Hegel the Protestant Aquinas

Howard Kainz recently asked the questions why Hegel wasn’t for Protestantism what Aquinas was for Roman Catholicism. Kainz is right on when explains Hegel’s understanding of the relationship between philosophy and theology places theology as a secondary discourse. Protestantism has always treated philosophy as a secondary discourse looking to theology to provide answers to questions pertaining to reality, knowledge, and ethics. This has caused Protestantism to look primarily to its theologians for insight into speculative matters. This is just to say that it isn’t characteristic of Protestantism to look to a Philosopher (or theologian for that matter) as a teaching “Magisterium” such as in the Roman Catholic tradition. In Protestantism only the Holy Spirit has that authority.

I appreciated Kainz’s article. My only complaint is that he does not reference the quotes from Hegel that he uses. Give it a read and tell me your thoughts.