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1. 

   Hegel (Encyclopedia 1827)

   25. May 1827

   Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline (1827), § 552:

   § 552. The national spirit contains natural necessity in general; it stands within worldliness. Its ethical substance, infinite within itself, is at once, on the one hand, in itself a particular and limited substance (§ 549 and 550), and, on the other hand, for that reason the knowing and willing of its subjective side — although it has passed over into custom and objective freedom — is afflicted with contingency, and stands more precisely in the relation of consciousness and of opposition to an independent, external nature. But it is living ethical life itself, in whose objective knowledge the externalities of the world spirit and the oppositions of finitude that it contains are shed and sublated, so that this knowledge raises itself, within itself, to the knowledge of absolute spirit, as the eternally actual truth, in which reason is free for itself, and necessity and nature are merely serving as its revelation and vessels of its glory.

   Of the formal aspect of the elevation of spirit to God, discussion has been given in the Introduction to the Logic (compare especially § 51, Remark). — As regards the starting points of this elevation, Kant in general has grasped the most correct one, in so far as he regards belief in God as proceeding from practical reason. For the starting point implicitly contains the content or matter that makes up the content of the concept of God. The true concrete matter, however, is neither being (as in the cosmological proof) nor merely purposive activity (as in the physico-theological proof), but spirit, whose absolute determination — effective reason, i.e. the concept determining and realizing itself — is freedom. That the elevation of subjective spirit to God occurring in this determination is, in the Kantian presentation, again reduced to a postulate, a mere ought, is the distortion discussed earlier: to reinstate immediately as true and valid the opposition of finitude, whose sublation in truth is precisely that elevation itself.

   It has been shown earlier, concerning the mediation that is the elevation to God (§ 192, compare § 204, Remark), that the moment of negation — through which the essential content of the starting point is purified of its finitude and thereby emerges free — is chiefly to be noted. This moment, abstract in logical form, has now received its most concrete meaning. The finite from which the start is here made is ethical self-consciousness; the negation through which it raises its spirit to its truth is the purification, actually accomplished in the ethical world, of its knowing from subjective opinion, and the liberation of its will from the selfishness of desire. True religion and true religiosity proceed only from ethical life, and are ethical life become thinking, i.e. ethical life becoming conscious of the free universality of its concrete essence. Only out of it and from it is the idea of God as free spirit known; outside of ethical spirit, therefore, it is in vain to seek true religion and religiosity.

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2. 

   Hegel (Encyclopedia 1830)

   19. September 1830

   Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline (1830), § 552:

   § 552. The national spirit contains natural necessity and stands in external existence (§ 483); its ethical substance, infinite within itself, is for itself a particular and limited substance (§ 549 and 550), and its subjective side is afflicted with contingency — unconscious custom, and consciousness of its content as something temporally present and standing in relation to an external nature and world. But it is the spirit that thinks within ethical life which sublates within itself the finitude that it has, as national spirit, in its state and the state’s temporal interests, in the system of laws and customs, and raises itself to the knowledge of itself in its essentiality — a knowledge which, however, itself still has the immanent limitedness of the national spirit. The thinking spirit of world history, however, in shedding at once those limitations of the particular national spirits and its own worldliness, grasps its concrete universality and raises itself to the knowledge of absolute spirit, as the eternally actual truth, in which knowing reason is free for itself, and necessity, nature, and history are merely serving its revelation and are vessels of its glory. The formal aspect of the elevation of spirit to God has been discussed in the Introduction to the Logic (compare especially § 51, Remark). — As regards the starting points of this elevation, Kant has, in general, grasped the most correct one, in so far as he regards belief in God as proceeding from practical reason. For the starting point implicitly contains the content or matter that makes up the content of the concept of God. The true concrete matter, however, is neither being (as in the cosmological proof) nor merely purposive activity (as in the physico-theological proof), but spirit, whose absolute determination — effective reason, i.e. the concept determining and realizing itself — is freedom. That the elevation of subjective spirit to God occurring in this determination is, in the Kantian presentation, once again reduced to a postulate, a mere ought, is the distortion discussed earlier: to reinstate immediately as true and valid the opposition of finitude, whose sublation into truth is precisely that elevation itself. It has been shown earlier, concerning the mediation, which the elevation to God is (§ 192, compare § 204, Remark), that the moment of negation, through which the essential content of the starting point is purified of its finitude and thereby emerges free, is chiefly to be noted. This moment, abstract in logical form, has now received its most concrete meaning. The finite from which the start is here made is the real ethical self-consciousness; the negation through which it raises its spirit to its truth is the purification, actually accomplished in the ethical world, of its knowing from subjective opinion, and the liberation of its will from the selfishness of desire. True religion and true religiosity proceed only from ethical life, and are ethical life become thinking, i.e. ethical life becoming conscious of the free universality of its concrete essence. Only out of it and from it is the idea of God as free spirit known; outside of ethical spirit, therefore, it is in vain to seek true religion and religiosity. But this emergence at the same time gives itself, as everywhere in the speculative, the significance that what is initially posited as a consequent and as having emerged is rather the absolute prius of that through which it appears mediated — and here, in spirit, is also known as the truth of that mediated term. This is accordingly the place to go into the relation of state and religion more closely, and in doing so to illuminate categories that are current and customary regarding it. The immediate consequence of what precedes is that ethical life is the state led back to its substantial inwardness, that the state is the development and actualization of this ethical life, but that the substantiality of ethical life itself and of the state is religion. The state rests, according to this relation, upon ethical disposition, and this in turn upon religious disposition. Since religion is the consciousness of absolute truth, what is to count as right and justice, as duty and law, i.e. as true in the world of the free will, can only count in so far as it has a part in that truth, is subsumed under it, and follows from it. But for the true ethical to be a consequence of religion, it is required that religion have the true content, i.e. that the idea of God known in it be the true one. Ethical life is the divine spirit as indwelling in self-consciousness in the latter’s actual presence as a people and as the individuals of that people; this self-consciousness, going into itself out of its empirical actuality and bringing its truth to consciousness, has in its faith and in its conscience only what it has in the certainty of itself, in its spiritual actuality. The two are inseparable; there cannot be two kinds of conscience, a religious one and an ethical one differing from it in substance and content. But as regards form, i.e. for thinking and knowing — and religion and ethical life belong to intelligence and are a thinking and knowing — it is the religious content, as the pure truth existing in and for itself and hence the highest truth, to which belongs the sanctioning of ethical life as it stands in empirical actuality; thus religion is, for self-consciousness, the basis of ethical life and of the state. It has been the enormous error of our times to wish to regard these inseparables as separable from one another, indeed even as indifferent to one another. Thus the relation of religion to the state has been regarded in such a way that the state already exists for itself otherwise, and out of some power and force, and that the religious, as the subjective element of individuals, would only have to be added to it, as something desirable, for its consolidation — or would even be indifferent — while the ethical life of the state, i.e. rational right and constitution, stands firm for itself on its own ground. Given the stated inseparability of the two sides, it is of interest to make noticeable the separation that appears on the side of religion. It concerns, first of all, the form, i.e. the relation of self-consciousness to the content of truth. Since this content is the substance as the indwelling spirit of self-consciousness in its actuality, self-consciousness has the certainty of itself in this content and is free within it. But the relation of unfreedom can occur as regards form, even though the content of religion, in itself, is absolute spirit. This great difference, to cite the more determinate case, is found within the Christian religion itself, in which it is not the natural element that constitutes the content of God, nor does any such element enter into its substance as a moment, but rather God, who is known in spirit and in truth, is the content. And yet, in the Catholic religion, this spirit is, in actuality, rigidly set over against self-conscious spirit. First of all, in the host, God is presented as an external thing for religious worship (whereas in the Lutheran church the host as such is consecrated and elevated to the present God only and solely in partaking, i.e. in the annihilation of its externality, and in faith, i.e. in spirit that is at once free and certain of itself). From this first and highest relation of externality flow all the other external, and thereby unfree, unspiritual and superstitious relations — namely a laity, which receives the knowledge of divine truth, as well as the direction of will and conscience, from outside and from another estate, which itself does not arrive at possession of that knowledge in a purely spiritual way alone, but essentially requires for it an external consecration. Further: the manner of praying that in part merely moves the lips and in part is thereby spiritless, in which the subject renounces the direct address to God and asks others to pray on its behalf — the direction of devotion toward wonder-working images, indeed even toward bones, and the expectation of miracles through them — in general, righteousness through external works, a merit that is supposed to be acquired through actions, and indeed even to be transferable to others, and so forth — all of this binds spirit under a state of being-outside-itself, whereby its concept is misconstrued and perverted in its innermost core, and right and justice, ethical life and conscience, accountability and duty are corrupted at their root. To such a principle and to this development of the unfreedom of spirit in the religious sphere there corresponds only a legislation and constitution of legal and ethical unfreedom, and a condition of unlawfulness and unethicalness in the actual state. Consequently the Catholic religion has been loudly praised, and is still often praised, as the one alone under which the stability of governments is secured — in fact, of such governments as are bound up with institutions grounded on the unfreedom of a spirit that ought to be legally and ethically free, i.e. on institutions of injustice and on a condition of ethical corruption and barbarism. These governments do not know, however, that in fanaticism they possess a fearful power, which fails to turn hostile against them only so long, and only on the condition, that they remain caught under the bondage of injustice and immorality. But there is yet another power present in spirit; against that being-outside-itself and being-torn-asunder, consciousness gathers itself into its inner free actuality; there awakens worldly wisdom in the spirit of governments and of peoples, i.e. the wisdom concerning what is, in actuality, in and for itself right and rational. Rightly has the production of thinking, and more precisely philosophy, been called worldly wisdom, for thinking makes present the truth of spirit, introduces it into the world, and thereby liberates it in its actuality and in itself. With this, the content takes on an entirely different shape. The unfreedom of form, i.e. of knowing and of subjectivity, has for the ethical content the consequence that self-consciousness is represented as not immanent to it, that it is represented as removed from self-consciousness, such that it is supposed to be true only as negative in relation to the latter’s actuality. In this untruth, the ethical content is called something holy. But through the divine spirit’s introducing itself into actuality — the liberation of actuality unto it — that which is supposed to be holiness in the world is displaced by ethical life. Instead of the vow of chastity, it is now rather marriage that counts as the ethical, and hence, as the highest thing on this side of the human being, the family; instead of the vow of poverty (to which there corresponds, entangling itself in contradiction, the merit of giving away one’s possessions to the poor, i.e. their enrichment), there counts the activity of self-acquisition through understanding and industry, and integrity in this traffic and use of property — ethical life in civil society; instead of the vow of obedience, there counts obedience to the law and the legal institutions of the state, which is itself true freedom, because the state is reason itself, actualizing itself — ethical life in the state. Only thus, then, can right and morality be present. It is not enough that religion commands: Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God what is God’s; for the very issue at stake is to determine what Caesar is, i.e. what belongs to the secular regime; and it is well enough known what the secular regime, too, has in its arbitrariness arrogated to itself, just as the spiritual regime has for its part. The divine spirit must permeate the worldly immanently; then wisdom is concrete within it, and its justification is determined within itself. That concrete indwelling, however, consists in the configurations of ethical life just cited: the ethical life of marriage as against the holiness of the unmarried estate; the ethical life of the activity of property and acquisition as against the holiness of poverty and its idleness; the ethical life of obedience devoted to the right of the state as against the holiness of an obedience devoid of duty and right — the bondage of conscience. With the need for right and ethical life, and with insight into the free nature of spirit, there enters the discord of these with the religion of unfreedom. It would be of no help for the laws and the order of the state to be transformed into a rational organization of right, if the principle of unfreedom is not abandoned in religion. The two are incompatible with one another; it is a foolish notion to wish to assign them separate territories, in the opinion that their difference will behave calmly toward one another and not break out into contradiction and struggle. Principles of legal freedom can only be abstract and superficial, and the state institutions derived from them must in themselves be untenable, if the wisdom of those principles so greatly misjudges religion as not to know that the principles of the reason of actuality have their final and highest confirmation in religious conscience, in their subsumption under the consciousness of absolute truth. If, in whatever way it might come about, so to speak a priori, a legislation had arisen that had the principles of reason as its foundation, but stood in contradiction with the country’s religion, based as the latter is on principles of spiritual unfreedom, then the carrying-out of that legislation lies in the individuals of the government as such and of the entire administration ramifying through all classes; it is only an abstract, empty notion to represent to oneself as possible that individuals would act only according to the sense or letter of the legislation, and not according to the spirit of their religion, in which their innermost conscience and highest obligation lie. The laws appear, in this opposition to what is declared holy by religion, as something made by human beings; even if they were sanctioned and externally introduced, they could offer no lasting resistance to the contradiction and the attacks of the religious spirit against them. Thus such laws founder, even if their content were the true one, upon conscience, whose spirit is different from the spirit of the laws and does not sanction them. It is only to be regarded as a folly of more recent times — having made a revolution without a reformation, that is, having changed a system of corrupted ethical life, its state constitution and legislation, without a change in religion — to suppose that a state constitution opposed to the old religion and its holy things could have rest and harmony within itself together with that old religion, and that stability could be procured for the laws through external guarantees — for example so-called chambers and the power given to them to determine the budget (compare § 544, Remark), and the like. To wish to separate rights and laws from religion, given the powerlessness present to descend into the depths of the religious spirit and to raise it itself to its truth, is to be regarded as no more than an emergency expedient. Those guarantees are rotten supports against the conscience of the subjects who are supposed to administer the laws — and the guarantees themselves belong among these; it is, rather, the highest, the unholiest contradiction to wish to bind and subject to secular legislation the religious conscience, for which that legislation is something unholy. In Plato a more determinate recognition had dawned concerning the schism that, in his time, had arisen between, on the one hand, the existing religion and constitution of the state, and, on the other, the deeper demands that freedom — now becoming conscious of its own inwardness — made upon religion and the political condition. Plato grasps the thought that a true constitution and life of the state is more deeply grounded on the idea, on the principles of eternal justice that are in and for themselves universal and true. To know and to recognize these is, indeed, the vocation and business of philosophy. From this point of view Plato breaks out into the famous, or notorious, passage in which he has Socrates declare, very emphatically, that philosophy and state power must coincide in one, that the idea must be the ruler, if the misfortune of peoples is to see an end. Plato had, in this, the determinate conception that the idea — which is indeed, in itself, the free, self-determining thought — could come to consciousness only in the form of thought; as a content which, in order to be true, must be raised up to universality and brought to consciousness in the most abstract form of that universality. In order to compare the Platonic standpoint, in its full determinacy, with the point of view from which the state is here considered in relation to religion, we must recall the conceptual distinctions on which everything essentially here depends. The first consists in this: that in natural things their substance, the genus, is different from their existence, in which they are as subject; but this subjective existence of the genus is further distinguished from that existence which the genus, or the universal in general, as such, raised up for itself, receives in the being that represents, that thinks. This further individuality, the ground of the free existence of universal substance, is the self of thinking spirit. The content of natural things does not receive the form of universality and essentiality through itself, and their individuality is not itself the form — which is only subjective thinking for itself, and which gives that universal content, in philosophy, an existence of its own. The human content, by contrast, is free spirit itself, and comes to existence in its self-consciousness. This absolute content, spirit concrete within itself, is precisely this: to have the form, thinking, itself as its content; to the height of the thinking consciousness of this determination Aristotle raised himself, in his concept of the entelechy of thinking, which is νόησις τῆς νοήσεως, above the Platonic idea (the genus, the substantial). Thinking in general, however, contains — precisely for the sake of the very determination just stated — the immediate being-for-self of subjectivity just as much as universality, and the true idea of spirit concrete within itself is just as essentially present in the one of its determinations, that of subjective consciousness, as in the other, that of universality, and is, in the one as in the other, the same substantial content. But to that form belong feeling, intuition, representation, and it is rather necessary that the consciousness of the absolute idea be grasped, in temporal order, first in this shape, and be present, as religion, in its immediate actuality, earlier than as philosophy. Philosophy develops only afterward, in turn, out of that foundation — just as Greek philosophy is later than Greek religion, and attained its completion precisely and only in this: in grasping and comprehending, in its whole determinate essentiality, the principle of spirit that first manifests itself in religion. But Greek philosophy could only set itself up in opposition to its religion, and the unity of thought and the substantiality of the idea could only stand in hostility to the polytheism of fantasy, to the cheerful and frivolous playfulness of this poetic invention. Form in its infinite truth, the subjectivity of spirit, broke forth at first only as subjective free thinking, which was not yet identical with substantiality itself, so that the latter was thereby not yet grasped as absolute spirit. Thus religion could at first appear purified only through pure thinking existing for itself, through philosophy; but the form immanent to the substantial, which was combated by it, was that poeticizing fantasy. The state, which develops out of religion in the same way, but earlier than philosophy, exhibits, in actuality, as corruption, the one-sidedness that its idea — true in itself — has in it. Plato, in common with all his thinking contemporaries, recognizing this corruption of democracy and the deficiency of its very principle, brought out the substantial, but was not able to impress upon his idea of the state the infinite form of subjectivity, which was still hidden from his spirit; his state is therefore, in itself, without subjective freedom (§ 503, Remark, 513, and so on). The truth that ought to indwell the state, to constitute and to govern it, he therefore grasps only in the form of thought-truth, of philosophy, and thus made that pronouncement: that so long as philosophers do not rule in the states, or those who are now called kings and rulers do not thoroughly and comprehensively philosophize, so long will neither the state nor the human race attain deliverance from evils; so long can the idea of his state constitution not thrive into possibility and see the light of the sun.9 It was not granted to Plato to be able to go on to say that so long as true religion does not emerge in the world and become dominant in the states, so long has the true principle of the state not come into actuality. But so long, too, could this principle not come into thought, nor could the true idea of the state be grasped by it — the idea of substantial ethical life, with which the freedom of self-consciousness existing for itself is identical. Only in the principle of a spirit that knows its own essence, that is, in itself, absolutely free, and that has its actuality in the activity of its own liberating, is present the absolute possibility and necessity that state power, religion, and the principles of philosophy fall together into one, and that the reconciliation of actuality in general with spirit — of the state with religious conscience, and likewise with philosophical knowing — is accomplished. Since subjectivity existing for itself is absolutely identical with substantial universality, religion as such, just as the state as such — as forms in which the principle exists — contain within them absolute truth, so that this truth, in that it exists as philosophy, is itself only in one of its forms. But since religion, too, in the development of itself, develops the distinctions contained in the idea (§ 566 ff.), existence can, indeed must, appear in its first, immediate, i.e. itself one-sided, manner, and its existence can be corrupted into sensuous externality, and thereby, further, into the suppression of the freedom of spirit and into the perversity of political life. But the principle contains the infinite elasticity of the absolute form, to overcome this corruption of its determinations of form and of the content through them, and to bring about the reconciliation of spirit within itself. So, at last, the principle of religious and of ethical conscience becomes one and the same in Protestant conscience — free spirit knowing itself in its rationality and truth. The constitution and legislation, as well as their exercise, have as their content the principle and the development of ethical life, which proceeds, and can only proceed, from the truth of religion once it has been restored to its original principle and has thereby, for the first time, become truth in actuality. The ethical life of the state and the religious spirituality of the state are thus, for one another, mutual and firm guarantees.

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