Abstract:

In addition to the religion-state relationship, religious and political reform is also among the interesting topics. Some important periods and turning points such as the ancient Iranian state tradition, Greek democracy, England in the time of Henry VIII and the Russian Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917 are critical in shaping these relationships. After the French revolution, there was a serious problem about what the new style of politics should be in Europe. Some of these problems were purely political. In addition, new problems arose related to religion, church, tradition, reform, conservatism, economy, class conflict and philosophy. Philosophers such as Immanuel Kant, Edmund Burke, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels were interested in such problems. One of the most important philosophers dealing with these issues is Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel does not deal with politics independent of theology. Therefore, he approaches issues such as the essence of the state, individual states, political institutions, political revolutions, and forms of state in history from a theological-political perspective. He created a modern Protestant state formulation by linking the new political situation that emerged after the French revolution with Martin Luther's Protestant Christianity. At this point, it should be noted that Hegel put two important elements into use: The ethical life and the Protestant principle as the unity of spirit and truth. The main purpose of this article is to examine Hegel’s Protestant state around these two facts. For Hegel, ethical life is a Protestant invention. Here, objectivity with subjectivity; law with morality are in harmony. With this, Hegel also wanted to negate the lack of authority in Protestantism claimed by romantics. If the concrete authority in Catholicism is the papacy, it is then ethical life in Protestantism. The Protestant principle, the unity of spirit and truth, is a fact that supersedes dilemmas, as in the case of morality. Hegel constructs the Protestant state on the Protestant principle of unity of spirit and truth. First of all, he thinks that Protestantism knows God internally, although Catholicism perceives and knows God externally. Accordingly, the way Protestants and Catholics perceive God in different ways ultimately shapes many beliefs, practices, and policies of Protestantism and Catholicism. For this reason, Luther's reform provides advantageous cases in political matters. In addition to these aspects, which constitute the critical facets of the article, the importance of some ideas should also be underlined. In our opinion, the following inference is the most meaningful: Religion is the basis of state reform as well as being the foundation of the state. As a result, the political reforms of nations that have not completed their religious reform are doomed to be left unfinished. Hegel stipulates a harmony among religion, state, reform and temporality. This article uses structural, comparative and inference methods. The Protestant state is structured in the context of dialectics, unity of theory and practice, morality, religious reform, Protestant principle and anti-Catholicism. Hegel evaluates the Protestant state, which he founded on the basis of the Protestant principle, by comparing it with Catholicism and its state. Therefore, we use comparative explanations as much as possible in this article. The results obtained from the study are also formed in comparison to Catholicism: İnternal-spiritual Protestant state vs. external Catholic state, secular Protestant state vs. non secular Catholic state, national Protestant State vs. Catholic empire, reliable Protestant state vs. insecure Catholic state.

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