ABSTRACT
G. W. F. Hegel was born in Stuttgart in 1770, on the cusp of a great transformation in European social, intellectual and political life. Like many of his contemporaries, Hegel looked to the French revolution as the dawn of a new era, an era of greater freedom. This chapter explores the role of religion and theology in Hegel’s work through a discussion of these two major works: Phenomenology of Spirit and Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion. Hegel published the Phenomenology of Spirit in 1807, when he was working as an unsalaried lecturer in Jena. Although the concepts of “spirit” and “the absolute” were central throughout Hegel’s work, he did not revisit his philosophy of religion until nearly fifteen years after the Phenomenology of Spirit was published. The controversy began immediately; after Hegel’s death in 1831, his followers divided into what have been called “right” and “left” Hegelians.
