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
What follows thirdly is that the Idea permeates reality, is immanent
therein, that not only is there a multitude of believing hearts, but that
from the heart, just as the natural law rules over a sensuous world, a
higher life of the world, a kingdom, is constituted—the reconciliation
of God with Himself is accomplished in the world, and not as a heavenly
kingdom that is beyond. This community is the kingdom of God upon earth
in the Church; “Where two or three are gathered together in my name,”
says Christ, “there am I in the midst of them.” The Idea is only for
spirit, for subjective consciousness, in so far as it realizes itself
in actuality, and thus it not only has to bring itself to perfection
in the heart, but has to perfect itself also into a kingdom of actual
consciousness. The Idea which man, self-consciousness, should recognize,
must become altogether objective to him, so that he may truly apprehend
himself as spirit and the Spirit, and then that he may be spiritual in
a spiritual, and not in an emotional way. The first objectification
is found in the first immediate consciousness of the Idea, where it
appeared as an individual object, as the individual existence of a man.
The second objectivity is the spiritual worship and communion extended
to the Church. We might imagine a universal community of Love, a world
of piety and holiness, a world of brotherly kindness, of innocent little
lambs and pretty triflings with things spiritual, a divine republic, a
heaven upon earth. But this is not supposed to come to pass on earth;
that imagination is relegated to heaven, _i.e._ to some other place,
that is to say, it is put off until death. Each living actuality directs
his feelings, actions, and affairs in a very different way from this.
On the appearance of Christianity it is first of all said: “My kingdom
is not of this world;” but the realization has and ought to be in the
present world. In other words the laws, customs, constitutions, and
all that belongs to the actuality of spiritual consciousness should be
rational. The kingdom of rational actuality is quite a different one, and
must be organized and developed thinkingly and with understanding; the
moment of the self-conscious freedom of the individual must maintain its
rights against objective truth and objective command. This, then, is the
true and actual objectivity of mind in the form of an actual temporal
existence as state, just as Philosophy is the objectivity of thought
which comes to us in the form of universality. Such objectivity cannot be
in the beginning, but must come forth after being worked upon by mind and
thought.