Abstract

"Hegel's Word 'God"' is a study of Hegel's System of Science in its speculative theological character. It takes seriously Hegel's claim that the language of the System, comprised of the Phenomenology of Spirit, Science of Logic, and Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, is speculative, not representational, in character. As speculative, its terms are constituted in their determination within the dialectical development of the System itself, not in a representational relation of the System to a term which either transcends or is transcendentally conceived in relation to its development. This includes the term or word 'God', the speculative "meaning" of which is constituted, not representationally in relation to a God who either transcends or is transcendentally conceived in relation to the development, but within the textual development itself of the System. The speculative semiosis of the System and its word 'God' in these terms is postmodern in character. ;Treating the speculative formulation of the System in relation to the classical and modern philosophical and theological formulations of which it constitutes the prototypical postmodern revisionary development, and rejecting a variety of interpretations which treat the System representationally in either classical or modern terms, or combinations thereof, "Hegel's Word 'God' thinspace" demonstrates the manner in which the postmodern 'language' of the System opposes and contradicts both the language in general, and the philosophical theological language in particular, of the classical and modern formulations. The opposition and contradiction take shape in the System as a voluntaristic, discursively functional formulation of 'being' in general, and the 'being' of 'God' in particular, which subverts the relation between being, thought, and will characteristic of the philosophical theological formulation generally of the central classical tradition. Whereas in the classical formulation, being is determinative of thought, and being as thought is regulative of will, in Hegel's subversive postmodern formulation, 'will' is determinative of 'thought', and 'will' as 'thought' is determinative of 'being'. A consequence of this subversion is the dissolution of the distinctions between the members of the triune being of God, and the being of God and the world of becoming, characteristic of the classical philosophical theological formulation. A further consequence is that the speculative formulation of Hegel's System subverts and contradicts itself, and thereby tacitly, if negatively, affirms the thought of the classical tradition