Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 3 (of 3) — Georg Hegel — John Shaqi
Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 3 (of 3)
Georg Hegel · en
c. Boehme further defines God the Father as follows: “When we consider
the whole nature and its property, then we see the Father: when we behold
heaven and the stars, then we behold His eternal power and wisdom. So
many stars as stand in the whole heaven, which are innumerable, so
manifold and various is the power and wisdom of God the Father. Every
star differs in its quality.” But “you must not conceive here that every
power which is in the Father stands in a peculiar severed or divided part
and place in the Father, as the stars do in heaven. No, but the Spirit
shows that all the powers in the Father,” as the fountainhead, “are one
in another as one power.” This whole is the universal power which exists
as God the Father, wherein all differences are united; “creaturely” it,
however, exists as the totality of stars, and thus as separation into
the different qualities. “You must not think that God who is in heaven
and above the heaven does there stand and hover like a power and quality
which has in it neither reason nor knowledge, as the sun which turns
round in its circle and shoots forth from itself heat and light, whether
it be for benefit or hurt to the earth and creatures. No, the Father
is not so, but He is an All-mighty, All-wise, All-knowing, All-seeing,
All-hearing, All-smelling, All-tasting God, who in Himself is meek,
friendly, gracious, merciful, and full of joy, yea Joy itself.”[132]
Since Boehme calls the Father all powers, he again distinguishes these
as the seven first originating spirits.[133] But there is a certain
confusion in this and no thought-determination, no definite reason for
there being exactly seven—such precision and certainty is not to be
found in Boehme. These seven qualities are likewise the seven planets
which move and work in the great Salitter of God; “the seven planets
signify the seven spirits of God or the princes of the angels.” But they
are in the Father as one unity, and this unity is an inward spring and
fermentation. “In God all spirits triumph as one spirit, and a spirit
ever calms and loves the others, and nothing exists excepting mere joy
and rapture. One spirit does not stand alongside the others like stars
in heaven, for all seven are contained within one another as one spirit.
Each spirit in the seven spirits of God is pregnant with all seven
spirits of God;” thus each is in God itself a totality. “One brings forth
the other in and through itself;” this is the flashing forth of the life
of all qualities.[134]