Philosophy & heology 20, 1–2 85 WHAT DOES HEGEL PROVE IN HIS LECTURES ON THE PROOFS OF GOD’ S EXISTENCE? Andrei G. Zavaliy American University of Kuwait Abstract Even though Hegel rejects Kant’s criticism of the classical proofs for God’s existence, he is far from joining the followers of St. Anselm. What is needed, he suggests, is the rational account of the transition from the final notion to the infinite Being. The Lectures in its central treatment of the Cosmological proof present us with an explanation in rational terms of the fact of religion, i.e., the elevation of the finite spirit to infinite God, rather than with a proof in a narrow logical sense. Hegel is not so much asking the question ‘Does God exist?’ but rather ‘How is the elevation of the finite spirit to God possible?’ The Hegelian ‘proof,’ I argue, consists in a demonstra- tion of the necessity of movement from finiteness to infinity, that is, the demonstration of the necessity of religion itself. Religious faith in this context is not juxtaposed to reason, but appears as a mode of imperfect knowledge, which is superseded by the further development of the rational concept. It is somewhat surprising to see a major philosopher dealing with the old metaphysical proofs of God’s existence years after Kant’s first Cri- tique, where he rather convincingly demonstrated the inadequacy of all classical attempts to reach certainty with respect to God’s existence by means of human understanding. Admittedly, Kant’s immediate motivation behind his critical treatment of the proofs was not based on any anti-religious sentiments, or his secular convictions. Kant for the first time attempted to establish the determinate limits of (theoretical) reason’s application to the empirical world, and sharply distinguish it from all other modes of our relationship to the world,