The Reality of Religion in Hegel’s Idealist Metaphysics

In this paper, I explore the question of the reality of God for Hegel. I first consider the contemporary interpretative debate on Hegel’s metaphysics and the implications of this debate for the Hegelian conception of God. I then advocate a ‘qualified revisionist’ approach to Hegel, and, as a further qualification to such an approach, I suggest an interpretation of the objective reality that Hegel attributes to God as mediated objectivity. I analyse how Hegel’s ‘mediated objectivity’ applies to religious representations, suggesting that a figural reading of the kind theorized by philologist Erich Auerbach should be adopted. Finally I reconstruct Hegel’s distinction between the image (Bild) of God, the concept (Begriff) of God, and the Idea (Idee) of God, and I argue that the answer to the question of the objective reality of God in Hegel’s philosophy of religion can be retrieved in the process according to which the concept turns into the Idea.