Transition: From the Philosophical to the Religious Response
This text is a preview of History of the Reception of Hegel, volume II, to be published in 2026 by Reflexivity Press.
The preceding chapters (2-7) have shown how the West responded philosophically to Auschwitz: critiques of totalitarianism, the Hegel renaissance, systems theory, existentialism, Critical Theory.
But there were also religious responses. For many people – Christians and Jews alike – the question was not only “How could this happen?” but: “Where was God?”
The following three chapters examine how the three Abrahamic traditions answered this question:
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Protestantism (Ch. 7a): From Barth’s “No” to Pannenberg’s rehabilitation – can one still practice a theology of history after Auschwitz?
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Catholicism (Ch. 7b): From Neo-Scholasticism to the transcendental turn – can Thomas be reconciled with Hegel? And what does Vatican II mean for philosophy?
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Judaism (Ch. 8): Levinas, Jonas, Fackenheim – can one still read Hegel after the Shoah? The most radical challenge.
These three traditions had different starting points, different relationships to Hegel, different answers. But they shared one question: How can one still believe, after Auschwitz, in a God who acts in history?