Abstract

This article studies the relationship between the thought of three great German philosophers – Fichte, Schelling, Hegel – and Christianity. In a certain sense, the three of them can be considered as apologists of the Christian religion. However, the revealed mysteries insisted on by Christianity are subordinated by them to a philosophical clarification which amounts in fact to a transformation. Fichte discovers in the historic element of Christianity only the sensible expression of the ultimate metaphysical truth. Schelling is conscious of being unable to deduce a priori the truth of Christianity; but he proposes a semirationalistic approach, according to which human reason can conceive post factum the depths of the divine Revelation. Hegel makes absolute Idealism the final arbiter of the inner meaning of the Christian religion.