Pantheism in Spinoza and the German Idealists

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Pantheism in Spinoza and the German Idealists

F. C. Copleston

Philosophy, Vol. 21, No. 78. (Apr., 1946), pp. 42-56.

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PANTHEISlM I N S PIN O ZA A N D T H E G E R M A N

IDEALISTS

F.

C.

COPLESTON

J. M A

IN an essay on pantheism Schopenhauer observes that his chief

objection against it is tha t it says nothing , th at it simply enriches

language with a superfluous synonym of the word world. I t can

hardly be denied that by this remark the great pessimist, who was

himself an atheist, scored a real point. For if a philosopher starts

off with th e physical world and proceeds to call i t God, he ha s no t

added anything to the world except a label, a label which, if we

ta ke into account the ord inary significance of the word

God, might well app ear unnecessary and superfluous: one might

just as pertinently say th at the world is the world as th at the world

is God. Neither the Jew nor the Christian nor the Moslem under-

stan d by God the physical world, so th at , if someone calls th e

physical world God, he cannot be taken to mean that the world is

God according t o th e Jewish or Christian or Moslem understanding

of God. Does he mean any more than that the physical world is

ultimately self-explanatory, that no Cause external to the world,

no transce nde nt Being is requisite or admissible, i.e. th at there is no

G o d ? If th at were all there is in pantheism, the l att er would indeed

be indistinguishable from atheism, and those who called Spinoza

an atheist would be fully justified.

As far as Spinoza is concerned,

I

do not hesitate to say that his

system , when looked a t under one of its aspects, is indeed atheistic,

and t h at , so far as th at aspect is concerned, th e word God, which

he em ploys so frequently, is a superfluous label. Some of those w ho

accused Spinoza of atheism h ad a personal and interested m otive

in doing so, for, hav ing undergone the influence of Descartes and

realising the app arent connection between Spinszism an d C artesian-

ism, the y were eager t o dissociate themselves from a system,

which, at least superficially, seemed to have its roots in the phil-

osophy of the Fren chm an, and what more effective means could they

employ to dissociate themselves from that system than abuse of

i ts au th o r? I But even if some of those w ho accused Spinoza of

atheism had an interested motive in doing so, it does not follow th at

I d~ not say this out of any hostility to Cartesians, long since dead, nor,

of course,

do

accuse them of any insincerity: their at ti tude was only natural

in view

of

some consequences which, as Leibniz hints, might seem to follow

from Descartes doctrine.

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P A N T H E I S M I N S P I N O Z A A N D G ER M A N I D E A L I S T S

this judgment was necessarily withou t foundation. F rom one point

of view Spinozism can be regarded a s the u tm ost possible generali-

sation of th e at tit ud e of contemporary science towards the m aterial

world, as a linking up of all phenom ena, physical an d psychical,

pas t, present and to come, in one great interconnected system, one

intelligible and self-dependent cosmos. Looked at from this point of

view, Spinozism is atheistic, for to call t he cosmos God is to denude

th e term God of all its tradition al significance and to render i t mean-

ingless. If the cosmos is God, there is no God, and th e m an who

declares th a t th ere is no God is an athe ist. Thus , if taken in its

determ inistic, mechanical,

scientifico-mathematical

aspect, Spinozism

is an atheistic system.

This aspect, however, is not the only aspect under which the

philosophy of Spinoza car1 be regarded . Ben eath the logical schema-

tism of thi s massive system, with its definitions and

axioms, its propositions and proofs, its Q.E.D.'s and it s corollaries,

which appear so cold and dispassionate, there can be heard the cry

of a

TYeltschmerz

of a hunger for the Infinite. In the

Tractatus de

intellectus emendatiogzs

Spinoza speaks of the va ni ty an d futil ity of

th e pursu it of riches or fame or pleasure, and declares th a t i t is only

love for a th ing etern al an d infinite which is the source of unmixed

joy, while his ethical system culminates in the amor intellectualis

Dei.

It is true that Spinoza's philosophy is extremely intellectualist,

and th at his conception of love as an active and ration al emotion

is scarcely what we ordinarily understand by the term love: but it

is also true that there is discernible in his thought and attitude a

reaching ou t beyond the tra ns ito ry phenomena of experience to th e

Infinite Being of w hich th ey a re th e manifestation . God, for Spinoza,

was certainly no t the personal Creator-God of orthodox Jud aism,

bu t He was the In finite, the ultim ately real, possessed of an infinity

of att rib ut es , and the charac ter of infinity, the ascription t o God of

attributes unknown to the human mind, most probably permitted

a psychological attitude towards the infinite Substance which

Spinoza could hardly have adopted towards the actual world of

experience considered precisely as such. In his Ethics Spinoza starts

with God, the self-explan atory Subs tance, the principle of intelligi-

bility, so that God was, in a sense, something more real than His

manifestations or modes, more ultimate, as though God were the

ocean and God's finite modes, th e existential dur at ion of which is

transitory, the waves and ripples on the ocean's surface. Substance

m ay no t exist a pa rt from i ts successive modifications, determined

in their natu re and succession, b u t it is easy to see tha t,

in so far as Spinoza's mind w as fixed on the infinitude of th e Sub-

stance, the phenomenal world could take on the appearance of

comparative unreality: God was All. From this standpoint Spinoza

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P H I L O S O P H Y

can scarcely be called an atheist, for, though he does not conceive

God as Spirit, it is the world, rather than God, that he suppresses.

"Spinozism," say s Hegel, "might really just a s well or even bet te r

hav e been terme d Acosmism (tha n atheism), since according to its

teaching it is not to the world, finite existence, the universe, that

reality and permanency are to be ascribed, but rather to God alone

as the substantial."

B ut if there is an aspect of Spinozistic panthe ism un der which it

cannot simply be termed atheistic, it does no t follow tha t i t escapes

from othe r ob jections which can be levelled against it precisely in so

far as it is pantheistic and no t atheistic. For exam ple, if one sta rts

with the infinite Substance, God, it is impossible to demonstrate

th a t t he m odifications of Substance mus t follow or t o explain their

appearance, for an infinite Substance will, ips0

facto

realise all its

potentialities in undivided simplicity: to speak strictly, it will have

no potentialities, b u t will be Act pure an d simple. am no t, of course,

dem anding th at Spinoza should deduce the actu al series of pa rticulars,

for he observes th a t to d o this is beyond the power of the hu m an

mind, which is a reasonable answer, even on the pantheistic hy-

pothesis. But, since it is his express teaching that contingency has

reference only to th e imperfection of our hu ma n an d limited know-

ledge, it follows th a t t he modifications of Substance are in them -

selves determined an d necessary, no t co ntingent, a nd one is justified

in d emand ing a dem onstratio n of this necessity in general, for it is

essential to the pantheistic position. Again, when Spinoza distin-

guishes the different levels of cognition, from imuginatio up to the

intuition of th e To tality , he does no t explain how inadeq uate ideas

can exist a t all. If they exist, then the y mus t be referred u ltimately

to God, since all tha t exists is in Go d: bu t how can God have inade-

qu ate ideas, even u nder an d through His finite modifications? Th e

notion that one is a person distinct from God may be an incorrect

notion, but, if so, how does it come abou t th a t such a notion can be

formed and is frequently formed Moreover, th e difficulties atte nd ing

Spinoza's ethical system are obvious to all serious stud en ts of his

philosophy as a whole. Blyenbergh's controversial letters may or

may not have been tiresome productions, but, as the late Professor

de Burgh rem arked , his objections remained unanswered for the ve ry

simple reason that they were unanswerable.

Of

course it may well

have been better for Spinoza to be inconsistent rather than con-

sistent, since his ratio nal eth ic gives evidence of his personal high-

mindedness, but internal inconsistency cannot be considered a

testimonial for a system of philosophy. Spinoza, unlike Descartes,

did not start from

a

fac t of experience bu t from a hypo the tical

unique Substance, a me taphysica l llypothesis no t given in experience,

with the result th at he ha d, "absent-mindedly" (as Kierkegaard


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P A N T H E I S M I N S P I N O Z A A N D G E RM A N I D E A L I S T S

remarked apro+os of Hegel), to forget and leave unexplained data

of experience which obviously needed exp lanation . Leibniz, on th e

other hand, though convinced, like Spinoza, that Reality is an

intelligible and significant system, was led by his regard for experi-

ence, for individuality, for activity, to postulate a different kind of

unity from th at postulated b y Spinoza, maintaining bo th th e plurality

of indiv idual beings an d the significance an d intelligibility of the

hierarchy of being as a whole.

The hostile attitude to Spinozism which prevailed for a long

time gave way to a new at tit ud e towards th e end of t he eighteenth

ce ntur y, an d Novalis' descrip tion of Spinoza as the God-intoxicated

man is well enough known. The Romantics, however, tended to

look on Spinoza through their own coloured spectacles. That the

latter's logical schematism was shot through and enlivened, for

Spinoza himself, by

a religious awe in presence of the Infinite and by

a conform ity to the Divine Will is, as have suggested above,

probably true: but any personal piety there may have been on the

philosopher's part should be traced, not so much to his system and

its effect as to his upbringing in a Jewish family an d t o a transference

t o Dezcs-substantia of the psychological at ti tu de th a t a n or tho do x

Jew would manifest tow ards the Creator-God of Judaism . T here is

little indication in the pages of Spinoza's writings th a t he felt an y

of th at emotion in the fa ce of phenomenal Natu re which roman tic

poets have shown (tho ugh th at , of course, does not prove t h at he

never felt such emotion) he speaks little, if a t all, of the bea uty of

Nature. He was doubtless filled with ad miration an d wonder a t t he

sight of the reign of law, a t th e majesty of the cosmos as an eterna l,

significant and coherent system, just as he found that he could not

be satisfied with an y m erely finite good: b ut we should certainly no t

look to the Ethics for the poetic, quasi-mystical emotion manifested

by romantic poets towards the natural Totality, an emotion partly

inspired by th e keen perception of n atu ral beau ty, as also by a

feeling, no t essentially based on science and m athem atics a nd logical

reasoning, of one Life pulsating in N ature as a whole and in the

hum an frame. If one can safely refer to F aust's famous declaration

to Margarete withou t laying oneself open to th e charge of having

dub bed Goethe a romantic, Spinoza would never have said,

Gefiihl ist Alles: it was no t f o r no thing th a t he spoke of th e love of

God a s the intellectual love of God. T he rev ival of inte rest in Spinoza

da tes from th e time of the correspondence between Jacobi a nd

Mendelssohn, and i t is only na tur al for us to-da y t o look back on his

system in the light of German ph ilosophy: but we should do well to

remember that Spinoza's acquaintance was with Jewish Neo-

platonic speculation, with Cartesianism, and with a certain amount

of Scholasticism. The conception of the divine Substance, modified

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P H I L O S O P H Y

in it s manifestations, might be term ed a conflation of th e Neo-

platonic em ana tion theory w ith th e Scholastic doctrine of created

substance and accidents, a conflation made and thought out in face

of th e Cartesian dualism, thou gh itself strong ly influenced by Carte-

sian themes. Spinoza was a philosopher who was convinced th at th e

intellect can find its satisfaction only in the Infinite, and in this

respect his thought, despite its mathematico-scientific aspects,

betray s some kinship with th at of Plotinus and St. Augustine: b u t

he was not an aesthetic romanticist .

W hen one turn s from the philosophy of Spinoza to t h a t of the

elder Fichte, it is as though one were transported from a gallery

of sculpture to th e sta nd a t an Olympic race: th e atmosphe re of

quiet contemplation gives place to one of energy and activity.

Generalisations, of course, are often inaccurate and loose, and

Spinozism cannot justly be called a merely static philosophy, while

there is more in the system of F ichte tha n a n emphasis on ac tio n;

but it is probably not fanciful to see the difference in character

between th e retiring Jewish lens-grinder an d the pa trio t who delivered

the Addresses to the German People and wished to go as philo-

sophic chaplain to the Prussian troops in the war of liberation

reflected

in

their respective philosophies. Moreover, the dominion

of the geometrical method and of mechanical physics had been

invaded by a new sense of historical becoming, of development,

which was, be it remarke d, p ar tly d ue to th e work of Leibniz, in

spit e of those who would see in his philosophy nothin g b ut logic and

mathematics exceeding their limits. German speculative idealism

was certainly influenced by Spinoza, but the Spinozistic pantheism

was rethough t in a more dynamic form and (a most im port ant point)

it h ad passed throug h th e fire of t he K an tian Critique, a fact which

rendered a new approach inevitable, for the post-Kantian idealist

would be unable t o sta rt from the concept of substance.

K a n t affirmed th e transcen dental ego as logical condition of the

un ity of experience, tho ug h it was no t for him an object of the oretical

knowledge. Fich te seized on th e idea of th e transcende ntal ego (as

the I-subject, which is always presupposed by the I-object, but

never itself becomes object) and tried to deduce therefrom empirical

consciousness. Protesting t h a t the Ka ntia n thing-in-itself was a n

unnecessary piece of luggage, once given the Kantian Critique, he

declared that by denying the existence of the thing-in-itself he was

b u t rendering K an t consistent with himself, declaration which m a y

have been largely justified in fact, though Kant himself rejected the

claim. However, whether Fichte was fulfilling Kant or maiming

him, he obviously could not, in making the object the creation of

th e subject, ma ke it the creation of the empirical subject as such,

since it is clear enough that the object is something given to the

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P NTHEISM IN SPINOZ ND GERM N IDE LISTS

empirical sub ject, something which it finds in existence, w ith w hich

it is confronted. He had, therefore, to derive the object , not from

the empirical subject but from the meta-empirical subject , the

transcendental ego. Th e lat ter, the n, became his start ing-po int , and

from the transcendental ego he attempted to deduce dialectically

th e division of experience in to the empirical subje ct and t he empirical

objec t. K an t s logical condition of experience th us beca me

a

real

an d ultim ate principle of exp lanation in regard t o hu m an experience.

As fa r as a mere th eo ry of knowledge is concerned, as far as the re

is question only of a logical ana lysis of experience, one migh t tr ea t

th e transcendental ego as a principle of explanation w ithou t com-

m itting oneself to an y definite state m en t as to it s ontological sta tus ,

with ou t affirming th at there is one transc end ental ego or a plurality,

without coming down definitely either on the side of idealistic

monism or on that of pluralism. After all, Aristotle taught the

existence of an active intellect, bu t, so far as we are concerned, it

remains doubtful w hether he po stulated one active intellect com mon

to all men, as the Averroists interpreted him, or ascribed an indi-

vidual active intellect to each individual man, as St . Tho mas Aquinas

interpreted him. B ut i t i s obviously a short s tep to take from th e

assertion of th e transc end ental ego as ulti m ate principle in th e

analysis of experience t o th e assertion th a t i t is th e Transcendental

Ego with capi ta l le t ters : in fact in a f d y idealis t philosophy this

transition would seem t o be inevitable, if solipsism is t o be avoided ,

and F ichte stoutly denied th at he was a solipsist. I n Fichte s system ,

therefore, K an t s tran scen den tal ego blossomed ou t as th e Absolute

Eg o, the ultim ate source of finite sub jects and o bjects (or ra th er of

finite subjects and of finite objects via the former), the modest

Ka ntian theo ry of th e su bject s active constitutive function in

knowledge turning into a system of Transcendental Subjective

Idealism.

It is not, however, very easy to see exactly how Fichte regarded

the relation between the finite consciousness and the Absolute Ego.

I t is obvious enough th a t he could not teach pantheism in th e sense

of sim ply identifying N atu re with God an d God with Na ture, since

Nature was, for him, no more than object-for-a-subject: in an

idealist sy stem of the typ e propou nded by Fich te natur alistic

monism was ou t of t h e question and also substan tial pantheism. H e

could no t identify God with S ubstance, if substance was som ething

secondary a nd derive d: th e concept of subs tance was th e result of

th e application of an a iriori form, and th at form was derivate an d

not ultim ate. (This inability t o a dm it t h e su bstan tiality of

God was one of th e reasons why F ich te was accused of atheism , a

charge the justice of which he indignantly d enied.) B u t wh at was th e

precise relation between the Transcendental Ego and the finite

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P H I L O S O P H Y

eg o? W as the la tte r a canalisation, as it w ere, of the former, an

em anation of the un itary E g o ? Such would be the pantheistic

interpretation, and there is certainly much in the philosopher's

writings which would seem to make such an interpretation not only

justifiable but also inevitable. Yet it must be remembered that

the reason why the world is posited is, for Fichte, that it should

serve as a field for free mo ral endeavou r. There is one moral law, bu t

i t is manifested in the particu lar m oral vocations of finite individuals,

and , in so far as they fulfil their m oral vocation, they contribute to

the concrete realisation of the m oral world-order. This fine conception.

with its emphasis on moral activity and freedom, not only corre-

sponded to Fich te's energetic charac ter, bu t is also in conflict with an y

complete pantheism, since the latter is, logically speaking, deter-

ministic in charac ter. How ever, even if, as is probab le, Fichte's

deduction of th e finite ego is justly taken to im ply a kind of e m ana tion

or a self-diremption of the Absolute Eg o within itself, he went on

in late r years to develop a m ore religious version of his system in

which the Absolute Ego or Moral W ill appears rath er as the Absolute

Being, of which finite egos are the manifestations, and to which they

should strive consciously to return, though no individual is ever

completely absorbed or swallowed up in God. There seems to be

envisaged an unending app rox im ation to God, reminiscent of K an t's

theo ry of th e asym pto tic approach t o moral perfection: Fich te was

too energetic in character to yield to the fascination of the idea th at

all individuals are at length completely merged in the one Being.

He would no t, it is true, allow th at G od is "personal," bu t th a t was

because he regarded the a scription of person ality to God as neces-

sarily anthropom orphic, because he though t of God as supra-person al,

which is not the same th ing as infra-personal.

Th e strong ly religious an d m ore contem plative aspect of Fich te's

later philosophy appears especially in his so-called popular works,

works w hich Hegel dismisses in his

istory of Philosophy

as edifying

but irrelevant from the philosophic viewpoint. But though the

lectures t o which refer m ay not have been composed from a stan d-

point which Hegel would recognise as adequately speculative, and

though i t is the standpoint of the

Wissenschaftslekre

which one has

to take most into account when one is considering the historical

connection between Fichte, SchelLing and Hegel, the lectures are of

som e im portanc e when one is considering the system of Fich te by

itself, fo r they indicate the direction taken by th e philosopher's

tho ug ht in his later years. They sm ack somewhat of the pu lpit, b u t

all three of th e great G erman m etaphysical idealists began with th e

stu dy of theology, and Fic hte often tend ed to a do pt the role of a

philosophic preacher. W hether the cha racter of his late r

works should be taken to indicate an advance from idealistic

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P A N T H E I S M I N S P I N O Z A A N D G E R M A N I D E A L I S T S

pantheism to unequivocal theism or not, is obscure; but in my

opinion F ichte never was an o ut-an d-ou t pantheist. T h at his idealist

standpoint effectually prevented his asserting pantheism of the

Spinozistic br an d, hav e alread y noted, as also th at his insistence

on freedom a nd mo rali ty appears t o be inconsistent with a n y rigorous

form of pan theism . Leaving ou t of account th e very g reat differences

in content and atmosphere between their systems, one might insti-

tut e a comparison between Fichte 's thoug ht, a t least in i ts more

developed stages, an d t h a t of Plotinus. Th e latte r did not believe

in free creation ou t of no thing an d employed th e meta pho r of e m ana-

tion to express th e procession of subo rd ina te hyp ostases, an d ulti-

m ately of t h e world, from th e One, b ut h e insisted th at th e One was

not in a ny w ay diminished thro ugh the eman ation. So Fichte, in m y

opinion, while no t p repared to accept literally th e Christian doctrine

of creation, did not believe th a t t h e Absolute is diminished or changed

throu gh th e emergence of finite consciousnesses. In oth er words,

neither the system of Plotinus nor th a t of F ichte can be term ed

unequivocal theism or unambiguous pantheism.

f

imman-

ence receives th e em phasis in F ichte's earlier thoug ht, th e transcend-

ence of t he Absolute is m ore emphasised in his later developm ent,

and th at is probably as far as we can get .

The sy stem of Fich te was a system of transc end ental subjective

idealism, characterised by a strongly marked ethical interest: in

th e syste m of Schelling a rom an tic view of N atu re is subs titute d for

Fichte 's theory that Nature is a mere means to moral endeavour,

and the lat ter 's dyna mic att i tud e gives place t o one more contempla-

tive in tone, artistic creation and aesthetic experience receiving the

emphasis rather than moral striving and self-conquest. To speak of

the system of Schelling m ay occasion surprise in view of th e fac t

that historians of philosophy have been accustomed to discover a

nu m be r of philosophies held successively by Schelling; bu t, on the

one hand, the stages of his thought do not constitute separate

philosophical sy stem s so much as th e result of fur the r reflection on

positions already attained, so that they exhibit a more or less con-

tinuous process of developm ent, while, on th e o ther han d, it is the

middle stage which is really chara cteris tic of Schelling, more so

than his earl ier Fichtean standpoint or the somewhat bizarre

speculations of his later years when he w as trying t o coun teract t he

influence of Hegel a t Berlin. confine m y att en tio n, therefo re, to

th e stage (or stages) represented by th e philosophy of Na ture an d

the system of Identity.

As he moved aw ay from the position of F ich te, Schelling cam e to

conceive of Nature as a meaningful organism, a totality, striving

upw ards tow ards consciousness und er th e impulse of th e W orld-soul

or principle of organisation in the cosmos. Nature is not the dead

D

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P H I L O S O P H Y

m aterial of our du ty , but is a d ynam ic process in which things are

bu t trans ito ry products of an endless becoming. There is one stre am

of Life in N atu re, bu t Na ture, which is always striving after th e

perfect representation of the Absolute, differentiates herself on

various specific levels into those individuals, the succession a nd

tran sitory character of w hich betra y th e fact t h a t the y a re unsuccess-

ful attempts to manifest the Absolute. In its highest production,

however, human consciousness, Nature is enabled to turn back on

herself an d t o realise her un ity in reflection. The highest developm ent

of consciousness is achieved in a rtistic genius and it s creations, for

in th e w ork of a rt th e Infinite and the ideal are perfectly represented

in finite form , an d th e syn thesis of freedom a nd necessity is brought

about.

If in his philosophy of Natu re Schelling proceeded from th e side

of the ob ject, in his system of tra nsce nde ntal idealism he star te d

with the subject and tried t o show how spirit issues forth from itself

until it reaches its supreme expression in aesthetic experience and

it s fullest objectification in ar tistic creation, th e two poles of s piri t

an d m atter, subject an d object, being united in the work of ar t and

perfec tly fused together. Reflection on this finite union of sp irit an d

na tur e led Schelling to the conception of the Absolute as S pirit

and N ature i n ide nti ty : the A bsolute is the pure iden tity of Being

and Thought, standing behind all finite manifestations, all differ-

en tiatio ns , as the vanish ing-point of all differences, the a ll-embracing

and undivided Ide ntity . (Schelling proceeded to introduce from

Platonism an ete rna l world of Ideas, God's intu itions of H imself,

th e true things-in-themselves, which are the exemplars of all empirical

things, an d which it is the sublime function of t he arti st to rep resent

in the concrete work of a rt .)

Schelling's conception of N atu re as a to tali ty, a living an d dyn am ic

process, a self-organising cosmos, was thorough ly rom antic in

character, as also was the position assigned to the art ist, to aesthetic

con templation and the work of a rt . Of course, Schelling was influ-

enced by other philosophers who could scarcely be classed as

romantics (e.g. his theory of N atu re below m an as slumbering spirit

is reminiscent of p oin ts in th e Monadology of Leibniz , while his

doc trine of the work of a rt a s the synthesis of freedom and necessity

is partly an a ttem pt to settle a problem of K an t), bu t he was the

great philosopher of the German romantic movement, fully imbued

with the general romanticist worship of the To tality. For the

logical and mathe matica l schematism of Spinoza he substituted

the conception of life, of m ovement, of N atur e as a living uni ty ,

a self-unfolding organism, an d in this he m ay be said w ith justice t

h a r e constructed a rom antic and poetic Spinozism. B u t whereas the

intuition postu lated b y Spinoza was primarily an intuition of t he

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To tality as an articu lated system , of Substance

in

its m anifestations,

an d of the m odifications according to the ir place in Substance,

Schelling's intuition of the Absolute was the intuition of a formless

identity , a quasi-m ystical apprehension of (t o use Hegel's caustic

phrase) the night in which all cows are black. In Schelling, as in

Spinoza, we can see a certain desire for the Infinite, but it is signifi-

cant that in the case of Schelling that Infinite is without form and

void: he would have the Infinite, but it must be an Infinite in which

all forms are indistinguishably merged, neither an infinite System

nor infinite Form-a true roman ticist. (I n his late r thou ght Schelling

advanced to a theistic position, accompanied b y various speculative

extravaganza s, bu t i t is not to m y point to speak of his later theism.)

If Fichte's emphasis on the Subject and Schelling's emphasis on

the Object may be said to stand to one another as respectively

thesis and antithesis, it was left to Hegel to attempt the synthesis,

an d, whatever one may thin k of t he Hegelian system as such, one

must admit that he was admirably equipped for the task. This

bourgeois professor, who acquired a vast store of erudition ,

patiently collected (even if his information was not always particu-

larly accura te), was yet no t overwhelmed by t he weight of thi s

intellectual baggage, bu t, w ith a tru ly astonishing power of syn-

thesis, dialectical subtlety and imaginative insight, was able to

car ry th e tout ensemble an d t o orde r it systematically in a grandiose

an d com prehensive philosophy. K ierkegaard rema rked once th a t if

Hegel h ad meant his system t o be simply an intellectual tour de force,

he would have been the greatest philosopher who ever lived, but as

he meant it seriously lie is merely a joke. Whether one agrees or not

with Kierkegaard's sarcastic observation, it obviously presupposes

th at one understand s what Hegel m eant, and yet th at is precisely

the difficulty, to u nderstand exactly w hat Hegel meant by his

system. One can, it is true, understand without much troub le Hegel's

view of the relation of rom ant ic to classic a rt , or of reason to fa ith,

or of the S tate to civil society, bu t t o und erstand rightly, and t o

be able to feel sure th a t one un derstan ds rightly, his view of th e

relation between the world and God, that is not so easy. One can, I

think, be certain that Hegel did not accept voluntary creation out

of no thing in time (t ha t he regarded as a theological Vorstzllzlng),

bu t the obscurity of his language renders it very difficult to see

wh at he really believed concerning the world's relation to G od. I n

such poin ts to force an indub itable meaning o ut of Hegel's words is,

as Ferrier obse rved, rathe r like trying to distil whisky ou t of a loaf

of bread. In discussing the question of Hegel's theism or pantheism

one is, then, hardly entitled to dogm atise, to assert th a t one's own

interp retation is th e only possible or reasonable interp retation .

K an t had asserted the p artial constitution by the sub ject of the


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object as phenomenon, Fichte went on to assert the tot al constitu-

tion of th e object by t he subject (in th e sense of th e Tran scend ental

Ego): Hegel accepted this general idealist position, though he did

no t accept the one-sided "sub jectivity" of Fi ch te, b u t agreed w ith

Schell ing that Nature enjoys a more objective status than Fichte

allowed her. The world, then, in its entirety, including the finite

consciousness, is th e produ ct of the Cosmic Reas on, th e Id ea, Go d.

Tho ught canno t be reduced to m atter, bu t we mu st not, as philo-

sophers, remain in a dualistic position, so that matter must

ultim ately be reduced to , or be seen as proceeding from

thought. Being indeed is primary, but ultimate Being, as Aristotle

saw, is Thought, though we cannot be content with Aristotle's

position, which leaves Thought, the Idea or self-thinking Thought,

w ithou t a n y organic connection with t h e world save th at of uncon-

scious teleological attraction. One must utilise not only the Platonic

conception of th e Demiurge bu t also th e Christian conception of th e

p roduction of t he ~ o r l d y God, provided that one realises

I

speak

for Hegel) th a t th e notion of a free an d vo luntary a ct of creation

on G od's pa rt is an instance of theological anthrop om orph ism

or symbolism, admirably adapted for the religious consciousness,

b u t inadmissible from th e speculative stand po int of pure reason.

The world, then, proceeds from the Absolute, but what is the

Absolute? It is not simply Substance, as Spinoza thought, nor

is it Schelling's formless identity: it is Reason or Mind, it is Being,

but Being in i ts true nature as Idea. Plato l ighted on a real truth,

th at tru e being is Idea, b ut he failed to work out th e unity of t he

Id ea or their relation to th e world, while he sepa rated th e I deas an d

Nous, and did not realise the dynamic, self-expressing character of

th e former. Th e Universal is indeed th e truly real, but the U niversal

manifests itself in th e particular.

Cosmic Reason, then, or the Idea or God manifests itself in the

world of pa rticu larity , of finitude, imperfectly in N atu re, perfectly

in Sp irit, above all in the universal philosophic activ ity of the

hu m an mind . I n this activity the particularity of the individual

is transcended, man rethinks th e thou ght of G od, apprehend s th e

Divine Essence as wh at it is, i .e. thou ght, an d God a ttain s "existen-

tial" self-consciousness in and through the human spirit. Man is

essentially spirit , bu t he has also his place in Natu re, so th a t in man

th e synthe sis of the Id ea an d Natu re is achieved. T he whole historical

process in space and time co nstitutes th e self-manifestation of th e

Absolute, bu t th e Absolute, being Id ea, can m anifest itself adequa tely

only in what is like itself, in universal thought, in the history of

philosophy, which, as a

manifestation of the Absolute, transcends

in point of adequacy the sensuous manifestation in art and the

symbolic represe ntation in d ogm atic theology.

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W ha t, then, for Hegel is the precise relation of N ature to G od ?

And w hat is th e precise relation of the finite mind to the m 70rld-

spirit W as he a pan theist, or was he no t Hegel, it is true, explicitly

rejected the charge of panthe ism, an d we mu st suppose th a t he

really attached some meaning to this rejection, and was not simply

dancing t o th e pipe of ministers, as Schopenhauer pu ts i t ; bu t it

is no facile task to discover exactly what he did mean. He refused

to identify this stone or that tree, i.e. the particular as such, con-

sidered in its particularity, with God; but did he mean to imply

th at the particular, considered precisely as such, is unreal, an d t h a t

the real is objective Reason, God, alone? Or did Hegel suppose

th a t God is simply the noetic stru ctu re of the world, the inside

of the world, so to spe ak , which a tta ins self-consciousness an d self-

reflection in and through the human spirit

In this case the World-

spirit would be little more than the universal activity of the hum an

mind, considered as transcending the individual mind, subjective

spirit, and the Hegelian system would perhaps be more properly

termed an atheistic than a pantheistic system? Or did he maintain

that the world is external to God, that God transcends the world

ontologically, in which case he would be a theist

That Hegel meant that God is simply the structural principle

of

Na ture, which first attain s the st atus of Spirit in man, is to m e

unthinkable. If he really thought this, he would not have been the

idealist th at he certainly was. Reason or the Idea must be, a t least

logically, prior to Nature, and Nature must proceed from the Idea.

This is clearly ta ug ht by the doctrine of th e dialectic. Moreover, it

is a notorious fact that Hegel declared that the particular cannot

be deduced. The critic may think that what Hegel should have

said is that, though particulars are in principle deducible,

n

se,

the hum an m ind cannot deduce them (and in suppo rt of this it may

certainly be urged that Hegel stated that philosophy is concerned

with the universal and not with particulars), but what he actually

said was, not that

he

could not deduce particulars, but that par-

ticulars could not be deduced. In other words, Hegel admitted an

element of contingency in Na tu re he insisted th a t Natu re, precisely

because of th e element of contingency an d imperfection, is an

inadequate manifestation of the Absolute, that mindless Nature is

bu t a stage on the road t o the adequ ate manifestation of th e Absolute

as Spirit. B ut if Hegel was really no more th an an atheist th is element

of particu larity a nd contingency is left without any explanation,

and it is inconceivable that Hegel was content to leave unexplained

the presence of particularity as such, even if philosophy cannot

deduce any given particular. It may be said that, for Hegel, the

universal comprises the particular and that the universal, i.e. the

whole system of universals which co nsti tute s the A bsolute is self-


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explanatory, so that the particular requires no further explanation;

bu t it is obvious th at the u niversal does not comprise the particulars

in such a way th a t it is confined to a ny given set of particulars (no

more th an th e S ta te is confined to an y given set of individual

citizens), so that the particulars must flow from the universal, and,

if they flow from the universal, the latter is logically prior. The

Ide a, the n, m ust be prior to th e contingent world of particulars,

even if it is partially m anifested in th a t world, and in th is case Hegel

cannot have been an atheist. He may have been a pantheist or a

theist, bu t he was certainly not an atheist.

Now, if Reason or the Idea is logically prior to Nature, and

if

a t

th e same time creation through a free act of God is ruled out, the

world must proceed timelessly from God (in the sense that no first

mo ment of tim e can, even ideally, be assigned). God, th e Ide a,

essentially tends to self-objectification, self-expression and mani-

fest atio n: the Absolute, th e Universal, reflects itself in th e pa rticular

and the finite, the One being mirrored in the many. Nature is thus

external to God in the sense that particulars do not belong to the

Divine Essence considered precisely as such, bu t Na ture is also the

self-expression of God, God gone over, as it were, into ex tern ality ,

God in H is otherness. God, by H is very na tur e, tend s to self-manifest-

ation on th e existen tial level, an d th e first stage of th a t manifesta-

tion is the Antithesis, mindless Nature, a stage on the road to the

adequa te man ifestation of God in what is like Himself, in the uni-

versal thought of the human spirit, The human being, considered

precisely as the individual Smith or Jones, with his purely private

thoughts and aspirations, is not God (so Hegel denied that he was

a pan theist), b u t th e universal and developing though t of m an,

which transcends the individuals who thin k i t, is the self-manifesta-

tion of God, progressively reflecting on th e exte rna l level His undi-

vided essential self-consciousness.

Admittedly this is obscure, but the Hegelian system must be

obscure if it is, as I think i t is, neither unambiguous theism no t unam -

biguous pantheism.

t

is not unambiguous theism since the world

proceeds from God by a necessity of God 's na tu re (thi s is surely the

ontological fact corresponding

to

the logical transition in the

dialectical deduction), an d th is imm ediately suggests either em anation

or a k ind of self-diremption of the Absolute within itself. Again,

there seems to be a tendency to identify the univeral thought of

m an , not merely w ith a self-manifestation of t he A bsolute on th e

extern al level, bu t w ith the ac tual self-consciousness of the Absolute.

The Hegelian system, however, is not unambiguously pantheistic,

an d could hardly be so, since no t only does Hegel adm it a n element

of contingency in Nature, but derives Nature from the Cosmic

Reason, so that human reason also must be a derivative, even if

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the Cosmic Reason works in and through the human reason. The

Idea is prior, mindless Nature and the human spirit proceed from

th e Id ea : the universal an d rational development of N ature an d

Sp irit are alone tru ly significant and real, bu t th e element of im per-

fection in Nature and the particularity in the life of subjective

spirit are existential facts, facts which can only be explained if,

although God is a t the heart of Na ture an d the hum an m ind, giving

them significance, the imperfection of N atur e an d th e finitude of

the particular human mind are due to their being an external

expression of God or the Idea.

I n a ny case, even if Hegel s system was fully pan theistic, he did

no t lay himself open t o Schopenhauer s charge t ha t pantheism is

simply a masked atheism, for God or the Cosmic Reason would be

the only Being. He would, however, lay himself open to another

charge brought by Schopenhauer, to the effect that in so far as

pantheism has a meaning which is not already contained in atheism,

it is an absurd ity, since it st ar ts with th e notion of God, borrowed

from theism, and then goes on to depict God as transforming

Himself into th e world as we know it. And would not Schopenhauer

be right? If one starts with the Absolute and then depicts the

his tory of th e world an d of m an as the Golgotha of th e Absolute,

one thereb y tends t o cancel ou t the idea of God with which one

started: not only does God become the eternal Romantic, but He

becomes also the cosm ic Sufferer. Yet in po int of fact Hegel does

seem to allow a distinction between God and Nature, as I have

already indicated, and between God and the finite consciousness.

He could not possibly identify God and the finite consciousness

tout court since Nature obviously does not proceed from the finite

consciousness as such, so th at God must a t least be

Nore

than finite

consciousnesses taken together. Fu rther, as God or th e Id ea manifests

Himself or itself, not only in and through the finite consciousness

but also to the finite consciousness, there must be some real distinc-

tion between them . W hether th e finite consciousness is im m ortal

or no t, is another question (Hegel does not appear t o h ave troubled

himself much about the matter), but, while the finite conscious~less

exists, it cannot, as a particular consciousness, be called God:

it is in God bu t i t is not God. Hegel s notion thu s seems to me to be

rathe r one of panentheism tha n rigorous pantheism-a hy brid of

theism and pantheism, an attem pt to have one s cake and eat i t

at the same time, largely due to the attempt to force theism into

the framework of a deductive system. If a philosopher

st rts

with

God an d proceeds to deduce th e world, even if only in essence, some

form of pantheism is the logical consequence; bu t th e resulting

pantheism w ill bear far more resemblance to theism if he sta rts

with th e idea of God as infinite Subject o r as Reason th an if he


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sta rts with t he idea of God as Substance and proceeds to deduce

more geometrico

I t is perhaps significant th a t some orthodox the ists

have a t times attemp ted t o "baptise" the H egelian system, whereas

am n ot aware of any orthodo x theists who have seriously attem pted

t o bap tise th e system of Spinoza, even if (as is surely possible'with

any great philosopher) they have found stimulus and interest in

the content of his philosophy.

Pantheism in Spinoza and the German Idealists

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