Hermeneutics of the Cross: Hegel and Luther

Afternoon-seminar with Dr. Robert Lucas Scott, University of Cambridge.

This paper explores Hegel's distinction between 'the spirit' and 'the letter'––a motif he inherits from St Paul (2 Corinthians 3:6)––by situating it within the context of his Lutheranism. Against readings that caricature Hegel as an abstract idealist indifferent to empirical or textual realities, it will argue that his philosophy demands a rigorous, dialectical confrontation with 'the letter' as a necessary condition for the emergence of 'the spirit'––where 'spirit' does not signify a disembodied essence or private insight that transcends the text, but rather the living, historical truth that arises through a painful encounter with the dead, rigid form of the letter itself. The talk focuses in particular on Luther's "Answer to the Hyperchristian, Hyperspiritual, and Hyperlearned Book by Goat Emser in Leipzig", in which Luther criticises the allegorical tradition of biblical interpretation. Instead, he affirms that grace and spirit are accessible only through a direct, even painful engagement with 'the letter that kills'. Likewise, Hegel's speculative method demands that thought be broken by the aporia and resistance of a text, and that only through this 'death' of the concept can it be recollected, retranslated, and reanimated into living thought. Just as Luther made the Bible speak German, Hegel seeks to make philosophy speak the truth of its historical moment––not by evading the letter, but by submitting to and transforming it from within.

The programme is sent out via email and posted at this site, please sign up to receive it: av@teol.ku.dk.

We speak English, when the title is in English, if it is in Danish, the paper is in Danish and the language of the seminar is mixed.