The Community and the Enemy

Theodicy and political theology in Hegel

Abstract

Hegel presents his philosophy of history as a reformulation of Leibniz’s “theodicy”, a justification of evil in history from the point of view of Reason. This legitimation of the negative renders Hegelian providence radically different from Christian providence. If good presupposes evil then even the formation of the ethical community presupposes the dialectic of the negative. The state arises to overcome the internal enemy – the individualistic atomism of the economic sphere, and the external enemy – all the other states. War with the external enemy is the tool through which the internal ethic is reconstituted. In this way Hegelian theodicy is nourished on the friend-enemy dialectic which constitutes political theology’s form for Carl Schmitt.