Systematic Theology, Volume 2 by Wolfhart Pannenberg

Author:Wolfhart Pannenberg [Pannenberg, Wolfhart]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780802837073
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
Published: 1994-08-02T10:45:04+00:00

Hegel took up the subjective approach in describing evil and developed and extended the theme by reflecting both on the universal nature of the self-consciousness and on the relation of the finite self-consciousness to the Absolute.²⁴⁰ We can no longer bring against Hegel, as we can against Kant and his conception of radical evil, the charge that he defined evil or sin without regard to the relation to God. Hegel, too, started with human subjectivity, though not just the moral consciousness, but the individual as a being that is conscious of itself. For Hegel the self-consciousness was the basis of the unity of all the contents of the consciousness of objects. It is thus above each specific content. The same applies to its practical realization in the form of desire.²⁴¹ Desire characterizes our natural human will. In this respect we are not what we ought to be. We ought to lift ourselves above our own and every other specificity to the thought of the intrinsically universal, the true Infinite, as opposed to all the finite contents of the consciousness, including the self. The self, however, also has the ability to handle the Absolute as a special content of the consciousness among others, and to take the infinite unity of the I-consciousness, which transcends all its specific contents, as the true Infinite, thus actually making a principle of its own specificity over and above the universal and putting it into practice in its acts. In other words, it has the ability to be evil.²⁴²

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