73,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Serie: Challenges in Contemporary Theology
- Sprache: Englisch
Transcending Subjects: Augustine, Hegel and Theology engages the seminal figures of Hegel and Augustine around the theme of subjectivity, with consideration toward the theology and politics of freedom.
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 459
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016
Ähnliche
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Acknowledgements
Citations and Abbreviations
Introduction
Transcendence, Immanence, Subjectivity, Freedom
A Political Subjectivity?
Why Hegel and Augustine? An Apologetic
Objections
Outline
Subjectivity, Matter, and Time
Part I: Hegel—Self-Transcending Immanence
1 Hegel in Contemporary Political Philosophy
Introduction
Evolutionary Social Practices: Autonomy
through
Sociality
Revolutionary Radical Act: Autonomy
against
Sociality
Conclusion
2 Consciousness and Freedom
Introduction
Nothing
Is
Infinite:
Science of Logic
Infinite Self-Consciousness:
Phenomenology of Spirit
Beyond Nothing and the Unfathomable
Conclusion
3 Society and Freedom
Introduction
The Subject and Substance of Politics
The Institutions of Ethical Life: Family, Civil Society, and State
The Limits of Self-Transcending Immanence
Conclusion
Part II: Augustine—Self-Immanenting Transcendence
4 Augustine in Contemporary Political Theology
Introduction
Ontological Peace: Transcendence
against
Liberalism
Ordered Love: Transcendence
for
Liberalism
Conclusion
5 Conversion and Freedom
Introduction
Conversion of the Will: Conflict and Intervention
Conversion of the Will: Community and Intervention
Conversion of Creation: Christ as Intervention
Conclusion
6 Society and Freedom
Introduction
Earthly City and the Lust for Domination
Justice and
Res Publica
Justice, Love, and Sacrifice
Love and the World
Conclusion
Conclusion
Summary
Situating Results: Terrain
Moving Forward: Trajectories
Index
End User License Agreement
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
Pages
ii
iii
iv
v
vi
ix
x
xi
xii
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
98
96
97
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
127
128
126
129
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
229
226
227
228
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
Challenges in Contemporary Theology
Series Editors: Gareth Jones and Lewis AyresCanterbury Christ Church University College, UK and University of Durham, UK
Challenges in Contemporary Theology is a series aimed at producing clear orientations in, and research on, areas of ‘challenge’ in contemporary theology. These carefully co-ordinated books engage traditional theological concerns with mainstreams in modern thought and culture that challenge those concerns. The ‘challenges’ implied are to be understood in two senses: those presented by society to contemporary theology, and those posed by theology to society.
Published
These Three are One:The Practice of Trinitarian TheologyDavid S. Cunningham
After Writing:On the Liturgical Consummation of PhilosophyCatherine Pickstock
Mystical Theology:The Integrity of Spirituality and TheologyMark A. McIntosh
Engaging Scripture:A Model for Theological InterpretationStephen E. Fowl
Torture and Eucharist:Theology, Politics, and the Body of ChristWilliam T. Cavanaugh
Sexuality and the Christian Body:Their Way into the Triune GodEugene F. Rogers, Jr
On Christian TheologyRowan Williams
The Promised End:Eschatology in Theology and LiteraturePaul S. Fiddes
Powers and Submissions:Spirituality, Philosophy, and GenderSarah Coakley
A Theology of EngagementIan S. Markham
Alien Sex:The Body and Desire in Cinema and TheologyGerard Loughlin
Scripture and Metaphysics:Aquinas and the Renewal of Trinitarian TheologyMatthew Levering
Faith and Freedom:An Interfaith PerspectiveDavid Burrell
Keeping God’s SilenceRachel Muers
Christ and CultureGraham Ward
Theology in the Public Square:Church, Academy and NationGavin D’Costa
Rewritten Theology:Aquinas After His ReadersMark D. Jordan
God’s Companions:Reimagining Christian EthicsSamuel Wells
The Trial of the Witnesses:The Rise and Decline of Postliberal TheologyPaul J. DeHart
Theology and FamiliesAdrian Thatcher
The Shape of TheologyDavid F. Ford
The Vietnam War and Theologies of MemoryJonathan Tran
In Adams Fall:A Meditation on the Christian Doctrine of Original SinIan A. McFarland
Divine Illumination:The History and Future of Augustine's Theory of KnowledgeLydia Schumacher
Towards a Jewish-Muslim-Christian TheologyDavid B. Burrell
Scriptural InterpretationDarren Sarisky
Rethinking Christian Identity:Doctrine and DiscipleshipMedi Ann Volpe
Aquinas and the Supreme Court:Race, Gender, and the Failure of Natural Law in Thomas’s Biblical CommentariesEugene F. Rogers Jr
Transcending Subjects:Augustine, Hegel, and TheologyGeoffrey Holsclaw
TRANSCENDING SUBJECTS
Augustine, Hegel, and Theology
Geoffrey Holsclaw
This edition first published 2016© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
Registered OfficeJohn Wiley & Sons, Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK
Editorial Offices350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UKThe Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK
For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell.
The right of Geoffrey Holsclaw to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.
Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services and neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data applied for
Hardback 9781119163084
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover image: Fra Angelico, The Conversion of Saint Augustine, oil on canvas.© D. Sohier / Cherbourg-Octeville, Musée Thomas Henry
Acknowledgements
Staging a conversation between Hegel and Augustine would be impossible without being sustained by many other conversations and communities. I am especially grateful to D. Stephen Long, who worked tirelessly with me from the inception to the completion of this project. Michel Barnes, Danielle Nussberger, and James South were influential in their comments and criticisms. I also want to thank the Arthur J. Schmitt Foundation for offering me a research fellowship that supported the writing of this project. In many ways this project would have been impossible without the support of Life on the Vine Church, which has encouraged me all throughout this long process of receiving my doctorate at Marquette University.
Lastly I would like to especially thank my wife, Cynthia Joy, and my two sons, Soren and Tennyson, who have journeyed with me all throughout my program, supporting and encouraging me along the way.
Citations and Abbreviations
In citing Hegel and Augustine, I have made use of previously published translations when available. Any modifications to translations will be noted in brackets with original language in parentheses (unless otherwise noted). Following the conventions of Hegelian scholarship, English translations are citied along with the German, with English pagination followed by German, separated by a slash (/). Those works of Hegel organized by paragraphs will be cited (§). In those texts including “Remarks” (Anmerkungen) and editorial “Additions” (Zusätze), these will be indicated by “R” and “A,” respectively. Citations of Miller’s translation of the Phenomenology will refer to his paragraphs (¶). Following the conventions of Augustinian scholarship, citations will refer to the Latin abbreviations, noting the book, chapter, and section.
Hegel
DS/Diff
The Difference Between Fitche’s and Schelling’s System of Philosophy
. Translated by H. S. Harris and Walter Cerf. Albany: SUNY Press, 1977.
Differenz des Fichteschen und Schellingschen Systems der Philosophie
. In
Werke
2:9–138.
E
The Encyclopaedia Logic: Part I of the Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences with the Zusätze
. Translated by T. F. Geraets, W. A. Suchting, and H. S. Harris. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1991.
Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse (1830).
In
Werke 8–10.
FK/GW
Faith and Knowledge.
Translated by Walter Cerf and H. S. Harris. Albany: SUNY, 1977.
Glauben und Wissen oder Reflexionsphilosophie der Subjektivität in der Vollständigkeit ihrer Formen als Kantische, Jacobische und Fischtesche Philosophie
. In
Werke
2:287–433.
LPR/VPR
Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion
. Translated by R. F. Brown, P. C. Hodgson, and J. M. Stewart. Edited by Peter C. Hodgson. 3 vols. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984–1987.
Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion.
Edited by Walter Jaeschke. Vorlesungen, vols 3–5. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1983–1985.
PH/VPG
Philosophy of History.
Translated byJ. Sibree. London: George Bell and Sons, 1902.
Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte.
In
Werke
12.
PR
Hegel’s The Philosophy of Right.
Translated by Alan White. Newburyport: Focus Publishing, 2002. Cited by Hegel’s paragraph (§) numbers.
Grundlinien der Philosoophie des Rechts.
In
Werke
7.
PS/PG
Phenomenology of Spirit
. Translated by A. V. Miller. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Phänomenolgie des Geistes.
In
Werke
3.
SL/WL
Hegel’s Science of Logic.
Translated by A. V. Miller. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press, 1969.
Wissenschaft der Logik
. In
Werke
5–6.
Werke
Werk in zwanzig Bänden: Theorie Wekausgabe.
Edited by Eva Moldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1969–1971.
Augustine
ciu.
De ciuitate Dei.
CCSL 47–48.
The City of God against the Pagans.
Translated and edited by R. W. Dyson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
conf.
Confessions.
CCSL 27.
The Confessions of St. Augustine
. Translated by John K. Ryan
.
New York: Image Press, 1960. Also when noted,
Saint Augustine: Confessions
. Translated by Henry Chadwick. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.
duab. an.
De duabus animabus.
CSEL 25/1.
Concerning Two Souls, Against the Manicheans
. Translated by Albert H. Newman in
Nicene and Post-Nicene Father
, vol. 4. Peabody: Hendrickson, 1994.
lib. arb.
De libero arbitrio
. CCSL 29.
On Free Choice of the Will.
Translated by Thomas Williams. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993.
Simpl.
De diversis quaestionibus ad Simplicianum.
CCSL 44.
To Simplician—on Various Questions.
In
Augustine: Earlier Writings
, translated and edited by J. H. S. Burleigh, 376–406. Philadelphia, The Westminster Press, 1953.
trin
.
De trinitate
. CCSL50/50A.
The Trinity
. Translated by Edmond Hill (The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century) Brooklyn: New City Press, 1991.
CCSL
Corpus Christianorum
, Series Latina. Turnhout: Brepols, 1959–
CSEL
Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum
. Vienna: Hoelder-Pichler-Tempsky, 1866–
Introduction
There is another world and it is this world.
Franz Wright
Has theology lost its place? Does it belong to this world, or to another? And if another, is this other world superimposed irreducibly upon this one, or merely a projection, reflection, or reification of this world? Two fundamental orientations of thought propose themselves: either truly affirm or critically accept this other world. For those truly affirming it, it is this world below that is changed in reference to the one beyond. But for those critically accepting another world, it is the other world that is changed into a persistent illusion or illusive projection. And when it comes to theology, and especially political theology, there is a world of difference between these two orientations.
Transcendence, Immanence, Subjectivity, Freedom
Speaking of this world and a world beyond summons the themes of transcendence and immanence. What is transcendent to what? From what perspective is something immanent to something else? Transcendence is always transcendence of. But which world, and whose? From a more classical perspective transcendence refers to a transcendent world above (invisible, immutable, eternal) that sustains and makes intelligible the immanent world below (visible, changeable, temporal) of which we are a part, subjects caught within and between the two (spirited bodies or embodied spirits). Transcendence, in this perspective, “is that which is beyond the visible and temporal world of humans, but as such, it is reached by humans in the movement beyond themselves.”1 The transcendence of the immanent world is a movement beyond, a movement that subjects accomplish or participate in. Transcendence, therefore, is doubled: first as that which is beyond the world, and second, as the act by which subjects reach this transcendence as a form of self-transcendence.
But in the modern turn toward the subject the doubling of transcendence (transcendence of the world and the transcending of subjects) turns to a doubling of immanence. From Descartes to Kant, the world below is not grounded in a transcendent world above, but is grounded in the subject itself. The metaphysics of transcendence is replaced with the metaphysics of subjectivity such that the world beyond the subject is now the non-subjective world of immanent objects. This rebounds into the shrinking of immanence from encompassing the entire world of material objects to encompassing the world of thought representing these objects. In modernity, “immanence is no longer the world within our reach … but is our own subjectivity.”2 This creates a doubling of immanence: first as the world in opposition to otherworldly transcendence, and second as the immanence of thought for the subject. Modern subjectivity, then, frames the problem of transcendence as the world of immanent objects that the subject seeks to grasp, rather than as a transcendence beyond the world of such objects.
Being intimately woven together, transcendence, immanence, and subjectivity reveal one’s fundamental “matter of orientation in philosophy”3 and of theology. When oriented around the subject, to speak of the transcendence of the world is to ask if and how there is a world other than subjectivity and how subjectivity deals with or accounts for this world. But when oriented around the world itself, to speak of the transcendence of the world is to ask about the being and the beyond of this world. Each orientation entails shifting the primary definition of transcendence and immanence, and each includes a particular account of the subject. The first orientation construes immanence as that which is thinkable for subjectivity. The second construes immanence as the totality of beings, or being itself, which may or may not be thinkable for the subject.
The complex weaving together of these elements reveals the basis for the title of this work: transcending subjects. On the one hand, “transcending” can be an adjective describing “subjects.” This places the emphasis on the subject and its act of transcending, referring specifically to the self-transcending process by which subjectivity moves beyond its own immanent world of thought. On the other hand, “transcending” could also be a participle acting upon “subjects.” This would place the emphasis not on the subject that transcends, but on the transcending of subjectivity itself, i.e. the subject is being transcended by and to something else. These two ways of reading the title, that subjects actively self-transcend and that subjects are transcended, is the central concern of this study.
Rather than endlessly qualify transcendence, subjectivity, and immanence in advance of the planned discussion of Hegel and Augustine, we will modify William Desmond’s classification regarding transcendence as a baseline.4 What Desmond calls first transcendence (T1) regards the transcendence of external objects in the world, related but not reducible to conscious thought. Second transcendence (T2) is the self-transcendence of subjectivity as it relates to, yet exceeds and is not reducible to, the first transcendence of external objects. This is the self-transcending power of thought about external objects and its freedom within this world of objects. Third transcendence (T3) refers to a beyond in relation to both external objects (T1) and the self-transcendence of subjectivity (T2). This third type of transcendence is typical of religious or metaphysical thought and has recently received a severe onto-theological critique. Because this investigation is not concerned directly with a philosophy or theology of nature, we will combine the first two into a single category in what will be called “self-transcending immanence.” Self-transcending immanence affirms the non-reducible interrelation between the transcendence of objects and the self-transcendence of subjects. The second category affirms an actual transcendence in the ontological sense, and I will just use the word “transcendence” to signify this ontological meaning in regard to what I will call “self-immanenting transcendence.”
Hegel will guide our understanding of self-transcending immanence and its critical affirmation of another world. As we will see, Hegel critically affirms transcendence as the necessary passage of thought’s own self-determining freedom. For Hegel, to truly affirm another world is to hinder freedom in this world. In this sense, actual transcendence always competes with the freedom of self-transcendence. On the other hand, Augustine’s orientation towards transcendence offers an alternative vision freedom. Augustine sees God’s transcendence not merely as an opposed “other” but gives an account of God’s “self-immanenting transcendence” in which God comes into this world in order to re-establish freedom. Of course, the cogency and plausibility of these distinctions between Hegel’s “self-transcending immanence” and Augustine’s “self-immanenting transcendence” will only be seen at the end of this investigation. As of yet they only exercise heuristic value in positing different fundamental orientations in philosophy and theology between a critical and actual affirmation of transcendence.
A Political Subjectivity?
This study, however, will not focus solely on these philosophical and theological problems, but will instead ask about political possibilities. Within the broader orientations between transcendence and immanence, Hegel and Augustine represent two forms of understanding freedom and social change. The general questions of transcendence, immanence, and subjectivity will therefore run through the specific questions of political subjectivity and the possibility of engaging in social criticism and offering substantial change.
To understand the issues surrounding the possibility of a political subjectivity within Hegel and Augustine let us first observe a recent interaction between Romand Coles and Stanley Hauerwas. Coles seeks to express the possibilities of a radical democracy understood as a receptive generosity. Hauerwas points to a radical ecclesiology expressing itself as repentant orthodoxy. Their dialogue, captured in Christianity, Democracy, and the Radical Ordinary: Conversations between a Radical Democrat and a Christian, will clarify the terms of this inquiry regarding a political subjectivity capable of social criticism and change, and how transcendence and immanence play within each account.5
Romand Coles: Radical democracy as receptive generosity
Away from the corporate mega-state, containing a rhetoric of democracy even while eroding its possibility, Romand Coles seeks a radical democracy, a democracy never fully in possession of itself, a democracy that is fugitive in nature.6 Unlike the attempts to gain a share of State power, radical democracy attempts to share power through a persistent tending to others as a process of mutual benefit.7 The characteristics of such a radical democracy consist in tension-dwelling practices between (1) the past and future, (2) receptive listening and prophetic voicing, (3) immediate goals and deep transformation, and (4) cultivating local habits and the habit of de-habituation.8 Radical democracy is enabled by a receptive generosity and reciprocal mutuality where each person is open to the other, never fully in possession of oneself. This generosity and mutuality is cultivated by liturgies—body practices—that form in participants the capacities of patience, care, dialogue, courage, and fortitude.9 Radical democracy, therefore, is not a system of governance guided by a constitution, but a continual process guided by the individuals constituting it.
In his desire for radical democracy, Coles admits to being haunted by John Howard Yoder, whose ecclesial politics, or radical ecclesiology, embodies many traits of radical democracy (tension dwelling, generous receptivity, reciprocal mutuality, body practices, and non-coercive relations).10 But even in this haunting, Coles has two crucial concerns in regard to Hauerwas’ appropriation and extension of Yoder. First (in the form of a question), could not the centrality of Christ for Yoder (and Hauerwas) lead unexpectedly to anti-democratic practices of exclusion? In other words, does not the emphasis Hauerwas places on orthodoxy lead to the inability of practicing generous receptivity? And second, concerning the “liturgical turn” in theology and Christian ethics,11 might an understanding of Christian ethics as Christian practice embodied and performed in the liturgy lead to an ethical and political orientation of gathering as a closed community rather than cultivating a community openly scattered throughout the world?12 Yet even in the midst of these worrisome questions, Coles, ever true to practicing generous receptivity, acknowledges that these “undemocratic institutions linked to orthodoxy” might actually constitute the very conditions of a radical democracy.13 Or said differently, Coles worries that radical democracy might indeed require a transcendent orientation for its very possibility of being, even while worrying that this transcendence also causes the forms of exclusion that radical democracy seeks to avoid.
Stanley Hauerwas: Radical ecclesiology as repentant orthodoxy
In relation to Coles’ concern about the “liturgical turn,” Hauerwas wonders how and where people are formed who are concerned with radical democracy. Certainly they do not simply drop from the sky. Hauerwas notes that Coles’ account of radical democracy is significantly developed in conversation with Ella Baker and Cornel West, both of whom were liturgically formed in an ecclesial tradition to be persons capable of generous receptivity and prophetic voicing. Without these strong religious traditions, Hauerwas wonders if these types of people are even conceivable?14
Second, in relation to Coles’ haunting by John Howard Yoder, Hauerwas suggests that Yoder would like Coles to be haunted by Jesus instead. In fact, Hauerwas confesses that he also is haunted by Jesus. In addition to this, Hauerwas intentionally places his body in positions to be haunted by Jesus. “That I go to church,” says Hauerwas, “does not mean I think that Jesus is only to be found there. It just means that he has promised to show up there in a manner that can help us discern how he shows up in other places.”15 Hauerwas emphasizes the “liturgical turn” not to form a closed community, bordered off and secured from others, but as the principal means by which the otherness of Jesus can haunt the ecclesial community gathered in his name. The ecclesial community does this so that it might be scattered in the world to live as Jesus lived. It is not a question of church against the world, but an emphasis on the church for the world.
Lastly, Hauerwas claims that a commitment to orthodoxy protects the radical democratic ideal practiced by (or for Hauerwas, inspired by) Jesus. Orthodoxy “names the developments across time that the Church has found necessary for keeping the story of Jesus straight” such that “rather than being the denial of radical democracy, orthodoxy is the exemplification of the training necessary for the formation of a people who are not only capable of working for justice, but who are themselves just.”16 This relation of orthodoxy and the liturgical training of a people highlights Hauerwas’ understanding that only in these practices can radical ecclesial and radical democratic processes flourish. Or rather, only within these practices can a radical subjectivity flourish, and without them it will stagnate.
Indeed, in the midst of claims that Hauerwas’ ecclesial focus fosters an exclusivism based in an imaginary center (be it orthodoxy, liturgy, or Jesus), Hauerwas seeks to turn this criticism around. He asks, and is never answered by Coles, “what do radical democrats do if they do not confess sin?”17 For in the practice of confessing and repenting of sin, the Church takes into account its own failure to be what it ought to be. It does this not as an excuse for evil nor as an eternal postponement of holiness. Rather the Church knows from the beginning that it is not in possession of itself, that it has not been sufficiently haunted by Jesus, by the Spirit of Jesus, the Holy Ghost. The confession of sin affirms the necessity of a critical distance (from society at large and even from oneself) and this confession is itself a practice of constructive change in turning from evil to good.
But if radial democrats do not confess sin, how can they ensure that their practices of democracy do not become self-possessing? And how do they know there is movement toward what is good? Does radical democracy even have a category such as sin through which it can make sense of the need for and failures of a generous receptivity? Or in the terms Coles uses, if radical democracy requires cultivating the radical habit of de-habituation (i.e. breaking with the oppressive habits of the status quo), this practice of de-habituation must assume both the reality of and access to a horizon transcending such oppressive habits. For Hauerwas, this transcendence is protected rather than prohibited by orthodoxy, and accessed through confession of sin.
In brief, both Coles and Hauerwas emphasize the need for establishing a critical distance from the status quo in order to initiate constructive change. And both agree that some formative subjectivity is required for such critique and change. However, they disagree about how best to accomplish these goals.
Between Coles and Hauerwas is a basic difference in orientation regarding transcendence, a different in orientation reduplicated in much of contemporary political philosophy and theology. While both are devoted to the establishment of justice and freedom, Coles sees a positive commitment to transcendence as inimical to a radical democratic practice, and Hauerwas sees such a commitment as indispensible for such a project.
Explaining the differences between these fundamental orientations leads to the philosophical and theological systems of Hegel and Augustine, who in a sense stand as fountainheads of these two different streams of thought. Examining Hegel and Augustine around the issues of transcendence and freedom offers a way to understand the more localized disagreements between political philosophers and theologians, and even between theologians.
Why Hegel and Augustine? An Apologetic
Why, it might be asked, should we turn to Hegel and Augustine? What possible recourses can be found from these two for a political subjectivity? While each seemingly begins with an odyssey of the subject, do not both (as the textbook versions go) end as fascist curmudgeons supporting the status quo? Well, in regard to Hegel, after the recent demise of Kantian liberalism in the forms of Rawls and Habermas, many are returning to Hegel as the original critic of Kantian philosophy specifically and of Enlightenment secularism generally. This return to Hegel has produced a large body of research dislodging the easily caricatured Hegel of dialectical monism and political conservativism, creating the possibility of a more positive deployment of Hegel within philosophy and politics. And concerning Augustine, in one sense his theology is perennial for theology, whether accepted or rejected. And as with Hegel, many are beginning to question the received Augustine, mining his texts within his own cultural and theological milieu rather than merely as the beginning of supposedly unfavorable (proto-modern) theological developments. The time is ripe for an engagement between these two stalwarts of theology and philosophy in order to illuminate the similarities and differences and make clear their contemporary relevancy as possible orientations of thought.
While descriptive commentary is useful, this is not the sole purpose in engaging Hegel and Augustine. Indeed, Hegel is deployed here as one of, if not the most, sophisticated attempt at articulating “self-transcending immanence” as a philosophical system in opposition to transcendence. He does this in the hopes of securing a positive account of freedom (subjective and social freedom) beyond the negative accounts offered by Hobbes and his followers. Because of this, Hegel makes the ideal test case for examining those promoting freedom through a philosophy of “self-transcending immanence” without reliance on transcendence. On the other hand, Augustine offers a theological orientation that emphasizes God’s “self-immanenting transcendence” as the only possible hope for true freedom. In essence, Hegel claims that transcendence destroys freedom and Augustine claims that transcendence is the only means to freedom. At its core, this study seeks to show that Augustine gives a better explanation of and therefore funds a better practice for freedom. And by practice of freedom I mean the ability to criticize and constructively change the dominant social system in which a subject finds itself for the promotion of freedom for all. Through Augustine, then, it will be argued that the possibility of social criticism and substantive change better resides in God’s self-immanenting transcendence than in our own self-transcending immanence.
I do not want to give the impression, however, that I simply reject everything in Hegel and accept all of Augustine. In general I can affirm aspects of Hegel’s social and political philosophy, but not his fundamental orientation regarding a self-transcending immanence. Because of this I can accept aspects of his understanding of the process of subjective recognition as social intersubjectivity and the self-transcendence of consciousness. Conversely, I generally affirm Augustine’s fundamental orientation regarding God’s self-immanenting transcendence, but not necessarily all aspects of his theology. Examples would be aspects of the Donatist controversy and his views on reprobation.
Also, it is not the case that philosophy and theology are being pitted against each other. It is not the case that Hegel is rejected because he is a philosopher and Augustine accepted as a theologian. Indeed, Hegel is very interested in theological issues and Augustine in philosophical matters. Both Hegel and Augustine relate philosophy and theology in such ways as to have made themselves prominent figures in the history of both theology and philosophy. The issue between them is not theology and philosophy, but rather the fundamental orientation between transcendence and immanence, here focused through possibility of creating and sustaining a radical political subjectivity.
Objections
But there is a problem. Actually two. First, by comparing Hegel as a philosopher of immanence to Augustine as a theologian of transcendence it seems that I am violating the very center of Hegelian thought, i.e. there really is no opposition between transcendence and immanence (the infinite and the finite), and to persist in such oppositions is to fail to understand Hegel. To position Hegel as a philosopher of immanence seems to swim against the current of his own thought, placing Hegel within a binary opposition he would seek to overcome. The second objection concerns the comparison between Hegelian and Augustinian subjectivity.
Concerning the first objection, it must be remembered that Hegel himself is often given to polemic and binary thought. He definitely thinks that Kant, and all other appeals to transcendence are wrong. Hegel believes that reflective philosophies of Kantian origin are inferior to and opposed to his own speculative philosophy. And he definitely thinks that all references to an actual transcendence are positively inimical to the self-determining freedom of modern thought. And in none of these binary oppositions does he think he is violating his own philosophy. All too often an over-hasty denial of oppositions hides a refusal to examine the deep presuppositions and orientations within a philosophical and theological system. These denials either lead to gross misunderstanding or superficial agreement among and within philosophy and theology. The present study in no way desires to minimize the complexity and subtlety of these issues, but it will nonetheless persistently return to the question of these fundamental orientations between transcendence and immanence, focused through the possibility of each to produce and sustain a political subjectivity capable of criticism and change.
Also, concerning the objection that opposing Hegel to Augustine violates Hegel’s own logic, it is one of the essential purposes of Part 1 to show that Hegel does not accomplish his goal of uniting the infinite and the finite as a process of accounting for all “otherness.” This means his attempt at overcoming all oppositions within thought fails. It will be argued that rather than proving his point by strict scientific deduction, he instead assumes his conclusions from the beginning and pre-configures possible rivals (others) within his system (I will demonstrate this in Chapter 2 without relying on typical objections). Hegel gives a plausible philosophical system of immanence, but one that is ultimately chosen rather than proven. Of course Augustine does not escape this fate either. But for Augustine, it is not the case that we choose the system but that the system (God) converts us. That neither Hegel nor Augustine ultimately prove their case makes this study more of an apologetic based in the plausibility and suitability of Augustine’s position over Hegel’s.
The second objection will be discussed in full at the beginning of Chapter 5, but needs to be mentioned here. The fundamental orientations between Hegel and Augustine will be tested through their respective accounts of subjectivity and politics. Initially this seems to be the most natural place from which to carry out such a comparison given the perceived influence Augustine exerts on Western philosophy and theology through his subjective turn. But many have begun to question the all-too-easy assimilation of Augustine’s understanding of subjectivity to more modern (especially Cartesian) accounts of subjectivity.18 It is enough here to note that I am sympathetic with the criticisms concerning the equivalence of Augustinian and modern subjectivity, and that it is exactly this lack of congruence that gives Augustine the resources by which a political subjectivity is produced.
Outline
This study proceeds in two parts, the first concerning Hegel and the second on Augustine. Each part contains three chapters. Chapter 1 looks at recent interpretations of Hegel’s political philosophy given by Robert Pippin and Slavoj Žižek. This will offer entrance into the field of Hegelian studies and its recent post-Kantian emphasis on self-determining freedom. It will be shown that these two contemporary interpretations end in drastically different positions, with Pippin focused on evolutionary social practices and Žižek on revolutionary subjective acts. The question arising from this chapter concerns whether such a dichotomy necessarily follows from Hegel or only from his interpreters. To answer this question, one must be thoroughly acquainted with Hegel’s philosophical project. Chapter 2, therefore, introduces Hegel’s philosophical and social project of “being at home with oneself in one’s other” (E §24 A2) in two steps. First, his Logic is examined as the linchpin of Hegel’s philosophy. Entrance into Hegel’s system is made by looking at the derivation of the concept of the true infinite from the concept of being. This derivation of the true infinite (which unites the finite and infinite) is utilized by Hegel to ward off the need to reference an unthinkable transcendence (an “other”) beyond consciousness. In the second portion of this chapter we will turn to his Phenomenology and examine both the course and development of consciousness into self-consciousness and how Hegel utilizes his conception of the true infinite within this development. Chapter 2 is essential for (1) properly understanding Hegel’s philosophy, for (2) understanding the claim that his philosophy is committed to self-transcending immanence, and for (3) its argument that Hegel ultimately fails in logically deducing his system of self-transcending immanence. Chapter 3, concluding Part 1, will examine the political consequences of Hegel’s philosophy of freedom by looking at his Philosophy of Right. This chapter will determine that the dichotomy between Pippin and Žižek reproduces an inherent instability within Hegel’s system leading toward his failure in securing a political subjectivity capable of both social criticism and substantive change.
Part 2 will move from Hegel’s attempt at “being at home with oneself in one’s other” to Augustine’s pilgrimage of the soul in its return to the God who is both absolutely other and intimately the same as humanity. Similar to Chapter 1, Chapter 4 will examine contemporary interpretations of Augustine’s political theology, represented by John Milbank and Eric Gregory, each positioning Augustine’s ontological commitments alongside modern liberalism. Building on these ontological commitments, but centering on the process of subjective formation, Chapter 5 examines Augustine’s Confessions and its depiction of the bondage and conversion of the will. This chapter begins to outline how Augustine integrates the subjective and social aspects of the conversion of the will in a way unimagined by Hegel. This chapter shows how this integration is only possible because of the self-immanenting transcendence of God through the Incarnation. Chapter 6 turns from the prodigal rebellion of the will to the pilgrim journey of the city of God. It looks at how God’s self-immanenting transcendence founds and establishes a truly just society, changing from a city dominated by the desire for domination to a city opening in love toward God and neighbor. After this the conclusion will gather together the threads of these various arguments to show that concern for a political subject, capable not only of offering criticism but also engaging in change, must abandon all Hegelian forms of self-transcending immanence in favor of a more Augustinian self-immanenting transcendence.
Subjectivity, Matter, and Time
Two final issues must be raised so that they can be placed to the side until the conclusion. This investigation centers on the issues of political subjectivity. As we will see in Chapter 2, because Hegel is so focused on the question of thought (via a social self-consciousness) the issues of time and matter are effectively bracketed out of his exposition. This is not the case for Augustine as he links questions of subjectivity (and its conversion) to ontological issues such that questions of matter are much more difficult to avoid. Likewise, because Augustine is more concerned with the transformation of subjectivity and society, this entails raising issues of temporality. Reluctantly, to keep this project to a manageable size, these issues (of matter and time) are for the most part left unexplored until the conclusion.
Notes
1
Arne Grøn, “Subjectivity and Transcendence: Problems and Perspectives,” in
Subjectivity and Transcendence
, ed. by Arne Grøn, Iben Damgaard, and Soren Overgaard (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck GmbH and Co. K, 2007), 11.
2
Grøn, “Subjectivity and Transcendence,” 12.
3
Grøn, “Subjectivity and Transcendence,” 12.
4
William Desmond,
Hegel’s God: Counterfeit Double?
(Burlington: Ashgate, 2003), 2–7.
5
Stanley Hauerwas and Romand Cole,
Christianity, Democracy, and the Radical Ordinary: Conversations between a Radical Democrat and a Christian
(Eugene: Cascade Books, 2007).
6
Hauerwas and Cole,
Christianity, Democracy, and the Radical Ordinary
, 307. Coles is drawing from Sheldon Wolin’ s
Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Western Political Thought, Expanded Edition
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), ch. 17 where Wolin sets forth this idea.
7
Hauerwas and Cole,
Christianity, Democracy, and the Radical Ordinary
, 141.
8
Hauerwas and Cole,
Christianity, Democracy, and the Radical Ordinary
, 278.
9
Hauerwas and Cole,
Christianity, Democracy, and the Radical Ordinary
, 323.
10
Romand Coles,
Beyond Gated Politics, Ordinary
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), 137–138.
11
See, for example, Stanley Hauerwas and Samuel Wells, eds.
Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics
(Malden: Blackwell, 2004).
12
Christianity, Democracy, and the Radical
, 211.
13
Hauerwas and Cole,
Christianity, Democracy, and the Radical Ordinary
, 323.
14
Hauerwas and Cole,
Christianity, Democracy, and the Radical Ordinary
, 111.
15
Hauerwas and Cole,
Christianity, Democracy, and the Radical Ordinary
, 105.
16
Hauerwas and Cole,
Christianity, Democracy, and the Radical Ordinary
, 30.
17
Hauerwas and Cole,
Christianity, Democracy, and the Radical Ordinary
, 326.
18
The received view is expounded by those like Charles Taylor,
Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989); Stephen Menn,
Descartes and Augustine
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Phillip Cary,
Augustine’s Invention of the Inner Self: The Legacy of a Christian Platonist
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). Representative of those questioning this view are Michael Hanby,
Augustine and Modernity
(New York: Routledge, 2003); John C. Cavidini, “The Darkest Enigma: Reconsidering the Self in Augustine’s Thought.”
Augustinian Studies
38/1 (2007), 119–132; Thomas Harmon’s “Reconsidering Charles Taylor’s Augustine” in
Pro Ecclesia
20/2 (2011): 185–209.
Part IHegel—Self-Transcending Immanence
1Hegel in Contemporary Political Philosophy
Thinking immediately involves freedom.1
Introduction
After the demise of a Kantian/Rawlsian political philosophy of secular rights and duties, many are turning to Hegel as offering a model of post-secular political philosophy able to include substantive social practices and even robust religious life. Many recent political readings of Hegel have opted for a non-metaphysical interpretation, even while affirming the logical basis of Hegel’s thought.2 While these political appropriations are all a form of left Hegelianism in emphasizing political reform in the name of the freedom of thought, these interpretations have been anything but uniform.
The contemporary return to Hegel is dominated by two seemingly opposed expressions: one in the form of social self-legislating practices resulting in inter-subjective recognition, the other in the form of radical subjectivity persisting within the failure of the social reconciliation. The former focuses on the evolution of social normativity, and the latter on the revolution of radical subjectivity. The “normative Hegel” is best represented in the work of Robert Pippin; the “radical Hegel” by Slavoj Žižek. Interpreting the work of these two will orient us within the landscape of contemporary Hegelian studies and prepare for entrance into Hegel’s philosophical system.
Pippin and Žižek, however, can only be properly understood as part of a general movement to overturn metaphysical interpretations of Hegel, of which Charles Taylor is an excellent example. For many, Taylor’s Hegel effectively reintroduced Hegel to American philosophy in 1975, and does so through a metaphysical reading of Hegel’s system. Taylor sees Hegel uniting the two diverse Enlightenment strands of radical moral autonomy and Romantic expressive unity.3 To do this Hegel must overcome the oppositions between the “knowing subject and his world, between nature and freedom, between individual and society, and between finite and infinite spirit.”4 Not relying on a philosophical pantheism that makes humanity an insignificant part within the cosmic substance, Hegel modified Spinoza and Schelling so that subjectivity stands alongside cosmic substance.
This unity of subject and substance is achieved through Geist, often translated as spirit or mind. Taylor understands Geist through Hegel’s account of the human subject.5 The human subject for Hegel is both a living being (animal) and a thinking/expressive being (rational), and as such is necessarily embodied in a double sense. As an animal, the human body has a form of life and therefore a natural limit. As a thinking and expressive being, humanity always creates tangible modes of expressing its thoughts, constituting the second form of its embodiment. Consciousness, therefore, is always both continuous and discontinuous with its embodied way of life, separating thought from desire, reason from nature, and intention from inclination. This consciousness divides humanity from itself resulting in the unfortunate, even if expected, articulation in Cartesian dualism. Within this embodied alienation “man is thus inescapably at odds with himself.”6 Or in a more Hegelian idiom, “the subject is both identical with and opposed to his embodiment” because thinking cannot exist without embodiment even while it struggles against this embodiment.7
In Taylor’s reading, rather than persisting in the non-coincidence of life and expression for the human subject, Geist unites the embodiment of life and expression because the universe is already the embodiment of Geist. But for Geist to fully express itself in the universe as free and rational, there must exist a consciousness in the universe as an external embodiment (or expression) of the self-determining rational freedom of Geist. This embodied expression of Geist is finite spirit, or human subjectivity. Human individuals are not merely fragments of the universe, parts within a cosmic whole, but are “vehicles of cosmic spirit.”8While everything in the universe is an expression of Geist expressing itself, humanity is the culminating vehicle of this expression, especially when humanity comes to know itself as rationally free.
For Hegel, on Taylor’s reading, the differences between nature and freedom, individual and society, finite and infinite, each express moments of the original unity of Geist now externally embodied, returning toward its own unity as self-conscious freedom. This is the basis for Hegel’s claim for being an idealist, that the “Idea becomes its other, and then returns into self-consciousness in Geist.”9 Taylor’s interpretation of cosmic Geist working through human self-consciousness as the expression of Geist’s own essence constitutes a strong version of the metaphysical reading of Hegel. It is this interpretation that Pippin and Žižek seek to overturn in their own return to Hegel.10
In their reactions against the metaphysical reading of Hegel proposed by Taylor and others, Pippin and Žižek exemplify two currents in political appropriations of Hegel. The first section of this chapter will examine Robert Pippin’s reading of Hegel focusing on normative autonomy established through social practices. The second will look at Slavoj Žižek’s interpretation of Hegel as articulating radical autonomy beyond such social practices. These opposed interpretations will serve to introduce the main themes of Hegel’s philosophy while also beginning to show the inherent instability caused by Hegel’s philosophy of self-transcending immanence. This instability will lead us into the next chapter on Science of Logic and Phenomenology and the striving for freedom found in those texts.
Evolutionary Social Practices: Autonomy through Sociality
Pippin seeks to offer a third way between the right Hegelians, who postulate a “philosophically problematic theological metaphysics,” and the left Hegelians, who run to the margins of Hegel’s texts looking only for useful formulations and interesting conclusions.11 Pippin presents Hegel as a non-metaphysical, yet still speculative, thinker. This “absolute idealism” does not revert back to a pre-critical cosmic mind, i.e. the human subjectivity writ large for Taylor. Rather, Hegel’s project is to complete Kant’s critical philosophy. The focus in this section will be on Pippin’s reading of Hegel’s practical philosophy as an extension of Kant’s critical project. For Pippin, Hegel reinterprets Kantian freedom as social self-legislation, historically achieved through practices and institutions, resulting in mutual recognition as inter-subjective institutional relatedness.
Kantian self-legislation
The problem of freedom within modernity often comes down to attempts to reconcile the individual and society. To understand Hegel’s contribution to this problem, Pippin first directs us to understand how Kant adopts the problem of self-legislation from Rousseau. Rousseau sought to reconcile the original independence of natural humanity with the dependence of social humanity, or more dramatically, to reconcile the fact that “man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”12 The natural savage, who at one time lived within himself, now lives outside himself, in society, mistaking this exteriority for freedom.13 Rousseau does not opt for a mere return to a natural setting, but poses the problem of how to achieve independence through societal dependence. This is not the search for a relatively unconstrained freedom of non-interference as one seeks to secure our needs or desires (along the lines of Hobbes to Nozick). Rather, freedom is a reconciliation of our particular wills and the general good of society, expressed as the “general will.” Only in this general will can one achieve freedom as independence without denying the fact of social dependency. Indeed, the ideal society would be structured to mediate economic and psychological dependence in order for personal independence to flourish. Only in this society would it make sense that one could be “forced to be freed.”14
Kant takes from Rousseau the desire for freedom as more than non-interference, but rather than basing it on a vague conception of the “general will,” Kant produces an argument from reason expressed as the categorical imperative. The basis of moral action is to “act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.”15 This universal law, or norm as Pippin prefers, is not imposed externally, but rather is self-legislated by reason. Respecting others as an end, rather than a means, is to posit humanity itself as an ultimate value or norm to be followed. This norm is not something other than the capacity to set and evaluate norms according to reason, such that the categorical imperative is a self-legislated law, not externally imposed by nature or force, but internally posited by reason.16 This positing by reason, for Kant, is a process of individual reflective endorsement where each applies the standards of reason to one’s own actions. For Kant, this reflective endorsement solves Rousseau’s problem of the general will because self-legislating reason is not something more than individual reason as will. The cost, however, of Kantian self-legislation as an individual reason’s own reflective endorsement is that morality is separated from politics, causing a separation between individual and society. It is here, with the success of Kantian self-legislation but the failure of social reconciliation, that Pippin sees Hegel moving the argument forward.
Spirit as socio-historical achievement
Remembering that the “Kantian notion of self-legislation is the center of everything” for Hegel,17 we can now examine Pippin’s understanding of Hegel’s neo-Kantian political theory, beginning with his understanding of Geist. Often rendered by the “almost meaningless and now standard translation” of “spirit,” regularly misunderstood as a cosmic mind or soul, Pippin understands Geist as the “state of norm-governed individual and collective mindedness … and institutionally embodied recognitive relations.”18 Pippin’s understanding of Geist draws from a “distinct and controversial interpretation” of Hegel’s Encylopedia and its linking of nature and Geist as non-dualistic, as self-relating, and as the achievement of freedom.19
For Pippin, Geist is neither material nor immaterial because it is not a thing at all. Rather Geist is Hegel’s way of expressing a non-dualistic relation between nature and mind. Geist is not divine mind manifesting itself in nature, but rather the truth of nature in which nature vanishes [verschwunden] (PSS 1:24–25), and yet still not other than nature.20 The truth and vanishing of nature in Geist indicates the inappropriateness of purely natural causality as an explanation for the complexity of certain natural organisms who “come to be occupied with themselves and eventually to understand themselves no longer appropriately explicable within the boundaries of nature.”21 The divide between nature and Geist is therefore not an ontological one, but an explanatory or a normative one, such that humanity has established for itself that, while it is part of nature, it is inappropriate to reduce human achievements and aspirations to merely natural phenomena.22
Because it is non-reducible to natural, Geist must be understood as self-relating. For Hegel, sentient creatures do not merely embody their natures, but employ a mediated and self-directed stance toward their natures. The reflected, self-conscious stance of humanity is really the source of the nature–Geist distinction as humanity seeks to render intelligible its natural embodiment and its reflective achievements.23Geist is self-relating because it knows itself as Geist in its distinction from, and yet dependence on, nature. In this way Geist comes to know itself when it makes the normative distinction between itself and nature, becoming self-relational in the process. But it must be remembered that this overcoming or vanishing of nature is not based in an alternative ontological entity acting upon nature. Rather, while not reducible to nature, the achieved distinction of self-relating Geist is best considered as “not non-natural.”24
All of this is a way of saying Geist is best understood as an achieved freedom from, but in, nature. This independence from nature is a capacity historically achieved, not naturally given or cosmically received. According to Pippin, Hegel sees the human mindedness of Geist as
