Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany, 1789-1848

84 } Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany

ing to publish Der christliche Glaube, in which he maintains that “the essence

of piety is... that we are conscious of ourselves as absolutely dependent, that

is, that we feel dependent on God.”^132 Such a view was anathema to Hegel, of

course, and the need to combat it was what lent such urgency to the Wissen-

schaft der Religion that he propounded. With characteristic humility, Hegel de-

clared at the outset of his 1821 course: “these lectures... have... the purpose of

knowing God.”^133 Since, according to Hegel, God could be objectively known,

it was obscurantist and politically pernicious to insist on subjective feeling as a

foundation for religion. With his religiosity of sentiment Schleiermacher, like

Jacobi before him, had responded to Kant’s insistence on the impossibility of

grasping God cognitively with a theory of extrarational experience: the God

who could not be known could be intuitively felt. Hegel viewed bracketing ra-

tional knowledge and giving religion a foundation of affect privileged religious

subjectivity as defined in opposition to reason, precisely the sort of subjectivity

wont to assume polemical postures vis-à-vis the rational state. A chief purpose

of the new science of religion, then, was to combat this politically unacceptable

definition of religion. Although the rational state could tolerate a certain number

of recalcitrant religious subjects, defining religion as a form of subjective senti-

ment essentially opposed to, rather than a foundation for, the state’s objectively

knowable rationality could not be tolerated. Clarity on this point was crucial to

Hegel’s entire political project.

Early in part 1 of the 1821 lectures, “The Concept of Religion,” Hegel elabo-

rates his understanding of how the state must rest on religion, which he had

already broached in his lectures and book on the philosophy of right. Under-

standing how Hegel thought the state should rest on religion, and what role

Wissenschaft der Religion should play in mediating between religion and the

state, is crucial for grasping how the Vereinler understood themselves in relation

to the state as practitioners of Wissenschaft des Judentums:^134

The practice of righteousness attains stability {W 2 adds: and the fulfillment

of duty is secured} only when religion forms its basis, when its most inward

[mode], namely conscience, first finds in religion its absolutely genuine sense

of duty, an absolute security regarding its obligation.... The state must rest

essentially on religion; the security of attitudes and duties vis-à-vis the state

becomes for the first time absolute in religion. Against every other mode of

obligation one can supply excuses, exceptions, counter reasons. If one knows

how to disparage the laws, the regulations, and the individuals who govern

and are in authority, to regard them from a point of view from which they are

no longer worthy of respect, [one can do this]. For all these objects {W 2 alter-