... philosopher Hegel. As far as Hegel was concerned, Zeus could fill in for YHVH in his writings, but due to the culture of the times Hegel had the German guardians of the Christian orthodoxy breathing heavily down his neck, so this ought be taken in account whenever encountering Christian overtones in his work. In Hegel's systematic philosophy, the Absolute originally manifests itself in the form of immediacy, or objects of sense. This manifestation is apprehended as 'beauty,' which is the "sensuous semblance [Scheinen] of the Idea." The aesthetic consciousness apperceives the Absolute through the veil of senses as the Ideal. However, aesthetic intuition is not philosophy. Only thought itself can adequately apprehend the Absolute as Spirit, Reason, or self-thinking Thought. Instead of making the jump from art to philosophy, Hegel introduces religion as an intermediate mode of apprehending the Absolute. Religion presents the self-manifestation of the Absolute in the form ...

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