Hegel, Kierkegaard & Religious Philosophy

• St. Augustine incorporated Platonic philosophy into Christian theology.
• Max Weber stated that the Protestant Reformation led people away from the church as the only way to salvation, and helped them rely on personal faith to be saved.
• Ancient Greek philosophers and early Christian fathers often disagreed on the balance between reason and faith.

Hegel vs. Kierkegaard on Religion:

• Hegel saw religion as a stage in developing the absolute spirit, emphasizing its role in human consciousness and reason, viewing it as a necessary step to philosophy.
• Kierkegaard focused on individual faith and subjective experiences, seeing faith as a passionate commitment that transcends reason.
• He criticized Hegelian philosophy for missing the existential aspects of religious experience, focusing on abstract approaches.
• Hegel sought rational understanding of religion.
• Kierkegaard emphasized the irrationality and paradox involved in faith.
• Hegel focused on the importance of community; Kierkegaard centered on the relationship between the individual and God.

Immediate vs. Reflective Aesthete:

• Don Juan is an example of an immediate aesthete.
• An immediate aesthete lives in the moment, pursuing pleasure and avoiding commitments, basing choices on instant gratification.
• A reflective aesthete is more self-aware, analyzing experiences, and possibly adopting a detached attitude.

Kierkegaard's Religiousness A vs. Religiousness B:

• Religiousness A, known as "Religion within the Limits of Mere Reason," emphasizes understanding one's place and relationship to the divine through ethical and philosophical principles.
• It focuses on living ethically and recognizing dependence on a higher power through reason and general morality.
• Religiousness B, or "Paradoxical or Christian Religiousness," involves a person recognizing their inability to connect with the divine.
• This stage embraces faith and a paradoxical relationship with God, highlighted by encountering the absurd.
• Requires a "leap of faith," accepting Christianity's paradoxes like the incarnation and crucifixion, shifting from striving to earn salvation to realizing the need for grace.

Kierkegaard's Knight of Faith:

• Is someone who has made the "Leap of Faith", moving beyond ethical behavior into Religiousness B.
• This is the type of person who lives an outwardly ordinary life, but has a deeply felt inner spirituality.
• The Knight of Faith doesn't show faith through grand gestures.
• They live a normal looking life but with an inner assurance unnoticeable to others, often appearing ordinary or even philistine-like.

A comparison of the philosophies of Hegel and Kierkegaard, including the role of faith and reason. Hegel viewed religion as a stage in developing the absolute spirit. Kierkegaard focused on individual faith and subjective experiences, seeing faith as a commitment beyond reason.