The Orthodox Hegel: Development Further Developed

This fifth book on Hegel assesses the consequences of Hegelian thought for spirituality. The fourth title in this series, Hegel's Philosophy of Universal Reconciliation (CSP 2013), recalled the more explicit phrase, "to restore all things in Christ", identifying the universal with the particular and, finally, the individual. This concreteness is the true universal. The "double negation", "The Orthodox Hegel", shows how the Christian movement, obliged by its own momentum to recognise its spiritual identity with the thought called, metonymously, "Hegelian", is Spirit itself impelling. As standing for, even incorporating this movement, as Aristotle once had incorporated philosophy for some, Hegel instances that concrete particularity determining religion towards its ideal of universality in an individual, the spirit "poured out" upon "all flesh" but on a given "day". It originates in "prophecy" as philosophy originates in religion and art, the three "forms of absolute spirit" (Hegel) perfected in philosophy, the third, which "the absolute religion" must, consequently, elicit. After indexing this project, themes of logic, subject and predicate, meaning and identity in difference are developed. Philosophy and absolute idealism are identified, thus capturing the latter for orthodoxy. The primacy of mediated thought over immediate observation emerges as the first condition for science and spiritual self-consciousness generally. In later chapters, the thought rises to properly theologico-metaphysical themes, such as Rinaldi's critique of the Hegelians, Kenneth Foldes and Richard Winfield. Trinity, incarnation, immortality, infinity, and the absolute are all discussed, along with revelation, the idea. A postscript relates the work to contrary attitudes among some orthodox thinkers, falling short of, or denying the rights and duties of, a specifically speculative reason. The title intends no reference to any recent work denying the orthodoxy of Hegel or, rather, the Hegelian character of orthodoxy.