ABSTRACT
T. H. Green stands somewhere between the strict separation of religion and philosophical idealism and the collation of the two undertaken by Edward Caird and John Caird. Caird’s religion of Hegelianism as a natural successor to Protestant Christianity – the Holy Spirit rightly understood – was one way in which idealism became converted into a substitute religion. Most philosophers, as well as other writers on philosophical subjects, at first resisted the claims of the Absolute, almost instinctively rejecting the idea that Hegelianism could understand Christianity better than it understood itself. Some tailored Hegelianism to suit a more or less orthodox Christianity; others, such as J. McT. E. McTaggart, were carried by their speculation on the nature of the Absolute far beyond the confines of even the most unorthodox Christianity. In the sense of having been understood, Christianity has been “cancelled and preserved” by Hegelianism.
