Hegel on the State and Religion

Abstract: The issues of the relation between the state and religion has been discussed widely in Hegel’s works. In the long remark to §270 of Hegel’s Elements of the Philosophy of Right, he provides a very concentrated and mature expression on this issue, which deserves our careful interpretation. This paper interprets Hegel’s theory of the relationship between state and religion in dual perspectives, one is the theoretical framework of modern philosophy on politics and religion, and the other is Hegel’s own theory on " subjective substantiality”. In Hegel’s philosophy of spirit, the state and religion have ontological links, but in real world, Hegel advocates preventing religious interference in politics, separating church from state, managing churches at the level of civil society, and taking a tolerant stance towards churches and doctrines. With this prerequisite, in order to establish the political identity, and to cultivate the correct " political disposition” of the modern state, it is necessary to let the religious or the cultural tradition play a great role in social life.