Hegel on Religion and Politics

2 The State as a“Temple of Human Freedom

2 The State as a “Temple of Human Freedom”1 Hegel on Religion and Politics Rachel Bayefsky 1. Introduction The topic of this essay is Hegel’s understanding of the relationship between religion and politics as manifested in the “rational state” that Hegel outlines in the Philosophy of Right. This topic is a subset of a much wider and long-standing debate about the role of religion, particularly of Christianity, in Hegel’s philosophy. Although my analysis will address issues in the wider debate, my particular task will be to analyze the interplay between religious beliefs and institutions, on the one hand, and Hegel’s rational state, on the other. I hope that doing so will both contribute to an understanding of Hegel’s political philosophy and draw attention to a complex and nuanced attempt to wrestle with the relationship between religion and politics. 39 40 Rachel Bayefsky Hegel’s views on the intersection of religion and politics seem to challenge common dichotomies between religion and reason, and between religious and secular states. According to Hegel, political freedom rests on the fundamentally Christian insight, purified in the Protestant Reformation , that each human being possesses a free will and moral personality.2 Thus Hegel states in his lectures on the philosophy of history that “states and Laws are nothing else than Religion manifesting itself in the relations of the actual world,”3 and explains in his lectures on the philosophy of religion that “In general, religion and the foundation of the state are one and the same thing. . . . There is one concept of freedom in [both] religion and the state.”4 Yet Hegel notes that the laws of the state that he describes in the Philosophy of Right are based on rational thought, not authority and faith.5 Religious doctrines and institutions therefore have no authority to challenge state policy.6 For Hegel, the state’s incorporation of both a religious foundation and a “rational” political structure yields what he calls a “reconciliation” of religion and reason, one which removes “the discord between the inner life of the heart and the actual world.”7 The question that remains after Hegel’s attempted “reconciliation,” however, is the status of religion qua religion—with its characteristic beliefs, practices, and communities—in the Hegelian rational state. How should church and state actually interact? Does religion play an important role in citizens’ lives? If so, can Hegel ensure that religious claims are never justified in taking precedence over rational state law? Broadly, the issue is how Christianity, which Hegel considers the bearer of moral freedom , relates to the political structures that develop out of religious truth. Hegel’s writings on the relationship between religion and the state have attracted increased interest in recent years.8 Here I will respond in particular to a suggestion made by Charles Taylor and Adriaan Peperzak : that Christian faith serves as a necessary source of support for the Hegelian state. According to Taylor, the state has need of religion in order to reconcile, in each citizen’s consciousness, the objective structures of modern life with the eternal progression of free spirit.9 Religious faith assures citizens that the state, as the locus of this reconciliation, is worthy of loyalty: as Taylor writes, “since our allegiance to the state is partly predicated on our sense that it is grounded in the Absolute, Sittlichkeit pre-supposes a healthy religious life.”10 Peperzak suggests that religion gives citizens access to a higher form of knowledge than can be found in the workings of objective institutions of Sittlichkeit or “ethical life.”11 Religion shows people that the state deserves respect as the worldly 41 The State as a “Temple of Human Freedom” actualization of religious insight, thereby encouraging citizens to have “faith that the state is led by divine providence.”12 In my view, the suggestion that religion serves to support the Hegelian state is correct but insufficient; the crucial question for Hegel is which kind of religion is able to serve such a role and how such a form of religion comes about. I intend to argue that Hegel’s views on the relationship between religion and the state center on his understanding of what he considers to be “true religion” (a form of Protestantism): the inward recognition of subjective freedom based on the reconciliation of the religious conscience with God. I will claim that in Hegel’s scheme, the institutions...