“Die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht”

Abstract

“Die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht” – “The history of the world is the Last Judgement” – is one of the most famous aphorisms in Hegel’s works. It also, on its most obvious interpretation, seems to support a deeply unsympathetic image of his philosophy of history. If the Last Judgement is not something that is carried out by an omniscient, omnipotent and (above all) just creator-god but left to the verdict of history then it looks as if Hegel is (as Benjamin called him) a Gewaltmensch and a mystic of violence,1 someone who is inspired by the idea that the World Spirit fights on the side of the big battalions. In this paper, I shall explore the background to this aphorism. In brief, I argue that the German Idealists do indeed find ideals in secular history that correspond to what had previously been the prerogative of a transcendent deity but that this relationship is a far more complex one than a simple transfer to the outcome of history of God’s erstwhile role as the distributor of deserved rewards and punishments.