What is the best way to argue with a Hegelian, and did the Church ever condemn Hegel?

No, the Church isn't going to condemn a philosopher like that. They come and go. This is the thing about the philosophers, starting from Descartes, to Kant, to Locke, to Hume, to Husserl; you can just go down the list, Schleiermacher, Kierkegaard, Sartre, Camus. They all do the same thing: they have their own little philosophy of how they think everything works, and they write their philosophies down. These guys were the progenitors of the Enlightenment period, late 1600s, 1700s, 1800s, which basically means they had knowledge that was superior to what the Church was teaching. The Church was teaching from year one that we came into the world as a baby with original sin on our soul, and that makes all the difference in the world. So it wasn't like John Locke's philosophy, where we come into the world as a tabula rasa, a blank slate with no detriments, and whatever we learn is just put on that blank slate. There's an Enlightenment philosophical idea striking right at the heart of the Catholic Church that teaches original sin. The previous philosopher would have philosophy A; then the next philosopher would come along with philosophy B, and he would cancel out everything philosopher A said. These philosophers were all denying each other's philosophy in the so-called Enlightenment. But as long as they had a philosophy, everybody was okay: at least he's thinking, and we can depend on the next guy to get it more right than the previous guy. Then this guy Hegel comes along and says, you guys aren't making any progress. You can't do that when philosophy C is diametrically opposed to philosophy B. How do you know C is right? You're going to get philosopher D coming along and saying that C was totally wrong. And that's exactly what happened. So Hegel said: philosophy A we're going to call the thesis; here's my great idea, this is how the world works. Then philosophy B comes along, and that's the antithesis: there may be some things that are right, but basically he's all wrong. And that combination of thesis and antithesis, Hegel says, goes on automatically, without us knowing, without us pushing it, with every single thing that happens in the world, and especially in philosophy. And then you get philosophy C, the synthesis of A and B. Then that becomes the thesis, there's an antithesis that conflicts with it, and it makes another synthesis, philosophy E. So philosophy progresses by conflict that comes into a compromise, and then the compromise becomes the next part of the conflict. And in some sense it makes sense. It does. Except when you start applying it to areas where it doesn't fit, like the New Testament. Let's say Peter at Pentecost teaches his flavor of Christianity; that's Christianity A. Then Paul comes along. Peter fills chapters 1 to 12 of Acts, and in Acts 13 Paul takes over. So Paul becomes Christianity B, and according to Hegel, Christianity A is going to conflict with Christianity B, and they're going to make a synthesis, Christianity C. Or you could start with Jesus and say you've got the gospel of Jesus and the gospel of Paul. Paul doesn't quote much from Jesus, maybe three or four times at the most. Jesus does not go around talking about the law versus grace; Jesus says nothing will be changed in the law until all is fulfilled. And Paul says, you don't want to be caught under the law, because now it's all grace. So here's a proposition by Jesus and a proposition by Paul, A and B, and what do we come out with? C. So in that sense Hegel makes sense, that there has to be not a compromise between Jesus and Paul, but an understanding. C would be the understanding: how do we understand Jesus' emphasis on the law and Paul's more or less rejection of the law in light of Christianity being one monolithic teaching about man's relationship to God? Of all the philosophers, Hegel would be the most logical one that a Christian could look to and say, okay, I see some truth there. But what else Hegel did with his thesis, antithesis and synthesis, that's where the problem comes in, because then it becomes the superior grid through which everything has to pass, and once you do that, you're in a whole different realm. You could have it that the anti-Hegelian philosophy was philosophy A, the Hegelian philosophy was philosophy B, and the synthesis was philosophy C, and that turned out to be modern philosophy under Kierkegaard, Camus, Sartre, which really got bad. But the world needed somebody like Hegel, because Kant basically destroyed philosophy. Kant's greatest work was the Critique of Pure Reason, and pure reason is this idea that you can get enough particulars to make the universal you need. Can't do it, just like you can always add one to the highest number you can think of. That's where philosophy leads, and that's why Christianity is needed, because you're going to reach those points where it's not going to make sense and you're going to have to live by faith. So Hegel has something to offer, but you have to be able to cut it all in pieces, and as a Christian you have the greatest ability to critique it. That's why Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 that we discern by spiritual means what is necessary to know and what is truth. We have that ability as Christians, because we have the basis on which to make the judgments.