Love Becoming Reason: The Concept of Reason in Hegel’s Philosophy and the Commandment of Love in Christianity

This paper argues that the concept of reason in Hegel’s philosophy is the rationalization of the commandment of love in Christianity. The commandment of love is the greatest one in the New Testament of the Bible. Love surpasses but also fulfils the law of the Old Testament. There is contradiction in the commandment, which is most evident in the command ‘love for enemies.’ Nevertheless, only by love is the mortal raised to the divine and the infinite. Hegel’s reason has all of these characteristics: it sublates the law; it appears as something contradictory to human understanding; and it is comprehended as belonging to the infinite.