Philipp Konrad Marheineke

Philipp Konrad Marheineke (1780–1846) was the most influential theologian among the Right Hegelians. His Grundlehren der christlichen Dogmatik als Wissenschaft (1827) became the standard work of speculative theology.

His programme of mediation saw philosophy and theology as different forms of the same truth: theology has the content, philosophy the form. In application he showed how classical dogmas can be reconstructed speculatively — the doctrine of original sin as an analysis of the structure of finitude, the doctrine of redemption as a dialectic of mediation.

In this lies a genuine insight of Hegel’s: philosophy and religion are not simply opposites. The limit lies in the harmonisation. Reconciliation often took place through conceptual reinterpretation rather than through dialectical sublation; the contradictions between philosophical and religious truth were covered over instead of being worked through.

In the friends’ edition Marheineke was officially responsible for the philosophy of religion — the second edition was in fact produced by Bruno Bauer.