‘The Magus of the North’: Johann Georg Hamann (1730–1788) and Post-Enlightenment Philosophy

 

Johann Georg Hamann is quite possibly one of the most obscure figures in the history of Western philosophy. A pity that such obscurity should cloud one of the most incisive figures to critique the ideals of the Enlightenment. His reappearance in the history of Western philosophy would prove timely indeed if ‘after the ideals of the Enlightenment have run their course for more than two hundred years and the theoretical and moral foundations of secular humanism [appear to] have collapsed’.[1] The time would seem right for the ‘Magus’ or ‘Wise man’ of the North to appear once more as a critic of modernity. Isaiah Berlin argues that Hamann is quite possibly one of ‘the few wholly original critics of modern times’.[2] However, John R. Betz argues that Berlin portrays Hamann as an ‘antimodern obscurantist whom the advance of secular reason has rightly left behind’.[3] This portrayal is misleading in the light of the latest research on Hamann which suggests that ‘modern Hamann scholarship has come to see that he was, in some sense, radically progressive – in fact, as Oswald Bayer has put it, a “radical Enlightener”’.[4] In many ways, as a critic of the Enlightenment, Hamann was ahead of his times in his ability to see the limitations of autonomous human reason. His argument that human reason is language anticipates the linguistic turn in philosophy in modern philosophy, while his argument that language is logos or a word from God shows his high regard for Jesus Christ and Holy Scripture. Despite his criticism of Immanuel Kant, the two were personal friends and often debated the latest ideas and trends in philosophy in their correspondence. Hamann’s ideas would prove influential in the emergence of Romanticism and the postmodern critique of the Enlightenment. He would exercise considerable influence over several major post-Enlightenment figures including Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803), Carl Jacobi (1804–51), Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829), Jean Paul (1763–1825), F. W. J. Shelling (1775–1854), G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831), and Soren Kierkegaard (1813–55). Betz argues that Hamann’s critique of Kantian philosophy anticipates postmodernity and makes him ‘in many ways a Christian precursor of postmodern philosophy’.[5] Betz borrows O’Flaherty’s definition of the Enlightenment as ‘a consistently rational approach to the great questions of religion and ethics, of theology and philosophy’.[6] His study of the post-secular vision of J. G. Hamann involves dealing with several sparring partners among the key philosophers of the Enlightenment also known as Aufklärer or ‘Enlighteners’ – not least Immanuel Kant, J. D. Michaelis, Gotthold E. Lessing, and Moses Mendelssohn. Kant and Mendelssohn were both personal friends with Hamann, though they were subject to his critique of their Enlightenment ideals.

Hamann was critical of the enlightenment claim that reason was wholly autonomous. Reason, according to Hamann, is essentially a matter of language – and language is bound up in history and tradition. He foresaw that the enlightenment idea of pure reason would eventually give way to a society that is wholly autonomous or atheistic with no respect for God or humanity. According to Betz,

Hamann foresaw in the Enlighteners’ political dream a society that would be for all intents and purposes atheistic – a society for which any revelation, however true, and any prophetic testimony, however saintly, would be fundamentally irrelevant, extrinsic to the concerns of government, allowed perhaps at the margins as matter of subjective, merely personal opinion, but deprived of any objective legitimacy in matters of state and public policy.[7]

The Bible and the faith of Christianity would have no place in such a society, except among those quaint individuals at the margins of society, who little concern the state and crucially are politically inert. Society is essentially ‘demythologised’ to borrow Rudolf Bultmann’s phrase in the light of autonomous reason. Tradition and culture give way to innovation and science. The Bible is seen in such a society as a natural book subject to the same criticisms as any other work of literature. The miracles of Moses in the Pentateuch and of Christ in the Gospels are cleverly devised fables which no longer concern modern society. Theology is jettisoned into the noumenal world along with faith and metaphysics, beyond the reach of phenomena, experience, and the critique of human reason. Faith and reason are radically dichotomized and turned against one another, though some place is given to God for the sake of public morality. Given its grounding in autonomous human reason, the enlightenment project was a kind of self-illumination, whereas for the Christian philosopher argues that true light is a divine gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ himself claimed to be the light of the world (John 8:12) in whom there was no darkness at all (1 John 1:5). Paradoxically, however, Hamann’s style is notoriously difficult to understand and would seem to obscure or darken what light is present within his philosophy. This style, however, is a deliberate imitation of the Word of God itself as a light that ‘shines in the darkness’ (1 John 1:5) and the prophetic word which ‘shines in a dark place’ (2 Peter 1:19), even as God spoke light into being and separated the light from the darkness in the beginning (Genesis 1:3–5). In other words, Hamann’s style is deliberate prophetic, obscure, and sibylline in order to provide the contrast against which true and spiritual light is seen. This is why Jesus often spoke in parables: ‘Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand’ (Matthew 13:13; cf. Isaiah 6:9–10). Isaiah Berlin, perhaps commenting on Hamann’s opaque style, considers him to be an advocate of irrationalism, but this assessment is surely wide of the mark. Oswald Bayer has actually demonstrated that Hamann was even more rational than his contemporaries as a kind of ‘radical Aufklärer’ who subjected reason to a deeper critique than Kant. According to Betz, we must distinguish between secular reason and reason enlightened by faith:

To be sure, precisely because Hamann foresaw that secular reason, left to its own devices, would end in nihilism, he wished to accelerate its demise; but he did so in order to bring reason to the point of a more radical understanding of its limits, so that reason could be born again, as it were, through the humble admission of the light of faith and a corresponding life-giving sense of reason’s ordination to revelation.[8]

None of this makes Hamann guilty of irrationalism. It actually places him in a long tradition of ‘faith seeking understanding’ (fides quaerens intellectum) and brings to mind Anselm of Canterbury’s phrase from the Proslogion: ‘I believe that I may understand’ (credo ut intelligam). It may be helpful to conclude with some insights from the veteran philosopher Fredrick Copleston: ‘Johann Georg Hamman … would reject the rationalist turn of the Enlightenment and adopt a strict Pietism which would clearly demarcated faith from the abstractions of reason. He was strongly opposed to Kant’s critical philosophy for its excessive abstractness as he clearly articulated in his posthumously published Metacritique on the Purism of Pure Reason [1784]’.[9] His life work was to critique Kant and the Enlightenment and remind the world of the light of Jesus Christ in the Holy Scriptures. ‘And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not’ (John 1:5). 

Bibliography

Alexander, W. M., Johann Georg Hamann: Philosophy and Faith (The Hague, 1966).

Anderson, Lisa Marie (trans.), Hegel on Hamann (Evanston, Ill., 2008).

Bayer, Oswald, A Contemporary in Dissent: Johann Georg Hamann as a Radical Enlightener (Grand Rapids, MI, 2012).

Beck, Lewis White, Early German Philosophy: Kant and His Predecessors (Cambridge, MA, 1969).

Beiser, Frederick C., The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte (Cambridge, MA, 1987).

Berlin, Isaiah, The Magus of the North: J. G. Hamann and the Origins of Modern Irrationalism (London, 1993).

Berlin, Isaiah, Three Critics of the Enlightenment: Vico, Hamann, Herder (Princeton, NJ, 2013).

Betz, John R., After Enlightenment: The Post-Secular Vision of J. G. Hamann (Malden, MA; Oxford, 2012).

Dickson, Gwen Griffith, Johann Georg Hamann’s Relational Metacriticism (Berlin, 1995).

Dunning, Stephen H., The Tongues of Men: Hegel and Hamann on Religious Language and History (Missoula, MT, 1979).

German, Terence J., Hamann on Language and Religion (Oxford, 1981).

Griffith-Dickson, G., Johann Georg Hamann | Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (2022). Online and available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hamann/. [Accessed 22/12/2024]

Kenneth Haynes, Hamann: Writings on Philosophy and Language (Cambridge, 2007).

Kinnaman, Ted, Hamann, Johann Georg | Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (n.d.). Online and available at: https://iep.utm.edu/hamann/ [Accessed 22/12/2024]

O’Flaherty, James C., Johann Georg Hamann (Boston, MA, 1979).

O’Flaherty, James C., Socratic Memorabilia: A Translation and Commentary (Baltimore, MD, 1967).

O’Flaherty, James C., The Quarrel of Reason with Itself: Essays on Hamann, Michaelis, Lessing, Nietzche (Columbia, SC, 1988).

O’Flaherty, James C., Unity and Language: A Study in the Philosophy of Hamann (Chapel Hill, NC, 1952).

Popkin, Richard H., ‘Vico, Hamann, and Herder’, in The Columbia History of Western Philosophy (New York, 1999), pp. 502–508.

Sparling, Robert Alan, Johann Georg Hamann and the Enlightenment Project (Toronto, 2017).

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[1] John R. Betz, After Enlightenment: The Post-Secular Vision of J. G. Hamann (Malden MA and Oxford, 2012), p. 3.

[2] Isaiah Berlin, Three Critics of the Enlightenment: Vico, Hamann, Herder (Princeton, NJ, 2000), p. 257.

[3] Betz, After Enlightenment, p. 2.

[4] Betz, After Enlightenment, p. 2.

[5] Betz, After Enlightenment, p. 3.

[6] Betz, After Enlightenment, p. 3.

[7] Betz, After Enlightenment, p. 5.

[8] Betz, After Enlightenment, p. 16.

[9] Anthony Carroll, A History of Philosophy: The Condensed Copleston (London, 2025), p. 199.

The Spirit of Early Evangelicalism – A Book Review

D. Bruce Hindmarsh, The Spirit of Early Evangelicalism: True Religion in a Modern World (Oxford, 2018)

The Spirit of Early Evangelicalism by Professor Bruce Hindmarsh is a stellar addition to the constellation of scholarly books on the emergence of evangelicalism during the eighteenth century. It makes a fine addition to his previous books on John Newton and the evangelical conversion narrative. His purpose in writing this particular volume was to explore evangelical religious experience holistically in the light of the ‘momentous changes’ to society and culture during the eighteenth century. Hindmarsh seeks to contextualise early evangelicalism within the rise of modernity both in the light of the scientific revolution and the eighteenth-century enlightenment. While Hindmarsh chooses to focus on evangelical spirituality in particular – what Henry Scougal described as ‘the life of God in the soul of man’ – he nonetheless adopts a multidisciplinary approach in general by bringing together intellectual history, early modern philosophy, and the history of science, law, and art.

The first chapter focuses on the evangelical devotion and spirituality of the ‘boy parson’, George Whitefield. Hindmarsh considers the spiritual fire that animated his preaching, his intensive personal devotion, and sensational early ministry. Whitefield emerges as a larger than life figure, the very embodiment of the spirit of evangelicalism. The second chapter considers the relationship between evangelicalism and the transition to modernity during the eighteenth century. Evangelicalism emerges both as something old (looking backward to the Reformation and Puritan practical divinity) and as something new in its commitment to transform society and win the world for Christ. The idea of revival itself implies bringing a newness and vitality to something old. This naturally leads to third chapter – a stellar discussion on the classical sources of evangelical spirituality, the very sources which evangelicals sought to revive in their own piety and devotion. Hindmarsh considers a variety of sources from the Reformation principle of sola scriptura, to the Anglican formularies (the 39 Articles of Religion, the prayer book, and homilies), to Puritan and Reformed sources, especially their devotional and practical literature on spiritual experience and the Christian life. In particular, Hindmarsh notes the importance of both the Puritan divine Henry Scougal and the Devotio Moderna canon regular Thomas à Kempis, the author of The Imitation of Christ. 

The fourth chapter proceeds to a consideration of evangelicalism and the rise of science or natural philosophy during the eighteenth century. Here Hindmarsh follows W. R. Ward in noting the esoteric and alchemical interests of certain evangelicals as the discipline of science began to emerge, and he also explores early evangelical fascination with Newtonianism. The idea of a clockwork universe finely tuned according to the design and providence of God had an obvious apologetic appeal to early evangelicals in their struggle against deism and irreligion. Here Jonathan Edwards receives considerable mention for his extensive notes on natural philosophy, especially regarding his ruminations on being and mind, the re-enchantment of nature, and his unusual doctrine of continuous creation. The fifth chapter builds upon these themes – considering Augustus Toplady’s reflections on necessity and mechanics, noting how these scientific themes were employed polemically against Wesley in the Calvinist-Arminian controversy. The physico-doxology of James Hervey’s Meditations and Contemplations is explored in considerable depth, noting his wonder and awe at God’s beautiful design in creation. And various others in “Hervey’s school” are considered: Isaac Milner a Cambridge Newtonian and conservative empiricist and John Russell whose careful attention to detail resulted in remarkably accurate and beautiful drawings of the moon – a work in which science, art, and religious wonder coalesce.

Hindmarsh then takes a transition from natural philosophy to natural law and the making of the evangelical conscience in the sixth and seventh chapters. He focuses on the significant and almost Lutheran distinction between Law and Gospel in evangelical preaching – the Law revealing sin and the Gospel providing remedy. He zooms into a case of George Whitfield preaching vividly before the hanging scaffold of condemned prisoners at Kennington Common, reminding listeners vividly of the reality of life, death, and divine judgement. The seventh chapter considers the relationship between law and evangelical conversion with a case study of evangelical prison ministry to the condemned, a place where the reality of divine mercy to even the worst of criminals is made abundantly clear in evangelical preaching. Hindmarsh moves from the jail cell to the libraries of scholars and considers evangelical interaction with moral philosophy during the eighteenth century, particularly as expressed in the thought of Charles Wesley and the ethics of Jonathan Edwards. Edwards is a particular case of interest as his work on the nature of true virtue considers love to God as befitting whom God is in Himself – the Being of beings – an idea reminiscent of Anselm’s ontological argument. For both Edwards and Wesley, Hindmarsh also notes their expression of the positive uses of the Law in harmony with the Gospel as the Law provides a rule of life and holiness for regenerate believers.

The final chapter takes an interesting turn to aesthetics – art and evangelical spirituality. Hindmarsh takes the novel approach of reading the Calvinist-Arminian controversy in the light of art and literature. He compares the conflict between Wesley and Whitefield to the rivalry between Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough over ideals of beauty, comparing the portraits made by both artists of the same sitter, Sarah Siddons. Where Reynolds sought to emphasise the lofty ideals of ethics and morality in terms of neo-platonic universals, Gainsborough sought exact likeness and ‘empirical truth according to nature’, an approach to art emphasising the particulars of experience and sight. As with Wesley and Whitefield, both Reynolds and Gainsborough were eventually reconciled in spite of their differences. However, in something of conceptual leap, Hindmarsh compares the Calvinist and Arminian controversy to differing spiritual aspirations – the Calvinist sublime (the sheer immensity of the love and power of God overwhelming the human heart and mind, especially seen in the theology of Jonathan Edwards) and Wesleyan inward agony (the sense of effort involved in working out salvation with fear and trembling). Where Calvinist devotion and ethics flowed from the humbling experience of the sublimity of God, Wesleyan ethics emerged from the inward agonies of intensive spirituality and a striving after godliness. 

Without a doubt The Spirit of Early Evangelicalism will be highly valued by students and scholars working in this field, especially those studying Edwards, Whitefield, and the Wesley brothers. Hindmarsh shows how evangelical spirituality manifested itself in different ways in the literature they read, the sermons they preached, the science and ethics they appropriated and adopted, and even in the aesthetics of a Calvinist sublime and Wesleyan angst. However, one feels a chapter on evangelicalism and the enlightenment is missing from this study – perhaps more work needs to be done in marrying these two seemingly disparate worlds together before scholars will willingly open this particular can of worms. Be that as it may, this is a study of outstanding scholarly quality and historical insight, a pleasure to read and a delight from beginning to end.