Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany, 1789-1848

Becoming Citizens of Hegel’s State { 85

native: For all these characteristics are not simply what they are implicitly and

inwardly; rather they} have at the same time a contemporary, finite existence.

They are so constituted as to invite reflection and investigation with a view to

justifying them or criticizing them, etc.; [in short,] they invite subjective con-

sideration. It is only religion that suppresses all of this, nullifies it, and thereby

introduces an infinite, absolute obligation. reverence for God

or the gods secures and preserves individuals, families, states; contempt for

God or the gods dissolves rights and duties, the bonds of families and states,

and leads to their destruction.^135

This passage articulates the distinctly political thrust of the philosophy (or sci-

ence) of religion’s task of reasserting the human capacity to know God. Subver-

sive religious subjectivity finds its counterpart in political irreverence. Even the

realm of objective ethical spirit (involving regulations, laws, government officials,

and the state) has its “contemporary, finite aspect” that is susceptible to “sub-

jective consideration” and criticism. Although a certain intellectual elite may

identify with the objective spirit embodied in the state through self- conscious

cognition and scientific discourse, this is not available to everyone. The state

thus needs religion—properly understood—to check intractable forms of sub-

jectivity and instill a sense of duty and respect for authority. Precisely because

religion is vitally necessary to the smooth workings of the Hegelian state, the

political task of a Wissenschaft der Religion is not to overcome religion but to

rehabilitate and rationally stabilize religious subjectivity so as to “suppress” and

“nullify” (polemically) “subjective consideration” of the “contemporary, finite”

aspect of laws and civic obligations.^ True religion’s corrective to self-asserting

subjectivity carries over into the political realm: religious subjects’ respect for

the absolute encourages political subjects to see the state also in its absolute

(rather than “contemporary, finite”) aspect. Citizens duly prepared by the right

sort of religion, I read Hegel as saying, will not be quick to question or criticize

this particular, fallible government official, or the questionable application of

a law in a given case, but will grasp and revere the totality and necessity of the

state’s entire rational architecture. Yet religion can fulfill this politically stabiliz-

ing function only if it indeed lifts individuals out of themselves into respectful

contemplation of a higher rationality. In Hegel’s view, Schleiermacher’s religion

of subjective sentiment short-circuits precisely this politically crucial religious

transcendence of subjectivity. Defining religion in terms of subjective feeling

rather than as a form of knowledge of the absolute (though not yet absolute

knowledge) disrupts the dialectical evolution and continuity of rational con-

sciousness. Religion then ceases to be an essential foundation for the rational