God is therefore, as it were, the waste channel into which all contradictions flow: Leibnitz's Théodicée is just a popular summing up such as this.
• Alternate translation: "God is, as it were, the sewer into which all contradictions flow."" - Meaning and context.">
Third division, Chapter I. — The Metaphysics of the Understanding

With Leibnitz the extent to which thoughts advance is the extent of the universe; where comprehension ceases, the universe ceases, and God begins: so that later it was even maintained that to be comprehended was derogatory to God, because He was thus degraded into finitude. In that procedure a beginning is made from the determinate, this and that are stated to be necessary; but since in the next place the unity of these moments is not comprehended, it is transferred to God. God is therefore, as it were, the waste channel into which all contradictions flow: Leibnitz's Théodicée is just a popular summing up such as this.
• Alternate translation: "God is, as it were, the sewer into which all contradictions flow."

— Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "With Leibnitz the extent to which thoughts advance is the extent of the universe; where comprehension ceases, the universe ceases, and God begins: so that later it was even maintained that to be comprehended was derogatory to God, because He was thus degraded into finitude. In that procedure a beginning is made from the determinate, this and that are stated to be necessary; but since in the next place the unity of these moments is not comprehended, it is transferred to God. God is therefore, as it were, the waste channel into which all contradictions flow: Leibnitz's Théodicée is just a popular summing up such as this.
• Alternate translation: "God is, as it were, the sewer into which all contradictions flow."" in the context of "Third division, Chapter I. — The Metaphysics of the Understanding" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel" (Quotes, Lectures on the History of Philosophy (1805): See wikipedia article Lectures on the History of Philosophy Full text online in English (E. S. Haldane translation). Haldane's translations of the 1825-1830 lectures are also available here along with the 1830-1831 lectures here. The Collected Works of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: The Science of Logic, The Philosophy of Mind, The Philosophy of Right, The Philosophy of Law,The Criticism of Hegel's Work and Hegelianism by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche Full text online in English (J. B. Baillie translation)) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

About Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher considered one of the most important figures in German idealism. He is one of the fundamental figures of Western philosophy, with his influence extending to the entire range of contemporary philosophical issues, from aesthetics to ontology to politics, both in the analytic and continental tradition.