The religion in Hegel's Encyclopaedia of philosophical sciences. Structural differences with the Lectures on Philosophy of Religion

Comparing the Lectures on Philosophy of Religion with the encyclopaedic compendium of the Philosophy of Absolute Spirit, the structural variations in the religion treatment are manifest. The reduction in this work to the Christian religion exposition, the correspondence of the encyclopaedic version with the 1821 Manuscript in opposition to the 1827 and 1831 Lectures, the apparently omission of the "Community" or "Third Element", are just some of the questions that emerge as a result from a simple structural comparison. Using an hermeneutic methodology, this paper will offer an analysis of these interrogations with the prior objective to clarify the inner organization of the encyclopaedic exposition about religion. The central thesis that directs the examination will assert that the divergences between both works find a sufficient explanation in the systematic place that religion has in the Philosophy of Absolute Spirit and in its binding relationship with art and philosophy.