Tlie essence of Hegel's religious philosopliy is found in the doctrine that the world, including nature and hu- manity, is only the self-manifestation of God. Such a system, presented with the wonderful dialectical skill that Hegel possessed, could not fail to exert a great ef- fect upon the theology of his age. Soon after he com- menced the publication of T/ie Joimud for Scieniifc Criticism (1817), the Hegelian philosophy began to show its power. This magazine was at first exclusively de- voted to the external propagation of Ilegelianism, and it added greatly, during Hegel's lifetime, to the number of proselytes. Immediately after the death of Hegel his orthodox followers effected the publication of all his works (G. W. F. Hegel's WerK', ditrch einen Vereiii von Freumlen des Vereu-ifften, etc., Berlin, 1834-45, 18 vols. 8vo). Disputes soon arose in the Hegelian school con- cerning the Person of God, the Immortality of the Soid, and the Person of Christ, which terminated in the divi- sion of the school into two camps. Daumer, Weisse, Giischel, Itosenkranz, Schaller, and others (called the riff/it wing), attempted to connect the theistic idea of God with the common notion of the divinity contamed in the Hegelian philosophy, and to prove the former from the latter; whilst Jlichelet, Strauss, and others (the left wing), maintained that the pantheistic idea of God was the only true residt of the Hegelian principle, and rejiresented God as the universal substance or the eternal luiiverse, which becomes first absolutely con-
scious of itself in humanity. Giischel, Heinrichs, Roscn- kranz, Marheinecke, ami others, attempted, besides, to justify the ecclesiastical idea ofChrist, as specifically the only God-man, on philosophical groimds, whereas "p.au- er, Conradi, Michelet, Strauss, and others, maintained that the unity of the divinity and of humanity was not realized in one individual, but in the whole of liuman- ity, so that the latter in reality is the God-man. Fi- nally, Strauss and Feuerbach (the extreme lift) devel- oped Ilegelianism into full-blown atheism and infidel- ity. " The Hegelian school pretended to find an equiv- alent for the objects of Christian faith and the proposi- tions of Christian theology in the dogmas of theii- sys- tem. The latter were said to be the pure and final ren- dering of that which Christianity presents in a popular form. The substantial contents of both M'ere averred to be identical. The Trinity, the Atonement, and the oth- er doctrines of the orthodox creed had now— so it was claimed— received a philosophical vindication, and the vulgar rationahsm which had flijipantly impugned these high mysteries was at length laid low. These sound- ing pretensions could only mislead the midisceniing. A philosophy which denies the distinct personality of God, and consequently must regard prayer as an absurdity, can by no legerdemain be identified with Christian doc- trme. The appearance of the Life ofChrist by Strauss, and the subsequent productions of Baur and his school, through the applications which they made of the He- gelian tenets to the New-Testament history and the teaching of the apostles, placed this conclusion beyond a doubt" (Fisher, £ssoi/s on the Sitpernatvral, p. 587).
It is not to be understood that Hegel's system is now vniverscdly held to be pantheistic or even anti-Christian in tendency. An analysis and translation of Hegel's Phenomenology, also Outlines of his Logic, are given in the Journ. of Spec. Philos. vols, i, ii, iii (St. Louis, 18C8-9), by the editor, W. T. Harris, wliich journal demands the carefid study of all who profess to judge of Hcgelianism. The points made in the Journal are also summed up by a writer in the Amer. Quar. Church Revieic, Oct. 1860, who maintams not only that Hegel's system is not pan- theistic, but that it is the widest and deepest system of thought yet offered to mankind, and that, too, in fidl harmony with Christianitj\ We cite from this article the folIov>-ing passages : " To help us to the highest edu- cation of om- reason is the aim of Hegel, and this help is the inestimable gift he offers to all who will under- stand him. To him philosophy Is not philosophy unless it 'stands up for all those great religious interests to which alone we virtually live.' Every step of his sys- tem is towards the deep truths of the faith ; but these things are not mere dogmas with Hegel; they appear as the logical resiUts of the most logical of systems" {Jour- nal of Speculative Philosophy, i, 25G). " In the Christian reUgion," says Hegel," God iias revealed himself, that is, he has given us to miderstand what he is ; and the pos- sibility of knowing him thus afforded us renders such knowledge a duty. God wishes no narrow-hearted souls or empty heads for his children, but those whose spirit is of itself, indeed, poor, but rich in the knowledge of him, and who regard this knowledge as their only valuable possession" (Amer. Ch. Rev. Oct. 1869, p. 415). " They who regard God as negative unity, and the creature not as self-determining, these are pantheists. AVith such a God we should only seem to be; we should only be ' modes' of that ' substance.' But man, being a self-de- termining creature, is his own negative unity, and hence his immortaUty. ' He cannot be a mere phase of a high- er being, for he is essentially a reflection of that.' Wc are made in God's image, and in him spiritually we see ourselves : who does not see, then, that the highest thought in Hegel's philosophy is only an elucidation of the central dogma of the Christian faith. God is this ideal unity, and each person of the Holy Trinity is that one God in his entirety. To sum up briefly the points of this comparison : We have found that Hegel's doc- trine of Being is the direct converse of the pantheistic