2nd
Über-Enlightenment
In Hamann’s vocabulary, therefore, the word “enlightenment” is always loaded with irony, arising from the discrepancy between his contemporaries’ secular and his own theological understanding of the term. For his contemporaries it meant an awaken ing to the immanent, “natural light” of reason, typically conceived in univocal terms, i.e., in the absence of any analogical relation to, or dependence upon, a divine light or Logos. For Hamann, on the other hand, the term “enlightenment” suggested the supernatural presence of transcendence shining in the darkness, like the light of the star of Bethlehem, in any event, something more than reason alone can grasp or anticipate. In short, theirs was the light of an “auto-illumination”; his, the illuminating supernatural presence of the gift of the Holy Spirit (Luke 11: 13), apart from whom our reasonings are proportionately dark, debilitated, and confused. As the Psalmist says, “In thy light we see light” (Ps. 36: 9).
— John R. Betz, After Enlightenment: Hamann as Post-Secular Visionary, p. 6.
