In Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, the driving force behind the dialectical progression of Spirit is the subject’s misrecognition of the truth. In each phase, the subject identifies the truth with a given thing, idea, or value, and in each case, it is revealed that that which was identified fails to meet the standards of absolute truth. Hegel does not measure each conception of the truth with some objective/absolute standard (as, until the end of the book, there is none). Rather he engages in an immanent critique of each one, showing how none (aside from Absolute Knowing, of course) are what they claim to be.
The simplest example is the dialectic of sense-certainty, which also happens to be (not by coincidence) the first one. The subject of sense-certainty claims that the truth is what is immediately present to his senses as the “here” and “now” (let us take a tree as an example). However, as soon as he turns around, he no longer sees a tree but a house, which becomes the new “here” and “now.” Since (absolute) truth is not subject to negation, the “here’s” and “now’s” discovered by sense certainty cannot be the (absolute) truth. Hegel will then negate the negation via the same immanent critique, and this movement is Hegelian dialectics.
Ultimately, it is revealed that the absolute truth Spirit had laboured so long to discover is nothing other than itself (Hegel defines Absolute Knowing as “Spirit that knows itself as Spirit”). Every failure to discover it was due to an “externalization” wherein Spirit identified something other than itself as the truth.
Since the Phenomenology of Spirit details Spirit’s journey towards self-knowledge, the dialectical progression–speaking very generally–consists of a movement away from “externalized content” and towards the internal life of Spirit. A clear example of this movement is Hegel’s analysis of the five primary art forms: architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and poetry. While the purpose of each art form, and art in general, is the artist’s expression of his/her subjectivity, Hegel demonstrates how all five fail to facilitate this expression to varying degrees. Todd McGowan explains the problem concisely, and it will be worthwhile to quote him at length:
...as with all works of art, architects express the problem of subjectivity through the artwork, but in the case of architecture this expression occurs in a material form that is completely alien to subjectivity. The contours of the material building must manifest the immateriality of the subject. Sculpture continues to express subjectivity in a material form. This form, however, becomes that of the subject itself, which makes the contradiction more difficult to detect and more difficult to resolve. In painting, the singularity of the subject emerges in contrast to the abstraction of sculpture. Then music eliminates the material manifestation altogether [...] Hegel concludes his philosophy of art with poetry. Poetry leaves no barrier between the subject and its artistic manifestation. The result is not, as one might expect, that poetry perfectly expresses subjectivity or that poetry is subjectivity. Instead, poetry enables us to recognize that the subject’s alienation from itself is not the product of the artistic form it employs…1
It should be noted that McGowan has a particular reading of Hegel that essentially identifies “truth” with “contradiction” (so that McGowan can summarize the essence of Hegel’s project as “a demonstration of the intractability of contradiction”).2 Despite this idiosyncratic reading (which I do not believe is without merit), McGowan nonetheless demonstrates how dialectical progression consists of a movement from “externalized content” (e.g. the architect’s building material) to the subject itself (the poet’s voice). While poetry does not sufficiently express the truth of Spirit (as it is not Absolute Knowing), it is more capable of doing so than all the other art forms precisely because it is not dependent upon any material/external content.
I was recently watching a podcast by some comedians (which I cannot remember the title of, unfortunately), and one of them made a very Hegelian point about alcoholism. He said that while he was an alcoholic, he suffered from many problems related to his mental health. After he quit drinking, he was expecting to be cured of his issues, but he was surprised to discover that they didn’t go away. In fact, not only did they not go away, but they became even worse because he could no longer use his alcoholism as an excuse for his problems. After negating his alcoholism (the “external content” he had blamed his mental issues on), he was confronted with the immanent causes of his poor mental state.
I believe Hegel’s dialectics are the logic of sin, and Hegel’s philosophy is a philosophy of sin. After all, Hegel’s system is essentially a philosophical Tower of Babel, perhaps the most formidable attempt by fallen rationality to account for the totality of being (a futile task, of course). It is no coincidence that this attempt to enclose reality into rationality (i.e. to do away with genuine faith) required the logic of sin.
Sin is nothing more than the self-assertion of the I, the withdrawal from the other, the attempt to self-define and enclose reality in oneself as opposed to receiving one’s being through communion. True repentance begins with the recognition of this fact. Just as the subject of Absolute Knowing comes to realize that “it was me all along,” the repentant recognizes that every attempt to cast blame upon other people, things, or circumstances is a false excuse that fails to see the origin of sin in one’s own will alone. The self-chastisement of repentance is not mere pietism but is connected to an essential ontological truth: sin has no true being. Sin is not located “out there” to be discovered, as it is, in essence, nothing more than our own selves insofar as we have withdrawn from communion:
Sin lies in the disinclination to leave the state of self-identity, the identity “I = I,” or more precisely, “I!” The root sin or the root of all sin is the assertion of oneself as oneself, without relation to that which is other, i.e., to God and to all creation. It is self-immersion without self-transcendence. All particular sins are only variants or manifestations of the stubborn self-immersion of selfhood.3
As Florensky says, every particular sin is only a variant of the self-assertion of the “I” (we will call this self-assertion “pride,” as the fathers of the Church do). Specifically, every sin is only sinful insofar as it manifests the self-immersion of selfhood. For example, eating is not inherently sinful, but gluttony is sinful as it manifests the selfish desire to eat more than necessary. It is for this precise reason that repentance consists of the (Hegelian) movement from “external content” to “inner negativity,” as all external content is good by nature (as God’s creation), and evil only exists as the inner negativity of the self-isolated subject. One can imagine a “Phenomenology of Sin” wherein the subject begins by falsely attributing the cause of his gluttony to the tastiness of the food and ends with the recognition that the cause is nothing more than his own self-will.
In the past, we’ve demonstrated how the Seven Deadly Sins can be mapped onto the stages of Spirit in The Phenomenology of Spirit. Hegel did not, of course, do this intentionally, and the fact that such a pattern exists only strengthens the validity of our thesis. While “lesser sins” involve a relation with reality beyond the self-enclosed subject, the absolute sin (pride) is the barest form of the sinful subject’s empty self-relation.
If we agree with the Fathers that pride is the essence and the cause of all sin, and we also agree that Christ died for our sins, then it follows that the will of God is, in essence, for us to attain true humility. “Humility” is not understood in a merely pietistic or psychological way but as an ontological state. To attain true humility is to be deified, as theosis is the process of becoming like God, and God is the archetype of all humility. God is humble because He is Tri-Personal, and each of the divine Persons eternally humble themselves for the sake of the others. Humility allows for perfect communion, as communion can only be perfected when the self has completely turned away from itself and towards the other in love.
Christ came to make us humble. It is no coincidence that He came when He did. The Old Testament is the story of the nation of Israel as it is prepared for the coming of the Messiah. As we all know, the story is not a purely linear sequence, as the chosen people fall from God repeatedly. The Israelites' first major sin was worshipping idols, such as the Golden Calf. Idol worship continues to be the most common sin of the Israelites throughout the period of the Judges. During the age of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, idolatry became less common, but forbidden forms of worship (not worshiping at the Temple) plagued the nation. However, after their return from the Babylonian exile, the Israelites generally worshiped the Lord according to His instructions. The Pharisees were ardent monotheists and followed the Law to the letter. The problem with the Pharisees had nothing to do with external forms of worship but with pride of the heart. Despite worshiping God properly and following the Torah, their pride led the Pharisees to commit a sin far worse than the most ardent idolater: they killed God Himself. Christ came once every external sin–all of which only obscures the true essence of sin, the prideful heart–had been weeded out from Israel. Only once Israel’s pride–the same pride that caused Satan to fall–had become fully revealed through the overcoming of all lesser sins could it be destroyed by the infinite humility and love of God.
Todd McGowan, Emancipation After Hegel.
I am paraphrasing the thesis of McGowan’s book Emancipation After Hegel.
Pavel Florensky, The Pillar and Ground of the Truth.