The purpose of any religion is morality; their doctrines and media have to agree to this end. A religion positive, however,
is not based on morality dictated by reason but on the requirement imposed by the
authority.
In The positivity of the Christian religion, Hegel investigates the reasons that transformed the teachings of Jesus (initially doctrines not positive) in a positive religion. Christianity and positivity According to Hegel, before Christ, the Jewish religion had fallen to strict rules as sacred, and turned its people into slaves who blindly obeyed the laws whose deepest meaning is not understood. Interventions of Jesus intended to restore freedom of believers and make the moral virtues of religion. However, the subsequent interpretation of its doctrines, based solely on the authority of the teacher, led to formation of a religion positive. I mentioned is due to several factors. Jesus had built his authority based on the will of God, the words always in the name of the Father gave it the power to influence their contemporaries. The renewed religion of virtue, which was accompanied by a new authority, or require faith in Jesus needed him to be able to transform the consciousness of the people.
The Jews awaiting the arrival of the Messiah, they could not accept a doctrine different from yours except that the Messiah came from. The authority of Jesus as the son of God, Messiah and many miracles were not the principal purposes, but the means to get religion of virtue. However, the subsequent development of Christianity took a different direction. The disciples spread the doctrines of Jesus based on admiration for the teacher and thus reinforced their authority. Hegel compares the disciples of Socrates and Jesus, stressing that the first had the ability to reflect and develop own speeches, while the latter''s interest was focused only on the person of Jesus. This fact contributed to the establishment of unquestioned authority setting, as Hegel, the "principle of compulsory moral." Christians, like the Jews, began to express their faith through external actions, turning their religion in a historical belief.
The desire for expansion, proselytization, power struggles and other factors unrelated to religious values, leaving increasingly Christianity of the key ideas of Jesus. In short, the Christian religion, based on faith in a person, the faithful turned into slaves of the law, and deviated from its original purpose. Church. Morality and Legality For centuries, the structures of the Christian religion have been making more in line with the external environment, which according to knowledge, rationality and truth. It has lost the sense of morality confundiéndola with the law. For Hegel, exercise justice is a virtue when it is practiced as a duty of the moral law, not by the demands of state laws. Marital status is responsible for protecting citizens'' rights, their obligation is to ensure legality. Morality, which belongs to the field of religion, has to do with the internal attitude of the subject. The moral perfection is not subject to civil laws: depends on the willingness of each autonomous person. These two concepts, morality and legality, conflict at the time in which the church takes on a mixed structure: the spiritual and civil. Supervision of morality becomes the subject of law and punishment.
The church, as a marital status, it operates through the legislature (councils) and the executive (bishops, priests), each member has to submit its willingness particular to the general will, that is the will of the sovereign. A marital status should not adhere to any faith, it must protect the rights of all citizens, regardless of religious orientation. However, the church requires all its members practice the same religion. The conflict of rights of citizens is accentuated even more in the field of education, freedom of choice and expression. The ecclesiastical institution not only imposed external acts of relis practice, but also set the laws on what to feel, think and want. The religious truths Hegel explained that the possibility of knowing the truth is linked to religious imagination,
understanding and reason. Imagination, supported on the understanding receives the historical truths -experiencias previous representations as some turned into beliefs. The understanding rejects miracles (accepted by the imagination) as it does not find a match with the same reality. As can not explain, the belief becomes a duty imposed externally: a historical legacy and a respected religion blindly supported institutionally positive. Just why has the ability to find the moral faith, clean of any external influence, the reason is that it can make the moral commandments (necessary and universal), which are subjective, from the innermost thoughts individually, and not as goals are the rules of understanding related to the faith practice.