Hegel's Trinitarian Claim: A Critical Reflection

Postscript: From Thought to Experience

Postscript From Thought to Experience When studying Hegel’s philosophy we quickly come to appreciate the sheer scope of his vision encompassing for him every aspect of thought and reality. This appreciation extends to his insightful philosophical reading of such a key notion as Trinity. A close reading of what Hegel has written or is recorded as saying leads us to wonder at how well informed he was, to marvel at the tightness of his argumentation and to admire the incredible detail with which he presented his philosophical vision. Perhaps “vision” would not be the word we would ordinarily use with reference to his speculative encyclopedic system, but it does capture something of the grandeur of his philosophy and its programmatic importance for his own day, even though he did not want to speak of philosophy as proposing something to be done. It reminds us that his philosophy is a monumental enterprise deserving our full and careful attention. He presented with great force and assurance a philosophy whose claim to self-justifying validity remains ever anew a challenge to scholars who come after him. A close study of his philosophy can lead to three possible attitudes toward and options concerning it. The first of these is a more sympathetic and positive reading of Hegel and the various claims that he makes, including his trinitarian claim. If we see in Hegel’s overall constructive presentation of the dynamic of Spirit the appropriate, and in the public realm successfully arguable, expression of what it means to be Subject, and if we find convincing the way in which he sees that dynamic playing itself out, we can come to terms with his philosophy’s historical contingencies and with what we might consider any less-thansystem -threatening deficiencies. 183 184 Hegel’s Trinitarian Claim The second of these attitudes and options is a more radically negative reading and, consequently, a rejection both of what we might call Hegel’s project and of the way in which he thought it needed to be carried out. We can reject his project and argumentation for a variety of reasons, but Hegel will not permit us to do so merely for extrinsic reasons . He insists that there is nothing finally extrinsic to his understanding of Spirit. And he usually is comprehensive and clever enough already to have foreseen, at least in principle, most extrinsic argumentation with which we might respond to his challenge to embrace what he would claim to be the essentially valid and inclusive nature of his thought. So, the informed, negatively critical reader can proceed in several ways. Such a reader can of course, on the basis of serious arguments, still point to forms of thought and experience which are perhaps beyond the reach of Hegel’s philosophical vision, including his reading of Trinity. Again, a reader can check out the internal dynamics of Hegel’s presentation of Spirit and reject Hegel’s stand on the basis of a critical analysis of these dynamics. A reader can of course also conceivably work with both of these approaches. In any of these cases, a reader may then consider setting Hegel aside in order to turn to other thinkers and other philosophical approaches, or of course to propose her or his own. A third attitude and option possible regarding Hegel, his philosophy , and his overall understanding of Spirit as well as his philosophically infused presentation of Trinity consists in a reading of Hegel that is both sympathetic and critical. Sympathetic to his project, expressed here very inadequately as his attempt to bring finite “and” infinite into an appropriate relationship, and here, more specifically, to his claim, phrased very summarily, that to think God as personal and Subject one must think of God as Trinity. Yet critical of the way in which the project was argued, and here I myself would privilege the immanent critique as an important first step in taking up this third option. Sympathetic in principle to his notion of Spirit as movement of inclusion and integration , but critical with regard to the specific formulation of one or more basic aspects of that movement or process. In the present study, and in the years following its first publication, I have continued to identify with this third way of working with Hegel. So many of the issues with which he struggled remain important to us today. We are still conditioned, and even constituted in our self-awareness , by a quest for social...