The Owl of Minerva

Volume 42, Issue 1/2, 2010/2011

Robert M. Wallace
Pages 123-135

True Infinity and Hegel’s Rational Mysticism
A Reply to Professor Williams

Robert Williams objects that my interpretation of Hegel’s philosophical theology makes him an “Enlightenment naturalist.” In response, I explain how my book describes Hegel as decisively criticizing Enlightenment naturalism by showing that the finite and the natural must be sublated in the infinite. Second, I show that Hegel’s apparently paradoxical conception of the relation between humans and God makes sense when it is seen as part of the long tradition of rational mysticism, which includes Plato, Plotinus, Proclus, St. Augustine, and Meister Eckhart.