Hegel's Absolute And Theism

Hegel was an important philosopher in the history ofwestern philosophy. His philosophical system greatly influencedgreat thinkers like Kierkegaard, Croce, Husserl, Heidegger,Sartre, Dewey, Whitehead and Kojeve, etc. Religion was Hegel'sfavorite subject in his life time. He had once studied at thedepartment of Protestant theology in Tubingen, when he was young.Christianity was important to the forming of his thought. Andwe should pay enough attention to the function of mysticalphilosophy in his thought. Hegel believed that philosophy andreligion had the same object, God. He also called God Absolute.Since Hegel talked so much about God and Absolute, we can nothelp but ask, what on earth is the relationship between Absoluteand theism. F. ha. T. Godfrey believed that Hegel's Absolutewas both transcendent and immanent God in person. Being isthought, and is the ground of the subject and the object. Thoughtis a system of categories. Godfrey did not agree that Hegel putAbsolute as pure thinking content, which develops dialecticallythrough different levels of Being in space and time, and whichfinally arrives at self-knowing spirit. Godfrey thought that ifwe put thought as the metaphysical essence of Absolute, we thenhave to confirm that the real subject of the world is not us butthe thought, which knows itself through us. Therefore, the Truthmust be the only absolute Subject. Then Absolute is thought whichis not personal and unconscious. At the same time, Absolute isa system of categories. The culmination of this system ispersonal or spiritual Idea, which realized its self-embodimentin individual who can consciously view himself and this universal absolute spirit as one. In this way, we have a kindof pantheism which considers God and man as a system ofimpersonal thought. However, Godfrey's argumentation is clear.He was about to point out that the thinking content of Logic,as the ground of the world, indicates an absolute Subject whichis different from finite subject of human being. If thinkingcontent is connected with a subject, the unknowing thinkingcontent of the immediate existent world is obviously connectedwith an absolute thinker or Subject. This thinker both createdthe nature and finite spirits through categories. And it thinksthe world eternally. Godfrey believed that the absolute thinkeris the transcendent and immanent God. I think Godfrey was wrongwhen he contended that Absolute is transcendent God. In fact,Hegel's Absolute is the natural universe system of space andtime. This system develops according to the blind necessitybefore man with self-consciousness comes out of it. The end ofthe development of this system is man knowing that the Subjectand the Object is one. As everything moves according to necessity,all reality is reasonable. Hegel, as great philosopher, wasfully satisfied. Necessity is good and reality is good! All Hegelhas said is this. But actually, what this means is that man haslost the true freedom, the freedom to order and to create. Thesource of this kind of freedom is the faith out of theenlightenment of Bible. We can see that Hegel's Absolute is theunchangeable necessity. This Absolute has the quality ofantitheism.