Idealism. One stream of thought running in opposi-
tion to the activation of apocalyptic eschatology is
represented by its idealization. By the time of the
Alexandrian theologians of the third century, Clement
and Origen had already banished any sensual eschato-
logical expectations under Platonic and Gnostic influ-
ence. For them, all Being is spiritual. The souls of men
are in increasing measure purified and by stages re-
turned to their goal, divinity; until finally all are saved
and the old order of the world, the material world,
ends.
Such thoughts remained alive in some places in
mystical circles, in which there is often some associa-
tion between the actual withdrawal of spirit from
history and apocalyptic conceptions of the end of
history. In such circles Luke 17:21 plays a major role:
“The kingdom of God is within you.” The authentic
eschatological event lies in the union of the soul with
God (J. Arndt). Apocalyptics are therefore only of
marginal interest: “We have enough on the sabbath
of a new rebirth... the other we can well consign
to God's omnipotence” (J. Böhme). Thus in the last
analysis mysticism takes the place of eschatology:
“When I abandon time I am myself eternity/ and
enclose myself in God, and God enclose in me”
(Angelus Silesius).
For Fichte likewise, a leading representative of so-
called “German idealism,” man can here on earth
everywhere and always, so long as this is his own desire,
attain to the rest, peace, and blessedness of the King-
dom of God by conceiving of himself in his own spirit
as a part of the Absolute and can thus abide and rest
in the One. Still Fichte combines this pure idealism
with eschatological aspects: the more men realize the
Kingdom of God as a moral and spiritual realm within
themselves, the more will it then manifest itself in the
world of appearances also. Men must therefore form
themselves in accordance with reason “until the species
actually exists as a perfected copy of its eternal proto-
type in reason, and thus the purpose of earthly life
would be attained, its goal manifest, and mankind
would enter upon the higher spheres of eternity”;
“... for in the end everything must surely flow into
the safe harbor of eternal rest and blessedness; in the
end the Kingdom of God must appear, and His
strength, and His power, and His glory” (Werke, V,
260f.).
Following the lines of the Alexandrian theologians,
Hegel also found that the Real, the Absolute-Divine,
is Spirit. But here, as opposed to Origen, Spirit does
not stand as a general idea in relation to natural reality;
rather it realizes itself in the particular: everything real
is spiritual, everything spiritual is real. In the self-
consciousness of the thinking spirit there is a reconcili-
ation in an ideal unity of the “for-itself” of universal
spirit here and the particular which derives from it
there. “The goal, which is Absolute Knowledge or
Spirit knowing itself as Spirit, finds its pathway in the
recollection of spiritual forms as they are in themselves
and as they accomplish the organization of their spirit-
ual kingdom,” Hegel says in the final chapter of the
Phenomenology of Mind. This process of the self-
unfolding of Spirit thus takes place historically, and
indeed in accordance with inalterable laws, just as in
apocalyptics; but God does not write its laws from
without, but the spirit immanent within history writes
them from within. Instead of divine providence we find
the “cunning of (spiritual) reason,” which is even able
to make humans act unconsciously and render seem-
ingly senseless or destructive actions in history service-
able for the purposes of Spirit. The end of history is
attained when Spirit comes into its own in self-
conscious thought, when it gains absolute knowledge
of itself in man, i.e., for all practical purposes in Hegel's
own Christian philosophy of religion, on the basis of
which both Church and State will be consolidated in
a rational social order. The eschatological judgment
of the world collapses in unison with world history.
The idealistic view of the Kingdom of God, deriving
from Fichte and Hegel, surrenders the notion of a
sudden reversal of cosmic conditions by the interven-
tion of God, and favors instead the idea of progress.
Furthermore, interest in the definitive end of history
diminishes altogether, and is replaced by the con-
struction of a course of history striving to attain its
culminating climax. God functions as Spirit in this
progressive historical development. The theology of
the nineteenth century, from Schleiermacher down to
so-called liberal theology, similarly shows itself mark-
edly under idealistic influence. At least the idea of
progress exercises great influence. R. Rothe felt he
could expect the Christian state, the civitas Dei, as the
perfected form of the Kingdom of God. For A. Ritschl
the Kingdom of God, the perfection of which certainly
lies in the remote future, comes to realization in the
expanding community of those acting morally out of
neighborly love.
