Absolute Knowing

VIII. Absolute Knowing (§788-808)

Envisioning unity in the indefinite future is a symptom of the Spirit still not quite identifying itself in the Other (in this case, the Divine). There are disadvantages to both identifying the self purely materially (as a manifestation) and identifying the self as purely abstract (the beautiful soul) (§795). There is still a break between duty and actions in the world. Forgiveness helps us to see past this division, and allow the Spirit to see itself as Spirit (§793). In this way, religion is the first way in which we can describe true Spirit self-understanding. However, philosophy is a more precise way to describe this recognition of Spirit by itself (§802).

Philosophy is able to more clearly grasp that opposites are unified; with it Ego is able to understand that it is, that it must accept, Nature as the various and true manifestations of itself. With it, Spirit can understand the notions that are itself, and transcend without denying these, into self-consciousness (§806). In this relationship with Absolute Knowledge, Spirit returns, in a more enlightened way, to the beginning of the processes - to sense-certainty (immediacy):

806. Absolute Knowledge contains within itself this necessity of relinquishing itself from notion, and necessarily involves the transition of the notion into consciousness. For Spirit that knows itself is, just for the reason that it grasps its own notion, immediate identity with itself; and this, in the distinction that it implies, is the certainty of what is immediate or is sense-consciousness – the beginning from which we started. This process of releasing itself from the form of its self is the highest freedom and security
of its knowledge of itself.

Still, Knowledge recognizes its limits, and understands that it, too, has an opposite. To join with its opposite, the Spirit passes into Nature. Flux exists here too: Spirit becomes Nature, Nature calls up Spirit (§807). In reaction to the limits of Knowledge, Spirit externalizes into Space.

Knowledge also recognizes itself, and must also come to terms with itself. It does so by externalizing Spirit into Time, that is History, the center of Hegel's philosophy (§808). Although he does not phrase it in this way, I think this explains why "original" creation by God (Divine Spirit) necessarily was, and necessarily was material (spatial) and changing (historical).