Hegel on Religion and Politics

7 The Inseparability of Love and Anguish

7 The Inseparability of Love and Anguish Hegel’s Theological Critique of Modernity1 Robert R. Williams 1. Introduction Hegel’s concept of reconciliation is often misunderstood; it is frequently assumed that his view of reconciliation is a conflict-free harmony that excludes tragedy and vice versa. Otto Pöggeler believes that reconciliation and tragedy are mutually exclusive, and that tragedy signifies the non-arrival of reconciliation.2 Martha Nussbaum charges that reconciliation for Hegel signifies a conflict-free harmony; reconciliation and conflict are mutually exclusive.3 Dennis Schmidt notes Hegel’s belief that the wounds of spirit heal and leave behind no scars; he attributes to Hegel a soteriological conviction that suffering finally comes to an end, and consequently wonders whether Hegel gets the point of tragedy.4 133 134 Robert R. Williams These views are misinterpretations of what Hegel means by reconciliation . Hegel’s critics assume that reconciliation consists in a closure or harmony from which any serious opposition, conflict, or suffering are absent. Several recent studies challenge these reductive views of Hegel’s concept of reconciliation.5 Michael Hardimon writes, “Hegel does not conceive of reconciliation as a state of perfect harmony, a circumstance in which no conflicts whatsoever remain. . . . Conflict and antagonism are internal to Hegel’s conception of reconciliation.”6 This is correct. Unfortunately Hardimon restricts his examination of the topic to social reconciliation and does not address or engage Hegel’s views of tragedy, his philosophy of absolute spirit, or philosophy of religion and true infinite. We shall come back to these points later. In this essay I shall argue that Hegel conceives reconciliation as qualified by tragedy, and tragedy is qualified by the concept of reconciliation . Reconciliation, far from excluding opposition, tragic conflict, and anguish, includes these. Reconciliation is compatible with and presupposes the tragic conflict and opposition it reconciles, so that reconciliation makes no sense and cannot be understood apart from its prior conditions. In what follows, I shall first discuss aspects of Hegel’s incorporation of the tragic tradition in his treatment of the death of God, and his claim that ancient Christianity incorporated and transformed the death of God theme in its theology of the cross. For Hegel, the death of God not only reflects and incorporates the tragic tradition, it is a crucial part of the meaning of reconciliation. There can be no reconciliation without prior disunion and disruption and the most agonizing ‘disruption’ is the death of God. The reconciliation that comes as a gift of divine love expresses both divine love and divine anguish. To be sure, reconciliation is not simply anguish and suffering, but it includes these. Hegel’s treatment of the death of God has implications not only for reconciliation, but also for politics and political economy. Hegel insists that love and anguish cannot be separated and criticizes Enlightenment modes of thought for failing to understand or appreciate this inseparability . As a result, Enlightenment modes of thought, in Hegel’s view, separate love and anguish. This separation has implications for political economy, poverty, and the poor. Hegel sees that Enlightenment and modernity tend to create conditions in which love is separated from anguish—becoming pure enjoyment—while marginalizing and abandoning those whose lives are wretchedness and anguish. The latter themes will be addressed in the last section of the essay. 135 The Inseparability of Love and Anguish 2. The Suppression of Otherness and Tragedy in Traditional Philosophy and Theology According to Hegel, tragic conflicts are conflicts between substantial interests of freedom, including the substantial institutions of ethical life, for example, family and state. Tragic conflicts are not conflicts between right and wrong, but between right and right, between freedom and freedom, between substantial powers that are compatible in principle and that exist in fragile equilibrium. Thus conflict between these essential ethical powers disrupts their equilibrium and brings human beings into inner and substantial contradiction with each other and with themselves. Tragic conflicts come about when individuals identify one ethical power, for example, family or state, fix it in isolation from the rest, and act upon it in an exclusive, one-sided way. Such a one-sided action destroys the tension and equilibrium constitutive of ethical life. Hegel incorporates and deepens the tragic tradition in his treatment of the death of God as a central theme of Christian theology. Beginning with his Early Theological Writings, Hegel thinks Christianity in tragic forms of thought. In the...