Six Key Themes for German Idealism and the
Birth of the Lineage of Evolutionary Panentheistic Thinkers
Evolutionary panentheism: an implicit and stealth worldview that recognizes
that a transcendent and unified Divinity is simultaneously immanent in the everevolving world--a view that has been articulated by various thinkers and mystics
ever since 1800.
Pantheism: only Divine immanence. Panentheism: retains the transcendence.
1 – Integration: The discovery of biological evolution in the 1700s laid the foundation
for the Second Axial Age, which began in approximately 1800 and continues to unfold.
In this Age the evolutionary imperative is no longer focused on differentiation but
integration (of Spirit and Nature, Eternity and time, transcendence and immanence, body,
mind, and soul, etc.). Ever since the German Idealists, evolutionary panentheists have
explored ways to integrate these opposites.
2 – Dialectical: The German Idealists gave birth to a dialectical mode of thinking that is
essential to understanding evolutionary panentheism because it regards opposites as interrelated within a larger unity.
3 – Immanence: The German Idealists, and the broader Romantic movement, helped
bring the Divine down to nature and within the human psyche. They started to reintegrate the immanent aspect of the Divine.
4 – The Unconscious: The Idealists, particularly Schelling, gave birth to the modern
understanding of the unconscious (Unbewusstsein) in two senses: 1) the unconscious is
Nature (that is, God goes unconscious as Nature), and 2) the unconscious is humanity’s
shared, dynamic reservoir of mental activity (the seed for Carl Jung’s later formulation of
the collective unconscious).
5 – Reconciliation: German Idealism started to reconcile the dissociation between Self //
Nature // God and bring forth a participatory and quasi-mystical view of the close
connection between Human-Nature-Divine.
6 – Optimistic Human Nature: The Romantic movement gave birth to a more
optimistic, progressive, self-defining, morally free, original, creative, and ever-evolving
view of human nature. Some leading Romantics articulated a prophetic intuition that new
powers (capacities) were emerging in them as evolutionary precursors to their future
attainment by all of humanity. Evidence for the thesis Michael Murphy presents in The
Future of the Body is quite robust in the period from 1790 to 1850.
© 2012 Frank Poletti
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Timeline of the Birth of Evolutionary Panentheism
In German Idealism and Beyond
1780s
Kant’s alienating epistemological divide motivates the German Idealists
(The human mind cannot know the external world of nature and cosmos)
1789
French Revolution begins in Paris, radical impact on all of Europe
1790
Kant’s Third Critique distinguishes mechanical from biological systems
1792
Fichte’s Essay Towards a Critique of All Revelation is mistakenly thought
to have been authored by Kant and helps popularize Fichte’s name
1794
Fichte first suggests self-positing and striving for the Infinite
Goethe invites Fichte to teach at Jena
Fichte’s subjective Idealism and dialectical thinking
1797
Schelling’s early essays: “Nature is visible Spirit, Spirit invisible Nature”
Schelling in correspondence with Fichte
1798-99
Goethe invites Schelling to teach at Jena, and they begin to discuss
how a Spiritual Presence pervades both nature and the human mind
Fichte forced to leave Jena due to charges of atheism
1800
Fichte’s Vocation of Man
Schelling’s System of Transcendental Idealism
1807
Hegel’s Phenomenology of Geist
1818
Hegel obtains Fichte’s vacant chair in Berlin
1820s
Hegel at height of power, recognition, and influence in Berlin
1830s
Left Hegelians branch off as the radical-political wing of Hegel’s legacy
1836
Influenced by Idealism, Emerson publishes his famous essay “Nature”
1841
Schelling called to Berlin to quiet the Left Hegelians (Feuerbach)
1840s
Influenced by Feuerbach, Marx and Engels develop historical materialism
1848
Marx and Engels publish The Communist Manifesto
1852
Emerson writes quasi-Hegelian panentheistic essay “Fate”
© 2012 Frank Poletti
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The Three German Idealists
Johann Fichte
Friedrich Schelling
GWF Hegel
© 2012 Frank Poletti
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