Dr Rory Phillips University College London

Event details

Fichte's Interpretation of Jesus

Fichte's thinking on religion pervades his writing, as is evident from the System of Ethics (1798) and the Vocation of Man (1800). In my view, one aspect of Fichte's response to the atheism controversy was to deepen this connection between his philosophical system and the religion of Christianity in particular. This manifests in part as a concern with the interpretation of Jesus and the events of Jesus' life. In his published lectures Characteristics of the Present Age (1805) and The Way Toward the Blessed Life (1806), as well as in the unpublished Lectures on Ethics (1812) and Doctrine of the State (1813), Fichte wrestles with how to understand Jesus. I argue that the key to Fichte's account is found in his remark that Jesus is an 'original breakthrough...via genius, as revelation'. I unpack this claim and argue that Fichte's central idea is that a historical instantiation of moral perfection is required for moral and political progress to happen, and that this instantiation is the meaning of the Christian claim that Jesus is at once human and divine.