Drowning in Hegel or the Baptism of Philosophy

Abstract In this contribution, I will focus on Hegel’s presentation of the practice of baptism as found in his work, The Spirit of Christianity and its Fate . First, I contextualize the motif of baptism in its variegated forms in the New Testament and especially in Paul’s theology (Rom 6:4). Subsequently, I situate Hegel’s engagement with baptism in his early philosophy of religion, demonstrating how he refers to biblical accounts of baptism and then transforms them. My thesis is that Hegel transformed baptism from a biblical motif in his Early Theological Writings into an entrance into philosophical thought, as can be observed repeatedly in several of his later works such as the Lectures on the History of Philosophy , the Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences and the Phenomenology of Spirit .