I've been waiting for DBH vs. JDW on Hegel for a long time and I am so ready to get really invested in theological arguments I'm too stupid to understand.
I am sorry to hear you've not been feeling well. I also would like to say that your book on Universalism allowed me to remain a Christian. Thank you, DBH.
I am pursuing this line of thought hard in my series of substack articles on 'Christisn Atheism' re Hegel, ZIzek, and Jean Paul Nancy. My effort there is mostly expository; it is really addressed to people who have little sense of the Christian doctrine of God, but I am trying to caputre something of the affect of that doctrine.. And I am pretty far out of my wheelhouse. I think my view of Hegel is very like yours, although with less authority and less prudence of course. Anyway, I can't wait for this and just hoping it won't turn it all to straw. My aim, my telos, will be to end my series with the phrase "an imperturbable joy."
I had a professor who said the problem with Hegel is that most people should start with his Philosophy of Religion Lectures or his lectures on the Existence of God. But everyone just rushes right into Phenomenology of Spirit instead. Personally, I felt an immediate kinship with Schelling and have put off that massive body of Hegel’s writings largely unread, so I’m looking forward to read along and finally fill that gap. Good strength on the new series.
If you start with the Early Theological Writings, you can get a head start on the rest, but especially the Phenomenology. I assume that DBH will address the fact that Hegel uses the word, “Liebe” (Love), in a way that correlates in many respects to his later use of “Geistes” (Spirit/Mind).
Ever since reading Wood, it seemed quite obvious to me that the difference between the two of you is exactly as you have described. I’m grateful you’re addressing this. It seems important to keep clear that analogy is not a conceptual dodge or an evasion of paradox, but precisely the condition that allows any Christological dialectic to avoid slipping into contradiction or into a tragic account of God’s relation to creation. I’m eager to see how you unfold this in the coming essays.
I wonder whether the loss of an analogical vision of being has contributed to the increasingly adversarial and zero-sum assumptions in our public life. I’d be fascinated to hear whether you see a connection between these metaphysical frameworks and our current political climate.
Might we also hope to see some 20th-century Lutheran theologians discussed? Reading The Beauty of the Infinite, I found your dismissal of Eberhard Jüngel's work ("vastly more systematic, but paradoxically even more incoherent" than Moltmann, "with liberal lashings of late romantic nihilism") quite harsh, when, as I understand it, he was himself trying to show the shift from a dialectical to an analogical theology in Barth.
I am afraid I wrote that book almost 30 years ago (though it was not published till 7 years later), so I have no opinions regarding what I said in it about many things.
Very interesting! I’m looking forward to this series, and I would also love to read your assessment of Deleuze’s work. I believe—following Foucault—that this century will be Deleuzian, for better or for worse, and that, in contrast to this somewhat Hegelian tendency, Deleuze’s philosophy of difference will gain greater relevance. Does your view align with that of Catherine Pickstock?
I too, as many have expressed, am drawn in great interest to your proposed writing on Hegel and Theology. Your clarification in terms of World, God, Creation - as well as analogical, ontological, metaphysical - and, especially, Chalcedon Conciliar doctrine, Christology, and morality.
I am in a discussion of the Epistemology of Michael Polanyi, with it's implications for Ontology, as a new Metaphysics. My education in Moral Philosophy has pivoted more on Kant than Hegel - see John Macmurray and The Form of the Personal. But my co-terminus education in Philosophy (History) is grounded in the Mindbody phenomenology of William H. Poteat and what was called 'ordinary language.' I never thought to link the traditional philosophical discussion in the rationalistic vis a vis empiricistic-positivistic terms of the West to that of Christian Dogma, and seem to have been getting vague prompts in that direction over the last several months.
Rather alongside, perhaps, than in the midst of your discussion, is my interest in the literary critic, or philosopher of culture, George Steiner's question as to whether there is "a poetry of thought." His little book, to me a concision of his writing, The Poetry of Thought from Hellenism to Celan, is in an other term of terms an attempt to understand what all this may mean.
Yet, I seem driven, in some ecclesial sense, Christian - in the neighborhood of what not long ago was the quest regarding the image of man in relation to the Logos. I look forward to the analogue in your upcoming writings ahead to what has been and is of such good help in your writing, thanks!
For those not intimately familiar with the Sage of Jena, I’ve found Frederick Beiser’s recently published survey of his thought (simply titled ‘Hegel’) surprisingly readable, even lively.
This promises to be a very fruitful assessment of the ontologically applicable elements of Hegel's panlogism for Christian theology. I'm looking forward to it!
I've been waiting for DBH vs. JDW on Hegel for a long time and I am so ready to get really invested in theological arguments I'm too stupid to understand.
Well it is your salvation on the line. Got to invest in something!
Down with meaningless mystical paradoxes! Up with the analogical interval! Suck it, Jenson! Suck it, Hegel! Exit the cosmos, Wood!
(See? I'm very invested. I just have no idea what I'm talking about.)
I don’t want Jordan to exit the cosmos. I like him.
Only in a P̶i̶c̶k̶w̶i̶c̶k̶i̶a̶n̶ Pauline sense, of course. 1 Corithians 5 and all that.
Or he can follow Simon Foster's line from In the Loop and "stand his ground on the verge.”
I am sorry to hear you've not been feeling well. I also would like to say that your book on Universalism allowed me to remain a Christian. Thank you, DBH.
Sigh. You’re going to force me to learn German, aren’t you?
You should do that anyway.
I want to see a third-eye activated David Armstrong posting about modern metaphysics from Spinoza to Schelling
Fatal flaw: because I, definitionally, and even contractually, only write about what interests me in a given moment, I could only do the first one.
I’ll take that as a binding oath for future Spinoza deep dives
https://trailers.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/1a208867-786f-4f45-b50c-492b3bb08c6d/gif
Completely unrelated (or is it?): this newsletter has become my go to for learning about music.
I am pursuing this line of thought hard in my series of substack articles on 'Christisn Atheism' re Hegel, ZIzek, and Jean Paul Nancy. My effort there is mostly expository; it is really addressed to people who have little sense of the Christian doctrine of God, but I am trying to caputre something of the affect of that doctrine.. And I am pretty far out of my wheelhouse. I think my view of Hegel is very like yours, although with less authority and less prudence of course. Anyway, I can't wait for this and just hoping it won't turn it all to straw. My aim, my telos, will be to end my series with the phrase "an imperturbable joy."
I had a professor who said the problem with Hegel is that most people should start with his Philosophy of Religion Lectures or his lectures on the Existence of God. But everyone just rushes right into Phenomenology of Spirit instead. Personally, I felt an immediate kinship with Schelling and have put off that massive body of Hegel’s writings largely unread, so I’m looking forward to read along and finally fill that gap. Good strength on the new series.
If you start with the Early Theological Writings, you can get a head start on the rest, but especially the Phenomenology. I assume that DBH will address the fact that Hegel uses the word, “Liebe” (Love), in a way that correlates in many respects to his later use of “Geistes” (Spirit/Mind).
Yes, that’s all true. I intend only a quick survey of the pre-Jena phases.
Ever since reading Wood, it seemed quite obvious to me that the difference between the two of you is exactly as you have described. I’m grateful you’re addressing this. It seems important to keep clear that analogy is not a conceptual dodge or an evasion of paradox, but precisely the condition that allows any Christological dialectic to avoid slipping into contradiction or into a tragic account of God’s relation to creation. I’m eager to see how you unfold this in the coming essays.
I wonder whether the loss of an analogical vision of being has contributed to the increasingly adversarial and zero-sum assumptions in our public life. I’d be fascinated to hear whether you see a connection between these metaphysical frameworks and our current political climate.
Might we also hope to see some 20th-century Lutheran theologians discussed? Reading The Beauty of the Infinite, I found your dismissal of Eberhard Jüngel's work ("vastly more systematic, but paradoxically even more incoherent" than Moltmann, "with liberal lashings of late romantic nihilism") quite harsh, when, as I understand it, he was himself trying to show the shift from a dialectical to an analogical theology in Barth.
I am afraid I wrote that book almost 30 years ago (though it was not published till 7 years later), so I have no opinions regarding what I said in it about many things.
This will be exciting, second only to the otter posts.
Very interesting! I’m looking forward to this series, and I would also love to read your assessment of Deleuze’s work. I believe—following Foucault—that this century will be Deleuzian, for better or for worse, and that, in contrast to this somewhat Hegelian tendency, Deleuze’s philosophy of difference will gain greater relevance. Does your view align with that of Catherine Pickstock?
I too, as many have expressed, am drawn in great interest to your proposed writing on Hegel and Theology. Your clarification in terms of World, God, Creation - as well as analogical, ontological, metaphysical - and, especially, Chalcedon Conciliar doctrine, Christology, and morality.
I am in a discussion of the Epistemology of Michael Polanyi, with it's implications for Ontology, as a new Metaphysics. My education in Moral Philosophy has pivoted more on Kant than Hegel - see John Macmurray and The Form of the Personal. But my co-terminus education in Philosophy (History) is grounded in the Mindbody phenomenology of William H. Poteat and what was called 'ordinary language.' I never thought to link the traditional philosophical discussion in the rationalistic vis a vis empiricistic-positivistic terms of the West to that of Christian Dogma, and seem to have been getting vague prompts in that direction over the last several months.
Rather alongside, perhaps, than in the midst of your discussion, is my interest in the literary critic, or philosopher of culture, George Steiner's question as to whether there is "a poetry of thought." His little book, to me a concision of his writing, The Poetry of Thought from Hellenism to Celan, is in an other term of terms an attempt to understand what all this may mean.
Yet, I seem driven, in some ecclesial sense, Christian - in the neighborhood of what not long ago was the quest regarding the image of man in relation to the Logos. I look forward to the analogue in your upcoming writings ahead to what has been and is of such good help in your writing, thanks!
For those not intimately familiar with the Sage of Jena, I’ve found Frederick Beiser’s recently published survey of his thought (simply titled ‘Hegel’) surprisingly readable, even lively.
Panocha Qt or Pavel Haas Qt? I mean there are others, but...
This promises to be a very fruitful assessment of the ontologically applicable elements of Hegel's panlogism for Christian theology. I'm looking forward to it!
I am very excited about the Hegel articles but I cannot contain my glee at reading the last installment in Reflections on the Resurrection.
Looking forward to this.