For a while he was strongly influenced by the philosophy of Kant--especially the notion that the real basis of Christianity was not in the legalistic religious doctrines evolved over the centuries by the Christian church--but in the inherent moral "Reason" contained in the teachings and example of Jesus.  But ultimately it was not the "moral reason" of Jesus that inspired Hegel--but instead the idea that, in and through Jesus as revelation of the divine, the Spirit of God had spoken to the human heart of eternal truths.  These were much loftier and idealistic concepts than Kant's moral principles.

Thus in the late 1790s Hegel wrote a treatise (not published until 1907) entitled Der Geist des Christentums und sein Schicksal" ("The Spirit of Christianity and Its Fate").  In this his interest in the Spirit of Christianity--rather than its inherent "reasonableness" (as per Kant) was the focus of study.  In this also his use of developmental history as the groundwork for the presentation of his ideas was also introduced.

This work began with a study of ancient Judaism and its Law, proceeded through the development of Greek and Roman philosophy and religion (for which he had a deep fondness) and then arrived at the revolutionary ideas introduced by Jesus.  Hegel saw in Jesus principle which united man and God, a principle higher than all that had gone before him.  This principle was not that of religion with its laws and doctrines--but instead the principle of  love, a deep, a spiritual connection of man with the very essence of God.  This for Hegel constituted the Kingdom of God that Jesus had come to proclaim and open up to mankind.

In 1801 he returned to his studies, this time at the University of Jena (in Prussia)--where he joined his friend Schelling in a philosophical assault on entrenched Kantian philosophy.  With a bit of an inheritance from his deceased father, he was able to function as a fee-based lecturer until he finally received a regular appointment to the faculty at the university.

In that same year he published an essay, "Differenz des Fichte'schen und Schelling'schen Systems der Philosophie," which bears witness of his close philosophical association with Schelling's rather romantic philosophy of nature.

This work focuses on the evolutionary development of human thought, through the stages of mere consciousness, then self- consciousness, then reason, then spirit and religion, and finally to absolute knowledge.  Knowledge of the sense-world (achieved through modern science) around man is only a starting point for Hegel in the development of human consciousness.  Higher than such knowledge is the kind of consciousness that connects the human spirit with the transcending Absolute Spirit.  Scientific or rational knowledge acts analytically--to separate the objects of knowledge into discreet categories.  It also separates, even isolates, the human Geist (mind or spirit) from the reality around it.  While such reason is useful to human life, it is not itself the highest or ultimate atainment of the human spirit.   That comes in a process of unification--not separation--of the human consciousness with the reality around it.  Along the way in the process the human mind passes through several stages of development:  from mere consciousness to a maturer self-consciousness, to the realm of reason, but then also to the stage of connection with the larger realm of reality through revealed religion and its formal declarations, to finally a virtually mystical bond with Absolute Reality.  Here the human mind comes to know itself as pure spirit--in its union with the pure spirit of the Absolute.  This is what Christianity, as presented by Jesus, is ultimately all about.

The next couple of years were hard ones for Hegel.  He finally found employment with the Bamberger Zeitung as an editor (1807-08)--though this was hardly a stable source of employment. In 1808 he found more reliable work as a director of a gymnasium in Nürnberg--a position which he held until 1816.

In 1812 he published Die objektive Logik, which was the first part of his Wissenschaft der Logik ("Science of Logic"); in 1816 a second part of this work was published as Die subjecktive Logik.

Using the dialectical method (the step by step evolution of a thought or idea through the struggle of contradicting propositions in the quest of a higher level of truth), Hegel outlines how God began creation with pure thought about categories of being that he proposed to bring to life.  These were reflections of the Absolute's thoughts about himself.  This pure thought moves from the theoretical to the actual--by first approaching the very nothingness of physical reality that posed itself in the beginning.  Out of this nothingness is formed the first, earliest stage of the actual.  And into this early stage is introduced human consciousness, functioning at its most primitive original level of consciousness.  From this point God and man (the Absolute and the Finite) are joined in a dialectical process of reaching toward each other in a process of self-realization--a process that moves both sides through a dialectical process of raising each other to ever higher levels of realization.  In this God is as dependent on man as man is dependent on God for their mutual realization.

But overall his work remained the same:  to demonstrate that history was a working out of the will of God through an ever-heightening human consciousness.  Man was moving into an era of careful human thought--motivated by a deep devotion to God.  The end product for Hegel was indeed the outworking of the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth--as the fulfilment of the promise that Jesus had made so long ago.