I think, when I read some of Hegel’s thoughts, that he meant, as a Lutheran, to justify this world, in all it’s injustice, by it’s consequence, be it Jesus Christ comming into the world, or the expansion of it’s message, the full realization of it’s meaning. In all cases, world-history is interpreted as having a necessity, and by that too a justification, as if it had been meant, as he thought, by the Highest Power. the players in history, the people, are lost, or become insignificant, in contrast to the significance of the revolutions of said Highest Power. God, in Lutheran thought, is simply that Potter that fashions pots for either noble or ignoble purposes, but in all cases, It’s purpose. The pots in themselves, their joy or suffering, have no value in themselves. God fashions ignoble pots and the destroys them for being what they are, not because they deserve it, or in order to do justice but for God to show His Glory.
From Nietzsche’s angle, God is dead, yet he retains that Hegelian justification for history. Only now the meaning of history, it’s interpreted significance is in the man-god, the Superman.
From either abgle, be it prior to or after the apparent “death of God”, has either men really succeded in redeeming the history of the world with what has been proved as fantasies? because if there was a “death of God”, there also was a “death of Superman”. What has survived throughout is the sense of willing, even nothing, to forge ahead without any clear comprehensive meaning behind, what amounts now, to unattached accidents. Is this perhaps a better course?
Both had become Idols. Today idols still remain especially in politics where people line up religiously by parties. Idols still remain because the death of God was only apparent and today, just as before, or perhaps even worse, people judge one another by which idol they affiliate with, what religion, what political party, and in some case that distinction is even impossible to make.