EARLY EUROPEAN TESTIMONIALS
TO IDEALIST INFLUENCE
Hegel’s overall presentation of the dialectical development of trinitarian divine subjectivity and Schelling’s daring proposal of a dynamic trinitarian God developing from three divine potencies into three divine persons have appeared to many who have studied their thought to be quite impressive, even in certain aspects persuasive. It would be hard to delimit Hegel’s and Schelling’s at least indirect, but often quite direct, influence on nineteenth-century as well as twentieth- and twenty-first-century trinitarian thought. This impact should come as little surprise in view of the insight, industry, and intention toward inclusiveness with which especially Hegel, but certainly also Schelling, have in their trinitarian thinking handled so many universal themes of ongoing human and religious importance. Without trying to be comprehensive, we could list the following themes surfacing especially in their treatments of Trinity: subjectivity and personhood; spontaneity; freedom; alienation; spirit; history; universality and particularity; community; infinity; revelation; being as becoming; spirit; and, experience and knowledge of God. Of particular importance, Hegel and Schelling have each in his own way introduced the notion of history into their very understandings of God, who, in a form of becoming, develops into divine fullness in and through history.
In this part 2 we will take a look at several witnesses who give testimonials, in thought developed and word written, to the influence and resultant impact of German Idealist thinking on trinitarian thought during the nineteenth century.1 We will leave consideration of that influence on twentieth- and twenty-first-century trinitarian thinkers for parts 3 and 4. It will be somewhat more challenging to identify such influence on these later thinkers, especially given their distance in time and, later on, in place as well from the German Idealists. Happily, nineteenth-century trinitarian thinkers have themselves often referred to and explicitly expounded at some length on German Idealist thought. Such explicit reference will make it easier to identify their creative dependence on post-Kantian German Idealists in their overall trinitarian thinking and on the ways in which they structure what they see as a dynamic and developmental relationship between divine and human.
We will then in the present part 2 of our study trace the influence especially of Hegel and Schelling on selected nineteenth-century trinitarian thinkers who exemplify Idealist influence in their understandings of Trinity. Hegel’s influence on trinitarian thought is generally better known in the West than that of the later Schelling. So, while not neglecting that of Hegel, we will tend to focus slightly more on Schelling’s influence as we turn now to several nineteenth-century trinitarian thinkers. In reviewing selected aspects of their thought, we will at times note specific ways in which they rejected or, from their perspectives, corrected various positions taken by Hegel and Schelling. But our focus will remain on the more positive influence and impact of Idealist thinking on the trinitarian thought of these selected thinkers.
We should recall that the nineteenth century saw considerable study of Trinity and related questions. There were of course those who tended to concentrate more on classical Thomist and Augustinian as well as Reformation approaches to Trinity. Others picked up on and worked with what was for them more recent Idealist interpretations of Trinity. In either case, with the arrival of Idealist thought those reflecting on Trinity could not easily avoid dealing with a whole host of new or at least newly phrased questions about God. Samuel M. Powell has noted a series of such questions: “Questions about God’s self-consciousness and actuality. Does God become? If so, does God become actual through a relation with the cosmos? Is God free? Is the cosmos an element of God’s being? Is God’s knowledge of the cosmos an act of self-consciousness? In what sense is God personal? Does personality imply finitude?”2
We will concentrate on the influence and resultant impact of Idealist thought on three nineteenth-century thinkers who have entered more directly into dialogue with Idealist approaches to Trinity. In their constructive reflection they have witnessed to, and indeed provided testimonials concerning, the post-Kantian German Idealist trinitarian legacy already evident to some extent from early on in the nineteenth century. Philipp Marheineke was in his later thought truly enamored of Hegelian ideas. Much farther along in the century Isaak August Dorner worked critically and constructively with the thought of both Hegel and Schelling. Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov was a creative and autonomous Orthodox thinker who wrote directly of Idealist thinkers and whose trinitarian thought has a strong Idealist ring to it. We will survey their trinitarian thought, less so that of Marheineke but more so that of Dorner and especially of Solovyov, in somewhat greater detail since they are perhaps less well-known and since they represent first efforts to work with Idealist approaches to understanding Trinity. As first efforts, their constructive reflection on Trinity mirrors, though the word is perhaps a bit too strong, quite directly and explicitly various directions taken by Idealist philosophers.