Franz Rosenzweig began his career in philosophy by discussing the origins of German Idealism and the philosophies of G. W. F. Hegel, who is “generally regarded as the culminating point in the development of post-Kantian idealism in Germany” and “unquestionably one of the most influential systems of though n the nineteenth century” (Aiken 71). Although Rosenzweig would later go on in The Star of Redemption to write polemically against the philosopher and his philosophic idealism of geist (Spirit) systematically realizing itself through time, Rosenzweig was nonetheless unable to also jettison Hegel's style of prose when he distanced himself from Hegel's philosophy (Glatzer writes in the foreword that “despite his harsh criticism of the German idealistic tradition, its influence on Rosenzweig persisted both in the realm of philosophical issues and in writing style” (xvi)). Henry Aiken writes that “Hegel's prose is dense, elaborate, and laborious [and] he rarely says what he means, or means what he seems to be saying” (72), while Patrick Gardiner writes that “the range and sweep of Hegel's thinking, and the cumbrous and often repellent manner in which he chose to express it, combine to make him a philosopher of exceptional difficulty” (41). The same could be said for Rosenzweig in the way that he expresses himself in both The Star of Redemption and its subsequent additional essay “The New Thinking”. However, this is not to say that Rosenzweig's ideas are undecipherable or without merit: once one familiarizes oneself with the difficult and sometimes flat-out mysterious instances of phrasing (specifically his algebraic criticism of idealistic metaphysics, pp. 134 – 145), a picture emerges of an overarching method for philosophical insight into the subjects of knowledge. Divided into three words these methods are creation, revelation, and redemption
[...] This is neither here nor there, however, if the subject of our current inquiry is the analyses of the western religions Judaism, Christianity, and Islam via Rosenzweig's theophysical (as opposed to metaphysical) categories of assessment. In this essay we will examine the arguments that Rosenzweig makes in accusing Islam of being a (131) of Christianity and Judaism, both of which are held in high esteem by the author. Though Rosenzweig's style of explication may make any employment of his philosophies in these sorts of regards difficult, the subject matter should be clear enough that it will not necessitate delving into some of Rosenzweig's more difficult ideas. [...]
[...] In each of these instances his criticisms are specific to the subject through which he is evaluating the world creation, revelation, or redemption and thus in our considering of the ways in which Rosenzweig separates Islam from the other Western religions will necessarily entail our proceeding in a similar fashion. Creation entails the fact that created” (Rosenzweig 112), by which “God's vitality, which seemed the end, transforms itself into a beginning” (112) and gave existence to all things and ourselves. [...]
[...] The Muslim faith, on the other hand, primarily values explicit ethic of works” (172) which convert religion and its incipient moral commands into mere symbolic procedures which one can replicate without real conviction or faith. True piety, however, is found only in the inmost depths of the soul and not in the outward performances of charity. Rosenzweig cites the false argument of Al-Ghazzali about the superiority of Mohammed to Jesus to make his point: He contrasts the chastity of Jesus with the sensuality of Mohammed, and extols his Prophet above the Nazarene, holding that Mohammed thereby proved himself the greater, since his ardor for God was sufficiently powerful to burn over and beyond the satisfaction of his drives, while the Prophet of the Nazarenes had to forego this satisfaction since his piety burned too low not to be extinguished in it. [...]
[...] For the most part Rosenzweig is quiet, mostly because they both satisfy the most important criteria in his mind of being “grounded in the experience of love” (Glatzer xvi), but he at one point makes the apt observation while critiquing Islam as religion of obligation” (215) that in regarding the conversion of heathens via humane means, “Mohammed's prescriptions, as well as the rules of war and conquest developed on their basis, surpass by far the contemporary military usage, including Christian usage. [...]
[...] This being said, Rosenzweig nonetheless accepts Christianity overall as a religion grounded on the principle of love, while Islam, which he claims is a religion founded on the principles of mercy and capriciousness, cannot fit within his structure of the ideal religion template. Though the categories offered in The Star of Redemption to evaluate experience and assess the strengths and merits of religion may offer a good vantage place to evaluate the major Western religions in many regards, the conclusions to [...]
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