Selection, Round 2, comments...

Terry Martinez10 said:It keeps coming back to me, if my memory serves me right: "God alone is the true correspondence of the concept and reality; all finite things, however, have an untruth in themselves, they have a concept and an existence, but the concept is inadequate."

If I were to put this into my own words...

Only God represents the true correspondence of the concept and reality for all finite things, yet all finite things possess an inherent untruth in themselves; they have a concept and an existence that is fundamentally inadequate to their own understanding.

What you're describing there is essentially Platonism—or perhaps that scholastic version of "realism"—which Hegel eventually absorbed, integrated, or synthesized into his own framework, much like he did with pretty much every other philosophical system out there.

Amanda Jackson5 said:What you're describing there is essentially Platonism—or perhaps that scholastic version of "realism"—which Hegel eventually absorbed, integrated, or synthesized into his own framework, much like he did with pretty much every other philosophical system out there.

Think about it: the Platonic Socrates was firmly convinced that things are good or beautiful only by virtue of being good or beautiful. Hegel leans heavily on this doctrine of "participation"—that idea of *methexis*—when he argues that anything constituting truth is only true through the lens of Truth itself; thus, God, acting as the sole source of absolute Truth, becomes the ultimate, final reality behind all things.

Terry Martinez10 said:Think about it: the Platonic Socrates was firmly convinced that things are good or beautiful only by virtue of being good or beautiful. Hegel leans heavily on this doctrine of "participation"—that idea of *methexis*—when he argues that anything constituting truth is only true through the lens of Truth itself; thus, God, acting as the sole source of absolute Truth, becomes the ultimate, final reality behind all things.

In Hegel's framework, the concept of God functions primarily as a metaphor. When we get down to the brass tacks of what constitutes truth, Hegel puts it quite succinctly: "The Truth is the Whole." It’s essentially the same sentiment expressed by a fellow forum member over in the "What is truth?" thread:

planinar said:Truth is the synthesis of all knowledge—past, present, and future—as perceived by all knowing beings.

That ultimate totality is what we call the Absolute, a point previously noted by our friend Simpleton. If you follow the logic that some people equate God with the Absolute, then everything actually fits together quite neatly, provided you look at it from a broad, unifying perspective rather than through a narrow, sectarian lens.

Amanda Jackson5 said:In Hegel's framework, the concept of God functions primarily as a metaphor. When we get down to the brass tacks of what constitutes truth, Hegel puts it quite succinctly: "The Truth is the Whole." It’s essentially the same sentiment expressed by a fellow forum member over in the "What is truth?" thread:

That ultimate totality is what we call the Absolute, a point previously noted by our friend Simpleton. If you follow the logic that some people equate God with the Absolute, then everything actually fits together quite neatly, provided you look at it from a broad, unifying perspective rather than through a narrow, sectarian lens.

Well, obviously, I agree; it's not like I was saying anything else to begin with.

Terry Martinez10 said:Well, obviously, I agree; it's not like I was saying anything else to begin with.

Yes, you did. You really tried to squeeze God through a keyhole there.

Amanda Jackson5 said:Yes, you did. You really tried to squeeze God through a keyhole there.

I’ve added some more thoughts to what I wrote above.

Terry Martinez10 said:Think about it: the Platonic Socrates was firmly convinced that things are good or beautiful only by virtue of being good or beautiful. Hegel leans heavily on this doctrine of "participation"—that idea of *methexis*—when he argues that anything constituting truth is only true through the lens of Truth itself; thus, God, acting as the sole source of absolute Truth, becomes the ultimate, final reality behind all things.

I feel like Hegel laid out his whole deal regarding religion and God pretty clearly enough right here;

"The starting point of religion—or rather, its actual core—is the concept of religion itself, the idea that God is the absolute truth, the truth behind all things, which makes religion the only source of absolutely true knowledge...

The Church has always been consistent and just in refusing to let reason stand in opposition to faith, or worse, to let faith be forced under the thumb of reason. Look, the human spirit isn't some fractured thing where you can just host two contradictory elements at once. If there's a massive rift between what we see intellectually and what we believe religiously, and if our knowledge can't bridge that gap, we don't get harmony—we get despair. And really, isn't despair just a one-sided attempt at reconciliation? It's when you just toss one side away and cling desperately to the other, but how is anyone supposed to find any real peace doing it that way?

One way out is for a divided spirit to just ditch intellectual demands entirely and try to crawl back to a simple, unthinking religious feeling. But let's be real, the mind can only achieve that by basically bullying itself, because you can't just force a conscious mind to ignore what it knows; a healthy mind won't allow it. So, that religious feeling just turns into a hollow kind of hypocrisy, leaving a lingering sense of dissatisfaction underneath. The other option is just falling into this total indifference toward religion—either ignoring it completely or just attacking it blindly. That’s the path taken by shallow minds, anyway.

GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion

The core question here is: What actually constitutes truth?
It’s one of those philosophical rabbit holes that looks different depending on which angle you take, isn't it? Personally, I find a certain quiet pleasure in digging through various essays and interpretations, just wandering through all the possible answers people have tried to construct over the centuries.
That seems to be the aim here too—to pin down what truth really is—so I’m a bit puzzled by this sudden religious fixation that has emerged in the comments, especially since it wasn't even on my mind when I first posted.

Terry Martinez10 said:The core question here is: What actually constitutes truth?
It’s one of those philosophical rabbit holes that looks different depending on which angle you take, isn't it? Personally, I find a certain quiet pleasure in digging through various essays and interpretations, just wandering through all the possible answers people have tried to construct over the centuries.
That seems to be the aim here too—to pin down what truth really is—so I’m a bit puzzled by this sudden religious fixation that has emerged in the comments, especially since it wasn't even on my mind when I first posted.

You guys already mentioned that truth is about the whole picture, but we really need to go deeper than just "knowing" stuff, right? Truth isn't just some intellectual data point; it’s about how you actually live or exist in the world. It’s more like having this profound realization of the whole, lived reality. A totality that you've actually experienced.

gentlerider7 said:I feel like Hegel laid out his whole deal regarding religion and God pretty clearly enough right here;

"The starting point of religion—or rather, its actual core—is the concept of religion itself, the idea that God is the absolute truth, the truth behind all things, which makes religion the only source of absolutely true knowledge...

The Church has always been consistent and just in refusing to let reason stand in opposition to faith, or worse, to let faith be forced under the thumb of reason. Look, the human spirit isn't some fractured thing where you can just host two contradictory elements at once. If there's a massive rift between what we see intellectually and what we believe religiously, and if our knowledge can't bridge that gap, we don't get harmony—we get despair. And really, isn't despair just a one-sided attempt at reconciliation? It's when you just toss one side away and cling desperately to the other, but how is anyone supposed to find any real peace doing it that way?

One way out is for a divided spirit to just ditch intellectual demands entirely and try to crawl back to a simple, unthinking religious feeling. But let's be real, the mind can only achieve that by basically bullying itself, because you can't just force a conscious mind to ignore what it knows; a healthy mind won't allow it. So, that religious feeling just turns into a hollow kind of hypocrisy, leaving a lingering sense of dissatisfaction underneath. The other option is just falling into this total indifference toward religion—either ignoring it completely or just attacking it blindly. That’s the path taken by shallow minds, anyway.

GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion

Clear enough for people who are either willfully ignorant or just too emotionally attached to their little religious biases to see anything else. I feel like I've had to explain this at least twenty-five times on this board already, but let me break it down quickly for those paying attention: Hegel never actually wrote a book by that specific title.

Terry Martinez10 said:The core question here is: What actually constitutes truth?
It’s one of those philosophical rabbit holes that looks different depending on which angle you take, isn't it? Personally, I find a certain quiet pleasure in digging through various essays and interpretations, just wandering through all the possible answers people have tried to construct over the centuries.
That seems to be the aim here too—to pin down what truth really is—so I’m a bit puzzled by this sudden religious fixation that has emerged in the comments, especially since it wasn't even on my mind when I first posted.

I'm not sure what your intention was, but this is what you actually wrote:

Terry Martinez10 said:Think about it: the Platonic Socrates was firmly convinced that things are good or beautiful only by virtue of being good or beautiful. Hegel leans heavily on this doctrine of "participation"—that idea of *methexis*—when he argues that anything constituting truth is only true through the lens of Truth itself; thus, God, acting as the sole source of absolute Truth, becomes the ultimate, final reality behind all things.

So, yeah, you basically dragged God into a conversation where He didn't belong.

She wrote this earlier

Terry Martinez10 said:It keeps coming back to me, if my memory serves me right: "God alone is the true correspondence of the concept and reality; all finite things, however, have an untruth in themselves, they have a concept and an existence, but the concept is inadequate."

If I were to put this into my own words...

Only God represents the true correspondence of the concept and reality for all finite things, yet all finite things possess an inherent untruth in themselves; they have a concept and an existence that is fundamentally inadequate to their own understanding.

So, continuing from that quote...

Terry Martinez10 said:Think about it: the Platonic Socrates was firmly convinced that things are good or beautiful only by virtue of being good or beautiful. Hegel leans heavily on this doctrine of "participation"—that idea of *methexis*—when he argues that anything constituting truth is only true through the lens of Truth itself; thus, God, acting as the sole source of absolute Truth, becomes the ultimate, final reality behind all things.

I used bolding just to highlight the parts that semantically correspond to one another, so I guess I'm wondering where exactly we are "introducing God through the back door" when you look at the context of both these quotes together.

Amanda Jackson5 said:In Hegel's framework, the concept of God functions primarily as a metaphor. When we get down to the brass tacks of what constitutes truth, Hegel puts it quite succinctly: "The Truth is the Whole." It’s essentially the same sentiment expressed by a fellow forum member over in the "What is truth?" thread:

That ultimate totality is what we call the Absolute, a point previously noted by our friend Simpleton. If you follow the logic that some people equate God with the Absolute, then everything actually fits together quite neatly, provided you look at it from a broad, unifying perspective rather than through a narrow, sectarian lens.

Okay. But what—or rather, where—is the actual (metaphorical) problem here?

I think the friction arises whenever God is mentioned—not just as a deity (which triggers everyone's automatic association with a supreme being), but specifically when we discuss God in relation to Hegel.

The issue is that Hegel wasn't quite referring to that kind of God; he didn't believe in a supreme being in the traditional sense, which is exactly what we dissected in our discussion on Hegel and Nietzsche regarding the
Critique of Christianity.

...and similarly with his other works.

It is vital to distinguish between the "God" that is clearly the Christian God—the deity of organized religion—and what Hegel refers to as the Absolute or the Totality. These two concepts are nowhere near the same, even if Hegel himself didn't explicitly draw that line at the time. We’ve already covered why that was the case, but I'll reiterate: Hegel was a declared Christian simply because he was a product of his era and functioned as a conventional citizen; modern atheism hadn't even truly emerged yet (in fact, Hegel paved much of the way for it). He was essentially using familiar Christian terminology as a vehicle to explain his own philosophical framework.

What we might comfortably call "God" today—assuming we still find any use for such an outdated term that implies a hierarchical "above," especially in this post-patriarchal age—would actually be the
Universal consciousness.

😬 That is the plain truth, and nothing but the truth—so God help me. 🤣

I wasn't even referring to the Christian God here, especially since I explicitly mentioned this isn't meant in a religious sense, so I honestly have no idea why anyone would immediately jump to the conclusion that I'm talking about a religious deity (not that I ever would)

What else can one even fathom once they see the word God written down?
I honestly haven't the slightest clue...
We’ve been conditioned enough to think we already know exactly what "God" means.

These quotes come straight from Hegel's Lectures on Aesthetics. The whole work centers on the nature of art... specifically his search for a definition of true beauty, which leads him into a deep dive attempting to define truth itself.
He’s talking about pure, unadulterated truth—the kind untouched by human oversight or subjective interpretation—and he weaves the concept of beauty right into that same framework.

Honestly, it blows my mind to think about how individuals would attempt to censor this kind of thought or strip away freedom of speech if they actually had the chance.

Terry Martinez10 said:These quotes come straight from Hegel's Lectures on Aesthetics. The whole work centers on the nature of art... specifically his search for a definition of true beauty, which leads him into a deep dive attempting to define truth itself.
He’s talking about pure, unadulterated truth—the kind untouched by human oversight or subjective interpretation—and he weaves the concept of beauty right into that same framework.

Honestly, it blows my mind to think about how individuals would attempt to censor this kind of thought or strip away freedom of speech if they actually had the chance.

You're actually building on what I was quoting. It's weird, though—that sentence is in the Lectures on Aesthetics, but my quote came from the Encyclopedic Logic (as a supplement to paragraph 24), where the exact same line appears. Since the supplements to the Encyclopedic Logic haven't been translated over here in the States yet, but the Lectures on Aesthetics have, could you tell me which chapter of the Lectures on Aesthetics you pulled that from? I'm really curious to read the full section you're talking about.

ruggedraven36 said:You're actually building on what I was quoting. It's weird, though—that sentence is in the Lectures on Aesthetics, but my quote came from the Encyclopedic Logic (as a supplement to paragraph 24), where the exact same line appears. Since the supplements to the Encyclopedic Logic haven't been translated over here in the States yet, but the Lectures on Aesthetics have, could you tell me which chapter of the Lectures on Aesthetics you pulled that from? I'm really curious to read the full section you're talking about.

I had no idea it appeared there as well.
I was just copying it down from my own notebook yesterday, so I'd have to hunt through the book to find the exact location, but those were definitely notes from the Lectures on Aesthetics... you know how it is, I just take notes as I read. So, I'll have to go back and find it myself; I don't exactly have the specific chapter number memorized.

steelridge58 said:I wasn't even referring to the Christian God here, especially since I explicitly mentioned this isn't meant in a religious sense, so I honestly have no idea why anyone would immediately jump to the conclusion that I'm talking about a religious deity (not that I ever would)

What exactly is a non-religious God supposed to be? Honestly, I feel like I’m hearing that term for the very first time.

Terry Martinez10 said:These quotes come straight from Hegel's Lectures on Aesthetics. The whole work centers on the nature of art... specifically his search for a definition of true beauty, which leads him into a deep dive attempting to define truth itself.
He’s talking about pure, unadulterated truth—the kind untouched by human oversight or subjective interpretation—and he weaves the concept of beauty right into that same framework.

Honestly, it blows my mind to think about how individuals would attempt to censor this kind of thought or strip away freedom of speech if they actually had the chance.

Let's not get carried away here. In what possible universe would I be stripping you of your right to free speech? If you feel the need to bring God into every single post, go right ahead—be my guest. But just keep in mind that if you do, I reserve the right to step in and explain exactly why that’s a flawed way of looking at things. Don't act like I'm the one trying to silence you.

Terry Martinez10 said:I had no idea it appeared there as well.
I was just copying it down from my own notebook yesterday, so I'd have to hunt through the book to find the exact location, but those were definitely notes from the Lectures on Aesthetics... you know how it is, I just take notes as I read. So, I'll have to go back and find it myself; I don't exactly have the specific chapter number memorized.

Anyway, thanks. Don't worry about looking for it. I'll find it eventually—just need to put in a little work.