On Hegel's“Tübingen Manuscript on Folk Religion”

Field: Arts and Humanities (Social Sciences)

In October 1788, W. F. Hegel (1770-1831) entered the Stift at Tübingen, a theological seminary, at the age of 18, from which he graduated in October 1793. Just before the graduation from the seminary he wrote a quite extended manuscript in which he propounded his idea on an ideal religion.In this article the author aims to clarify the background of this manuscript and to examine its content in relation to the development of Hegel's philosophy in his later years.I. The years when Hegel was studying at Tübinger Stift saw the French Revolution, the downfall of the Enlightenment, the rise of Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress), the rise of modern sciences, and the new philosophy represented by Kant. It was the dawn of a new movement in terms of political, religious and philosophical thoughts. Hegel was strongly influenced by such a new philosophical movement and was rather critical of the conservative atmosphere of Tübinger Stift. He was dissatisfied with the professors at the Stift and with the intention to demonstrate his ability of philosophical reasoning he wrote the Manuscript.II. The Manuscript covers the first 36 pages of the first volume of Hegel's Complete Works published by the Suhrkamp Verlag. In the first part of the Manuscript, Hegel proposes the importance of elucidating the idea of the true religion which he calls“the folk religion”(Volksreligion). The word, folk religion, is taken from Rousseau's term of religion civile found in his“Social Contract.”According to the Manuscript the religion is divided into the objective religion and the subjective one. The objective religion is the aggregate of creeds such as represented in Scholastic theology and so on. Hegel rejects the idea of the objective religion because it is only the matter of rote memory and asserts that the true religion should be within the domain of the subjective religion.Among the subjective religions there is a religion conceived by the Enlightenment philosophy. Hegel turns down the religion of the Enlightenment in that it is concerned only with the matter of understanding (Verstand). Hegel contends that the true religion should be the folk religion which is alive in the daily life of the people of a nation.As the content of the folk religion Hegel contends that the folk religion must have the doctrines, cults and festivals. Hegel conceives the idea of the folk religion based on the model of the Greek religion. In the Manuscript Hegel describes the details of the doctrines, cults and festivals of the folk religion in the light of the cases of the Greek religion. While describing the content of the folk religion, Hegel propounds his ideas of logic, metaphysics, ethics and social thought which he develops in his later philosophical works.Although there are some disorders in the structure of the Manuscript and obscure ideas and wordings together with poetic expressions are found in many places, the author concludes that Hegel's Tübingen Manuscript is the“beautiful”prelude to the manuscript entitled“The Spirit and the Destiny of Christianity”written in his Frankfurt period (1796-1800).