Abstract
This article offers a reconstruction of the relationship between faith and knowledge in the early thought of G.W.F. Hegel, focusing on the formative periods of his intellectual development from Tübingen through Bern and Frankfurt to Jena. It argues that Hegel’s early religious writings are not merely preliminary to, or superseded by, his later systematic philosophy, but already contain the conceptual architecture of his mature thought, particularly his understanding of truth as a historically mediated and dynamic process of self-understanding.
The article takes as its point of departure the modern experience of division (Entzweiung) emerging in the wake of the Enlightenment. Modernity is characterised by a series of fundamental dualisms: between faith and reason, subject and object, finite and infinite. Whereas the medieval Christian worldview provided a relatively integrated symbolic and epistemic order in which faith and knowledge reinforced each other, modern critical reason displaces this unity. The subject becomes the locus of certainty; the world becomes an object of knowledge; and meaning fragments into reflective oppositions.
Against this backdrop the article situates Hegel’s early writings as a sustained attempt to diagnose and overcome this condition – not by abolishing division, but by understanding it as a necessary and productive moment in the development of Geist (spirit). The central philosophical question guiding Hegel’s project, and the interpretation of the article, is how the relationship between the human and the Absolute can be understood not as a fixed structure, but as a historically mediated and dynamic process.
The first section examines Hegel’s early theological writings from his Bern and Frankfurt periods. In Bern, Hegel develops a critical distinction between “positive religion” – based on external authority, dogma and institutional forms – and “inner religion”, which emphasises freedom, ethical life and communal participation. Religion, in its authentic form, is not a system of doctrines imposed upon individuals, but a lived practice in which individuals recognise themselves in shared ethical forms of life. Here, Hegel already diagnoses alienation as a condition in which individuals no longer identify with the symbolic forms that structure their existence.
In Frankfurt this critique deepens and shifts. The problem is no longer merely institutional religion, but the structure of modern subjectivity itself. The modern subject, in seeking certainty, positions itself over against the world, thereby generating and intensifying division. In response, Hegel introduces the concept of Liebe (love) as a relational and ontological principle of reconciliation. Love is not merely an emotion, but a mode of unity that preserves difference: The self becomes itself through the other. This marks a decisive insight: Identity is not self-contained but relationally constituted. However, Hegel also recognises the limits of this concept: Love remains intuitive and insufficiently conceptual to account for the structural dynamics of modern reflective consciousness.
The transition to Jena marks a fundamental shift from intuitive to conceptual thinking. The problem of division is no longer treated primarily in moral or religious terms, but as the inner movement of thought itself. In Differenzschrift (1801), Hegel articulates his critique of modern philosophy as trapped within the logic of reflection, which operates through fixed oppositions. In contrast, speculative philosophy seeks to grasp the movement through which these oppositions are generated and overcome. Truth is not located on one side of a dualism, but in the dynamic process of mediation.
This insight is further developed in Hegel’s writings on scepticism and natural law. Scepticism is reinterpreted not as a threat to knowledge, but as a productive moment of negation that deepens understanding. Negativity becomes a central category: Loss, contradiction and doubt are not failures of thought, but conditions for its development. Similarly, in his Naturrechtsaufsatz (1802/3), Hegel moves from religious language to the concept of Sittlichkeit (ethical life), where freedom is realised not in isolation, but in social and institutional practices.
The culmination of this development is found in “Glauben und Wissen” (1802–1803), where Hegel explicitly addresses the relationship between faith and knowledge through a critical engagement with Kant, Friedrich Jacobi and Johann Fichte. All three, he argues, attempt to preserve the Absolute, but remain within the framework of reflective thinking that sustains division. Kant secures the Absolute by placing it beyond knowledge; Jacobi posits it as an immediate object of faith; Fichte internalises it in the self-positing activity of the “I”. In each case, the division between finite and infinite remains unresolved.
Hegel’s alternative is a speculative conception of the Absolute as self-mediating movement. Faith and knowledge are not opposing domains, but dialectical moments within a single process of self-understanding. Faith represents the immediate relation to the Absolute; knowledge represents its conceptual mediation. Truth emerges only through their dynamic interplay. The modern condition of division is thus reinterpreted as a necessary stage in the development of spirit, not a defect to be eliminated.
The final section reflects on the contemporary relevance of Hegel’s early thought. In it I argue that the tension between faith and knowledge remains a defining feature of modernity, now manifesting in new forms: between scientific rationality and religious or cultural identity, between technocratic reductionism and existential meaning. Hegel’s insight – that truth arises through the mediation of oppositions – offers a powerful alternative to both rationalist reduction and fideistic retreat.
Importantly, the article situates Hegel’s early thought in light of his later work, particularly The phenomenology of spirit and his lectures on religion. Here, Hegel shows a nuanced sensitivity to religion as a symbolic form (Vorstellung) in which the Absolute is expressed. Philosophy does not abolish religion, but interprets and transforms it conceptually. This prevents reductive readings of Hegel and underscores his recognition of the historical and experiential dimensions of religious life.
The article concludes by suggesting a contemporary extension of Hegel’s insight in terms of “moving thinking” – a form of practical wisdom and critical hermeneutics that does not seek final synthesis but remains responsive to historical tension and plurality. Thinking becomes a practice of interpretation and judgement within a dynamic world. Truth, therefore, is not the elimination of contradiction, but the capacity to understand, endure and transform it.
Keywords: contradictions; division (Entzweiung); faith and knowledge; Hegel; Kant; love; mediation; modernity; moving thinking; negative dialectics; Protestantism
- This article’s featured image was created by Marina Leonova and obtained from Pexels.