The destruction of truth and reality.

The "philosophy" of the German Protestant Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel considers reality as having a conceptual structure, that is, that reality is subject to human ideas about it. Pure concepts, that is ideas, are not subjectively applied to sense impressions but rather things exist for actualizing their "a priori" (previously understood knowledge) concept. The concept of the concept is called the Idea by Hegel. Sound convoluted? It is.

Hegel's method consisted of a triadic development in each concept and each thing. In such a way, he hoped that philosophy would not contradict his experience but that experience would provide data for philosophy, which as a rationalist Hegel thought was the ultimately true explanation. Hegel's triadic method seems to have been widely used in the development of the modernist understanding of various concepts, for instance Liberty. For Hegel, to know what Liberty is he took the example of unrestrained thought, feeling and action, then contrasted it with restraint and what he called Liberty's opposite, the "tyranny" of civilization and law. Then, in a third stage, under the rule of law, Liberty should be possessed in a higher, fuller sense than in either of the other two stages.

In this triadic process, the second stage is the direct opposite, the annihilation or sublation of the first stage. The third stage is the first stage returned to itself in a supposed higher, truer, richer and fuller form. These three stages he styled:

• in itself or • thesis

• out of itself or • antithesis

• in and of itself or • synthesis

Whereas for a philosopher like Aristotle "being" is static and fixed, for Hegel "being" is not a static reality. For Hegel, "being" is essentially dynamic and he thought that by its nature being passes into nothing and then returns to itself and "becoming". For Aristotle, there is nothing more certain than that "being" equalled "being", or in other words, that "being" is identical with itself, that everything is what it is and that is how reality and truth are identified. Hegel, however, falsely concluded that "being" becomes its opposite: nothing, and that both are then united in the concept of "becoming".

For instance, the truth about a table for Aristotle and most people, is that it is a table. Hegel confused and distorted that truth by claiming that an equally important truth about the table is that it was once a tree and that it will be ashes. If the table were stone or wrougth iron neither of these things would be true. The so-called "truth" for Hegel is that the tree became a table and will become ashes. For Hegel, then, the ultimate and highest reality is "becoming" and not "being". If this is accepted, all reality then is in flux and nothing stays the same, a conclusion which creates an ambiguity and uncertainty in reality.

The sun, since its creation, was always the sun and will always be the sun until the end of time. A sparrow is a sparrow because that is what God created it to be and nothing else, etc. Contrarily, Hegel claimed that only if we know the history of the development of things do we attain the fullest knowledge of a thing, that is, what it was, what it is and what it will be. For Hegel, "being" and "nothing" merge into a higher concept of "becoming" and for him "life" and "mind" are third states in this triadic process.

Aristotle saw "being" as superior to "becoming" because anything which is still "becoming" something else is imperfect and therefore, God is perfect because he never changes but is eternally complete and while He is the Creator of the universe He is outside and not subject to the universe or anything in it. Another obvious conclusion is that man is a human "being" and not a human "becoming".

For Hegel, the stages of "becoming" from the lowest to the highest included "being", "life" and "mind" and the only constant thing present was "the process" which he mistook for "spirit" (geist) or "idea". He also called the material processes of "being" and "life", God, which is pagan Pantheism. Hegel claimed that the third stage of development in "becoming" is God. This is completely contrary to truth and reality where things are not "becoming" God, not even humans are "becoming" God or Gods but the purpose of human life is that each person by faith in God and by the grace of God comes to know, love and serve God in this life and thereby merits eternal life with God in the next life.

For Hegel, the process of the Idea 1: "in itself" also the "thesis" is the subject of Logic or Metaphysics, 2: "out of itself" also "antithesis" is the study of the philosophy of nature and 3: "in and of itself" also "synthesis" is the subject of the philosophy of mind.

Hegel's utterly abstract considerations on Logic claim that it is a process of the Idea passing through phases of "being" and "becoming" and from "essence" to "notion" and at the point where the Idea enters into "otherness" it becomes nature. What he is actually asserting here is that nature is the result of the human mind, an obvious fallacy. He further claimed that nature reveals itself as an attempt of the Idea to emerge from the condition of "otherness" and present itself to us as a better, fuller, richer Idea which he then said was "spirit" or "mind" implying that spirit and mind are products of nature. Reason is only found in the human mind and man's spiritual aspect is his soul. Both mind and soul are the creation of God and are in no way attributable to nature. Man's mind must be educated by truth and his soul purified by penance and the practice of religion. But the Naturalism of Hegel denies these obvious truths.

The truth is that man while part of nature, had and has no part in the creation of nature which is solely the work of God the Creator and that God has created all things with a unique, distinct and fixed identity, purpose and nature, including man.

Hegel also claimed that "mind" is the goal or product of nature whereas the truth is that man is the only creature created by God in the image and likeness of God with reason, speech and an eternal soul. But Hegel being a Protestant pagan would never consider this truth.

Hegel's philosophy of the mind is perhaps the origin of the modernist sophistic pseudopolitical philosophy of Anarchism which seeks the overthrow of established truth and reality. For Hegel, the philosophy of the mind begins with the individual or subjective mind, which is the first stage "in itself" or thesis stage. The second stage, the "out of itself" or antithesis stage he considered to be opposite, negative or annihilatory of the first stage and he called it the "objective mind" or mind objectified and he identified it as present in law, morality and the State.

If Hegel's "method" is used to interpret these realities the necessary conclusion is that law, morality (which he referred to as "tyranny") and the State are negative, destructive things which must be overcome and in some way destroyed. This is the basis for Anarchism, Socialism and Communism based as they are on this false understanding of the human mind, reality and truth and which see it necessary to destroy the existing order of things and replace them with what, well their own twisted understanding of things.

In truth law, morality and the State are created by God for the good of humanity and to direct humanity to the true liberty of living according to what God wants which is freedom from sin and thereby living a good life in this world to merit eternal life in the next.

Hegel then further imagined a condition he called "absolute mind", in which the mind rises above all limitations of nature and institutions in which it is only subject to itself; total egoism, in art, religion and philosophy. For Hegel, the essence of the mind is freedom to think whatever one pleases and his theory of the development of mind consists in a necessary breaking away from the restrictions imposed on it by nature and human institutions. 

This is a perverted understanding of the human mind which dismisses or rejects the essential good in nature and human institutions particularly the family, the Church and the State without which man cannot reach his full potential. Do we not attend school, Church, observe the law and live in the State in order to be formed, guided, assisted, instructed and conformed to human nature, the decrees of God, the truths of human and Divine knowledge and to the society of which we are members in order to learn, live and work in a manner that is not only best but without which life would be impossible and intolerable?

Hegel's idea of the State is that it is mind objectified and for a Protestant pagan like Hegel this is the opposite of freedom and a "yoke of necessity". He does however recognize that this "yoke of necessity" is contained in the rights of others, in morality and that the primary institution is the family. He also recognizes that families form civil society and the State and that the State is a perfect society and it represents an aspect of God Himself, the Creator of the family and therefore the Creator of the State, but considering that he held these to be a "yoke of necessity" and the opposite of freedom his thinking reveals the mind of a  psychopathic criminal who would seek the destruction of such things and in this he has many followers among the Anarchists, Socialists, Communists and Liberals.

Hegel saw the State as the supreme rational expression of its people and the embodiment of reason which he called "spirit" (geist), perhaps the philosophical origin of the political concept of nationalism. Thus he elevated the State above God and religion making it an idol and this is the foundation of both German Fascism and German Communism and their "Statolatry". This rationality of the State he called the "cunning of reason" also expressing elements of fascism and communism in the use of cunning to coerce or manipulate the population.

For a human, the reality of existence and purpose of life is found in our membership of the family, the Church and the State and our highest function is to serve these institutions to which we belong by birth, inheritance, the grace of God and by right. We honour and serve these institutions because they are created by God, and by being subject to them and fulfilling our part (our duty) in their life and activities we merit our highest honour. But for the pagan and Protestant Hegel, even in the State mind is limited by subjection to other minds. His total egoism and anarchism led him to conclude that the final step in the process of the acquisition of freedom was that absolute mind in art, religion and philosophy must subject itself to itself alone. Is this not the philosophy of absolute revolution and of selfish, individualist egoism? The fact is that art, religion and philosophy must conform themselves to reality and to truth otherwise they become meaningless and in the case of religion, they become heresies, and yet this is the very malady from which the modern world suffers most, thanks perhaps to men like Hegel, invariably Protestants.  

For Hegel, art was the actualization of idea, religion was the feeling of superiority of itself over the limitations of finite things and whatever truth was in art or religion was contained in philosophy free from all "limitations" even those of reason! For Hegel, the purpose of life was "the highest, freest and wisest phase of the union of subjective and objective mind and the ultimate goal of all development". 

Hegel's attempt to create a vast scheme of philosophical synthesis has had far reaching influences with extremely negative consequences and the destruction of western civilization and society. His philosophy sought to organize under the single formula of triadic development every department of knowledge from abstract logic to the philosophy of history (1.).

In theology, Hegel applied his notion of triadic development, also called "Dialectic", to Biblical Criticism. In science and literature, the cunning substitution of the category of "being" with that of "becoming" is a very patent fact in modern thought and practice and is due entirely to Hegel's method and has led to diverse aberrations in the understanding of human nature, politics and society, the application of science and the purpose of medicine and law. Hegel's immediate followers in Germany are generally divided into the "Right Hegelians", in which are found the roots of German Fascism and the "Left Hegelians" in which are found the roots of German Communism, specifically Marxism.

The Right Hegelians developed Hegel's philosophy along non-dogmatic Protestant theological lines and contributed specifically to the development of Biblical Criticism into Historical-Criticism and the Historical-Critical Method (condemned as Modernism by Pope Pius X in 1907) and included Protestant Biblical theologians such as Johann Philipp Gabler, Johann Karl Rosenkranz, Johann Eduard Erdmann and Bruno Bauer, an extreme rationalist and anti-semite who denied the Divinity of Christ and the authenticity of the Gospels.

The Left Hegelians developed Hegel's anti-Christian materialism, socialism, rationalism and pantheism and included Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx, David Strauss also deniers of the Divinity of Christ and the Russian Mikhail Bakunin, founder of Collectivist and Social Anarchism.

Hegel's philosophy became known outside of Germany from the 1820's onwards and Hegelian schools developed in Northern Europe, Italy, France, Eastern Europe, America and England. Hegelianism most obviously influenced the development of Marxist Communism in the Protestant German communists Karl Marx, Freidrich Engels and the Russian Marxist Vladimir Lenin who used Hegel's Dialectical Method to develop Historical Materialism. Hegelianism also influenced Italian Fascism in its founder Giovanni Gentile, Bertrando Spaventa and Benedetto Croce and Italian Marxism in Antonio Gramsci. Hegelianism also influenced British Idealism which is closely related to German Idealism.

In general, Hegelianism heavily influenced the development of both Fascism and Marxist Communism and Hegelianism must also be considered the source of Modernism, the synthesis of all heresies. As such then, Hegel must be seen as a destroyer of civilization, human society and indeed thought itself and his philosophy as equal to that of the sophists.

(1.) Hegelian Dialectical Analysis of U.S. Voting Laws. C.E.A. Lincoln IV. 42 U. Dayton L. Rev. 87 (2017). See C. Lincoln. The Dialectical Path of Law. 2021. Rowman & Littlefield.