From Narrative to Necessity (PDF)

This book is a supplement to the author's earlier New Hegelian Essays. It continues the project of presenting the narrative(s) of religion as intelligible metaphysics, "e;interpreting spiritual things spiritually"e;, as St. Paul says. After an introductory recall of the unreality of the phenomenal individual except insofar as viewed as "e;in"e; God, the Absolute, so that all depend upon all, the first subject to be considered is faith itself, too often seen as the polar and hence negative opposite of reason. After this, we plunge straight for the hidden philosophical implications of the Trinity, leading on to a rational viewing of the doctrines of Creation and Incarnation, actually essentially connected. A false view of Creation, as, consequently, of divine transcendence, is here corrected. God has no otherness with which he is not at the same time united and hence identified and this is the very opposite of pantheism, is acosmism rather, God being "e;all in all"e;. Regarding Incarnation, its full humanistic implications, in a context of Absolute Idealism as the philosophical and true view, are here teased out. Finally, we move to a consideration of "e;practical reason"e;, virtues, ethical imperatives, their true character and import. The book concludes with some consideration of the eventual role of such philosophy as holding together a great contemporary political project, the European Union.