Andrew Shanks on Hegel's Faith and Thought .mpg

Complete videos are available on the St John's Timeline, which was relaunched in Autumn 2021. It comprises of over 200 full videos with improved subtitles from leading philosophers and theologians. You can subscribe for £22 (£15 concessions) per year. Institutional subscriptions are also available. stjohnstimeline.org/

[@MarkWendland]

Shanks was a student of Rowan Williams, the former archbishop of Canterbury. He represents an interesting alternative view of Hegel as a philosopher of truth-as-honesty (openness) as opposed to truth-as-correctness. The relation to Fichte is particularly revealing in that the Fichtean position could be characterized as truth-as-uprootedness, similar to some definitions of postmodernism, but with a totalitarian slant. Hegel wants to get as close as possible to a well-examined place to take a stand by taking into account our ever-shifting context and listening to as many voices as possible, including that of tradition. Like Jacobi, a contemporary, he is very concerned with lived experience, but he also more interested in experience's relation to theology and philosophy than Jacobi. This is quite a different perspective than what is often claimed--that he was an Enlightenment systematizer destroying Christianity by absorbing it into a philosophical system. Some "Hegelians" did take his thought in that direction. These people, not Hegel himself, are probably what Kierkegaard had in mind as his target of attack. Close readings of SK's work seem to back this up. Instead, as Gillian Rose points out in *Hegel Contra Sociology*, although his terminology may mislead people into thinking this, he was conveying not a philosophy of closure, but one of dialogue. St. Paul might have been getting at something like this with his metaphor of the "belt of truth". If you imagine various isolated "truths" standing around the circle, none of them are wrong per se, but there is a more complete perspective that hasn't been taken seriously if you are just a belt loop (to modernize the metaphor). In any case, I don't believe that Shanks is uncritical of Hegel, but he does see in him something of a model for thinking theologically. The result is a Christianity that stays in the middle of conversations, wrestling with the difficulty, rather than retreating to a safe place.

[@nightoftheworld]

A Protestant echo of “tarrying with the negative” to pursue a more sophisticated, reflective faith

[@emmanueloluga9770]

@@nightoftheworld Yes this. Why Hegel was never upheld and heralded to the status of a protestant Thomas Aquinas is and will was be beyond me, but that in itself is an incomplete truth of my true conception and understanding of this phenomenon. I in truth and honesty sympathize with the errors that would have risen from the misreading of hegel's work even by Kierkegaard himself. I feel the Christian community would benefit more from Hegel presentation of GOD as a subject instead of substance more than our current conceptualization of our Heavenly father. After all it was He who said,, I AM, THAT I AM

[@panthersprung5161]

very nice

[@ramielkady938]

Excellent lecture ... I liked the part when you explained how Kant's uncle ran into this shoe maker for Hegel ... and how the chain of events unfolding from there lead to Kim Kardashian leaving kanye west ... But, were not you supposed to also talk briefly about what Hegel ACTUALLY THOUGHT about GOD ? not the God Damn shoe maker?

[@daphnedassant1028]

Well... I didn't know Hegel was that much of an ambitious man...

[@dubbelkastrull]

6:12 bookmark

[@VernCrisler]

Haeckel had his so-called biogenetic law in which the development of the embryo recapitulated the alleged evolutionary history of the species. This "law" is no longer regarded as valid by embryologists, but it is a good way of thinking about Hegel's philosophy. For Hegel, the mind (and Mind) recapitulated in microcosm the macrocosmic development of history, myth, religion, and philosophy. Thus the stage theory of the mind paralleled the stage theory of history. The above video is interesting in terms of Hegel's biography and the situation in life of 18th century Germany, but it hardly touches on Hegel's actual philosophy. Nor does it really demonstrate what Hegel's religious views were, nor fully develop his statist political philosophy. This is unfortunate because Rev. Shanks seems like a nice guy and an interesting speaker. Alas, most treatments of Hegel merely paraphrase him rather than explain him, so expounding Hegel's philosophy is a monumental task.

[@dreammfyre]

What a tease...

[@nateyreb7677]

Ive read Copleston's chapter's on Hegel and he said Hegelianism basically was Christianity's greatest enemy in disguise, which i know has proved to be true.

[@manfredarcane9130]

IIRC Copleston was citing the comment of a notably atheistic British idealist. In any case, Copleston's presentation of Hegel was too careful not too stray into "right Hegelianism", so I suppose that he was simply trying to stick to popular concensus.

[@nightoftheworld]

Zizek demonstrates otherwise-it’s Christianity’s baby survived from Protestantism’s drive for a radically critical and reflective faith

[@franciskm4144]

Copelstons opinion is wrong. Interpreting life of Jesus using philosophy is Theology. With Aristotle's categories one cannot comprehend Jesus Christ. According to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas a reality is either finite or infinite, never simultaneously infinite finite. Jesus Christ is infinite finite, God+man, universal+particular.This fusion of categories is the main contribution of Hegel. Unfortunately no interpretation of Hegel emphasised this main contribution. Only with this unified categories man can understand who Jesus Christ is? More over the leitmotif of Hegel is imitation of Christ in public life.

[@emmanueloluga9770]

@@franciskm4144 Thank you for this reply. These are the true insights I have been looking to find from Hegel's work..Jesus as the divine connection of GOD and man. Please are there any further sources I can learn of this.

[@franciskm4144]

@@emmanueloluga9770 First of all it is very difficult to read and understand Hegel. His book about the opinion about Christianity is obtained from Early theological Works published from United States. In that book first section is his Criticism against Christians. He says that Christianity is revised Judaism. In another section he analyses the real merit of Christ. To Get the unification of universal and particular one should read Shorter logic. Actually in this book he explains the meaning of Dialects. We know only the interpretation of Engels about Dialectics. Engels could not understood Dialectics. It is negation , assimilation and transformation or Aufhebung , Engels said it as negation of negation.

[@coahuiltejano]

this is the problem with theology, they always fall into hagiography. Hegel was a hardcore nationalist and a philosopher of THE STATE. HIs works constitute a renaissance of tribalism...

[@crd9191]

He was a terrible preacher, bad lecturer, bad public speaker in general, with an agonizingly inaccessible style of writing. I guess Hegel and I have more in common that I thought

[@daphnedassant1028]

Same here 😅

[@LaureanoLuna]

He's as irrationally hostile to nationalism as a Hollywood movie, and has as little to say about philosophy proper.

[@Onlyhuman1972]

I am a Muslim and I met Dr Shanks in a Church, he is knowledgeable nice persoon

[@futuristica1710]

Boohoooo!

[@LaureanoLuna]

Far too ideologically biased to be philosphically useful.

[@manfredarcane9130]

And you are most likely philosophically illiterate since you even invoke "biases".