegelianism”. It is the thesis of this article that the implicit Hegelianism has to be rejected, because Hegels basic structure is fraught with grave problems. To argue for this thesis, the article begins with an exegesis of Hegel, followed by a theological and a philosophical critique. Then these observations are used for a hermeneutics of a contemporary theologian. The doctrine of the trinity developed by Gisbert Greshake will be shown to be implicitly Hegelian and criticised accordingly. Finally, the starting point of a doctrine of the trinity will be sketched which is shaped by a alternative basic structure to the one of Hegel.

Entzogenheit als Evangelium. Theo-logische, schöpfungstheologische, christologische und anthropologische Bemerkungen zur Verborgenheit Gottes

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Meist wird angenommen, dass Gottes Verborgenheit das menschliche Leben verdunkelt. Wenn Gottes Verborgenheit doch als gute Nachricht, als Evangelium, verstanden wird, dann deshalb, weil mit ihr die Form des Evangeliums bezeichnet wird: So wird darauf verwiesen, dass Gott der Sohn ein jüdischer Zimmermannssohn wurde, in dem Gott in der Form »präziser Verborgenheit« (Jüngel) anwesend ist. Die These dieses Aufsatzes besagt demgegenüber, dass Gottes Verborgenheit in drei Hinsichten nicht nur als Form, sondern auch als Inhalt des Evangeliums zu fassen ist. Diese Form der Verborgenheit wird »Entzogenheit« genannt und bezeichnet wichtige Aspekte der Gottheit Gottes als solcher, des Verhältnisses von Schöpfer und Schöpfung sowie der göttlichen und menschlichen Personen. Der Aufsatz untersucht das komplexe Netzwerk der verschiedenen Formen der Verborgenheit und Entzogenheit, indem er mit Beobachtungen zur immanenten Trinität beginnt, von dort zur ökonomischen fortschreitet und schließlich zur immanenten zurückkehrt und dabei Gedanken von Luther, Schelling, Scholem, Jüngel, Zizioulas und Marion aufnimmt. SUMMARY Traditionally, Gods hiddenness is understood as a threat to human life. Accordingly, it is associated with bad news. If Gods hiddenness is connected to good news, to gospel, this is most often only referred to the form of the gospel, meaning that the Son of God became a Jewish son of a carpenter in ancient Palestine in the form of “precise hiddenness” (Jüngel). The thesis of this paper is that Gods hiddenness also appears in at least three dimensions of the content of gospel, which will be called withdrawal. Gods divinity as such, the relationship between creature and creation and persons (divine and human) are marked by withdrawal. The complex relationship between the different kinds of hiddenness and withdrawal is explored, with special emphasis on withdrawal as gospel, beginning with observations on the immanent Trinity and moving to the economic Trinity and back to the immanent, and by reference to the work of Luther, Schelling, Sholem, Jüngel, Zizioulas and Marion.

Metaphysics as Christology. An Odyssey of the Self from Kant and Hegel to Steiner

[1] This is a small book by a great mind with a tragic fate. It is the dissertation of Jonael Schickler, a former student of Queen’s College, Cambridge, who died in the Potters Bar rail accident in 2002 at the age of 25. The original and bold main thesis of his dissertation can be presented in three interlinked perspectives. First, in an intellectual-historical vein, the author claims that Kant leaves us with some problems which Hegel tries to overcome, but only Rudolph Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy, is able to solve. According to Schickler, Kant’s transcendentalism is fraught with the problem of the ‘thing-in-itself’ (Ding an sich), which leads to ontological scepticism. Hegel’s dialectic, with its mediation between being and thought, is the way to overcome it. But Hegel’s dialectic is under-determined because he does not give due weight to one crucial problem: how can we know the ground of our sensory impressions? It is Steiner’s four-fold conception of the human organization and of reality, culminating in his Christology, which fills this gap. Only by sublating Hegel into an even more absolute mediation, a general ontology is reached which prepares the ground for an anti-sceptical epistemology. Or, and this is the third perspective: in a contemporary philosophical and theological scene hostile to metaphysics, Schickler aims at a general ontology which sublates transcendentalism and dialectics in order to escape scepticism. This general ontology, according to his philosophical thesis, implies a theological telos, resurrection. In effect, Schickler presents an onto-theo-logy, or, as his title has it: Metaphysics as Christology. ‘This book defends the thesis, on purely philosophical grounds, that the possibility of the resurrection of a physical body is a necessary condition of ordinary thought and experience.’ (xix) [2] First, I would like to present the content of the book in somewhat greater detail—high appraisal and some criticism will follow later. The book begins with a foreword by Fraser Watts and a very helpful preface by George Pattison, Schickler’s former supervisor. The main part of the book consists of seven chapters, a conclusion and a summary. The first chapter sketches Schickler’s core question with reference to important strands of Kant’s theoretical philosophy. Chapters

Freedom and Tradition in Hegel

[1] In the last decade or two, a remarkable change in the American intellectual climate occurred with respect to Hegel. Some twenty years ago the majority of philosophers could have agreed on the statement that Hegel should be shelved under fiction. Nowadays, the most distinguished thinkers of our time are involved in serious work on Hegel. In practical philosophy, scholars like Robert Pippin, and in theoretical philosophy, for example, Robert Brandom aim at combining two perspectives. On the one hand, they undertake the extremely difficult task to do as thorough an exegesis of Hegel as possible. On the other hand, they integrate this work into the wider horizon of contemporary philosophical discussions, namely the question what modernity is and how to deal with its problems. In so doing they present a picture of Hegel in which this man, with all the complexity typical of his work, has got a lot to say in our contemporary debate. [2] Although, in the end, some severe criticism will be in place, it needs to be emphasised that the latest book by Thomas A. Lewis is amongst the finest contributions to this intellectual wave. Lewis, assistant professor in the Committee on the Study of Religion and the Divinity School at Harvard University, combines the two perspectives mentioned above in a thoroughly convincing way. In a first and most important respect, his book is an outstanding contribution to the current research on Hegel, for a number of reasons. Lewis scrutinises Hegel’s anthropology and thereby focuses on a subject which a lot of scholars point to as being important without going into it very deeply. He does so by working through both the newly edited ‘Vorlesungen über die Philosophie des Geistes’ and the corresponding paragraphs of Hegel’s Encyclopedia, thereby closing a real gap in current research. After this first part of the book (ch. 1–4) he applies his insights to some of the most debated questions on Hegel’s understanding of ethics, politics and religion (ch. 5–8). Thereby, he verifies his thesis that it is only by applying the anthropological foundations of Hegel’s thought to these questions that an advance in the current debate is possible. Through the whole book, the very nuanced picture he discloses is connected to the second perspective, Hegel as an important voice in the contemporary philosophical debate concerning the question of how freedom and tradition can reach new impulses by Hegel. For Hegel synthesises what liberals on the one hand and communitarians on the other hold

Transcendence and Self-Transcendence: On God and the Soul

[1] Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Marion are arguably among the most interesting and influential continental philosophers of the last two generations. Characteristically, all three follow the Heideggerian project of overcoming ‘metaphysics’ or ‘onto-theology’, that is, they attempt at establishing a philosophy which gives due weight to the otherness of the other, be it God or man, thereby resisting the Western tendency to reduce the other to an image made in my likeness. With the latest book by Merold Westphal, they found a theological companion who does not just share their aims, but is also able to meet the standards set by them. Westphal, Distinguished Professor for Philosophy at Fordham University, is perhaps not quite as original as they are, but he is outstandingly literate, has a clear systematic aim and represents the best of the Anglo-American tradition in being able to present his insights as an easy read in an elegant style. Although ultimately prone to some criticism, this book can be recommended whole-heartedly to anyone who, in search of an outline of the foundations of a post-metaphysical theology, is interested in a broad survey of different sources which is, at times, both surprising and truly convincing. [2] In a word, Westphal argues that broad strands of the Western philosophical tradition, culminating in modernity, think God, the world and other human beings to be at the subject’s disposal. The whole of reality is rendered intelligible to the subject’s philosophical reflection. For Westphal, this is bad theology because it reduces God to a means to an end of man’s dealing with the world. Any alternative to such an onto-theological approach has to give due weight to transcendence in a threefold sense: as cosmological, epistemic and ethical/religious transcendence. The cosmological transcendence refers to a theistic God whose free will creates ex nihilo, thereby safeguarding God’s freedom and alterity towards the world. The epistemic transcendence emphasises the fact that mankind knows about this God by revelation alone, so that God always remains a mystery to mankind. The ethical/religious transcendence concentrates on those men who are addressed by this God. They are enabled to act both towards God and their neighbour as truly other, who, in their otherness, have priority over them. Thus, these three aspects highlight different perspectives on God’s transcendence and

Hegel and Christian Theology. A Reading of the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion

[1] This book presents the result of several decades of research by America’s leading scholar of Hegel’s philosophy of religion. After retranslating and compeling the new, multivolume critical edition of Hegel’s lectures on the philosophy of religion in the eighties, Hodgson now presents in 2005 his thorough exegesis of the text. His reading embeds the lecture in a wider picture of Hegel’s philosophy and the intellectual climate of the time, concluding with a defense of Hegel’s contemporary significance. [2] Hodgson’s introductory PartOne outlines his reading of themain characteristics of Hegel’s philosophy in general, and especially his philosophy of religion. These characteristics guide his reading of the lectures as a whole. Formally, Hegel’s philosophy of religion is part of a post-Enlightment philosophical theology, ‘recovering the conceptual foundations of religion by creating a postcritical speculative theology of his own’ (13). This speculative theology is developed as a redescription of the Christian metanarrative. It is a redescription, because it translates the religious representations into philosophical concepts with the aim of discovering reason in reality. [3] This redescription is organised along a three-fold development. It begins with the unity of the concept (as the first part of the lectures), proceeds to differentiation of the history of religions (as the second part of the lectures) and ends with reconciliation in Christianity (as the third part of the lectures). In this three-fold development, the trinitarian unfolding of the Christian God is turned into the structure organising thewhole of the lectures and thus providing themetanarrative of Hegel’s philosophy of religion. Materially, Hegel is a theologian of the spirit. Spirit is the cognitive entity which, in being outside itself, remains within itself, thereby mediating between consciousness and reality, truth and history. And ‘absolute spirit is that spiritual substance whose recognitive relationships are all internal to itself’ (19). Accordingly, religion is not merely man’s consciousness of the absolute, but the self-consciousness of the absolute spirit, mediated in and through finite consciousness. [4] To clarify this interpretation ofHegel’s philosophy of religion, Hodgeson