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1 G. W. F. Hegel and the Analysis of Theological Models I recently returned to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on New York’s Upper West Side. An unfinished monument, it remains continually in a process of becoming, an organism of stone slowly growing and emerging like the lives of those who seek solace in its depths. These searching souls find in their silent companion an instructive friend, for the cathedral unveils the substance under its immaculate veneer, opening its inner structure to the examination of congregants and visitors alike. The rough-hewn stone of the walls sits exposed in all its immensity and strength. Lesser cathedrals cover their internal structures with fine-cut surfaces, hiding the most important part, the rock upon which all else hangs. With an attitude of complete self-acceptance, this church beckons the visitor to admire not only its façade but also its substance, to worship in the midst of both decoration and rough, immovable stone. Theologies, like cathedrals, have internal structures that shape assertions and guide them toward specific conclusions. This architectural frame determines the placement of ideas, provides the inner expanse necessary for perspective, and shapes the imagination’s boundaries and possibilities. Though it often passes unnoticed behind an intricate veneer, this unpolished stone lifts immense weight, directs the viewer’s eye, and unites elements within a diversified whole. A theology’s internal, architectonic structure is the roughhewn rock upon which all else hangs. In the introduction, I identified significant differences at the level of content between the theologies of the cross proposed by T. F. Torrance and Jon Sobrino. I now move to the architectonic level in order to examine the differing structures within which these theologians locate their ideas and the contrasting commitments that guide their claims. To do so, I will first construct a critical framework drawn from G. W. F. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit consisting of four analytical categories: externality, internality, particularity, universality. I will then use this framework to set forth the formal, architectonic differences 25 between the theologies of Barth, Sobrino, and Torrance. Given the nature of this discussion, Barth’s first, formal move receives primary attention throughout this chapter, leaving his second move, concerning theological content, for later chapters. In the final passages of his Phenomenology of Spirit,1 Hegel considers the social development of various religious forms, the emergence of the pinnacle of religious development in Christian doctrine, and finally his concept of absolute knowing, which is the discursive, philosophical expression of the content articulated metaphorically by Christian theology. In absolute knowing, the human community2 attains the recognition that it alone determines what is to be regarded as authoritative for human identity and social practice. In Hegelian terms, the community has achieved the union of human subject and divine object within the social life of the community. Three distinct moments (Christ’s incarnation, Christ’s death, and the absolute knowing of the community) constitute Hegel’s account of Christianity’s development and of the transition from religion to the philosophical awareness of humanity’s status as selfauthorizing . Although these moments are forms of consciousness that emerge along a dynamic and fluid process from lower to higher levels of self-awareness, certain features emerge in each that facilitate their differentiation and typological categorization.3 In Hegel’s conception of Christianity’s first developmental stage, characterized by Christ’s incarnation, believers affirm a strong sense of God’s externality to the human community and perceive Christ’s union with God as particular and unique. In the second developmental moment, represented by Christ’s death, believers affirm a weakened version of God’s externality because their prior conception of Christ’s particularity has given way to a belief in God’s universal presence in the Christian community through the Holy Spirit. In the third moment, termed “absolute knowing” by Hegel, humanity abandons representational thinking, affirms God’s internality within the human 1. G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A.V. Miller (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977). All citations of the Phenomenology will include the paragraph number followed by the page number of the English edition. All italics within cited passages are original to the text unless otherwise noted. 2. Throughout this chapter, I will refer to the “human community” rather than to individual humans because Hegel prefers a communal interpretation of human subjectivity. See Robert B. Pippin, Modernism as a Philosophical Problem: On the Dissatisfactions of European High Culture, 2nd ed...

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