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Title: The Essence of Christianity - Translated from the second German edition
Author: Feuerbach, Ludwig
Language: English
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THE
ENGLISH AND FOREIGN
PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY.
THE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIANITY.
BY
LUDWIG FEUERBACH.
TRANSLATED FROM THE SECOND GERMAN EDITION
BY
MARIAN EVANS,
TRANSLATOR OF "STRAUSS'S LIFE OF JESUS."
Second Edition.
LONDON:
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER, & CO., Ltd.
1890.
PUBLISHERS' NOTE.
The first edition of this work was published in 1854, and, although
a large one, has been long out of print. Many inquiries having been
made for it since the recent lamented death of the translator, the
publishers have determined to offer a second edition to the public,
and have been advised to give it a place in their "English and Foreign
Philosophical Library." It is an exact reprint of the first edition,
and they trust it will be received with equal favour.
London, June 1881.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. [1]
The clamour excited by the present work has not surprised me,
and hence it has not in the least moved me from my position. On the
contrary, I have once more, in all calmness, subjected my work to the
severest scrutiny, both historical and philosophical; I have, as far as
possible, freed it from its defects of form, and enriched it with new
developments, illustrations, and historical testimonies,--testimonies
in the highest degree striking and irrefragable. Now that I have thus
verified my analysis by historical proofs, it is to be hoped that
readers whose eyes are not sealed will be convinced and will admit,
even though reluctantly, that my work contains a faithful, correct
translation of the Christian religion out of the Oriental language of
imagery into plain speech. And it has no pretension to be anything
more than a close translation, or, to speak literally, an empirical
or historico-philosophical analysis, a solution of the enigma of the
Christian religion. The general propositions which I premise in the
Introduction are no à priori, excogitated propositions, no products
of speculation; they have arisen out of the analysis of religion;
they are only, as indeed are all the fundamental ideas of the work,
generalisations from the known manifestations of human nature, and
in particular of the religious consciousness,--facts converted into
thoughts, i.e., expressed in general terms, and thus made the property
of the understanding. The ideas of my work are only conclusions,
consequences, drawn from premisses which are not themselves mere
ideas, but objective facts either actual or historical--facts which
had not their place in my head simply in virtue of their ponderous
existence in folio. I unconditionally repudiate absolute, immaterial,
self-sufficing speculation--that speculation which draws its material
from within. I differ toto coelo from those philosophers who pluck
out their eyes that they may see better; for my thought I require the
senses, especially sight; I found my ideas on materials which can be
appropriated only through the activity of the senses. I do not generate
the object from the thought, but the thought from the object; and I
hold that alone to be an object which has an existence beyond one's own
brain. I am an idealist only in the region of practical philosophy,
that is, I do not regard the limits of the past and present as the
limits of humanity, of the future; on the contrary, I firmly believe
that many things--yes, many things--which with the short-sighted,
pusillanimous practical men of to-day, pass for flights of imagination,
for ideas never to be realised, for mere chimeras, will to-morrow,
i.e., in the next century,--centuries in individual life are days
in the life of humanity,--exist in full reality. Briefly, the "Idea"
is to me only faith in the historical future, in the triumph of truth
and virtue; it has for me only a political and moral significance;
for in the sphere of strictly theoretical philosophy, I attach myself,
in direct opposition to the Hegelian philosophy, only to realism,
to materialism in the sense above indicated. The maxim hitherto
adopted by speculative philosophy: All that is mine I carry with
me, the old omnia mea mecum porto, I cannot, alas! appropriate. I
have many things outside myself, which I cannot convey either in my
pocket or my head, but which nevertheless I look upon as belonging
to me, not indeed as a mere man--a view not now in question--but
as a philosopher. I am nothing but a natural philosopher in the
domain of mind; and the natural philosopher can do nothing without
instruments, without material means. In this character I have
written the present work, which consequently contains nothing else
than the principle of a new philosophy verified practically, i.e.,
in concreto, in application to a special object, but an object which
has a universal significance: namely, to religion, in which this
principle is exhibited, developed, and thoroughly carried out. This
philosophy is essentially distinguished from the systems hitherto
prevalent, in that it corresponds to the real, complete nature of
man; but for that very reason it is antagonistic to minds perverted
and crippled by a superhuman, i.e., anti-human, anti-natural religion
and speculation. It does not, as I have already said elsewhere, regard
the pen as the only fit organ for the revelation of truth, but the eye
and ear, the hand and foot; it does not identify the idea of the fact
with the fact itself, so as to reduce real existence to an existence
on paper, but it separates the two, and precisely by this separation
attains to the fact itself; it recognises as the true thing, not the
thing as it is an object of the abstract reason, but as it is an object
of the real, complete man, and hence as it is itself a real, complete
thing. This philosophy does not rest on an Understanding per se, on
an absolute, nameless understanding, belonging one knows not to whom,
but on the understanding of man;--though not, I grant, on that of
man enervated by speculation and dogma;--and it speaks the language
of men, not an empty, unknown tongue. Yes, both in substance and in
speech, it places philosophy in the negation of philosophy, i.e.,
it declares that alone to be the true philosophy which is converted
in succum et sanguinem, which is incarnate in Man; and hence it finds
its highest triumph in the fact that to all dull and pedantic minds,
which place the essence of philosophy in the show of philosophy,
it appears to be no philosophy at all.
This philosophy has for its principle, not the Substance
of Spinoza, not the ego of Kant and Fichte, not the Absolute
Identity of Schelling, not the Absolute Mind of Hegel, in short,
no abstract, merely conceptional being, but a real being, the true
Ens realissimum--man; its principle, therefore, is in the highest
degree positive and real. It generates thought from the opposite
of thought, from Matter, from existence, from the senses; it has
relation to its object first through the senses, i.e., passively,
before defining it in thought. Hence my work, as a specimen of
this philosophy, so far from being a production to be placed in the
category of Speculation,--although in another point of view it is the
true, the incarnate result of prior philosophical systems,--is the
direct opposite of speculation, nay, puts an end to it by explaining
it. Speculation makes religion say only what it has itself thought,
and expressed far better than religion; it assigns a meaning to
religion without any reference to the actual meaning of religion; it
does not look beyond itself. I, on the contrary, let religion itself
speak; I constitute myself only its listener and interpreter, not its
prompter. Not to invent, but to discover, "to unveil existence," has
been my sole object; to see correctly, my sole endeavour. It is not I,
but religion that worships man, although religion, or rather theology,
denies this; it is not I, an insignificant individual, but religion
itself that says: God is man, man is God; it is not I, but religion
that denies the God who is not man, but only an ens rationis,--since it
makes God become man, and then constitutes this God, not distinguished
from man, having a human form, human feelings, and human thoughts,
the object of its worship and veneration. I have only found the key to
the cipher of the Christian religion, only extricated its true meaning
from the web of contradictions and delusions called theology;--but
in doing so I have certainly committed a sacrilege. If therefore
my work is negative, irreligious, atheistic, let it be remembered
that atheism--at least in the sense of this work--is the secret of
religion itself; that religion itself, not indeed on the surface, but
fundamentally, not in intention or according to its own supposition,
but in its heart, in its essence, believes in nothing else than
the truth and divinity of human nature. Or let it be proved that the
historical as well as the rational arguments of my work are false; let
them be refuted--not, however, I entreat, by judicial denunciations,
or theological jeremiads, by the trite phrases of speculation, or
other pitiful expedients for which I have no name, but by reasons,
and such reasons as I have not already thoroughly answered.
Certainly, my work is negative, destructive; but, be it observed,
only in relation to the unhuman, not to the human elements of
religion. It is therefore divided into two parts, of which the
first is, as to its main idea, positive, the second, including the
Appendix, not wholly, but in the main, negative; in both, however,
the same positions are proved, only in a different or rather opposite
manner. The first exhibits religion in its essence, its truth, the
second exhibits it in its contradictions; the first is development,
the second polemic; thus the one is, according to the nature of the
case, calmer, the other more vehement. Development advances gently,
contest impetuously; for development is self-contented at every
stage, contest only at the last blow. Development is deliberate, but
contest resolute. Development is light, contest fire. Hence results a
difference between the two parts even as to their form. Thus in the
first part I show that the true sense of Theology is Anthropology,
that there is no distinction between the predicates of the divine and
human nature, and, consequently, no distinction between the divine and
human subject: I say consequently, for wherever, as is especially the
case in theology, the predicates are not accidents, but express the
essence of the subject, there is no distinction between subject and
predicate, the one can be put in the place of the other; on which point
I refer the reader to the Analytics of Aristotle, or even merely to
the Introduction of Porphyry. In the second part, on the other hand,
I show that the distinction which is made, or rather supposed to be
made, between the theological and anthropological predicates resolves
itself into an absurdity. Here is a striking example. In the first part
I prove that the Son of God is in religion a real son, the son of God
in the same sense in which man is the son of man, and I find therein
the truth, the essence of religion, that it conceives and affirms a
profoundly human relation as a divine relation; on the other hand,
in the second part I show that the Son of God--not indeed in religion,
but in theology, which is the reflection of religion upon itself,--is
not a son in the natural, human sense, but in an entirely different
manner, contradictory to Nature and reason, and therefore absurd, and
I find in this negation of human sense and the human understanding,
the negation of religion. Accordingly the first part is the direct,
the second the indirect proof, that theology is anthropology: hence
the second part necessarily has reference to the first; it has no
independent significance; its only aim is to show that the sense in
which religion is interpreted in the previous part of the work must be
the true one, because the contrary is absurd. In brief, in the first
part I am chiefly concerned with religion, in the second with theology:
I say chiefly, for it was impossible to exclude theology from the first
part, or religion from the second. A mere glance will show that my
investigation includes speculative theology or philosophy, and not,
as has been here and there erroneously supposed, common theology
only, a kind of trash from which I rather keep as clear as possible,
(though, for the rest, I am sufficiently well acquainted with it),
confining myself always to the most essential, strict and necessary
definition of the object, [2] and hence to that definition which
gives to an object the most general interest, and raises it above
the sphere of theology. But it is with theology that I have to do,
not with theologians; for I can only undertake to characterise what
is primary,--the original, not the copy, principles, not persons,
species, not individuals, objects of history, not objects of the
chronique scandaleuse.
If my work contained only the second part, it would be perfectly just
to accuse it of a negative tendency, to represent the proposition:
Religion is nothing, is an absurdity, as its essential purport. But I
by no means say (that were an easy task!): God is nothing, the Trinity
is nothing, the Word of God is nothing, &c. I only show that they are
not that which the illusions of theology make them,--not foreign, but
native mysteries, the mysteries of human nature; I show that religion
takes the apparent, the superficial in Nature and humanity for the
essential, and hence conceives their true essence as a separate,
special existence: that consequently, religion, in the definitions
which it gives of God, e.g., of the Word of God,--at least in those
definitions which are not negative in the sense above alluded to,--only
defines or makes objective the true nature of the human word. The
reproach that according to my book religion is an absurdity, a nullity,
a pure illusion, would be well founded only if, according to it, that
into which I resolve religion, which I prove to be its true object and
substance, namely, man,--anthropology, were an absurdity, a nullity,
a pure illusion. But so far from giving a trivial or even a subordinate
significance to anthropology,--a significance which is assigned to
it only just so long as a theology stands above it and in opposition
to it,--I, on the contrary, while reducing theology to anthropology,
exalt anthropology into theology, very much as Christianity, while
lowering God into man, made man into God; though, it is true, this
human God was by a further process made a transcendental, imaginary
God, remote from man. Hence it is obvious that I do not take the word
anthropology in the sense of the Hegelian or of any other philosophy,
but in an infinitely higher and more general sense.
Religion is the dream of the human mind. But even in dreams we do not
find ourselves in emptiness or in heaven, but on earth, in the realm
of reality; we only see real things in the entrancing splendour of
imagination and caprice, instead of in the simple daylight of reality
and necessity. Hence I do nothing more to religion--and to speculative
philosophy and theology also--than to open its eyes, or rather to turn
its gaze from the internal towards the external, i.e., I change the
object as it is in the imagination into the object as it is in reality.
But certainly for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing
signified, the copy to the original, fancy to reality, the appearance
to the essence, this change, inasmuch as it does away with illusion,
is an absolute annihilation, or at least a reckless profanation;
for in these days illusion only is sacred, truth profane. Nay,
sacredness is held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases
and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes
to be the highest degree of sacredness. Religion has disappeared, and
for it has been substituted, even among Protestants, the appearance
of religion--the Church--in order at least that "the faith" may
be imparted to the ignorant and indiscriminating multitude; that
faith being still the Christian, because the Christian churches
stand now as they did a thousand years ago, and now, as formerly,
the external signs of the faith are in vogue. That which has no
longer any existence in faith (the faith of the modern world is only
an ostensible faith, a faith which does not believe what it fancies
that it believes, and is only an undecided, pusillanimous unbelief)
is still to pass current as opinion: that which is no longer sacred
in itself and in truth is still at least to seem sacred. Hence the
simulated religious indignation of the present age, the age of shows
and illusion, concerning my analysis, especially of the Sacraments. But
let it not be demanded of an author who proposes to himself as his
goal not the favour of his contemporaries, but only the truth, the
unveiled, naked truth, that he should have or feign respect towards
an empty appearance, especially as the object which underlies this
appearance is in itself the culminating point of religion, i.e.,
the point at which the religious slides into the irreligious. Thus
much in justification, not in excuse, of my analysis of the Sacraments.
With regard to the true bearing of my analysis of the Sacraments,
especially as presented in the concluding chapter, I only remark,
that I therein illustrate by a palpable and visible example the
essential purport, the peculiar theme of my work; that I therein call
upon the senses themselves to witness to the truth of my analysis
and my ideas, and demonstrate ad oculos, ad tactum, ad gustum, what
I have taught ad captum throughout the previous pages. As, namely,
the water of Baptism, the wine and bread of the Lord's Supper, taken
in their natural power and significance, are and effect infinitely
more than in a supernaturalistic, illusory significance; so the
object of religion in general, conceived in the sense of this work,
i.e., the anthropological sense, is infinitely more productive and
real, both in theory and practice, than when accepted in the sense
of theology. For as that which is or is supposed to be imparted in
the water, bread, and wine, over and above these natural substances
themselves, is something in the imagination only, but in truth, in
reality, nothing; so also the object of religion in general, the Divine
essence, in distinction from the essence of Nature and Humanity,--that
is to say, if its attributes, as understanding, love, &c., are and
signify something else than these attributes as they belong to man
and Nature,--is only something in the imagination, but in truth
and reality nothing. Therefore--this is the moral of the fable--we
should not, as is the case in theology and speculative philosophy,
make real beings and things into arbitrary signs, vehicles, symbols,
or predicates of a distinct, transcendent, absolute, i.e., abstract
being; but we should accept and understand them in the significance
which they have in themselves, which is identical with their qualities,
with those conditions which make them what they are:--thus only do we
obtain the key to a real theory and practice. I, in fact, put in the
place of the barren baptismal water, the beneficent effect of real
water. How "watery," how trivial! Yes, indeed, very trivial. But
so Marriage, in its time, was a very trivial truth, which Luther,
on the ground of his natural good sense, maintained in opposition to
the seemingly holy illusion of celibacy. But while I thus view water
as a real thing, I at the same time intend it as a vehicle, an image,
an example, a symbol, of the "unholy" spirit of my work, just as the
water of Baptism--the object of my analysis--is at once literal and
symbolical water. It is the same with bread and wine. Malignity has
hence drawn the conclusion that bathing, eating, and drinking are the
summa summarum, the positive result of my work. I make no other reply
than this: If the whole of religion is contained in the Sacraments,
and there are consequently no other religious acts than those which
are performed in Baptism and the Lord's Supper; then I grant that the
entire purport and positive result of my work are bathing, eating,
and drinking, since this work is nothing but a faithful, rigid,
historico-philosophical analysis of religion--the revelation of
religion to itself, the awakening of religion to self-consciousness.
I say an historico-philosophical analysis, in distinction from a merely
historical analysis of Christianity. The historical critic--such
a one, for example, as Daumer or Ghillany--shows that the Lord's
Supper is a rite lineally descended from the ancient cultus of human
sacrifice; that once, instead of bread and wine, real human flesh
and blood were partaken. I, on the contrary, take as the object of my
analysis and reduction only the Christian significance of the rite,
that view of it which is sanctioned Christianity, and I proceed
on the supposition that only that significance which a dogma or
institution has in Christianity (of course in ancient Christianity,
not in modern), whether it may present itself in other religions
or not, is also the true origin of that dogma or institution in
so far as it is Christian. Again, the historical critic, as, for
example, Lützelberger, shows that the narratives of the miracles
of Christ resolve themselves into contradictions and absurdities,
that they are later fabrications, and that consequently Christ was
no miracle-worker, nor, in general, that which he is represented
to be in the Bible. I, on the other hand, do not inquire what the
real, natural Christ was or may have been in distinction from what
he has been made or has become in Supernaturalism; on the contrary,
I accept the Christ of religion, but I show that this superhuman being
is nothing else than a product and reflex of the supernatural human
mind. I do not ask whether this or that, or any miracle can happen
or not; I only show what miracle is, and I show it not à priori,
but by examples of miracles narrated in the Bible as real events;
in doing so, however, I answer or rather preclude the question as
to the possibility or reality of necessity of miracle. Thus much
concerning the distinction between me and the historical critics
who have attacked Christianity. As regards my relation to Strauss
and Bruno Bauer, in company with whom I am constantly named, I
merely point out here that the distinction between our works is
sufficiently indicated by the distinction between their objects,
which is implied even in the title-page. Bauer takes for the object
of his criticism the evangelical history, i.e., biblical Christianity,
or rather biblical theology; Strauss, the System of Christian Doctrine
and the Life of Jesus (which may also be included under the title of
Christian Doctrine), i.e., dogmatic Christianity, or rather dogmatic
theology; I, Christianity in general, i.e., the Christian religion,
and consequently only Christian philosophy or theology. Hence I take
my citations chiefly from men in whom Christianity was not merely a
theory or a dogma, not merely theology, but religion. My principal
theme is Christianity, is Religion, as it is the immediate object,
the immediate nature, of man. Erudition and philosophy are to me only
the means by which I bring to light the treasure hid in man.
I must further mention that the circulation which my work has had
amongst the public at large was neither desired nor expected by
me. It is true that I have always taken as the standard of the mode
of teaching and writing, not the abstract, particular, professional
philosopher, but universal man, that I have regarded man as the
criterion of truth, and not this or that founder of a system, and
have from the first placed the highest excellence of the philosopher
in this, that he abstains, both as a man and as an author, from the
ostentation of philosophy, i.e., that he is a philosopher only in
reality, not formally, that he is a quiet philosopher, not a loud
and still less a brawling one. Hence, in all my works, as well as
in the present one, I have made the utmost clearness, simplicity,
and definiteness a law to myself, so that they may be understood,
at least in the main, by every cultivated and thinking man. But
notwithstanding this, my work can be appreciated and fully understood
only by the scholar, that is to say, by the scholar who loves truth,
who is capable of forming a judgment, who is above the notions
and prejudices of the learned and unlearned vulgar; for although a
thoroughly independent production, it has yet its necessary logical
basis in history. I very frequently refer to this or that historical
phenomenon without expressly designating it, thinking this superfluous;
and such references can be understood by the scholar alone. Thus,
for example, in the very first chapter, where I develop the necessary
consequences of the standpoint of Feeling, I allude to Jacobi and
Schleiermacher; in the second chapter I allude chiefly to Kantism,
Scepticism, Theism, Materialism and Pantheism; in the chapter on the
"Standpoint of Religion," where I discuss the contradictions between
the religious or theological and the physical or natural-philosophical
view of Nature, I refer to philosophy in the age of orthodoxy, and
especially to the philosophy of Descartes and Leibnitz, in which
this contradiction presents itself in a peculiarly characteristic
manner. The reader, therefore, who is unacquainted with the historical
facts and ideas presupposed in my work, will fail to perceive on what
my arguments and ideas hinge; no wonder if my positions often appear
to him baseless, however firm the footing on which they stand. It
is true that the subject of my work is of universal human interest;
moreover, its fundamental ideas, though not in the form in which they
are here expressed, or in which they could be expressed under existing
circumstances, will one day become the common property of mankind:
for nothing is opposed to them in the present day but empty, powerless
illusions and prejudices in contradiction with the true nature of
man. But in considering this subject in the first instance, I was under
the necessity of treating it as a matter of science, of philosophy; and
in rectifying the aberrations of Religion, Theology, and Speculation,
I was naturally obliged to use their expressions, and even to appear
to speculate, or--which is the same thing--to turn theologian myself,
while I nevertheless only analyse speculation, i.e., reduce theology
to anthropology. My work, as I said before, contains, and applies in
the concrete, the principle of a new philosophy suited--not to the
schools, but--to man. Yes, it contains that principle, but only by
evolving it out of the very core of religion; hence, be it said in
passing, the new philosophy can no longer, like the old Catholic and
modern Protestant scholasticism, fall into the temptation to prove
its agreement with religion by its agreement with Christian dogmas;
on the contrary, being evolved from the nature of religion, it has
in itself the true essence of religion,--is, in its very quality as
a philosophy, a religion also. But a work which considers ideas in
their genesis and explains and demonstrates them in strict sequence,
is, by the very form which this purpose imposes upon it, unsuited to
popular reading.
Lastly, as a supplement to this work with regard to many
apparently unvindicated positions, I refer to my articles in the
Deutsches Jahrbuch, January and February 1842, to my critiques
and Charakteristiken des modernen After-christenthums, in previous
numbers of the same periodical, and to my earlier works, especially the
following:--P. Bayle. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Philosophie und
Menschheit, Ausbach, 1838, and Philosophie und Christenthum, Mannheim,
1839. In these works I have sketched, with a few sharp touches, the
historical solution of Christianity, and have shown that Christianity
has in fact long vanished, not only from the reason but from the life
of mankind, that it is nothing more than a fixed idea, in flagrant
contradiction with our fire and life assurance companies, our railroads
and steam-carriages, our picture and sculpture galleries, our military
and industrial schools, our theatres and scientific museums.
LUDWIG FEUERBACH.
Bruckberg, Feb. 14, 1843.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. § 1. The Essential Nature of Man 1
§ 2. The Essence of Religion Considered Generally 12
Part I.
THE TRUE OR ANTHROPOLOGICAL ESSENCE OF RELIGION.
II. God as a Being of the Understanding 33
III. God as a Moral Being or Law 44
IV. The Mystery of the Incarnation; or, God as Love,
as a Being of the Heart 50
V. The Mystery of the Suffering God 59
VI. The Mystery of the Trinity and the Mother of God 65
VII. The Mystery of the Logos and Divine Image 74
VIII. The Mystery of the Cosmogonical Principle in God 80
IX. The Mystery of Mysticism, or of Nature in God 87
X. The Mystery of Providence and Creation out of
Nothing 101
XI. The Significance of the Creation in Judaism 112
XII. The Omnipotence of Feeling, or the Mystery of
Prayer 120
XIII. The Mystery of Faith--The Mystery of Miracle 126
XIV. The Mystery of the Resurrection and of the
Miraculous Conception 135
XV. The Mystery of the Christian Christ, or the
Personal God 140
XVI. The Distinction between Christianity and Heathenism 150
XVII. The Significance of Voluntary Celibacy and
Monachism 160
XVIII. The Christian Heaven, or Personal Immortality 170
Part II.
THE FALSE OR THEOLOGICAL ESSENCE OF RELIGION.
XIX. The Essential Standpoint of Religion 185
XX. The Contradiction in the Existence of God 197
XXI. The Contradiction in the Revelation of God 204
XXII. The Contradiction in the Nature of God in General 213
XXIII. The Contradiction in the Speculative Doctrine of
God 226
XXIV. The Contradiction in the Trinity 232
XXV. The Contradiction in the Sacraments 236
XXVI. The Contradiction of Faith and Love 247
XXVII. Concluding Application 270
APPENDIX.
SECTION
1. The Religious Emotions Purely Human 281
2. God is Feeling Released from Limits 283
3. God is the Highest Feeling of Self 284
4. Distinction between the Pantheistic and Personal God 285
5. Nature without Interest for Christians 287
6. In God Man is his Own Object 289
7. Christianity the Religion of Suffering 292
8. Mystery of the Trinity 293
9. Creation out of Nothing 297
10. Egoism of the Israelitish Religion 298
11. The Idea of Providence 299
12. Contradiction of Faith and Reason 304
13. The Resurrection of Christ 306
14. The Christian a Supermundane Being 307
15. The Celibate and Monachism 308
16. The Christian Heaven 315
17. What Faith Denies on Earth it Affirms in Heaven 316
18. Contradictions in the Sacraments 317
19. Contradiction of Faith and Love 320
20. Results of the Principle of Faith 326
21. Contradiction of the God-Man 332
22. Anthropology the Mystery of Theology 336
THE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIANITY.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
§ 1. The Essential Nature of Man.
Religion has its basis in the essential difference between man and
the brute--the brutes have no religion. It is true that the old
uncritical writers on natural history attributed to the elephant,
among other laudable qualities, the virtue of religiousness; but
the religion of elephants belongs to the realm of fable. Cuvier,
one of the greatest authorities on the animal kingdom, assigns,
on the strength of his personal observations, no higher grade of
intelligence to the elephant than to the dog.
But what is this essential difference between man and the brute? The
most simple, general, and also the most popular answer to this
question is--consciousness:--but consciousness in the strict sense;
for the consciousness implied in the feeling of self as an individual,
in discrimination by the senses, in the perception and even judgment
of outward things according to definite sensible signs, cannot
be denied to the brutes. Consciousness in the strictest sense is
present only in a being to whom his species, his essential nature,
is an object of thought. The brute is indeed conscious of himself
as an individual--and he has accordingly the feeling of self as the
common centre of successive sensations--but not as a species: hence,
he is without that consciousness which in its nature, as in its name,
is akin to science. Where there is this higher consciousness there
is a capability of science. Science is the cognisance of species. In
practical life we have to do with individuals; in science, with
species. But only a being to whom his own species, his own nature,
is an object of thought, can make the essential nature of other things
or beings an object of thought.
Hence the brute has only a simple, man a twofold life: in the brute,
the inner life is one with the outer; man has both an inner and an
outer life. The inner life of man is the life which has relation to
his species, to his general, as distinguished from his individual,
nature. Man thinks--that is, he converses with himself. The brute can
exercise no function which has relation to its species without another
individual external to itself; but man can perform the functions
of thought and speech, which strictly imply such a relation, apart
from another individual. Man is himself at once I and thou; he can
put himself in the place of another, for this reason, that to him
his species, his essential nature, and not merely his individuality,
is an object of thought.
Religion being identical with the distinctive characteristic of man,
is then identical with self-consciousness--with the consciousness
which man has of his nature. But religion, expressed generally,
is consciousness of the infinite; thus it is and can be nothing
else than the consciousness which man has of his own--not finite
and limited, but infinite nature. A really finite being has not
even the faintest adumbration, still less consciousness, of an
infinite being, for the limit of the nature is also the limit of the
consciousness. The consciousness of the caterpillar, whose life is
confined to a particular species of plant, does not extend itself
beyond this narrow domain. It does, indeed, discriminate between
this plant and other plants, but more it knows not. A consciousness
so limited, but on account of that very limitation so infallible,
we do not call consciousness, but instinct. Consciousness, in
the strict or proper sense, is identical with consciousness of the
infinite; a limited consciousness is no consciousness; consciousness
is essentially infinite in its nature. [3] The consciousness of the
infinite is nothing else than the consciousness of the infinity of
the consciousness; or, in the consciousness of the infinite, the
conscious subject has for his object the infinity of his own nature.
What, then, is the nature of man, of which he is conscious, or what
constitutes the specific distinction, the proper humanity of man? [4]
Reason, Will, Affection. To a complete man belong the power of thought,
the power of will, the power of affection. The power of thought is
the light of the intellect, the power of will is energy of character,
the power of affection is love. Reason, love, force of will, are
perfections--the perfections of the human being--nay, more, they are
absolute perfections of being. To will, to love, to think, are the
highest powers, are the absolute nature of man as man, and the basis of
his existence. Man exists to think, to love, to will. Now that which
is the end, the ultimate aim, is also the true basis and principle of
a being. But what is the end of reason? Reason. Of love? Love. Of
will? Freedom of the will. We think for the sake of thinking;
love for the sake of loving; will for the sake of willing--i.e.,
that we may be free. True existence is thinking, loving, willing
existence. That alone is true, perfect, divine, which exists for its
own sake. But such is love, such is reason, such is will. The divine
trinity in man, above the individual man, is the unity of reason,
love, will. Reason, Will, Love, are not powers which man possesses,
for he is nothing without them, he is what he is only by them; they
are the constituent elements of his nature, which he neither has
nor makes, the animating, determining, governing powers--divine,
absolute powers--to which he can oppose no resistance. [5]
How can the feeling man resist feeling, the loving one love,
the rational one reason? Who has not experienced the overwhelming
power of melody? And what else is the power of melody but the power
of feeling? Music is the language of feeling; melody is audible
feeling--feeling communicating itself. Who has not experienced the
power of love, or at least heard of it? Which is the stronger--love
or the individual man? Is it man that possesses love, or is it not
much rather love that possesses man? When love impels a man to suffer
death even joyfully for the beloved one, is this death-conquering power
his own individual power, or is it not rather the power of love? And
who that ever truly thought has not experienced that quiet, subtle
power--the power of thought? When thou sinkest into deep reflection,
forgetting thyself and what is around thee, dost thou govern reason,
or is it not reason which governs and absorbs thee? Scientific
enthusiasm--is it not the most glorious triumph of intellect over
thee? The desire of knowledge--is it not a simply irresistible, and
all-conquering power? And when thou suppressest a passion, renouncest a
habit, in short, achievest a victory over thyself, is this victorious
power thy own personal power, or is it not rather the energy of will,
the force of morality, which seizes the mastery of thee, and fills
thee with indignation against thyself and thy individual weaknesses?
Man is nothing without an object. The great models of humanity,
such men as reveal to us what man is capable of, have attested the
truth of this proposition by their lives. They had only one dominant
passion--the realisation of the aim which was the essential object
of their activity. But the object to which a subject essentially,
necessarily relates, is nothing else than this subject's own, but
objective, nature. If it be an object common to several individuals of
the same species, but under various conditions, it is still, at least
as to the form under which it presents itself to each of them according
to their respective modifications, their own, but objective, nature.
Thus the Sun is the common object of the planets, but it is an object
to Mercury, to Venus, to Saturn, to Uranus, under other conditions
than to the Earth. Each planet has its own sun. The Sun which lights
and warms Uranus has no physical (only an astronomical, scientific)
existence for the Earth; and not only does the Sun appear different,
but it really is another sun on Uranus than on the Earth. The relation
of the Sun to the Earth is therefore at the same time a relation of
the Earth to itself, or to its own nature, for the measure of the
size and of the intensity of light which the Sun possesses as the
object of the Earth is the measure of the distance which determines
the peculiar nature of the Earth. Hence each planet has in its sun
the mirror of its own nature.
In the object which he contemplates, therefore, man becomes
acquainted with himself; consciousness of the objective is the
self-consciousness of man. We know the man by the object, by his
conception of what is external to himself; in it his nature becomes
evident; this object is his manifested nature, his true objective
ego. And this is true not merely of spiritual, but also of sensuous
objects. Even the objects which are the most remote from man, because
they are objects to him, and to the extent to which they are so,
are revelations of human nature. Even the moon, the sun, the stars,
call to man Gnothi seauton. That he sees them, and so sees them,
is an evidence of his own nature. The animal is sensible only of the
beam which immediately affects life; while man perceives the ray,
to him physically indifferent, of the remotest star. Man alone has
purely intellectual, disinterested joys and passions; the eye of man
alone keeps theoretic festivals. The eye which looks into the starry
heavens, which gazes at that light, alike useless and harmless, having
nothing in common with the earth and its necessities--this eye sees
in that light its own nature, its own origin. The eye is heavenly in
its nature. Hence man elevates himself above the earth only with the
eye; hence theory begins with the contemplation of the heavens. The
first philosophers were astronomers. It is the heavens that admonish
man of his destination, and remind him that he is destined not merely
to action, but also to contemplation.
The absolute to man is his own nature. The power of the object over
him is therefore the power of his own nature. Thus the power of the
object of feeling is the power of feeling itself; the power of the
object of the intellect is the power of the intellect itself; the
power of the object of the will is the power of the will itself. The
man who is affected by musical sounds is governed by feeling; by the
feeling, that is, which finds its corresponding element in musical
sounds. But it is not melody as such, it is only melody pregnant
with meaning and emotion, which has power over feeling. Feeling
is only acted on by that which conveys feeling, i.e., by itself,
its own nature. Thus also the will; thus, and infinitely more, the
intellect. Whatever kind of object, therefore, we are at any time
conscious of, we are always at the same time conscious of our own
nature; we can affirm nothing without affirming ourselves. And since
to will, to feel, to think, are perfections, essences, realities,
it is impossible that intellect, feeling, and will should feel or
perceive themselves as limited, finite powers, i.e., as worthless, as
nothing. For finiteness and nothingness are identical; finiteness is
only a euphemism for nothingness. Finiteness is the metaphysical, the
theoretical--nothingness the pathological, practical expression. What
is finite to the understanding is nothing to the heart. But it is
impossible that we should be conscious of will, feeling, and intellect,
as finite powers, because every perfect existence, every original
power and essence, is the immediate verification and affirmation of
itself. It is impossible to love, will, or think, without perceiving
these activities to be perfections--impossible to feel that one is
a loving, willing, thinking being, without experiencing an infinite
joy therein. Consciousness consists in a being becoming objective
to itself; hence it is nothing apart, nothing distinct from the
being which is conscious of itself. How could it otherwise become
conscious of itself? It is therefore impossible to be conscious of
a perfection as an imperfection, impossible to feel feeling limited,
to think thought limited.
Consciousness is self-verification, self-affirmation, self-love, joy
in one's own perfection. Consciousness is the characteristic mark
of a perfect nature; it exists only in a self-sufficing, complete
being. Even human vanity attests this truth. A man looks in the glass;
he has complacency in his appearance. This complacency is a necessary,
involuntary consequence of the completeness, the beauty of his form. A
beautiful form is satisfied in itself; it has necessarily joy in
itself--in self-contemplation. This complacency becomes vanity only
when a man piques himself on his form as being his individual form,
not when he admires it as a specimen of human beauty in general. It
is fitting that he should admire it thus: he can conceive no form more
beautiful, more sublime than the human. [6] Assuredly every being loves
itself, its existence--and fitly so. To exist is a good. Quidquid
essentia dignum est, scientia dignum est. Everything that exists
has value, is a being of distinction--at least this is true of the
species: hence it asserts, maintains itself. But the highest form of
self-assertion, the form which is itself a superiority, a perfection,
a bliss, a good, is consciousness.
Every limitation of the reason, or in general of the nature of man,
rests on a delusion, an error. It is true that the human being,
as an individual, can and must--herein consists his distinction
from the brute--feel and recognise himself to be limited; but he
can become conscious of his limits, his finiteness, only because
the perfection, the infinitude of his species, is perceived by him,
whether as an object of feeling, of conscience, or of the thinking
consciousness. If he makes his own limitations the limitations of
the species, this arises from the mistake that he identifies himself
immediately with the species--a mistake which is intimately connected
with the individual's love of ease, sloth, vanity, and egoism. For
a limitation which I know to be merely mine humiliates, shames, and
perturbs me. Hence to free myself from this feeling of shame, from this
state of dissatisfaction, I convert the limits of my individuality
into the limits of human nature in general. What is incomprehensible
to me is incomprehensible to others; why should I trouble myself
further? It is no fault of mine; my understanding is not to blame,
but the understanding of the race. But it is a ludicrous and even
culpable error to define as finite and limited what constitutes the
essence of man, the nature of the species, which is the absolute
nature of the individual. Every being is sufficient to itself. No
being can deny itself, i.e., its own nature; no being is a limited
one to itself. Rather, every being is in and by itself infinite--has
its God, its highest conceivable being, in itself. Every limit of a
being is cognisable only by another being out of and above him. The
life of the ephemera is extraordinarily short in comparison with
that of longer-lived creatures; but nevertheless, for the ephemera
this short life is as long as a life of years to others. The leaf on
which the caterpillar lives is for it a world, an infinite space.
That which makes a being what it is, is its talent, its power,
its wealth, its adornment. How can it possibly hold its existence
non-existence, its wealth poverty, its talent incapacity? If the
plants had eyes, taste, and judgment, each plant would declare its
own flower the most beautiful; for its comprehension, its taste,
would reach no farther than its natural power of production. What
the productive power of its nature has brought forth as the highest,
that must also its taste, its judgment, recognise and affirm as the
highest. What the nature affirms, the understanding, the taste, the
judgment, cannot deny; otherwise the understanding, the judgment, would
no longer be the understanding and judgment of this particular being,
but of some other. The measure of the nature is also the measure of
the understanding. If the nature is limited, so also is the feeling,
so also is the understanding. But to a limited being its limited
understanding is not felt to be a limitation; on the contrary,
it is perfectly happy and contented with this understanding; it
regards it, praises and values it, as a glorious, divine power; and
the limited understanding, on its part, values the limited nature
whose understanding it is. Each is exactly adapted to the other;
how should they be at issue with each other? A being's understanding
is its sphere of vision. As far as thou seest, so far extends thy
nature; and conversely. The eye of the brute reaches no farther than
its needs, and its nature no farther than its needs. And so far as
thy nature reaches, so far reaches thy unlimited self-consciousness,
so far art thou God. The discrepancy between the understanding and the
nature, between the power of conception and the power of production
in the human consciousness, on the one hand, is merely of individual
significance and has not a universal application; and, on the other
hand, it is only apparent. He who, having written a bad poem, knows
it to be bad, is in his intelligence, and therefore in his nature,
not so limited as he who, having written a bad poem, admires it and
thinks it good.
It follows that if thou thinkest the infinite, thou perceivest and
affirmest the infinitude of the power of thought; if thou feelest the
infinite, thou feelest and affirmest the infinitude of the power of
feeling. The object of the intellect is intellect objective to itself;
the object of feeling is feeling objective to itself. If thou hast no
sensibility, no feeling for music, thou perceivest in the finest music
nothing more than in the wind that whistles by thy ear, or than in the
brook which rushes past thy feet. What, then, is it which acts on thee
when thou art affected by melody? What dost thou perceive in it? What
else than the voice of thy own heart? Feeling speaks only to feeling;
feeling is comprehensible only by feeling, that is, by itself--for this
reason, that the object of feeling is nothing else than feeling. Music
is a monologue of emotion. But the dialogue of philosophy also is
in truth only a monologue of the intellect; thought speaks only to
thought. The splendours of the crystal charm the sense, but the
intellect is interested only in the laws of crystallisation. The
intellectual only is the object of the intellect. [7]
All therefore which, in the point of view of metaphysical,
transcendental speculation and religion, has the significance only
of the secondary, the subjective, the medium, the organ--has in
truth the significance of the primary, of the essence, of the object
itself. If, for example, feeling is the essential organ of religion,
the nature of God is nothing else than an expression of the nature
of feeling. The true but latent sense of the phrase, "Feeling is the
organ of the divine," is, feeling is the noblest, the most excellent,
i.e., the divine, in man. How couldst thou perceive the divine by
feeling, if feeling were not itself divine in its nature? The divine
assuredly is known only by means of the divine--God is known only by
himself. The divine nature which is discerned by feeling is in truth
nothing else than feeling enraptured, in ecstasy with itself--feeling
intoxicated with joy, blissful in its own plenitude.
It is already clear from this that where feeling is held to be
the organ of the infinite, the subjective essence of religion,--the
external data of religion lose their objective value. And thus, since
feeling has been held the cardinal principle in religion, the doctrines
of Christianity, formerly so sacred, have lost their importance. If,
from this point of view, some value is still conceded to Christian
ideas, it is a value springing entirely from the relation they bear to
feeling; if another object would excite the same emotions, it would be
just as welcome. But the object of religious feeling is become a matter
of indifference, only because when once feeling has been pronounced to
be the subjective essence of religion, it in fact is also the objective
essence of religion, though it may not be declared, at least directly,
to be such. I say directly; for indirectly this is certainly admitted,
when it is declared that feeling, as such, is religious, and thus
the distinction between specifically religious and irreligious, or at
least non-religious, feelings is abolished--a necessary consequence
of the point of view in which feeling only is regarded as the organ
of the divine. For on what other ground than that of its essence,
its nature, dost thou hold feeling to be the organ of the infinite,
the divine being? And is not the nature of feeling in general also the
nature of every special feeling, be its object what it may? What, then,
makes this feeling religious? A given object? Not at all; for this
object is itself a religious one only when it is not an object of the
cold understanding or memory, but of feeling. What then? The nature of
feeling--a nature of which every special feeling, without distinction
of objects, partakes. Thus, feeling is pronounced to be religious,
simply because it is feeling; the ground of its religiousness is its
own nature--lies in itself. But is not feeling thereby declared to
be itself the absolute, the divine? If feeling in itself is good,
religious, i.e., holy, divine, has not feeling its God in itself?
But if, notwithstanding, thou wilt posit an object of feeling,
but at the same time seekest to express thy feeling truly, without
introducing by thy reflection any foreign element, what remains
to thee but to distinguish between thy individual feeling and the
general nature of feeling;--to separate the universal in feeling from
the disturbing, adulterating influences with which feeling is bound up
in thee, under thy individual conditions? Hence what thou canst alone
contemplate, declare to be the infinite, and define as its essence,
is merely the nature of feeling. Thou hast thus no other definition
of God than this: God is pure, unlimited, free Feeling. Every other
God, whom thou supposest, is a God thrust upon thy feeling from
without. Feeling is atheistic in the sense of the orthodox belief,
which attaches religion to an external object; it denies an objective
God--it is itself God. In this point of view only the negation of
feeling is the negation of God. Thou art simply too cowardly or too
narrow to confess in words what thy feeling tacitly affirms. Fettered
by outward considerations, still in bondage to vulgar empiricism,
incapable of comprehending the spiritual grandeur of feeling, thou
art terrified before the religious atheism of thy heart. By this fear
thou destroyest the unity of thy feeling with itself, in imagining
to thyself an objective being distinct from thy feeling, and thus
necessarily sinking back into the old questions and doubts--is there a
God or not?--questions and doubts which vanish, nay, are impossible,
where feeling is defined as the essence of religion. Feeling is thy
own inward power, but at the same time a power distinct from thee,
and independent of thee; it is in thee, above thee; it is itself
that which constitutes the objective in thee--thy own being which
impresses thee as another being; in short, thy God. How wilt thou,
then, distinguish from this objective being within thee another
objective being? How wilt thou get beyond thy feeling?
But feeling has here been adduced only as an example. It is
the same with every other power, faculty, potentiality, reality,
activity--the name is indifferent--which is defined as the essential
organ of any object. Whatever is a subjective expression of a nature
is simultaneously also its objective expression. Man cannot get
beyond his true nature. He may indeed by means of the imagination
conceive individuals of another so-called higher kind, but he can
never get loose from his species, his nature; the conditions of
being, the positive final predicates which he gives to these other
individuals, are always determinations or qualities drawn from his
own nature--qualities in which he in truth only images and projects
himself. There may certainly be thinking beings besides men on the
other planets of our solar system. But by the supposition of such
beings we do not change our standing point--we extend our conceptions
quantitatively not qualitatively. For as surely as on the other planets
there are the same laws of motion, so surely are there the same laws of
perception and thought as here. In fact, we people the other planets,
not that we may place there different beings from ourselves, but more
beings of our own or of a similar nature. [8]
§ 2. The Essence of Religion Considered Generally.
What we have hitherto been maintaining generally, even with regard
to sensational impressions, of the relation between subject and
object, applies especially to the relation between the subject and
the religious object.
In the perceptions of the senses consciousness of the object
is distinguishable from consciousness of self; but in religion,
consciousness of the object and self-consciousness coincide. The
object of the senses is out of man, the religious object is within
him, and therefore as little forsakes him as his self-consciousness
or his conscience; it is the intimate, the closest object. "God," says
Augustine, for example, "is nearer, more related to us, and therefore
more easily known by us, than sensible, corporeal things." [9]
The object of the senses is in itself indifferent--independent of
the disposition or of the judgment; but the object of religion is a
selected object; the most excellent, the first, the supreme being;
it essentially presupposes a critical judgment, a discrimination
between the divine and the non-divine, between that which is worthy of
adoration and that which is not worthy. [10] And here may be applied,
without any limitation, the proposition: the object of any subject is
nothing else than the subject's own nature taken objectively. Such
as are a man's thoughts and dispositions, such is his God; so much
worth as a man has, so much and no more has his God. Consciousness
of God is self-consciousness, knowledge of God is self-knowledge. By
his God thou knowest the man, and by the man his God; the two are
identical. Whatever is God to a man, that is his heart and soul; and
conversely, God is the manifested inward nature, the expressed self
of a man,--religion the solemn unveiling of a man's hidden treasures,
the revelation of his intimate thoughts, the open confession of his
love-secrets.
But when religion--consciousness of God--is designated as the
self-consciousness of man, this is not to be understood as affirming
that the religious man is directly aware of this identity; for, on
the contrary, ignorance of it is fundamental to the peculiar nature of
religion. To preclude this misconception, it is better to say, religion
is man's earliest and also indirect form of self-knowledge. Hence,
religion everywhere precedes philosophy, as in the history of the
race, so also in that of the individual. Man first of all sees his
nature as if out of himself, before he finds it in himself. His
own nature is in the first instance contemplated by him as that
of another being. Religion is the childlike condition of humanity;
but the child sees his nature--man--out of himself; in childhood a
man is an object to himself, under the form of another man. Hence
the historical progress of religion consists in this: that what by
an earlier religion was regarded as objective, is now recognised as
subjective; that is, what was formerly contemplated and worshipped as
God is now perceived to be something human. What was at first religion
becomes at a later period idolatry; man is seen to have adored his own
nature. Man has given objectivity to himself, but has not recognised
the object as his own nature: a later religion takes this forward step;
every advance in religion is therefore a deeper self-knowledge. But
every particular religion, while it pronounces its predecessors
idolatrous, excepts itself--and necessarily so, otherwise it would no
longer be religion--from the fate, the common nature of all religions:
it imputes only to other religions what is the fault, if fault it be,
of religion in general. Because it has a different object, a different
tenor, because it has transcended the ideas of preceding religions,
it erroneously supposes itself exalted above the necessary eternal
laws which constitute the essence of religion--it fancies its object,
its ideas, to be superhuman. But the essence of religion, thus hidden
from the religious, is evident to the thinker, by whom religion is
viewed objectively, which it cannot be by its votaries. And it is our
task to show that the antithesis of divine and human is altogether
illusory, that it is nothing else than the antithesis between the
human nature in general and the human individual; that, consequently,
the object and contents of the Christian religion are altogether human.
Religion, at least the Christian, is the relation of man to himself,
or more correctly to his own nature (i.e., his subjective nature);
[11] but a relation to it, viewed as a nature apart from his own. The
divine being is nothing else than the human being, or, rather, the
human nature purified, freed from the limits of the individual man,
made objective--i.e., contemplated and revered as another, a distinct
being. All the attributes of the divine nature are, therefore,
attributes of the human nature. [12]
In relation to the attributes, the predicates, of the Divine Being,
this is admitted without hesitation, but by no means in relation
to the subject of these predicates. The negation of the subject is
held to be irreligion, nay, atheism; though not so the negation of
the predicates. But that which has no predicates or qualities, has no
effect upon me; that which has no effect upon me has no existence for
me. To deny all the qualities of a being is equivalent to denying the
being himself. A being without qualities is one which cannot become an
object to the mind, and such a being is virtually non-existent. Where
man deprives God of all qualities, God is no longer anything more
to him than a negative being. To the truly religious man, God is
not a being without qualities, because to him he is a positive,
real being. The theory that God cannot be defined, and consequently
cannot be known by man, is therefore the offspring of recent times,
a product of modern unbelief.
As reason is and can be pronounced finite only where man regards
sensual enjoyment, or religious emotion, or æsthetic contemplation,
or moral sentiment, as the absolute, the true; so the proposition that
God is unknowable or undefinable, can only be enunciated and become
fixed as a dogma, where this object has no longer any interest for the
intellect; where the real, the positive, alone has any hold on man,
where the real alone has for him the significance of the essential,
of the absolute, divine object, but where at the same time, in
contradiction with this purely worldly tendency, there yet exist some
old remains of religiousness. On the ground that God is unknowable, man
excuses himself to what is yet remaining of his religious conscience
for his forgetfulness of God, his absorption in the world: he denies
God practically by his conduct,--the world has possession of all his
thoughts and inclinations,--but he does not deny him theoretically, he
does not attack his existence; he lets that rest. But this existence
does not affect or incommode him; it is a merely negative existence,
an existence without existence, a self-contradictory existence,--a
state of being which, as to its effects, is not distinguishable from
non-being. The denial of determinate, positive predicates concerning
the divine nature is nothing else than a denial of religion, with,
however, an appearance of religion in its favour, so that it is not
recognised as a denial; it is simply a subtle, disguised atheism. The
alleged religious horror of limiting God by positive predicates is
only the irreligious wish to know nothing more of God, to banish God
from the mind. Dread of limitation is dread of existence. All real
existence, i.e., all existence which is truly such, is qualitative,
determinative existence. He who earnestly believes in the Divine
existence is not shocked at the attributing even of gross sensuous
qualities to God. He who dreads an existence that may give offence,
who shrinks from the grossness of a positive predicate, may as well
renounce existence altogether. A God who is injured by determinate
qualities has not the courage and the strength to exist. Qualities
are the fire, the vital breath, the oxygen, the salt of existence. An
existence in general, an existence without qualities, is an insipidity,
an absurdity. But there can be no more in God than is supplied by
religion. Only where man loses his taste for religion, and thus
religion itself becomes insipid, does the existence of God become an
insipid existence--an existence without qualities.
There is, however, a still milder way of denying the divine
predicates than the direct one just described. It is admitted that the
predicates of the divine nature are finite, and, more particularly,
human qualities, but their rejection is rejected; they are even
taken under protection, because it is necessary to man to have a
definite conception of God and since he is man he can form no other
than a human conception of him. In relation to God, it is said, these
predicates are certainly without any objective validity; but to me,
if he is to exist for me, he cannot appear otherwise than as he does
appear to me, namely, as a being with attributes analogous to the
human. But this distinction between what God is in himself, and what
he is for me destroys the peace of religion, and is besides in itself
an unfounded and untenable distinction. I cannot know whether God is
something else in himself or for himself than he is for me; what he is
to me is to me all that he is. For me, there lies in these predicates
under which he exists for me, what he is in himself, his very nature;
he is for me what he can alone ever be for me. The religious man finds
perfect satisfaction in that which God is in relation to himself;
of any other relation he knows nothing, for God is to him what he can
alone be to man. In the distinction above stated, man takes a point
of view above himself, i.e., above his nature, the absolute measure
of his being; but this transcendentalism is only an illusion; for I
can make the distinction between the object as it is in itself, and
the object as it is for me, only where an object can really appear
otherwise to me, not where it appears to me such as the absolute
measure of my nature determines it to appear--such as it must appear
to me. It is true that I may have a merely subjective conception,
i.e., one which does not arise out of the general constitution of my
species; but if my conception is determined by the constitution of
my species, the distinction between what an object is in itself, and
what it is for me ceases; for this conception is itself an absolute
one. The measure of the species is the absolute measure, law, and
criterion of man. And, indeed, religion has the conviction that its
conceptions, its predicates of God, are such as every man ought to
have, and must have, if he would have the true ones--that they are
the conceptions necessary to human nature; nay, further, that they
are objectively true, representing God as he is. To every religion
the gods of other religious are only notions concerning God, but its
own conception of God is to it God himself, the true God--God such as
he is in himself. Religion is satisfied only with a complete Deity,
a God without reservation; it will not have a mere phantasm of God; it
demands God himself. Religion gives up its own existence when it gives
up the nature of God; it is no longer a truth when it renounces the
possession of the true God. Scepticism is the arch-enemy of religion;
but the distinction between object and conception--between God as he
is in himself, and God as he is for me--is a sceptical distinction,
and therefore an irreligious one.
That which is to man the self-existent, the highest being, to which he
can conceive nothing higher--that is to him the Divine Being. How then
should he inquire concerning this being, what he is in himself? If God
were an object to the bird, he would be a winged being: the bird knows
nothing higher, nothing more blissful, than the winged condition. How
ludicrous would it be if this bird pronounced: To me God appears
as a bird, but what he is in himself I know not. To the bird the
highest nature is the bird-nature; take from him the conception of
this, and you take from him the conception of the highest being. How,
then, could he ask whether God in himself were winged? To ask whether
God is in himself what he is for me, is to ask whether God is God,
is to lift oneself above one's God, to rise up against him.
Wherever, therefore, this idea, that the religious predicates are
only anthropomorphisms, has taken possession of a man, there has
doubt, has unbelief, obtained the mastery of faith. And it is only
the inconsequence of faint-heartedness and intellectual imbecility
which does not proceed from this idea to the formal negation of
the predicates, and from thence to the negation of the subject
to which they relate. If thou doubtest the objective truth of the
predicates, thou must also doubt the objective truth of the subject
whose predicates they are. If thy predicates are anthropomorphisms,
the subject of them is an anthropomorphism too. If love, goodness,
personality, &c., are human attributes, so also is the subject which
thou presupposest, the existence of God, the belief that there is a
God, an anthropomorphism--a presupposition purely human. Whence knowest
thou that the belief in a God at all is not a limitation of man's mode
of conception? Higher beings--and thou supposest such--are perhaps so
blest in themselves, so at unity with themselves, that they are not
hung in suspense between themselves and a yet higher being. To know
God and not oneself to be God, to know blessedness and not oneself
to enjoy it, is a state of disunity, of unhappiness. Higher beings
know nothing of this unhappiness; they have no conception of that
which they are not.
Thou believest in love as a divine attribute because thou thyself
lovest; thou believest that God is a wise, benevolent being
because thou knowest nothing better in thyself than benevolence
and wisdom; and thou believest that God exists, that therefore he
is a subject--whatever exists is a subject, whether it be defined
as substance, person, essence, or otherwise--because thou thyself
existest, art thyself a subject. Thou knowest no higher human good than
to love, than to be good and wise; and even so thou knowest no higher
happiness than to exist, to be a subject; for the consciousness of
all reality, of all bliss, is for thee bound up in the consciousness
of being a subject, of existing. God is an existence, a subject to
thee, for the same reason that he is to thee a wise, a blessed, a
personal being. The distinction between the divine predicates and the
divine subject is only this, that to thee the subject, the existence,
does not appear an anthropomorphism, because the conception of it is
necessarily involved in thy own existence as a subject, whereas the
predicates do appear anthropomorphisms, because their necessity--the
necessity that God should be conscious, wise, good, &c.,--is not an
immediate necessity, identical with the being of man, but is evolved by
his self-consciousness, by the activity of his thought. I am a subject,
I exist, whether I be wise or unwise, good or bad. To exist is to man
the first datum; it constitutes the very idea of the subject; it is
presupposed by the predicates. Hence man relinquishes the predicates,
but the existence of God is to him a settled, irrefragable, absolutely
certain, objective truth. But, nevertheless, this distinction is
merely an apparent one. The necessity of the subject lies only in the
necessity of the predicate. Thou art a subject only in so far as thou
art a human subject; the certainty and reality of thy existence lie
only in the certainty and reality of thy human attributes. What the
subject is lies only in the predicate; the predicate is the truth of
the subject--the subject only the personified, existing predicate,
the predicate conceived as existing. Subject and predicate are
distinguished only as existence and essence. The negation of the
predicates is therefore the negation of the subject. What remains of
the human subject when abstracted from the human attributes? Even
in the language of common life the divine predicates--Providence,
Omniscience, Omnipotence--are put for the divine subject.
The certainty of the existence of God, of which it has been said that
it is as certain, nay, more certain to man than his own existence,
depends only on the certainty of the qualities of God--it is in
itself no immediate certainty. To the Christian the existence of the
Christian God only is a certainty; to the heathen that of the heathen
God only. The heathen did not doubt the existence of Jupiter, because
he took no offence at the nature of Jupiter, because he could conceive
of God under no other qualities, because to him these qualities were
a certainty, a divine reality. The reality of the predicate is the
sole guarantee of existence.
Whatever man conceives to be true, he immediately conceives to be
real (that is, to have an objective existence), because, originally,
only the real is true to him--true in opposition to what is merely
conceived, dreamed, imagined. The idea of being, of existence, is the
original idea of truth; or, originally, man makes truth dependent
on existence, subsequently, existence dependent on truth. Now God
is the nature of man regarded as absolute truth,--the truth of man;
but God, or, what is the same thing, religion, is as various as are
the conditions under which man conceives this his nature, regards
it as the highest being. These conditions, then, under which man
conceives God, are to him the truth, and for that reason they are
also the highest existence, or rather they are existence itself;
for only the emphatic, the highest existence, is existence, and
deserves this name. Therefore, God is an existent, real being, on
the very same ground that he is a particular, definite being; for
the qualities of God are nothing else than the essential qualities of
man himself, and a particular man is what he is, has his existence,
his reality, only in his particular conditions. Take away from the
Greek the quality of being Greek, and you take away his existence. On
this ground it is true that for a definite positive religion--that
is, relatively--the certainty of the existence of God is immediate;
for just as involuntarily, as necessarily, as the Greek was a Greek,
so necessarily were his gods Greek beings, so necessarily were they
real, existent beings. Religion is that conception of the nature of the
world and of man which is essential to, i.e., identical with, a man's
nature. But man does not stand above this his necessary conception;
on the contrary, it stands above him; it animates, determines, governs
him. The necessity of a proof, of a middle term to unite qualities
with existence, the possibility of a doubt, is abolished. Only that
which is apart from my own being is capable of being doubted by
me. How then can I doubt of God, who is my being? To doubt of God
is to doubt of myself. Only when God is thought of abstractly, when
his predicates are the result of philosophic abstraction, arises the
distinction or separation between subject and predicate, existence
and nature--arises the fiction that the existence or the subject is
something else than the predicate, something immediate, indubitable,
in distinction from the predicate, which is held to be doubtful. But
this is only a fiction. A God who has abstract predicates has also
an abstract existence. Existence, being, varies with varying qualities.
The identity of the subject and predicate is clearly evidenced by
the progressive development of religion, which is identical with
the progressive development of human culture. So long as man is
in a mere state of nature, so long is his god a mere nature-god--a
personification of some natural force. Where man inhabits houses, he
also encloses his gods in temples. The temple is only a manifestation
of the value which man attaches to beautiful buildings. Temples in
honour of religion are in truth temples in honour of architecture. With
the emerging of man from a state of savagery and wildness to one of
culture, with the distinction between what is fitting for man and
what is not fitting, arises simultaneously the distinction between
that which is fitting and that which is not fitting for God. God is
the idea of majesty, of the highest dignity: the religious sentiment
is the sentiment of supreme fitness. The later more cultured artists
of Greece were the first to embody in the statues of the gods the
ideas of dignity, of spiritual grandeur, of imperturbable repose
and serenity. But why were these qualities in their view attributes,
predicates of God? Because they were in themselves regarded by the
Greeks as divinities. Why did those artists exclude all disgusting
and low passions? Because they perceived them to be unbecoming,
unworthy, unhuman, and consequently ungodlike. The Homeric gods
eat and drink;--that implies eating and drinking is a divine
pleasure. Physical strength is an attribute of the Homeric gods:
Zeus is the strongest of the gods. Why? Because physical strength,
in and by itself, was regarded as something glorious, divine. To
the ancient Germans the highest virtues were those of the warrior;
therefore their supreme god was the god of war, Odin,--war, "the
original or oldest law." Not the attribute of the divinity, but
the divineness or deity of the attribute, is the first true Divine
Being. Thus what theology and philosophy have held to be God, the
Absolute, the Infinite, is not God; but that which they have held not
to be God is God: namely, the attribute, the quality, whatever has
reality. Hence he alone is the true atheist to whom the predicates of
the Divine Being,--for example, love, wisdom, justice,--are nothing;
not he to whom merely the subject of these predicates is nothing. And
in no wise is the negation of the subject necessarily also a negation
of the predicates considered in themselves. These have an intrinsic,
independent reality; they force their recognition upon man by their
very nature; they are self-evident truths to him; they prove, they
attest themselves. It does not follow that goodness, justice, wisdom,
are chimæras because the existence of God is a chimæra, nor truths
because this is a truth. The idea of God is dependent on the idea of
justice, of benevolence; a God who is not benevolent, not just, not
wise, is no God; but the converse does not hold. The fact is not that
a quality is divine because God has it, but that God has it because
it is in itself divine: because without it God would be a defective
being. Justice, wisdom, in general every quality which constitutes
the divinity of God, is determined and known by itself independently,
but the idea of God is determined by the qualities which have thus
been previously judged to be worthy of the divine nature; only in
the case in which I identify God and justice, in which I think of
God immediately as the reality of the idea of justice, is the idea
of God self-determined. But if God as a subject is the determined,
while the quality, the predicate, is the determining, then in truth the
rank of the godhead is due not to the subject, but to the predicate.
Not until several, and those contradictory, attributes are united in
one being, and this being is conceived as personal--the personality
being thus brought into especial prominence--not until then is
the origin of religion lost sight of, is it forgotten that what
the activity of the reflective power has converted into a predicate
distinguishable or separable from the subject, was originally the true
subject. Thus the Greeks and Romans deified accidents as substances;
virtues, states of mind, passions, as independent beings. Man,
especially the religious man, is to himself the measure of all things,
of all reality. Whatever strongly impresses a man, whatever produces
an unusual effect on his mind, if it be only a peculiar, inexplicable
sound or note, he personifies as a divine being. Religion embraces
all the objects of the world: everything existing has been an object
of religious reverence; in the nature and consciousness of religion
there is nothing else than what lies in the nature of man and in his
consciousness of himself and of the world. Religion has no material
exclusively its own. In Rome even the passions of fear and terror
had their temples. The Christians also made mental phenomena into
independent beings, their own feelings into qualities of things, the
passions which governed them into powers which governed the world,
in short, predicates of their own nature, whether recognised as such
or not, into independent subjective existences. Devils, cobolds,
witches, ghosts, angels, were sacred truths as long as the religious
spirit held undivided sway over mankind.
In order to banish from the mind the identity of the divine and human
predicates, and the consequent identity of the divine and human nature,
recourse is had to the idea that God, as the absolute, real Being,
has an infinite fulness of various predicates, of which we here know
only a part, and those such as are analogous to our own; while the
rest, by virtue of which God must thus have quite a different nature
from the human or that which is analogous to the human, we shall only
know in the future--that is, after death. But an infinite plenitude
or multitude of predicates which are really different, so different
that the one does not immediately involve the other, is realised
only in an infinite plenitude or multitude of different beings or
individuals. Thus the human nature presents an infinite abundance
of different predicates, and for that very reason it presents an
infinite abundance of different individuals. Each new man is a new
predicate, a new phasis of humanity. As many as are the men, so many
are the powers, the properties of humanity. It is true that there
are the same elements in every individual, but under such various
conditions and modifications that they appear new and peculiar. The
mystery of the inexhaustible fulness of the divine predicates is
therefore nothing else than the mystery of human nature considered
as an infinitely varied, infinitely modifiable, but, consequently,
phenomenal being. Only in the realm of the senses, only in space
and time, does there exist a being of really infinite qualities or
predicates. Where there are really different predicates there are
different times. One man is a distinguished musician, a distinguished
author, a distinguished physician; but he cannot compose music,
write books, and perform cures in the same moment of time. Time,
and not the Hegelian dialectic, is the medium of uniting opposites,
contradictories, in one and the same subject. But distinguished and
detached from the nature of man, and combined with the idea of God,
the infinite fulness of various predicates is a conception without
reality, a mere phantasy, a conception derived from the sensible
world, but without the essential conditions, without the truth of
sensible existence, a conception which stands in direct contradiction
with the Divine Being considered as a spiritual, i.e., an abstract,
simple, single being; for the predicates of God are precisely of
this character, that one involves all the others, because there
is no real difference between them. If, therefore, in the present
predicates I have not the future, in the present God not the future
God, then the future God is not the present, but they are two distinct
beings. [13] But this distinction is in contradiction with the unity
and simplicity of the theological God. Why is a given predicate a
predicate of God? Because it is divine in its nature, i.e., because it
expresses no limitation, no defect. Why are other predicates applied
to him? Because, however various in themselves, they agree in this,
that they all alike express perfection, unlimitedness. Hence I can
conceive innumerable predicates of God, because they must all agree
with the abstract idea of the Godhead, and must have in common that
which constitutes every single predicate a divine attribute. Thus it is
in the system of Spinoza. He speaks of an infinite number of attributes
of the divine substance, but he specifies none except Thought and
Extension. Why? Because it is a matter of indifference to know them;
nay, because they are in themselves indifferent, superfluous; for
with all these innumerable predicates, I yet always mean to say the
same thing as when I speak of Thought and Extension. Why is Thought
an attribute of substance? Because, according to Spinoza, it is
capable of being conceived by itself, because it expresses something
indivisible, perfect, infinite. Why Extension or Matter? For the same
reason. Thus, substance can have an indefinite number of predicates,
because it is not their specific definition, their difference, but
their identity, their equivalence, which makes them attributes of
substance. Or rather, substance has innumerable predicates only because
(how strange!) it has properly no predicate; that is, no definite,
real predicate. The indefinite unity which is the product of thought,
completes itself by the indefinite multiplicity which is the product of
the imagination. Because the predicate is not multum, it is multa. In
truth, the positive predicates are Thought and Extension. In these two
infinitely more is said than in the nameless innumerable predicates;
for they express something definite--in them I have something. But
substance is too indifferent, too apathetic to be something; that is,
to have qualities and passions; that it may not be something, it is
rather nothing.
Now, when it is shown that what the subject is lies entirely in
the attributes of the subject; that is, that the predicate is the
true subject; it is also proved that if the divine predicates are
attributes of the human nature, the subject of those predicates is also
of the human nature. But the divine predicates are partly general,
partly personal. The general predicates are the metaphysical, but
these serve only as external points of support to religion; they are
not the characteristic definitions of religion. It is the personal
predicates alone which constitute the essence of religion--in which
the Divine Being is the object of religion. Such are, for example,
that God is a Person, that he is the moral Lawgiver, the Father
of mankind, the Holy One, the Just, the Good, the Merciful. It is,
however, at once clear, or it will at least be clear in the sequel,
with regard to these and other definitions, that, especially as
applied to a personality, they are purely human definitions, and that
consequently man in religion--in his relation to God--is in relation
to his own nature; for to the religious sentiment these predicates
are not mere conceptions, mere images, which man forms of God,
to be distinguished from that which God is in himself, but truths,
facts, realities. Religion knows nothing of anthropomorphisms; to it
they are not anthropomorphisms. It is the very essence of religion,
that to it these definitions express the nature of God. They are
pronounced to be images only by the understanding, which reflects on
religion, and which while defending them yet before its own tribunal
denies them. But to the religious sentiment God is a real Father,
real Love and Mercy; for to it he is a real, living, personal being,
and therefore his attributes are also living and personal. Nay, the
definitions which are the most sufficing to the religious sentiment
are precisely those which give the most offence to the understanding,
and which in the process of reflection on religion it denies. Religion
is essentially emotion; hence, objectively also, emotion is to it
necessarily of a divine nature. Even anger appears to it an emotion
not unworthy of God, provided only there be a religious motive at
the foundation of this anger.
But here it is also essential to observe, and this phenomenon is an
extremely remarkable one, characterising the very core of religion,
that in proportion as the divine subject is in reality human, the
greater is the apparent difference between God and man; that is,
the more, by reflection on religion, by theology, is the identity of
the divine and human denied, and the human, considered as such, is
depreciated. [14] The reason of this is, that as what is positive in
the conception of the divine being can only be human, the conception
of man, as an object of consciousness, can only be negative. To
enrich God, man must become poor; that God may be all, man must be
nothing. But he desires to be nothing in himself, because what he takes
from himself is not lost to him, since it is preserved in God. Man has
his being in God; why then should he have it in himself? Where is the
necessity of positing the same thing twice, of having it twice? What
man withdraws from himself, what he renounces in himself, he only
enjoys in an incomparably higher and fuller measure in God.
The monks made a vow of chastity to God; they mortified the sexual
passion in themselves, but therefore they had in heaven, in the
Virgin Mary, the image of woman--an image of love. They could
the more easily dispense with real woman in proportion as an ideal
woman was an object of love to them. The greater the importance they
attached to the denial of sensuality, the greater the importance of
the heavenly virgin for them: she was to them in the place of Christ,
in the stead of God. The more the sensual tendencies are renounced,
the more sensual is the God to whom they are sacrificed. For whatever
is made an offering to God has an especial value attached to it; in it
God is supposed to have especial pleasure. That which is the highest
in the estimation of man is naturally the highest in the estimation
of his God; what pleases man pleases God also. The Hebrews did not
offer to Jehovah unclean, ill-conditioned animals; on the contrary,
those which they most highly prized, which they themselves ate,
were also the food of God (Cibus Dei, Lev. iii. 2). Wherever,
therefore, the denial of the sensual delights is made a special
offering, a sacrifice well-pleasing to God, there the highest value is
attached to the senses, and the sensuality which has been renounced
is unconsciously restored, in the fact that God takes the place
of the material delights which have been renounced. The nun weds
herself to God; she has a heavenly bridegroom, the monk a heavenly
bride. But the heavenly virgin is only a sensible presentation of
a general truth, having relation to the essence of religion. Man
denies as to himself only what he attributes to God. Religion
abstracts from man, from the world; but it can only abstract from
the limitations, from the phenomena; in short, from the negative,
not from the essence, the positive, of the world and humanity: hence,
in the very abstraction and negation it must recover that from which
it abstracts, or believes itself to abstract. And thus, in reality,
whatever religion consciously denies--always supposing that what is
denied by it is something essential, true, and consequently incapable
of being ultimately denied--it unconsciously restores in God. Thus,
in religion man denies his reason; of himself he knows nothing of God,
his thoughts are only worldly, earthly; he can only believe what God
reveals to him. But on this account the thoughts of God are human,
earthly thoughts: like man, he has plans in his mind, he accommodates
himself to circumstances and grades of intelligence, like a tutor
with his pupils; he calculates closely the effect of his gifts and
revelations; he observes man in all his doings; he knows all things,
even the most earthly, the commonest, the most trivial. In brief,
man in relation to God denies his own knowledge, his own thoughts,
that he may place them in God. Man gives up his personality; but in
return, God, the Almighty, infinite, unlimited being, is a person;
he denies human dignity, the human ego; but in return God is to him
a selfish, egoistical being, who in all things seeks only himself,
his own honour, his own ends; he represents God as simply seeking
the satisfaction of his own selfishness, while yet he frowns on that
of every other being; his God is the very luxury of egoism. [15]
Religion further denies goodness as a quality of human nature; man
is wicked, corrupt, incapable of good; but, on the other hand, God is
only good--the Good Being. Man's nature demands as an object goodness,
personified as God; but is it not hereby declared that goodness is an
essential tendency of man? If my heart is wicked, my understanding
perverted, how can I perceive and feel the holy to be holy, the
good to be good? Could I perceive the beauty of a fine picture if
my mind were æsthetically an absolute piece of perversion? Though I
may not be a painter, though I may not have the power of producing
what is beautiful myself, I must yet have æsthetic feeling, æsthetic
comprehension, since I perceive the beauty that is presented to me
externally. Either goodness does not exist at all for man, or, if it
does exist, therein is revealed to the individual man the holiness
and goodness of human nature. That which is absolutely opposed to
my nature, to which I am united by no bond of sympathy, is not even
conceivable or perceptible by me. The holy is in opposition to me
only as regards the modifications of my personality, but as regards my
fundamental nature it is in unity with me. The holy is a reproach to
my sinfulness; in it I recognise myself as a sinner; but in so doing,
while I blame myself, I acknowledge what I am not, but ought to be,
and what, for that very reason, I, according to my destination, can be;
for an "ought" which has no corresponding capability does not affect
me, is a ludicrous chimæra without any true relation to my mental
constitution. But when I acknowledge goodness as my destination, as my
law, I acknowledge it, whether consciously or unconsciously, as my own
nature. Another nature than my own, one different in quality, cannot
touch me. I can perceive sin as sin, only when I perceive it to be a
contradiction of myself with myself--that is, of my personality with
my fundamental nature. As a contradiction of the absolute, considered
as another being, the feeling of sin is inexplicable, unmeaning.
The distinction between Augustinianism and Pelagianism consists only
in this, that the former expresses after the manner of religion what
the latter expresses after the manner of Rationalism. Both say the
same thing, both vindicate the goodness of man; but Pelagianism does it
directly, in a rationalistic and moral form; Augustinianism indirectly,
in a mystical, that is, a religious form. [16] For that which is given
to man's God is in truth given to man himself; what a man declares
concerning God, he in truth declares concerning himself. Augustinianism
would be a truth, and a truth opposed to Pelagianism, only if man
had the devil for his God, and, with the consciousness that he was
the devil, honoured, reverenced, and worshipped him as the highest
being. But so long as man adores a good being as his God, so long
does he contemplate in God the goodness of his own nature.
As with the doctrine of the radical corruption of human nature, so is
it with the identical doctrine, that man can do nothing good, i.e.,
in truth, nothing of himself--by his own strength. For the denial of
human strength and spontaneous moral activity to be true, the moral
activity of God must also be denied; and we must say, with the Oriental
nihilist or pantheist: the Divine being is absolutely without will or
action, indifferent, knowing nothing of the discrimination between evil
and good. But he who defines God as an active being, and not only so,
but as morally active and morally critical,--as a being who loves,
works, and rewards good, punishes, rejects, and condemns evil,--he who
thus defines God only in appearance denies human activity, in fact,
making it the highest, the most real activity. He who makes God act
humanly, declares human activity to be divine; he says: A god who is
not active, and not morally or humanly active, is no god; and thus
he makes the idea of the Godhead dependent on the idea of activity,
that is, of human activity, for a higher he knows not.
Man--this is the mystery of religion--projects his being into
objectivity, [17] and then again makes himself an object to this
projected image of himself thus converted into a subject; he thinks of
himself, is an object to himself, but as the object of an object, of
another being than himself. Thus here. Man is an object to God. That
man is good or evil is not indifferent to God; no! He has a lively,
profound interest in man's being good; he wills that man should be
good, happy--for without goodness there is no happiness. Thus the
religious man virtually retracts the nothingness of human activity,
by making his dispositions and actions an object to God, by making
man the end of God--for that which is an object to the mind is
an end in action; by making the divine activity a means of human
salvation. God acts, that man may be good and happy. Thus man, while
he is apparently humiliated to the lowest degree, is in truth exalted
to the highest. Thus, in and through God, man has in view himself
alone. It is true that man places the aim of his action in God, but
God has no other aim of action than the moral and eternal salvation
of man: thus man has in fact no other aim than himself. The divine
activity is not distinct from the human.
How could the divine activity work on me as its object, nay, work
in me, if it were essentially different from me; how could it have
a human aim, the aim of ameliorating and blessing man, if it were
not itself human? Does not the purpose determine the nature of
the act? When man makes his moral improvement an aim to himself,
he has divine resolutions, divine projects; but also, when God seeks
the salvation of man, he has human ends and a human mode of activity
corresponding to these ends. Thus in God man has only his own activity
as an object. But for the very reason that he regards his own activity
as objective, goodness only as an object, he necessarily receives
the impulse, the motive not from himself, but from this object. He
contemplates his nature as external to himself, and this nature as
goodness; thus it is self-evident, it is mere tautology to say that
the impulse to good comes only from thence where he places the good.
God is the highest subjectivity of man abstracted from himself;
hence man can do nothing of himself, all goodness comes from God. The
more subjective God is, the more completely does man divest himself
of his subjectivity, because God is, per se, his relinquished self,
the possession of which he however again vindicates to himself. As
the action of the arteries drives the blood into the extremities,
and the action of the veins brings it back again, as life in general
consists in a perpetual systole and diastole; so is it in religion. In
the religious systole man propels his own nature from himself, he
throws himself outward; in the religious diastole he receives the
rejected nature into his heart again. God alone is the being who
acts of himself,--this is the force of repulsion in religion; God is
the being who acts in me, with me, through me, upon me, for me, is
the principle of my salvation, of my good dispositions and actions,
consequently my own good principle and nature,--this is the force of
attraction in religion.
The course of religious development which has been generally indicated
consists specifically in this, that man abstracts more and more from
God, and attributes more and more to himself. This is especially
apparent in the belief in revelation. That which to a later age or a
cultured people is given by nature or reason, is to an earlier age,
or to a yet uncultured people, given by God. Every tendency of man,
however natural--even the impulse to cleanliness, was conceived by
the Israelites as a positive divine ordinance. From this example
we again see that God is lowered, is conceived more entirely on
the type of ordinary humanity, in proportion as man detracts from
himself. How can the self-humiliation of man go further than when he
disclaims the capability of fulfilling spontaneously the requirements
of common decency? [18] The Christian religion, on the other hand,
distinguished the impulses and passions of man according to their
quality, their character; it represented only good emotions, good
dispositions, good thoughts, as revelations, operations--that is,
as dispositions, feelings, thoughts,--of God; for what God reveals is
a quality of God himself: that of which the heart is full overflows
the lips; as is the effect such is the cause; as the revelation,
such the being who reveals himself. A God who reveals himself in
good dispositions is a God whose essential attribute is only moral
perfection. The Christian religion distinguishes inward moral purity
from external physical purity; the Israelites identified the two. [19]
In relation to the Israelitish religion, the Christian religion is
one of criticism and freedom. The Israelite trusted himself to do
nothing except what was commanded by God; he was without will even
in external things; the authority of religion extended itself even
to his food. The Christian religion, on the other hand, in all these
external things made man dependent on himself, i.e., placed in man
what the Israelite placed out of himself in God. Israel is the most
complete presentation of Positivism in religion. In relation to the
Israelite, the Christian is an esprit fort, a free-thinker. Thus do
things change. What yesterday was still religion is no longer such
to-day; and what to-day is atheism, to-morrow will be religion.
PART I.
THE TRUE OR ANTHROPOLOGICAL ESSENCE OF RELIGION.
CHAPTER II.
GOD AS A BEING OF THE UNDERSTANDING.
Religion is the disuniting of man from himself; he sets God before him
as the antithesis of himself. God is not what man is--man is not what
God is. God is the infinite, man the finite being; God is perfect,
man imperfect; God eternal, man temporal; God almighty, man weak;
God holy, man sinful. God and man are extremes: God is the absolutely
positive, the sum of all realities; man the absolutely negative,
comprehending all negations.
But in religion man contemplates his own latent nature. Hence it must
be shown that this antithesis, this differencing of God and man, with
which religion begins, is a differencing of man with his own nature.
The inherent necessity of this proof is at once apparent from
this,--that if the divine nature, which is the object of religion,
were really different from the nature of man, a division, a disunion
could not take place. If God is really a different being from myself,
why should his perfection trouble me? Disunion exists only between
beings who are at variance, but who ought to be one, who can be one,
and who consequently in nature, in truth, are one. On this general
ground, then, the nature with which man feels himself in disunion
must be inborn, immanent in himself, but at the same time it must be
of a different character from that nature or power which gives him
the feeling, the consciousness of reconciliation, of union with God,
or, what is the same thing, with himself.
This nature is nothing else than the intelligence--the reason
or the understanding. God as the antithesis of man, as a being
not human, i.e., not personally human, is the objective nature
of the understanding. The pure, perfect divine nature is the
self-consciousness of the understanding, the consciousness which
the understanding has of its own perfection. The understanding
knows nothing of the sufferings of the heart; it has no desires,
no passions, no wants, and, for that reason, no deficiencies and
weaknesses, as the heart has. Men in whom the intellect predominates,
who, with one-sided but all the more characteristic definiteness,
embody and personify for us the nature of the understanding, are free
from the anguish of the heart, from the passions, the excesses of
the man who has strong emotions; they are not passionately interested
in any finite, i.e., particular object; they do not give themselves
in pledge; they are free. "To want nothing, and by this freedom from
wants to become like the immortal gods;"--"not to subject ourselves
to things, but things to us;"--"all is vanity;"--these and similar
sayings are the mottoes of the men who are governed by abstract
understanding. The understanding is that part of our nature which
is neutral, impassible, not to bribed, not subject to illusions--the
pure, passionless light of the intelligence. It is the categorical,
impartial consciousness of the fact as fact, because it is itself of
an objective nature. It is the consciousness of the uncontradictory,
because it is itself the uncontradictory unity, the source of
logical identity. It is the consciousness of law, necessity, rule,
measure, because it is itself the activity of law, the necessity
of the nature of things under the form of spontaneous activity, the
rule of rules, the absolute measure, the measure of measures. Only
by the understanding can man judge and act in contradiction with
his dearest human, that is, personal feelings, when the God of the
understanding,--law, necessity, right,--commands it. The father who,
as a judge, condemns his own son to death because he knows him to be
guilty, can do this only as a rational, not as an emotional being. The
understanding shows us the faults and weaknesses even of our beloved
ones; it shows us even our own. It is for this reason that it so
often throws us into painful collision with ourselves, with our
own hearts. We do not like to give reason the upper hand: we are
too tender to ourselves to carry out the true, but hard, relentless
verdict of the understanding. The understanding is the power which has
relation to species: the heart represents particular circumstances,
individuals,--the understanding, general circumstances, universals;
it is the superhuman, i.e., the impersonal power in man. Only by and
in the understanding has man the power of abstraction from himself,
from his subjective being,--of exalting himself to general ideas
and relations, of distinguishing the object from the impressions
which it produces on his feelings, of regarding it in and by itself
without reference to human personality. Philosophy, mathematics,
astronomy, physics, in short, science in general, is the practical
proof, because it is the product of this truly infinite and divine
activity. Religious anthropomorphisms, therefore, are in contradiction
with the understanding; it repudiates their application to God; it
denies them. But this God, free from anthropomorphisms, impartial,
passionless, is nothing else than the nature of the understanding
itself regarded as objective.
God as God, that is, as a being not finite, not human, not materially
conditioned, not phenomenal, is only an object of thought. He is
the incorporeal, formless, incomprehensible--the abstract, negative
being: he is known, i.e., becomes an object, only by abstraction
and negation (viâ negationis). Why? Because he is nothing but the
objective nature of the thinking power, or in general of the power or
activity, name it what you will, whereby man is conscious of reason,
of mind, of intelligence. There is no other spirit, that is (for the
idea of spirit is simply the idea of thought, of intelligence, of
understanding, every other spirit being a spectre of the imagination),
no other intelligence which man can believe in or conceive than that
intelligence which enlightens him, which is active in him. He can
do nothing more than separate the intelligence from the limitations
of his own individuality. The "infinite spirit," in distinction
from the finite, is therefore nothing else than the intelligence
disengaged from the limits of individuality and corporeality,--for
individuality and corporeality are inseparable,--intelligence posited
in and by itself. God, said the schoolmen, the Christian fathers,
and long before them the heathen philosophers,--God is immaterial
essence, intelligence, spirit, pure understanding. Of God as God no
image can be made; but canst thou frame an image of mind? Has mind a
form? Is not its activity the most inexplicable, the most incapable
of representation? God is incomprehensible; but knowest thou the
nature of the intelligence? Hast thou searched out the mysterious
operation of thought, the hidden nature of self-consciousness? Is not
self-consciousness the enigma of enigmas? Did not the old mystics,
schoolmen, and fathers, long ago compare the incomprehensibility of the
divine nature with that of the human intelligence, and thus, in truth,
identify the nature of God with the nature of man? [20] God as God--as
a purely thinkable being, an object of the intellect--is thus nothing
else than the reason in its utmost intensification become objective
to itself. It is asked what is the understanding or the reason? The
answer is found in the idea of God. Everything must express itself,
reveal itself, make itself objective, affirm itself. God is the
reason expressing, affirming itself as the highest existence. To the
imagination, the reason is the revelation of God; but to the reason,
God is the revelation of the reason; since what reason is, what it can
do, is first made objective in God. God is a need of the intelligence,
a necessary thought--the highest degree of the thinking power. "The
reason cannot rest in sensuous things;" it can find contentment
only when it penetrates to the highest, first necessary being,
which can be an object to the reason alone. Why? Because with the
conception of this being it first completes itself, because only
in the idea of the highest nature is the highest nature of reason
existent, the highest step of the thinking power attained: and it is
a general truth, that we feel a blank, a void, a want in ourselves,
and are consequently unhappy and unsatisfied, so long as we have not
come to the last degree of a power, to that quo nihil majus cogitari
potest,--so long as we cannot bring our inborn capacity for this or
that art, this or that science, to the utmost proficiency. For only in
the highest proficiency is art truly art; only in its highest degree
is thought truly thought, reason. Only when thy thought is God dost
thou truly think, rigorously speaking; for only God is the realised,
consummate, exhausted thinking power. Thus in conceiving God, man first
conceives reason as it truly is, though by means of the imagination
he conceives this divine nature as distinct from reason, because
as a being affected by external things he is accustomed always to
distinguish the object from the conception of it. And here he applies
the same process to the conception of the reason, thus for an existence
in reason, in thought, substituting an existence in space and time,
from which he had, nevertheless, previously abstracted it. God, as
a metaphysical being, is the intelligence satisfied in itself, or
rather, conversely, the intelligence, satisfied in itself, thinking
itself as the absolute being, is God as a metaphysical being. Hence
all metaphysical predicates of God are real predicates only when
they are recognised as belonging to thought, to intelligence, to
the understanding.
The understanding is that which conditionates and co-ordinates all
things, that which places all things in reciprocal dependence and
connection, because it is itself immediate and unconditioned; it
inquires for the cause of all things, because it has its own ground
and end in itself. Only that which itself is nothing deduced, nothing
derived, can deduce and construct, can regard all besides itself as
derived; just as only that which exists for its own sake can view
and treat other things as means and instruments. The understanding
is thus the original, primitive being. The understanding derives all
things from God as the first cause; it finds the world, without an
intelligent cause, given over to senseless, aimless chance; that is,
it finds only in itself, in its own nature, the efficient and the final
cause of the world--the existence of the world is only then clear and
comprehensible when it sees the explanation of that existence in the
source of all clear and intelligible ideas, i.e., in itself. The being
that works with design towards certain ends, i.e., with understanding,
is alone the being that to the understanding has immediate certitude,
self-evidence. Hence that which of itself has no designs, no purpose,
must have the cause of its existence in the design of another, and
that an intelligent being. And thus the understanding posits its own
nature as the causal, first, premundane existence--i.e., being in rank
the first but in time the last, it makes itself the first in time also.
The understanding is to itself the criterion of all reality. That which
is opposed to the understanding, that which is self-contradictory,
is nothing; that which contradicts reason contradicts God. For
example, it is a contradiction of reason to connect with the idea
of the highest reality the limitations of definite time and place;
and hence reason denies these of God as contradicting his nature. The
reason can only believe in a God who is accordant with its own nature,
in a God who is not beneath its own dignity, who, on the contrary,
is a realisation of its own nature: i.e., the reason believes only
in itself, in the absolute reality of its own nature. The reason
is not dependent on God, but God on the reason. Even in the age
of miracles and faith in authority, the understanding constitutes
itself, at least formally, the criterion of divinity. God is all
and can do all, it was said, by virtue of his omnipotence; but
nevertheless he is nothing and he can do nothing which contradicts
himself, i.e., reason. Even omnipotence cannot do what is contrary
to reason. Thus above the divine omnipotence stands the higher power
of reason; above the nature of God the nature of the understanding,
as the criterion of that which is to be affirmed and denied of God,
the criterion of the positive and negative. Canst thou believe in
a God who is an unreasonable and wicked being? No, indeed; but why
not? Because it is in contradiction with thy understanding to accept a
wicked and unreasonable being as divine. What then dost thou affirm,
what is an object to thee, in God? Thy own understanding. God is thy
highest idea, the supreme effort of thy understanding, thy highest
power of thought. God is the sum of all realities, i.e., the sum of
all affirmations of the understanding. That which I recognise in the
understanding as essential I place in God as existent: God is what
the understanding thinks as the highest. But in what I perceive to
be essential is revealed the nature of my understanding, is shown
the power of my thinking faculty.
Thus the understanding is the ens realissimum, the most real being
of the old onto-theology. "Fundamentally," says onto-theology, "we
cannot conceive God otherwise than by attributing to him without
limit all the real qualities which we find in ourselves." [21]
Our positive, essential qualities, our realities, are therefore
the realities of God, but in us they exist with, in God without,
limits. But what then withdraws the limits from the realities,
what does away with the limits? The understanding. What, according
to this, is the nature conceived without limits, but the nature of
the understanding releasing, abstracting itself from all limits? As
thou thinkest God, such is thy thought;--the measure of thy God is
the measure of thy understanding. If thou conceivest God as limited,
thy understanding is limited; if thou conceivest God as unlimited,
thy understanding is unlimited; If, for example, thou conceivest God
as a corporeal being, corporeality is the boundary, the limit of thy
understanding; thou canst conceive nothing without a body. If, on the
contrary, thou deniest corporeality of God, this is a corroboration
and proof of the freedom of thy understanding from the limitation of
corporeality. In the unlimited divine nature thou representest only
thy unlimited understanding. And when thou declarest this unlimited
being the ultimate essence, the highest being, thou sayest in reality
nothing else than this: the être suprême, the highest being, is the
understanding.
The understanding is further the self-subsistent and independent
being. That which has no understanding is not self-subsistent, is
dependent. A man without understanding is a man without will. He who
has no understanding allows himself to be deceived, imposed upon,
used as an instrument by others. How shall he whose understanding
is the tool of another have an independent will? Only he who thinks
is free and independent. It is only by the understanding that man
reduces the things around and beneath him to mere means of his own
existence. In general, that only is self-subsistent and independent
which is an end to itself, an object to itself. That which is an end
and object to itself is for that very reason--in so far as it is an
object to itself--no longer a means and object for another being. To
be without understanding is, in one word, to exist for another,--to
be an object: to have understanding is to exist for oneself,--to
be a subject. But that which no longer exists for another, but for
itself, rejects all dependence on another being. It is true we, as
physical beings, depend on the beings external to us, even as to the
modifications of thought; but in so far as we think, in the activity of
the understanding as such, we are dependent on no other being. Activity
of thought is spontaneous activity. "When I think, I am conscious that
my ego in me thinks, and not some other thing. I conclude, therefore,
that this thinking in me does not inhere in another thing outside of
me, but in myself, consequently that I am a substance, i.e., that I
exist by myself, without being a predicate of another being." [22]
Although we always need the air, yet as natural philosophers we
convert the air from an object of our physical need into an object
of the self-sufficing activity of thought, i.e., into a mere thing
for us. In breathing I am the object of the air, the air the subject;
but when I make the air an object of thought, of investigation, when
I analyse it, I reverse this relation,--I make myself the subject,
the air an object. But that which is the object of another being is
dependent. Thus the plant is dependent on air and light, that is,
it is an object for air, and light, not for itself. It is true that
air and light are reciprocally an object for the plant. Physical
life in general is nothing else than this perpetual interchange
of the objective and subjective relation. We consume the air and
are consumed by it; we enjoy and are enjoyed. The understanding
alone enjoys all things without being itself enjoyed; it is the
self-enjoying, self-sufficing existence--the absolute subject--the
subject which cannot be reduced to the object of another being,
because it makes all things objects, predicates of itself,--which
comprehends all things in itself, because it is itself not a thing,
because it is free from all things.
That is dependent the possibility of whose existence lies out
of itself; that is independent which has the possibility of its
existence in itself. Life therefore involves the contradiction of
an existence at once dependent and independent,--the contradiction
that its possibility lies both in itself and out of itself. The
understanding alone is free from this and other contradictions of
life; it is the essence perfectly self-subsistent, perfectly at one
with itself, perfectly self-existent. [23] Thinking is existence in
self; life, as differenced from thought, existence out of self: life
is to give from oneself; thought is to take into oneself. Existence
out of self is the world; existence in self is God. To think is to
be God. The act of thought, as such, is the freedom of the immortal
gods from all external limitations and necessities of life.
The unity of the understanding is the unity of God. To the
understanding the consciousness of its unity and universality
is essential; the understanding is itself nothing else than the
consciousness of itself as absolute identity, i.e., that which is
accordant with the understanding is to it an absolute, universally
valid, law; it is impossible to the understanding to think that what
is self-contradictory, false, irrational, can anywhere be true, and,
conversely, that what is true, rational, can anywhere be false and
irrational. "There may be intelligent beings who are not like me,
and yet I am certain that there are no intelligent beings who know
laws and truths different from those which I recognise; for every
mind necessarily sees that two and two make four, and that one must
prefer one's friend to one's dog." [24] Of an essentially different
understanding from that which affirms itself in man, I have not the
remotest conception, the faintest adumbration. On the contrary,
every understanding which I posit as different from my own, is
only a position of my own understanding, i.e., an idea of my own, a
conception which falls within my power of thought, and thus expresses
my understanding. What I think, that I myself do, of course only in
purely intellectual matters; what I think of as united, I unite; what
I think of as distinct, I distinguish; what I think of as abolished,
as negatived, that I myself abolish and negative. For example, if
I conceive an understanding in which the intuition or reality of
the object is immediately united with the thought of it, I actually
unite it; my understanding or my imagination is itself the power of
uniting these distinct or opposite ideas. How would it be possible
for me to conceive them united--whether this conception be clear or
confused--if I did not unite them in myself? But whatever may be the
conditions of the understanding which a given human individual may
suppose as distinguished from his own, this other understanding is only
the understanding which exists in man in general--the understanding
conceived apart from the limits of this particular individual. Unity is
involved in the idea of the understanding. The impossibility for the
understanding to think two supreme beings, two infinite substances,
two Gods, is the impossibility for the understanding to contradict
itself, to deny its own nature, to think of itself as divided.
The understanding is the infinite being. Infinitude is immediately
involved in unity, and finiteness in plurality. Finiteness--in the
metaphysical sense--rests on the distinction of the existence from
the essence, of the individual from the species; infinitude, on the
unity of existence and essence. Hence, that is finite which can be
compared with other beings of the same species; that is infinite
which has nothing like itself, which consequently does not stand as
an individual under a species, but is species and individual in one,
essence and existence in one. But such is the understanding; it has
its essence in itself, consequently it has nothing, together with or
external to itself, which can be ranged beside it; it is incapable of
being compared, because it is itself the source of all combinations
and comparisons; immeasurable, because it is the measure of all
measures,--we measure all things by the understanding alone; it can
be circumscribed by no higher generalisation, it can be ranged under
no species, because it is itself the principle of all generalising, of
all classification, because it circumscribes all things and beings. The
definitions which the speculative philosophers and theologians give
of God, as the being in whom existence and essence are not separable,
who himself is all the attributes which he has, so that predicate
and subject are with him identical,--all these definitions are thus
ideas drawn solely from the nature of the understanding.
Lastly, the understanding or the reason is the necessary being. Reason
exists because only the existence of the reason is reason; because,
if there were no reason, no consciousness, all would be nothing;
existence would be equivalent to non-existence. Consciousness first
founds the distinction between existence and non-existence. In
consciousness is first revealed the value of existence, the value
of nature. Why, in general, does something exist? why does the world
exist? on the simple ground that if something did not exist, nothing
would exist; if reason did not exist, there would be only unreason;
thus the world exists because it is an absurdity that the world should
not exist. In the absurdity of its non-existence is found the true
reason of its existence, in the groundlessness of the supposition
that it were not the reason that it is. Nothing, non-existence,
is aimless, nonsensical, irrational. Existence alone has an aim,
a foundation, rationality; existence is, because only existence is
reason and truth; existence is the absolute necessity. What is the
cause of conscious existence, of life? The need of life. But to whom
is it a need? To that which does not live. It is not a being who saw
that made the eye: to one who saw already, to what purpose would be
the eye? No! only the being who saw not needed the eye. We are all
come into the world without the operation of knowledge and will; but
we are come that knowledge and will may exist. Whence, then, came the
world? Out of necessity; not out of a necessity which lies in another
being distinct from itself--that is a pure contradiction,--but out of
its own inherent necessity; out of the necessity of necessity; because
without the world there would be no necessity; without necessity, no
reason, no understanding. The nothing, out of which the world came,
is nothing without the world. It is true that thus, negativity,
as the speculative philosophers express themselves--nothing is the
cause of the world;--but a nothing which abolishes itself, i.e., a
nothing which could not have existed if there had been no world. It
is true that the world springs out of a want, out of privation, but
it is false speculation to make this privation an ontological being:
this want is simply the want which lies in the supposed non-existence
of the world. Thus the world is only necessary out of itself and
through itself. But the necessity of the world is the necessity of
reason. The reason, as the sum of all realities,--for what are all the
glories of the world without light, much more external light without
internal light?--the reason is the most indispensable being--the
profoundest and most essential necessity. In the reason first lies
the self-consciousness of existence, self-conscious existence; in the
reason is first revealed the end, the meaning of existence. Reason is
existence objective to itself as its own end; the ultimate tendency
of things. That which is an object to itself is the highest, the
final being; that which has power over itself is almighty.
CHAPTER III.
GOD AS A MORAL BEING, OR LAW.
God as God--the infinite, universal, non-anthropomorphic being of the
understanding, has no more significance for religion than a fundamental
general principle has for a special science; it is merely the ultimate
point of support,--as it were, the mathematical point of religion. The
consciousness of human limitation or nothingness which is united with
the idea of this being, is by no means a religious consciousness;
on the contrary, it characterises sceptics, materialists, and
pantheists. The belief in God--at least in the God of religion--is
only lost where, as in scepticism, pantheism, and materialism, the
belief in man is lost, at least in man such as he is presupposed in
religion. As little then as religion has any influential belief in the
nothingness of man, [25] so little has it any influential belief in
that abstract being with which the consciousness of this nothingness
is united. The vital elements of religion are those only which make
man an object to man. To deny man is to deny religion.
It certainly is the interest of religion that its object should
be distinct from man; but it is also, nay, yet more, its interest
that this object should have human attributes. That he should be
a distinct being concerns his existence only; but that he should
be human concerns his essence. If he be of a different nature, how
can his existence or non-existence be of any importance to man? How
can he take so profound an interest in an existence in which his own
nature has no participation?
To give an example. "When I believe that the human nature alone
has suffered for me, Christ is a poor Saviour to me: in that case,
he needs a Saviour himself." And thus, out of the need for salvation
is postulated something transcending human nature, a being different
from man. But no sooner is this being postulated than there arises
the yearning of man after himself, after his own nature, and man
is immediately re-established. "Here is God, who is not man and
never yet became man. But this is not a God for me.... That would
be a miserable Christ to me, who ... should be nothing but a purely
separate God and divine person ... without humanity. No, my friend;
where thou givest me God, thou must give me humanity too." [26]
In religion man seeks contentment; religion is his highest good. But
how could he find consolation and peace in God if God were an
essentially different being? How can I share the peace of a being if
I am not of the same nature with him? If his nature is different from
mine, his peace is essentially different,--it is no peace for me. How
then can I become a partaker of his peace if I am not a partaker of
his nature? but how can I be a partaker of his nature if I am really
of a different nature? Every being experiences peace only in its own
element, only in the conditions of its own nature. Thus, if man feels
peace in God, he feels it only because in God he first attains his
true nature, because here, for the first time, he is with himself,
because everything in which he hitherto sought peace, and which he
hitherto mistook for his nature, was alien to him. Hence, if man
is to find contentment in God, he must find himself in God. "No one
will taste of God but as he wills, namely--in the humanity of Christ;
and if thou dost not find God thus, thou wilt never have rest." [27]
"Everything finds rest on the place in which it was born. The place
where I was born is God. God is my fatherland. Have I a father in
God? Yes, I have not only a father, but I have myself in him; before
I lived in myself, I lived already in God." [28]
A God, therefore, who expresses only the nature of the understanding
does not satisfy religion, is not the God of religion. The
understanding is interested not only in man, but in the things out of
man, in universal nature. The intellectual man forgets even himself
in the contemplation of nature. The Christians scorned the pagan
philosophers because, instead of thinking of themselves, of their
own salvation, they had thought only of things out of themselves. The
Christian thinks only of himself. By the understanding an insect is
contemplated with as much enthusiasm as the image of God--man. The
understanding is the absolute indifference and identity of all things
and beings. It is not Christianity, not religious enthusiasm, but the
enthusiasm of the understanding that we have to thank for botany,
mineralogy, zoology, physics, and astronomy. The understanding
is universal, pantheistic, the love of the universe; but the grand
characteristic of religion, and of the Christian religion especially,
is that it is thoroughly anthropotheistic, the exclusive love of man
for himself, the exclusive self-affirmation of the human nature, that
is, of subjective human nature; for it is true that the understanding
also affirms the nature of man, but it is his objective nature,
which has reference to the object for the sake of the object, and
the manifestation of which is science. Hence it must be something
entirely different from the nature of the understanding which is
an object to man in religion, if he is to find contentment therein,
and this something will necessarily be the very kernel of religion.
Of all the attributes which the understanding assigns to God, that
which in religion, and especially in the Christian religion, has
the pre-eminence, is moral perfection. But God as a morally perfect
being is nothing else than the realised idea, the fulfilled law of
morality, the moral nature of man posited as the absolute being;
man's own nature, for the moral God requires man to be as he himself
is: Be ye holy for I am holy; man's own conscience, for how could he
otherwise tremble before the Divine Being, accuse himself before him,
and make him the judge of his inmost thoughts and feelings?
But the consciousness of the absolutely perfect moral nature,
especially as an abstract being separate from man, leaves us cold
and empty, because we feel the distance, the chasm between ourselves
and this being;--it is a dispiriting consciousness, for it is the
consciousness of our personal nothingness, and of the kind which is
the most acutely felt--moral nothingness. The consciousness of the
divine omnipotence and eternity in opposition to my limitation in
space and time does not afflict me: for omnipotence does not command
me to be myself omnipotent, eternity, to be myself eternal. But I
cannot have the idea of moral perfection without at the same time
being conscious of it as a law for me. Moral perfection depends,
at least for the moral consciousness, not on the nature, but on the
will--it is a perfection of will, perfect will. I cannot conceive
perfect will, the will which is in unison with law, which is itself
law, without at the same time regarding it is an object of will, i.e.,
as an obligation for myself. The conception of the morally perfect
being is no merely theoretical, inert conception, but a practical
one, calling me to action, to imitation, throwing me into strife,
into disunion with myself; for while it proclaims to me what I ought
to be, it also tells me to my face, without any flattery, what I am
not. [29] And religion renders this disunion all the more painful,
all the more terrible, that it sets man's own nature before him as
a separate nature, and moreover as a personal being, who hates and
curses sinners, and excludes them from his grace, the source of all
salvation and happiness.
Now, by what means does man deliver himself from this state of disunion
between himself and the perfect being, from the painful consciousness
of sin, from the distressing sense of his own nothingness? How does
he blunt the fatal sting of sin? Only by this; that he is conscious of
love as the highest, the absolute power and truth, that he regards the
Divine Being not only as a law, as a moral being, as a being of the
understanding; but also as a loving, tender, even subjective human
being (that is, as having sympathy with individual man).
The understanding judges only according to the stringency of law; the
heart accommodates itself, is considerate, lenient, relenting, kat'
anthropon. No man is sufficient for the law which moral perfection
sets before us; but, for that reason, neither is the law sufficient for
man, for the heart. The law condemns; the heart has compassion even on
the sinner. The law affirms me only as an abstract being,--love, as a
real being. Love gives me the consciousness that I am a man; the law
only the consciousness that I am a sinner, that I am worthless. [30]
The law holds man in bondage; love makes him free.
Love is the middle term, the substantial bond, the principle of
reconciliation between the perfect and the imperfect, the sinless and
sinful being, the universal and the individual, the divine and the
human. Love is God himself, and apart from it there is no God. Love
makes man God and God man. Love strengthens the weak and weakens the
strong, abases the high and raises the lowly, idealises matter and
materialises spirit. Love is the true unity of God and man, of spirit
and nature. In love common nature is spirit, and the pre-eminent spirit
is nature. Love is to deny spirit from the point of view of spirit,
to deny matter from the point of view of matter. Love is materialism;
immaterial love is a chimæra. In the longing of love after the distant
object, the abstract idealist involuntarily confirms the truth of
sensuousness. But love is also the idealism of nature--love is also
spirit, esprit. Love alone makes the nightingale a songstress; love
alone gives the plant its corolla. And what wonders does not love
work in our social life! What faith, creed, opinion separates, love
unites. Love even, humorously enough, identifies the high noblesse with
the people. What the old mystics said of God, that he is the highest
and yet the commonest being, applies in truth to love, and that not
a visionary, imaginary love--no! a real love, a love which has flesh
and blood, which vibrates as an almighty force through all living.
Yes, it applies only to the love which has flesh and blood, for
only this can absolve from the sins which flesh and blood commit. A
merely moral being cannot forgive what is contrary to the law of
morality. That which denies the law is denied by the law. The moral
judge, who does not infuse human blood into his judgment judges
the sinner relentlessly, inexorably. Since, then, God is regarded
as a sin-pardoning being, he is posited, not indeed as an unmoral,
but as more than a moral being--in a word, as a human being. The
negation or annulling of sin is the negation of abstract moral
rectitude,--the positing of love, mercy, sensuous life. Not abstract
beings--no! only sensuous, living beings are merciful. Mercy is the
justice of sensuous life. [31] Hence God does not forgive the sins
of men as the abstract God of the understanding, but as man, as the
God made flesh, the visible God. God as man sins not, it is true, but
he knows, he takes on himself, the sufferings, the wants, the needs
of sensuous beings. The blood of Christ cleanses us from our sins in
the eyes of God; it is only his human blood that makes God merciful,
allays his anger; that is, our sins are forgiven us because we are
no abstract beings, but creatures of flesh and blood. [32]
CHAPTER IV.
THE MYSTERY OF THE INCARNATION; OR, GOD AS LOVE, AS A BEING OF
THE HEART.
It is the consciousness of love by which man reconciles himself with
God, or rather with his own nature as represented in the moral law. The
consciousness of the divine love, or what is the same thing, the
contemplation of God as human, is the mystery of the Incarnation. The
Incarnation is nothing else than the practical, material manifestation
of the human nature of God. God did not become man for his own sake;
the need, the want of man--a want which still exists in the religious
sentiment--was the cause of the Incarnation. God became man out of
mercy: thus he was in himself already a human God before he became
an actual man; for human want, human misery, went to his heart. The
Incarnation was a tear of the divine compassion, and hence it was only
the visible advent of a Being having human feelings, and therefore
essentially human.
If in the Incarnation we stop short at the fact of God becoming
man, it certainly appears a surprising, inexplicable, marvellous
event. But the incarnate God is only the apparent manifestation of
deified man; for the descent of God to man is necessarily preceded by
the exaltation of man to God. Man was already in God, was already God
himself, before God became man, i.e., showed himself as man. [33] How
otherwise could God have become man? The old maxim, ex nihilo nihil
fit, is applicable here also. A king who has not the welfare of his
subjects at heart, who, while seated on his throne, does not mentally
live with them in their dwellings, who, in feeling, is not, as the
people say, "a common man," such a king will not descend bodily from
his throne to make his people happy by his personal presence. Thus,
has not the subject risen to be a king before the king descends to be
a subject? And if the subject feels himself honoured and made happy
by the personal presence of his king, does this feeling refer merely
to the bodily presence, and not rather to the manifestation of the
disposition, of the philanthropic nature which is the cause of the
appearance? But that which in the truth of religion is the cause,
takes in the consciousness of religion the form of a consequence;
and so here the raising of man to God is made a consequence of the
humiliation or descent of God to man. God, says religion, made himself
human that he might make man divine. [34]
That which is mysterious and incomprehensible, i.e., contradictory,
in the proposition, "God is or becomes a man," arises only from the
mingling or confusion of the idea or definitions of the universal,
unlimited, metaphysical being with the idea of the religious God,
i.e., the conditions of the understanding with the conditions of
the heart, the emotive nature; a confusion which is the greatest
hindrance to the correct knowledge of religion. But, in fact, the
idea of the Incarnation is nothing more than the human form of a God,
who already in his nature, in the profoundest depths of his soul,
is a merciful and therefore a human God.
The form given to this truth in the doctrine of the Church is, that
it was not the first person of the Godhead who was incarnate, but the
second, who is the representative of man in and before God; the second
person being however in reality, as will be shown, the sole, true,
first person in religion. And it is only apart from this distinction
of persons that the God-man appears mysterious, incomprehensible,
"speculative;" for, considered in connection with it, the Incarnation
is a necessary, nay, a self-evident consequence. The allegation,
therefore, that the Incarnation is a purely empirical fact, which could
be made known only by means of a revelation in the theological sense,
betrays the most crass religious materialism; for the Incarnation is
a conclusion which rests on a very comprehensible premiss. But it is
equally perverse to attempt to deduce the Incarnation from purely
speculative, i.e., metaphysical, abstract grounds; for metaphysics
apply only to the first person of the Godhead, who does not become
incarnate, who is not a dramatic person. Such a deduction would at
the utmost be justifiable if it were meant consciously to deduce from
metaphysics the negation of metaphysics.
This example clearly exhibits the distinction between the method of our
philosophy and that of the old speculative philosophy. The former does
not philosophise concerning the Incarnation, as a peculiar, stupendous
mystery, after the manner of speculation dazzled by mystical splendour;
on the contrary, it destroys the illusive supposition of a peculiar
supernatural mystery; it criticises the dogma and reduces it to its
natural elements, immanent in man, to its originating principle and
central point--love.
The dogma presents to us two things--God and love. God is love: but
what does that mean? Is God something besides love? a being distinct
from love? Is it as if I said of an affectionate human being, he
is love itself? Certainly; otherwise I must give up the name God,
which expresses a special personal being, a subject in distinction
from the predicate. Thus love is made something apart. God out of
love sent his only-begotten Son. Here love recedes and sinks into
insignificance in the dark background--God. It becomes merely a
personal, though an essential, attribute; hence it receives both in
theory and in feeling, both objectively and subjectively, the rank
simply of a predicate, not that of a subject, of the substance;
it shrinks out of observation as a collateral, an accident; at one
moment it presents itself to me as something essential, at another,
it vanishes again. God appears to me in another form besides that of
love; in the form of omnipotence, of a severe power not bound by love;
a power in which, though in a smaller degree, the devils participate.
So long as love is not exalted into a substance, into an essence, so
long there lurks in the background of love a subject who even without
love is something by himself, an unloving monster, a diabolical being,
whose personality, separable and actually separated from love, delights
in the blood of heretics and unbelievers,--the phantom of religious
fanaticism. Nevertheless the essential idea of the Incarnation,
though enveloped in the night of the religious consciousness, is
love. Love determined God to the renunciation of his divinity. [35]
Not because of his Godhead as such, according to which he is the
subject in the proposition, God is love, but because of his love,
of the predicate, is it that he renounced his Godhead; thus love is
a higher power and truth than deity. Love conquers God. It was love
to which God sacrificed his divine majesty. And what sort of love
was that? another than ours? than that to which we sacrifice life
and fortune? Was it the love of himself? of himself as God? No! it
was love to man. But is not love to man human love? Can I love man
without loving him humanly, without loving him as he himself loves,
if he truly loves? Would not love be otherwise a devilish love? The
devil too loves man, but not for man's sake--for his own; thus
he loves man out of egotism, to aggrandise himself, to extend his
power. But God loves man for man's sake, i.e., that he may make him
good, happy, blessed. Does he not then love man as the true man loves
his fellow? Has love a plural? Is it not everywhere like itself? What
then is the true unfalsified import of the Incarnation but absolute,
pure love, without adjunct, without a distinction between divine and
human love? For though there is also a self-interested love among
men, still the true human love, which is alone worthy of this name,
is that which impels the sacrifice of self to another. Who then is our
Saviour and Redeemer? God or Love? Love; for God as God has not saved
us, but Love, which transcends the difference between the divine and
human personality. As God has renounced himself out of love, so we,
out of love, should renounce God; for if we do not sacrifice God to
love, we sacrifice love to God, and, in spite of the predicate of love,
we have the God--the evil being--of religious fanaticism.
While, however, we have laid open this nucleus of truth in the
Incarnation, we have at the same time exhibited the dogma in its
falsity; we have reduced the apparently supernatural and super-rational
mystery to a simple truth inherent in human nature:--a truth which
does not belong to the Christian religion alone, but which, implicitly
at least, belongs more or less to every religion as such. For every
religion which has any claim to the name presupposes that God is not
indifferent to the beings who worship him, that therefore what is
human is not alien to him, that, as an object of human veneration, he
is a human God. Every prayer discloses the secret of the Incarnation,
every prayer is in fact an incarnation of God. In prayer I involve
God in human distress, I make him a participator in my sorrows and
wants. God is not deaf to my complaints; he has compassion on me;
hence he renounces his divine majesty, his exaltation above all that is
finite and human; he becomes a man with man; for if he listens to me,
and pities me, he is affected by my sufferings. God loves man--i.e.,
God suffers from man. Love does not exist without sympathy, sympathy
does not exist without suffering in common. Have I any sympathy for
a being without feeling? No! I feel only for that which has feeling,
only for that which partakes of my nature, for that in which I feel
myself, whose sufferings I myself suffer. Sympathy presupposes a like
nature. The Incarnation, Providence, prayer, are the expression of
this identity of nature in God and man. [36]
It is true that theology, which is pre-occupied with the metaphysical
attributes of eternity, unconditionedness, unchangeableness,
and the like abstractions, which express the nature of the
understanding,--theology denies the possibility that God should
suffer, but in so doing it denies the truth of religion. [37] For
religion--the religious man in the act of devotion believes in a real
sympathy of the divine being in his sufferings and wants, believes
that the will of God can be determined by the fervour of prayer, i.e.,
by the force of feeling, believes in a real, present fulfilment of
his desire, wrought by prayer. The truly religious man unhesitatingly
assigns his own feelings to God; God is to him a heart susceptible
to all that is human. The heart can betake itself only to the heart;
feeling can appeal only to feeling; it finds consolation in itself,
in its own nature alone.
The notion that the fulfilment of prayer has been determined from
eternity, that it was originally included in the plan of creation,
is the empty, absurd fiction of a mechanical mode of thought, which
is in absolute contradiction with the nature of religion. "We need,"
says Lavater somewhere, and quite correctly according to the religious
sentiment, "an arbitrary God." Besides, even according to this fiction,
God is just as much a being determined by man, as in the real, present
fulfilment consequent on the power of prayer; the only difference is,
that the contradiction with the unchangeableness and unconditionedness
of God--that which constitutes the difficulty--is thrown back into the
deceptive distance of the past or of eternity. Whether God decides
on the fulfilment of my prayer now, on the immediate occasion of my
offering it, or whether he did decide on it long ago, is fundamentally
the same thing.
It is the greatest inconsequence to reject the idea of a God who
can be determined by prayer, that is, by the force of feeling, as an
unworthy anthropomorphic idea. If we once believe in a being who is
an object of veneration, an object of prayer, an object of affection,
who is providential, who takes care of man,--in a Providence, which is
not conceivable without love,--in a being, therefore, who is loving,
whose motive of action is love; we also believe in a being, who has,
if not an anatomical, yet a psychical human heart. The religious mind,
as has been said, places everything in God, excepting that alone which
it despises. The Christians certainly gave their God no attributes
which contradicted their own moral ideas, but they gave him without
hesitation, and of necessity, the emotions of love, of compassion. And
the love which the religious mind places in God is not an illusory,
imaginary love, but a real, true love. God is loved and loves again;
the divine love is only human love made objective, affirming itself. In
God love is absorbed in itself as its own ultimate truth.
It may be objected to the import here assigned to the Incarnation,
that the Christian Incarnation is altogether peculiar, that at least
it is different (which is quite true in certain respects, as will
hereafter be apparent) from the incarnations of the heathen deities,
whether Greek or Indian. These latter are mere products of men or
deified men; but in Christianity is given the idea of the true God;
here the union of the divine nature with the human is first significant
and "speculative." Jupiter transforms himself into a bull; the heathen
incarnations are mere fancies. In paganism there is no more in the
nature of God than in his incarnate manifestation; in Christianity,
on the contrary, it is God, a separate, superhuman being, who appears
as man. But this objection is refuted by the remark already made,
that even the premiss of the Christian Incarnation contains the human
nature. God loves man; moreover God has a Son; God is a father; the
relations of humanity are not excluded from God; the human is not
remote from God, not unknown to him. Thus here also there is nothing
more in the nature of God than in the incarnate manifestation of
God. In the Incarnation religion only confesses, what in reflection
on itself, as theology, it will not admit; namely, that God is an
altogether human being. The Incarnation, the mystery of the "God-man,"
is therefore no mysterious composition of contraries, no synthetic
fact, as it is regarded by the speculative religious philosophy,
which has a particular delight in contradiction; it is an analytic
fact,--a human word with a human meaning. If there be a contradiction
here, it lies before the incarnation and out of it; in the union of
providence, of love, with deity; for if this love is a real love,
it is not essentially different from our love,--there are only our
limitations to be abstracted from it; and thus the Incarnation is only
the strongest, deepest, most palpable, open-hearted expression of this
providence, this love. Love knows not how to make its object happier
than by rejoicing it with its personal presence, by letting itself be
seen. To see the invisible benefactor face to face is the most ardent
desire of love. To see is a divine act. Happiness lies in the mere
sight of the beloved one. The glance is the certainty of love. And
the Incarnation has no other significance, no other effect, than the
indubitable certitude of the love of God to man. Love remains, but the
Incarnation upon the earth passes away: the appearance was limited by
time and place, accessible to few; but the essence, the nature which
was manifested, is eternal and universal. We can no longer believe
in the manifestation for its own sake, but only for the sake of the
thing manifested; for to us there remains no immediate presence but
that of love.
The clearest, most irrefragable proof that man in religion contemplates
himself as the object of the Divine Being, as the end of the divine
activity, that thus in religion he has relation only to his own nature,
only to himself,--the clearest, most irrefragable proof of this is
the love of God to man, the basis and central point of religion. God,
for the sake of man, empties himself of his Godhead, lays aside his
Godhead. Herein lies the elevating influence of the Incarnation; the
highest, the perfect being humiliates, lowers himself for the sake
of man. Hence in God I learn to estimate my own nature; I have value
in the sight of God; the divine significance of my nature is become
evident to me. How can the worth of man be more strongly expressed
than when God, for man's sake, becomes a man, when man is the end,
the object of the divine love? The love of God to man is an essential
condition of the Divine Being: God is a God who loves me--who loves
man in general. Here lies the emphasis, the fundamental feeling of
religion. The love of God makes me loving; the love of God to man is
the cause of man's love to God; the divine love causes, awakens human
love. "We love God because he first loved us." What, then, is it that I
love in God? Love: love to man. But when I love and worship the love
with which God loves man, do I not love man; is not my love of God,
though indirectly, love of man? If God loves man, is not man, then,
the very substance of God? That which I love, is it not my inmost
being? Have I a heart when I do not love? No! love only is the heart
of man. But what is love without the thing loved? Thus what I love is
my heart, the substance of my being, my nature. Why does man grieve,
why does he lose pleasure in life when he has lost the beloved
object? Why? because with the beloved object he has lost his heart,
the activity of his affections, the principle of life. Thus if God
loves man, man is the heart of God--the welfare of man his deepest
anxiety. If man, then, is the object of God, is not man, in God,
an object to himself? is not the content of the divine nature the
human nature? If God is love, is not the essential content of this
love man? Is not the love of God to man--the basis and central point
of religion--the love of man to himself made an object, contemplated
as the highest objective truth, as the highest being to man? Is not
then the proposition, "God loves man" an orientalism (religion is
essentially oriental), which in plain speech means, the highest is
the love of man?
The truth to which, by means of analysis, we have here reduced the
mystery of the Incarnation, has also been recognised even in the
religious consciousness. Thus Luther, for example, says, "He who
can truly conceive such a thing (namely, the incarnation of God)
in his heart, should, for the sake of the flesh and blood which
sits at the right hand of God, bear love to all flesh and blood here
upon the earth, and never more be able to be angry with any man. The
gentle manhood of Christ our God should at a glance fill all hearts
with joy, so that never more could an angry, unfriendly thought come
therein--yea, every man ought, out of great joy, to be tender to his
fellow-man for the sake of that our flesh and blood." "This is a fact
which should move us to great joy and blissful hope that we are thus
honoured above all creatures, even above the angels, so that we can
with truth boast, My own flesh and blood sits at the right hand of
God and reigns over all. Such honour has no creature, not even an
angel. This ought to be a furnace that should melt us all into one
heart, and should create such a fervour in us men that we should
heartily love each other." But that which in the truth of religion
is the essence of the fable, the chief thing, is to the religious
consciousness only the moral of the fable, a collateral thing.
CHAPTER V.
THE MYSTERY OF THE SUFFERING GOD.
An essential condition of the incarnate, or, what is the same thing,
the human God, namely, Christ, is the Passion. Love attests itself by
suffering. All thoughts and feelings which are immediately associated
with Christ concentrate themselves in the idea of the Passion. God as
God is the sum of all human perfection; God as Christ is the sum of all
human misery. The heathen philosophers celebrated activity, especially
the spontaneous activity of the intelligence, as the highest, the
divine; the Christians consecrated passivity, even placing it in
God. If God as actus purus, as pure activity, is the God of abstract
philosophy; so, on the other hand, Christ, the God of the Christians,
is the passio pura, pure suffering--the highest metaphysical thought,
the être suprême of the heart. For what makes more impression on the
heart than suffering? especially the suffering of one who considered
in himself is free from suffering, exalted above it;--the suffering
of the innocent, endured purely for the good of others, the suffering
of love,--self-sacrifice? But for the very reason that the history
of the Passion is the history which most deeply affects the human
heart, or let us rather say the heart in general--for it would be a
ludicrous mistake in man to attempt to conceive any other heart than
the human,--it follows undeniably that nothing else is expressed in
that history, nothing else is made an object in it, but the nature
of the heart,--that it is not an invention of the understanding
or the poetic faculty, but of the heart. The heart, however, does
not invent in the same way as the free imagination or intelligence;
it has a passive, receptive relation to what it produces; all that
proceeds from it seems to it given from without, takes it by violence,
works with the force of irresistible necessity. The heart overcomes,
masters man; he who is once in its power is possessed as it were by
his demon, by his God. The heart knows no other God, no more excellent
being than itself, than a God whose name may indeed be another, but
whose nature, whose substance is the nature of the heart. And out of
the heart, out of the inward impulse to do good, to live and die for
man, out of the divine instinct of benevolence which desires to make
all happy, and excludes none, not even the most abandoned and abject,
out of the moral duty of benevolence in the highest sense, as having
become an inward necessity, i.e., a movement of the heart,--out of
the human nature, therefore, as it reveals itself through the heart,
has sprung what is best, what is true in Christianity--its essence
purified from theological dogmas and contradictions.
For, according to the principles which we have already developed, that
which in religion is the predicate we must make the subject, and that
which in religion is a subject we must make a predicate, thus inverting
the oracles of religion; and by this means we arrive at the truth. God
suffers--suffering is the predicate--but for men, for others, not for
himself. What does that mean in plain speech? Nothing else than this:
to suffer for others is divine; he who suffers for others, who lays
down his life for them, acts divinely, is a God to men. [38]
The Passion of Christ, however, represents not only moral, voluntary
suffering, the suffering of love, the power of sacrificing self for
the good of others; it represents also suffering as such, suffering
in so far as it is an expression of passibility in general. The
Christian religion is so little superhuman that it even sanctions
human weakness. The heathen philosopher, on hearing tidings of the
death of his child exclaims: "I knew that he was mortal." Christ, on
the contrary,--at least in the Bible,--sheds tears over the death of
Lazarus, a death which he nevertheless knew to be only an apparent
one. While Socrates empties the cup of poison with unshaken soul,
Christ exclaims, "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me." [39]
Christ is in this respect the self-confession of human sensibility. In
opposition to the heathen, and in particular the stoical principle,
with its rigorous energy of will and self-sustainedness, the Christian
involves the consciousness of his own sensitiveness and susceptibility
in the consciousness of God; he finds it, if only it be no sinful
weakness, not denied, not condemned in God.
To suffer is the highest command of Christianity--the history of
Christianity is the history of the Passion of Humanity. While amongst
the heathens the shout of sensual pleasure mingled itself in the
worship of the gods, amongst the Christians, we mean of course the
ancient Christians, God is served with sighs and tears. [40] But as
where sounds of sensual pleasure make a part of the cultus, it is a
sensual God, a God of life, who is worshipped, as indeed these shouts
of joy are only a symbolical definition of the nature of the gods to
whom this jubilation is acceptable; so also the sighs of Christians are
tones which proceed from the inmost soul, the inmost nature of their
God. The God expressed by the cultus, whether this be an external,
or, as with the Christians, an inward spiritual worship,--not the God
of sophistical theology,--is the true God of man. But the Christians,
we mean of course the ancient Christians, believed that they rendered
the highest honour to their God by tears, the tears of repentance and
yearning. Thus tears are the light-reflecting drops which mirror the
nature of the Christian's God. But a God who has pleasure in tears,
expresses nothing else than the nature of the heart. It is true that
the theory of the Christian religion says: Christ has done all for
us, has redeemed us, has reconciled us with God; and from hence the
inference may be drawn: Let us be of a joyful mind and disposition;
what need have we to trouble ourselves as to how we shall reconcile
ourselves with God? we are reconciled already. But the imperfect
tense in which the fact of suffering is expressed makes a deeper,
a more enduring impression, than the perfect tense which expresses
the fact of redemption. The redemption is only the result of the
suffering; the suffering is the cause of the redemption. Hence the
suffering takes deeper root in the feelings; the suffering makes
itself an object of imitation;--not so the redemption. If God himself
suffered for my sake, how can I be joyful, how can I allow myself
any gladness, at least on this corrupt earth, which was the theatre
of his suffering? [41] Ought I to fare better than God? Ought I not,
then, to make his sufferings my own? Is not what God my Lord does my
model? Or shall I share only the gain and not the cost also? Do I know
merely that he has redeemed me? Do I not also know the history of his
suffering? Should it be an object of cold remembrance to me, or even
an object of rejoicing, because it has purchased my salvation? Who
can think so--who can wish to be exempt from the sufferings of his God?
The Christian religion is the religion of suffering. [42] The images of
the crucified one which we still meet with in all churches, represent
not the Saviour, but only the crucified, the suffering Christ. Even
the self-crucifixions among the Christians are, psychologically, a
deep-rooted consequence of their religious views. How should not he
who has always the image of the crucified one in his mind, at length
contract the desire to crucify either himself or another? At least
we have as good a warrant for this conclusion as Augustine and other
fathers of the Church for their reproach against the heathen religion,
that the licentious religious images of the heathens provoked and
authorised licentiousness.
God suffers, means in truth nothing else than: God is a heart. The
heart is the source, the centre of all suffering. A being without
suffering is a being without a heart. The mystery of the suffering
God is therefore the mystery of feeling, sensibility. A suffering
God is a feeling, sensitive God. [43] But the proposition: God is a
feeling Being, is only the religious periphrase of the proposition:
feeling is absolute, divine in its nature.
Man has the consciousness not only of a spring of activity, but also
of a spring of suffering in himself. I feel; and I feel feeling (not
merely will and thought, which are only too often in opposition to me
and my feelings), as belonging to my essential being, and, though the
source of all sufferings and sorrows, as a glorious, divine power and
perfection. What would man be without feeling? It is the musical power
in man. But what would man be without music? Just as man has a musical
faculty and feels an inward necessity to breathe out his feelings
in song; so, by a like necessity, he in religious sighs and tears
streams forth the nature of feeling as an objective, divine nature.
Religion is human nature reflected, mirrored in itself. That which
exists has necessarily a pleasure, a joy in itself, loves itself,
and loves itself justly; to blame it because it loves itself is
to reproach it because it exists. To exist is to assert oneself,
to affirm oneself, to love oneself; he to whom life is a burthen
rids himself of it. Where, therefore, feeling is not depreciated
and repressed, as with the Stoics, where existence is awarded to it,
there also is religious power and significance already conceded to it,
there also is it already exalted to that stage in which it can mirror
and reflect itself, in which it can project its own image as God. God
is the mirror of man.
That which has essential value for man, which he esteems the perfect,
the excellent, in which he has true delight,--that alone is God
to him. If feeling seems to thee a glorious attribute, it is then,
per se, a divine attribute to thee. Therefore, the feeling, sensitive
man believes only in a feeling, sensitive God, i.e., he believes only
in the truth of his own existence and nature, for he can believe in
nothing else than that which is involved in his own nature. His faith
is the consciousness of that which is holy to him; but that alone is
holy to man which lies deepest within him, which is most peculiarly
his own, the basis, the essence of his individuality. To the feeling
man a God without feeling is an empty, abstract, negative God, i.e.,
nothing; because that is wanting to him which is precious and sacred
to man. God is for man the commonplace book where he registers his
highest feelings and thoughts, the genealogical tree on which are
entered the names that are dearest and most sacred to him.
It is a sign of an undiscriminating good-nature, a womanish instinct,
to gather together and then to preserve tenaciously all that we
have gathered, not to trust anything to the waves of forgetfulness,
to the chance of memory, in short not to trust ourselves and learn
to know what really has value for us. The freethinker is liable to
the danger of an unregulated, dissolute life. The religious man who
binds together all things in one, does not lose himself in sensuality;
but for that reason he is exposed to the danger of illiberality, of
spiritual selfishness and greed. Therefore, to the religious man at
least, the irreligious or un-religious man appears lawless, arbitrary,
haughty, frivolous; not because that which is sacred to the former is
not also in itself sacred to the latter, but only because that which
the un-religious man holds in his head merely, the religious man
places out of and above himself as an object, and hence recognises
in himself the relation of a formal subordination. The religious
man having a commonplace book, a nucleus of aggregation, has an aim,
and having an aim he has firm standing-ground. Not mere will as such,
not vague knowledge--only activity with a purpose, which is the union
of theoretic and practical activity, gives man a moral basis and
support, i.e., character. Every man, therefore, must place before
himself a God, i.e., an aim, a purpose. The aim is the conscious,
voluntary, essential impulse of life, the glance of genius, the focus
of self-knowledge,--the unity of the material and spiritual in the
individual man. He who has an aim has a law over him; he does not
merely guide himself; he is guided. He who has no aim, has no home,
no sanctuary; aimlessness is the greatest unhappiness. Even he who has
only common aims gets on better, though he may not be better, than
he who has no aim. An aim sets limits; but limits are the mentors
of virtue. He who has an aim, an aim which is in itself true and
essential, has, eo ipso, a religion, if not in the narrow sense of
common pietism, yet--and this is the only point to be considered--in
the sense of reason, in the sense of the universal, the only true love.
CHAPTER VI.
THE MYSTERY OF THE TRINITY AND THE MOTHER OF GOD.
If a God without feeling, without a capability of suffering, will not
suffice to man as a feeling, suffering being, neither will a God with
feeling only, a God without intelligence and will. Only a being who
comprises in himself the whole man can satisfy the whole man. Man's
consciousness of himself in his totality is the consciousness of the
Trinity. The Trinity knits together the qualities or powers which
were before regarded separately into unity, and thereby reduces the
universal being of the understanding, i.e., God as God, to a special
being, a special faculty.
That which theology designates as the image, the similitude of the
Trinity, we must take as the thing itself, the essence, the archetype,
the original; by this means we shall solve the enigma. The so-called
images by which it has been sought to illustrate the Trinity, and
make it comprehensible, are principally: mind, understanding, memory,
will, love--mens, intellectus, memoria, voluntas, amor or caritas.
God thinks, God loves; and, moreover, he thinks, he loves himself;
the object thought, known, loved, is God himself. The objectivity
of self-consciousness is the first thing we meet with in the
Trinity. Self-consciousness necessarily urges itself upon man as
something absolute. Existence is for him one with self-consciousness;
existence with self-consciousness is for him existence simply. If
I do not know that I exist, it is all one whether I exist or
not. Self-consciousness is for man--is, in fact, in itself--absolute. A
God who knows not his own existence, a God without consciousness, is
no God. Man cannot conceive himself as without consciousness; hence
he cannot conceive God as without it. The divine self-consciousness
is nothing else than the consciousness of consciousness as an absolute
or divine essence.
But this explanation is by no means exhaustive. On the contrary,
we should be proceeding very arbitrarily if we sought to reduce
and limit the mystery of the Trinity to the proposition just laid
down. Consciousness, understanding, will, love, in the sense of
abstract essences or qualities, belong only to abstract philosophy. But
religion is man's consciousness of himself in his concrete or living
totality, in which the identity of self-consciousness exists only as
the pregnant, complete unity of I and thou.
Religion, at least the Christian, is abstraction from the world; it is
essentially inward. The religious man leads a life withdrawn from the
world, hidden in God, still, void of worldly joy. He separates himself
from the world, not only in the ordinary sense, according to which
the renunciation of the world belongs to every true, earnest man,
but also in that wider sense which science gives to the word, when
it calls itself world-wisdom (welt-weisheit); but he thus separates
himself only because God is a being separate from the world, an
extra and supramundane being,--i.e., abstractly and philosophically
expressed, the non-existence of the world. God, as an extramundane
being, is however nothing else than the nature of man withdrawn from
the world and concentrated in itself, freed from all worldly ties
and entanglements, transporting itself above the world, and positing
itself in this condition as a real objective being; or, nothing else
than the consciousness of the power to abstract oneself from all that
is external, and to live for and with oneself alone, under the form
which this power takes in religion, namely, that of a being distinct,
apart from man. [44] God as God, as a simple being, is the being
absolutely alone, solitary--absolute solitude and self-sufficingness;
for that only can be solitary which is self-sufficing. To be able to
be solitary is a sign of character and thinking power. Solitude is
the want of the thinker, society the want of the heart. We can think
alone, but we can love only with another. In love we are dependent,
for it is the need of another being; we are independent only in the
solitary act of thought. Solitude is self-sufficingness.
But from a solitary God the essential need of duality, of love,
of community, of the real, completed self-consciousness, of the
alter ego, is excluded. This want is therefore satisfied by religion
thus: in the still solitude of the Divine Being is placed another,
a second, different from God as to personality, but identical with
him in essence,--God the Son, in distinction from God the Father. God
the Father is I, God the Son Thou. The I is understanding, the Thou
love. But love with understanding and understanding with love is mind,
and mind is the totality of man as such--the total man.
Participated life is alone true, self-satisfying, divine life:--this
simple thought, this truth, natural, immanent in man, is the secret,
the supernatural mystery of the Trinity. But religion expresses
this truth, as it does every other, in an indirect manner, i.e.,
inversely, for it here makes a general truth into a particular one,
the true subject into a predicate, when it says: God is a participated
life, a life of love and friendship. The third Person in the Trinity
expresses nothing further than the love of the two divine Persons
towards each other; it is the unity of the Son and the Father, the
idea of community, strangely enough regarded in its turn as a special
personal being.
The Holy Spirit owes its personal existence only to a name, a word. The
earliest Fathers of the Church are well known to have identified
the Spirit with the Son. Even later, its dogmatic personality wants
consistency. He is the love with which God loves himself and man,
and, on the other hand, he is the love with which man loves God and
men. Thus he is the identity of God and man, made objective according
to the usual mode of thought in religion, namely, as in itself a
distinct being. But for us this unity or identity is already involved
in the idea of the Father, and yet more in that of the Son. Hence we
need not make the Holy Spirit a separate object of our analysis. Only
this one remark further. In so far as the Holy Spirit represents the
subjective phase, he is properly the representation of the religious
sentiment to itself, the representation of religious emotion, of
religious enthusiasm, or the personification, the rendering objective
of religion in religion. The Holy Spirit is therefore the sighing
creature, the yearning of the creature after God.
But that there are in fact only two Persons in the Trinity, the
third representing, as has been said, only love, is involved in
this, that to the strict idea of love two suffice. With two we have
the principle of multiplicity and all its essential results. Two
is the principle of multiplicity, and can therefore stand as its
complete substitute. If several Persons were posited, the force
of love would only be weakened--it would be dispersed. But love
and the heart are identical; the heart is no special power; it is
the man who loves, and in so far as he loves. The second Person is
therefore the self-assertion of the human heart as the principle of
duality, of participated life,--it is warmth; the Father is light,
although light was chiefly a predicate of the Son, because in him the
Godhead first became clear, comprehensible. But notwithstanding this,
light as a superterrestrial element may be ascribed to the Father,
the representative of the Godhead as such, the cold being of the
intelligence; and warmth, as a terrestrial element, to the Son. God
as the Son first gives warmth to man; here God, from an object of
the intellectual eye, of the indifferent sense of light, becomes
an object of feeling, of affection, of enthusiasm, of rapture;
but only because the Son is himself nothing else than the glow of
love, enthusiasm. [45] God as the Son is the primitive incarnation,
the primitive self-renunciation of God, the negation of God in God;
for as the Son he is a finite being, because he exists ab alio, he
has a source, whereas the Father has no source, he exists à se. Thus
in the second Person the essential attribute of the Godhead, the
attribute of self-existence, is given up. But God the Father himself
begets the Son; thus he renounces his rigorous, exclusive divinity;
he humiliates, lowers himself, evolves within himself the principle
of finiteness, of dependent existence; in the Son he becomes man,
not indeed, in the first instance, as to the outward form, but as
to the inward nature. And for this reason it is as the Son that God
first becomes the object of man, the object of feeling, of the heart.
The heart comprehends only what springs from the heart. From
the character of the subjective disposition and impressions the
conclusion is infallible as to the character of the object. The
pure, free understanding denies the Son,--not so the understanding
determined by feeling, overshadowed by the heart; on the contrary,
it finds in the Son the depths of the Godhead, because in him it
finds feeling, which in and by itself is something dark, obscure,
and therefore appears to man a mystery. The Son lays hold on the
heart, because the true Father of the Divine Son is the human heart,
[46] and the Son himself nothing else than the divine heart, i.e.,
the human heart become objective to itself as a Divine Being.
A God who has not in himself the quality of finiteness, the principle
of concrete existence, the essence of the feeling of dependence, is
no God for a finite, concrete being. The religious man cannot love a
God who has not the essence of love in himself, neither can man, or,
in general, any finite being, be an object to a God who has not in
himself the ground, the principle of finiteness. To such a God there is
wanting the sense, the understanding, the sympathy for finiteness. How
can God be the Father of men, how can he love other beings subordinate
to himself, if he has not in himself a subordinate being, a Son, if
he does not know what love is, so to speak, from his own experience,
in relation to himself? The single man takes far less interest in the
family sorrows of another than he who himself has family ties. Thus
God the Father loves men only in the Son and for the sake of the
Son. The love to man is derived from the love to the Son.
The Father and Son in the Trinity are therefore father and son not
in a figurative sense, but in a strictly literal sense. The Father
is a real father in relation to the Son, the Son is a real son
in relation to the Father, or to God as the Father. The essential
personal distinction between them consists only in this, that the one
begets, the other is begotten. If this natural empirical condition is
taken away, their personal existence and reality are annihilated. The
Christians--we mean of course the Christians of former days, who would
with difficulty recognise the worldly, frivolous, pagan Christians
of the modern world as their brethren in Christ--substituted for
the natural love and unity immanent in man a purely religious love
and unity; they rejected the real life of the family, the intimate
bond of love which is naturally moral, as an undivine, unheavenly,
i.e., in truth, a worthless thing. But in compensation they had a
Father and Son in God, who embraced each other with heartfelt love,
with that intense love which natural relationship alone inspires. On
this account the mystery of the Trinity was to the ancient Christians
an object of unbounded wonder, enthusiasm, and rapture, because here
the satisfaction of those profoundest human wants which in reality,
in life, they denied, became to them an object of contemplation in
God. [47]
It was therefore quite in order that, to complete the divine
family, the bond of love between Father and Son, a third, and that
a feminine person, was received into heaven; for the personality of
the Holy Spirit is a too vague and precarious, a too obviously poetic
personification of the mutual love of the Father and Son, to serve as
the third complementary being. It is true that the Virgin Mary was not
so placed between the Father and Son as to imply that the Father had
begotten the Son through her, because the sexual relation was regarded
by the Christians as something unholy and sinful; but it is enough
that the maternal principle was associated with the Father and Son.
It is, in fact, difficult to perceive why the Mother should be
something unholy, i.e., unworthy of God, when once God is Father
and Son. Though it is held that the Father is not a father in the
natural sense--that, on the contrary, the divine generation is quite
different from the natural and human--still he remains a Father, and a
real, not a nominal or symbolical Father in relation to the Son. And
the idea of the Mother of God, which now appears so strange to us,
is therefore not really more strange or paradoxical, than the idea
of the Son of God, is not more in contradiction with the general,
abstract definition of God than the Sonship. On the contrary, the
Virgin Mary fits in perfectly with the relations of the Trinity, since
she conceives without man the Son whom the Father begets without woman;
[48] so that thus the Holy Virgin is a necessary, inherently requisite
antithesis to the Father in the bosom of the Trinity. Moreover we have,
if not in concreto and explicitly, yet in abstracto and implicitly,
the feminine principle already in the Son. The Son is the mild, gentle,
forgiving, conciliating being--the womanly sentiment of God. God, as
the Father, is the generator, the active, the principle of masculine
spontaneity; but the Son is begotten without himself begetting, Deus
genitus, the passive, suffering, receptive being; he receives his
existence from the Father. The Son, as a son, of course not as God,
is dependent on the Father, subject to his authority. The Son is thus
the feminine feeling of dependence in the Godhead; the Son implicitly
urges upon us the need of a real feminine being. [49]
The son--I mean the natural, human son--considered as such, is an
intermediate being between the masculine nature of the father and the
feminine nature of the mother; he is, as it were, still half a man,
half a woman, inasmuch as he has not the full, rigorous consciousness
of independence which characterises the man, and feels himself drawn
rather to the mother than to the father. The love of the son to the
mother is the first love of the masculine being for the feminine. The
love of man to woman, the love of the youth for the maiden, receives
its religious--its sole truly religious consecration in the love of the
son to the mother; the son's love for his mother is the first yearning
of man towards woman--his first humbling of himself before her.
Necessarily, therefore, the idea of the Mother of God is associated
with the idea of the Son of God,--the same heart that needed the one
needed the other also. Where the Son is, the Mother cannot be absent;
the Son is the only-begotten of the Father, but the Mother is the
concomitant of the Son. The Son is a substitute for the Mother to the
Father, but not so the Father to the Son. To the Son the Mother is
indispensable; the heart of the Son is the heart of the Mother. Why
did God become man only through woman? Could not the Almighty have
appeared as a man amongst men in another manner--immediately? Why
did the Son betake himself to the bosom of the Mother? [50] For what
other reason than because the Son is the yearning after the Mother,
because his womanly, tender heart found a corresponding expression
only in a feminine body? It is true that the Son, as a natural
man, dwells only temporarily in the shrine of this body, but the
impressions which he here receives are inextinguishable; the Mother
is never out of the mind and heart of the Son. If then the worship
of the Son of God is no idolatry, the worship of the Mother of God
is no idolatry. If herein we perceive the love of God to us, that he
gave us his only-begotten Son, i.e., that which was dearest to him,
for our salvation,--we can perceive this love still better when we
find in God the beating of a mother's heart. The highest and deepest
love is the mother's love. The father consoles himself for the loss
of his son; he has a stoical principle within him. The mother, on the
contrary, is inconsolable; she is the sorrowing element, that which
cannot be indemnified--the true in love.
Where faith in the Mother of God sinks, there also sinks faith in the
Son of God, and in God as the Father. The Father is a truth only where
the Mother is a truth. Love is in and by itself essentially feminine in
its nature. The belief in the love of God is the belief in the feminine
principle as divine.* Love apart from living nature is an anomaly,
a phantom. Behold in love the holy necessity and depth of Nature!
Protestantism has set aside the Mother of God; but this deposition
of woman has been severely avenged. [51] The arms which it has used
against the Mother of God have turned against itself, against the
Son of God, against the whole Trinity. He who has once offered up the
Mother of God to the understanding, is not far from sacrificing the
mystery of the Son of God as an anthropomorphism. The anthropomorphism
is certainly veiled when the feminine being is excluded, but only
veiled--not removed. It is true that Protestantism had no need of
the heavenly bride, because it received with open arms the earthly
bride. But for that very reason it ought to have been consequent and
courageous enough to give up not only the Mother, but the Son and the
Father. Only he who has no earthly parents needs heavenly ones. The
triune God is the God of Catholicism; he has a profound, heartfelt,
necessary, truly religious significance, only in antithesis to the
negation of all substantial bonds, in antithesis to the life of the
anchorite, the monk, and the nun. [52] The triune God has a substantial
meaning only where there is an abstraction from the substance of
real life. The more empty life is, the fuller, the more concrete is
God. The impoverishing of the real world and the enriching of God
is one act. Only the poor man has a rich God. God springs out of the
feeling of a want; what man is in need of, whether this be a definite
and therefore conscious, or an unconscious need,--that is God. Thus
the disconsolate feeling of a void, of loneliness, needed a God in
whom there is society, a union of beings fervently loving each other.
Here we have the true explanation of the fact that the Trinity has in
modern times lost first its practical, and ultimately its theoretical
significance.
CHAPTER VII.
THE MYSTERY OF THE LOGOS AND DIVINE IMAGE.
The essential significance of the Trinity is, however, concentrated
in the idea of the second Person. The warm interest of Christians
in the Trinity has been, in the main, only an interest in the Son
of God. [53] The fierce contention concerning the Homousios and
Homoiousios was not an empty one, although it turned upon a letter. The
point in question was the co-equality and divine dignity of the second
Person, and therefore the honour of the Christian religion itself;
for its essential, characteristic object is the second Person;
and that which is essentially the object of a religion is truly,
essentially its God. The real God of any religion is the so-called
Mediator, because he alone is the immediate object of religion. He
who, instead of applying to God, applies to a saint, does so only on
the assumption that the saint has all power with God, that what he
prays for, i.e., wishes and wills, God readily performs; that thus
God is entirely in the hands of the saint. Supplication is the means,
under the guise of humility and submission, of exercising one's power
and superiority over another being. That to which my mind first turns
is also, in truth, the first being to me. I turn to the saint, not
because the saint is dependent on God, but because God is dependent
on the saint, because God is determined and ruled by the prayers,
i.e., by the wish or heart of the saint. The distinctions which the
Catholic theologians made between latreia, doulia, and hyperdoulia,
are absurd, groundless sophisms. The God in the background of the
Mediator is only an abstract, inert conception, the conception or
idea of the Godhead in general; and it is not to reconcile us with
this idea, but to remove it to a distance, to negative it, because
it is no object for religion, that the Mediator interposes. [54]
God above the Mediator is nothing else than the cold understanding
above the heart, like Fate above the Olympic gods.
Man, as an emotional and sensuous being, is governed and made happy
only by images, by sensible representations. Mind presenting itself as
at once type-creating, emotional, and sensuous, is the imagination. The
second Person in God, who is in truth the first person in religion, is
the nature of the imagination made objective. The definitions of the
second Person are principally images or symbols; and these images do
not proceed from man's incapability of conceiving the object otherwise
than symbolically,--which is an altogether false interpretation,--but
the thing cannot be conceived otherwise than symbolically because the
thing itself is a symbol or image. The Son is, therefore, expressly
called the Image of God; his essence is that he is an image--the
representation of God, the visible glory of the invisible God. The
Son is the satisfaction of the need for mental images, the nature of
the imaginative activity in man made objective as an absolute, divine
activity. Man makes to himself an image of God, i.e., he converts
the abstract being of the reason, the being of the thinking power,
into an object of sense or imagination. [55] But he places this image
in God himself, because his want would not be satisfied if he did not
regard this image as an objective reality, if it were nothing more
for him than a subjective image, separate from God,--a mere figment
devised by man. And it is in fact no devised, no arbitrary image;
for it expresses the necessity of the imagination, the necessity of
affirming the imagination as a divine power. The Son is the reflected
splendour of the imagination, the image dearest to the heart; but
for the very reason that he is only an object of the imagination,
he is only the nature of the imagination made objective. [56]
It is clear from this how blinded by prejudice dogmatic speculation
is, when, entirely overlooking the inward genesis of the Son of God
as the Image of God, it demonstrates the Son as a metaphysical ens,
as an object of thought, whereas the Son is a declension, a falling
off from the metaphysical idea of the Godhead;--a falling off, however,
which religion naturally places in God himself, in order to justify it,
and not to feel it as a falling off. The Son is the chief and ultimate
principle of image-worship, for he is the image of God; and the image
necessarily takes the place of the thing. The adoration of the saint
in his image is the adoration of the image as the saint. Wherever the
image is the essential expression, the organ of religion, there also
it is the essence of religion.
The Council of Nice adduced, amongst other grounds for the religious
use of images, the authority of Gregory of Nyssa, who said that he
could never look at an image which represented the sacrifice of Isaac
without being moved to tears, because it so vividly brought before
him that event in sacred history. But the effect of the represented
object is not the effect of the object as such, but the effect of
the representation. The holy object is simply the haze of holiness in
which the image veils its mysterious power. The religious object is
only a pretext, by means of which art or imagination can exercise its
dominion over men unhindered. For the religious consciousness, it is
true, the sacredness of the image is associated, and necessarily so,
only with the sacredness of the object; but the religious consciousness
is not the measure of truth. Indeed, the Church itself, while insisting
on the distinction between the image and the object of the image,
and denying that the worship is paid to the image, has at the same
time made at least an indirect admission of the truth, by itself
declaring the sacredness of the image. [57]
But the ultimate, highest principle of image-worship is the worship of
the Image of God in God. The Son, who is the "brightness of his glory,
the express image of his person," is the entrancing splendour of the
imagination, which only manifests itself in visible images. Both
to inward and outward contemplation the representation of Christ,
the Image of God, was the image of images. The images of the saints
are only optical multiplications of one and the same image. The
speculative deduction of the Image of God is therefore nothing more
than an unconscious deduction and establishing of image-worship: for
the sanction of the principle is also the sanction of its necessary
consequences; the sanction of the archetype is the sanction of its
semblance. If God has an image of himself, why should not I have
an image of God? If God loves his Image as himself, why should not
I also love the Image of God as I love God himself? If the Image of
God is God himself, why should not the image of the saint be the saint
himself? If it is no superstition to believe that the image which God
makes of himself is no image, no mere conception, but a substance,
a person, why should it be a superstition to believe that the image
of the saint is the sensitive substance of the saint? The Image of
God weeps and bleeds; why then should not the image of a saint also
weep and bleed? Does the distinction lie in the fact that the image
of the saint is a product of the hands? Why, the hands did not make
this image, but the mind which animated the hands, the imagination;
and if God makes an image of himself, that also is only a product
of the imagination. Or does the distinction proceed from this, that
the Image of God is produced by God himself, whereas the image of
the saint is made by another? Why, the image of the saint is also
a product of the saint himself: for he appears to the artist; the
artist only represents him as he appears.
Connected with the nature of the image is another definition of the
second Person, namely, that he is the Word of God.
A word is an abstract image, the imaginary thing, or, in so far as
everything is ultimately an object of the thinking power, it is the
imagined thought: hence men, when they know the word, the name for a
thing, fancy that they know the thing also. Words are a result of the
imagination. Sleepers who dream vividly and invalids who are delirious
speak. The power of speech is a poetic talent. Brutes do not speak
because they have no poetic faculty. Thought expresses itself only by
images; the power by which thought expresses itself is the imagination;
the imagination expressing itself is speech. He who speaks, lays
under a spell, fascinates those to whom he speaks; but the power of
words is the power of the imagination. Therefore to the ancients,
as children of the imagination, the Word was a being--a mysterious,
magically powerful being. Even the Christians, and not only the vulgar
among them, but also the learned, the Fathers of the Church, attached
to the mere name Christ, mysterious powers of healing. [58] And in
the present day the common people still believe that it is possible to
bewitch men by mere words. Whence comes this ascription of imaginary
influences to words? Simply from this, that words themselves are only
a result of the imagination, and hence have the effect of a narcotic
on man, imprison him under the power of the imagination. Words possess
a revolutionising force; words govern mankind. Words are held sacred;
while the things of reason and truth are decried.
The affirming or making objective of the nature of the imagination is
therefore directly connected with the affirming or making objective
of the nature of speech, of the word. Man has not only an instinct, an
internal necessity, which impels him to think, to perceive, to imagine;
he has also the impulse to speak, to utter, impart his thoughts. A
divine impulse this--a divine power, the power of words. The word is
the imaged, revealed, radiating, lustrous, enlightening thought. The
word is the light of the world. The word guides to all truth, unfolds
all mysteries, reveals the unseen, makes present the past and the
future, defines the infinite, perpetuates the transient. Men pass
away, the word remains; the word is life and truth. All power is
given to the word: the word makes the blind see and the lame walk,
heals the sick, and brings the dead to life;--the word works miracles,
and the only rational miracles. The word is the gospel, the paraclete
of mankind. To convince thyself of the divine nature of speech, imagine
thyself alone and forsaken, yet acquainted with language; and imagine
thyself further hearing for the first time the word of a human being:
would not this word seem to thee angelic? would it not sound like
the voice of God himself, like heavenly music? Words are not really
less rich, less pregnant than music, though music seems to say more,
and appears deeper and richer than words, for this reason simply,
that it is invested with that prepossession, that illusion.
The word has power to redeem, to reconcile, to bless, to make free. The
sins which we confess are forgiven us by virtue of the divine power of
the word. The dying man who gives forth in speech his long-concealed
sins departs reconciled. The forgiveness of sins lies in the confession
of sins. The sorrows which we confide to our friend are already half
healed. Whenever we speak of a subject, the passions which it has
excited in us are allayed; we see more clearly; the object of anger,
of vexation, of sorrow, appears to us in a light in which we perceive
the unworthiness of those passions. If we are in darkness and doubt
on any matter, we need only speak of it;--often in the very moment in
which we open our lips to consult a friend, the doubts and difficulties
disappear. The word makes man free. He who cannot express himself is
a slave. Hence, excessive passion, excessive joy, excessive grief, are
speechless. To speak is an act of freedom; the word is freedom. Justly
therefore is language held to be the root of culture; where language
is cultivated, man is cultivated. The barbarism of the Middle Ages
disappeared before the revival of language.
As we can conceive nothing else as a Divine Being than the Rational
which we think, the Good which we love, the Beautiful which we
perceive; so we know no higher spiritually operative power and
expression of power than the power of the Word. [59] God is the sum of
all reality. All that man feels or knows as a reality he must place
in God or regard as God. Religion must therefore be conscious of the
power of the word as a divine power. The Word of God is the divinity
of the word, as it becomes an object to man within the sphere of
religion,--the true nature of the human word. The Word of God is
supposed to be distinguished from the human word in that it is no
transient breath, but an imparted being. But does not the word of man
also contain the being of man, his imparted self,--at least when it
is a true word? Thus religion takes the appearance of the human word
for its essence; hence it necessarily conceives the true nature of
the Word to be a special being, distinct from the human word.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE MYSTERY OF THE COSMOGONICAL PRINCIPLE IN GOD.
The second Person, as God revealing, manifesting, declaring himself
(Deus se dicit), is the world-creating principle in God. But this
means nothing else than that the second Person is intermediate between
the noumenal nature of God and the phenomenal nature of the world,
that he is the divine principle of the finite, of that which is
distinguished from God. The second Person as begotten, as not à se,
not existing of himself, has the fundamental condition of the finite
in himself. [60] But at the same time, he is not yet a real finite
Being, posited out of God; on the contrary, he is still identical
with God,--as identical as the son is with the father, the son being
indeed another person, but still of like nature with the father. The
second Person, therefore, does not represent to us the pure idea of
the Godhead, but neither does he represent the pure idea of humanity,
or of reality in general: he is an intermediate Being between the
two opposites. The opposition of the noumenal or invisible divine
nature and the phenomenal or visible nature of the world, is, however,
nothing else than the opposition between the nature of abstraction
and the nature of perception; but that which connects abstraction
with perception is the imagination: consequently, the transition from
God to the world by means of the second Person, is only the form in
which religion makes objective the transition from abstraction to
perception by means of the imagination. It is the imagination alone by
which man neutralises the opposition between God and the world. All
religious cosmogonies are products of the imagination. Every being,
intermediate between God and the world, let it be defined how it may,
is a being of the imagination. The psychological truth and necessity
which lies at the foundation of all these theogonies and cosmogonies
is the truth and necessity of the imagination as a middle term between
the abstract and concrete. And the task of philosophy in investigating
this subject is to comprehend the relation of the imagination to
the reason,--the genesis of the image by means of which an object of
thought becomes an object of sense, of feeling.
But the nature of the imagination is the complete, exhaustive truth
of the cosmogonic principle, only where the antithesis of God and the
world expresses nothing but the indefinite antithesis of the noumenal,
invisible, incomprehensible being, God, and the visible, tangible
existence of the world. If, on the other hand, the cosmogonic being
is conceived and expressed abstractly, as is the case in religious
speculation, we have also to recognise a more abstract psychological
truth as its foundation.
The world is not God; it is other than God, the opposite of God, or at
least that which is different from God. But that which is different
from God cannot have come immediately from God, but only from a
distinction of God in God. The second Person is God distinguishing
himself from himself in himself, setting himself opposite to himself,
hence being an object to himself. The self-distinguishing of God
from himself is the ground of that which is different from himself,
and thus self-consciousness is the origin of the world. God first
thinks the world in thinking himself: to think oneself is to beget
oneself, to think the world is to create the world. Begetting precedes
creating. The idea of the production of the world, of another being
who is not God, is attained through the idea of the production of
another being who is like God.
This cosmogonical process is nothing else than the mystic paraphrase of
a psychological process, nothing else than the unity of consciousness
and self-consciousness made objective. God thinks himself:--thus he
is self-conscious. God is self-consciousness posited as an object,
as a being; but inasmuch as he knows himself, thinks himself, he also
thinks another than himself; for to know oneself is to distinguish
oneself from another, whether this be a possible, merely conceptional,
or a real being. Thus the world--at least the possibility, the idea of
the world--is posited with consciousness, or rather conveyed in it. The
Son, i.e., God thought by himself, objective to himself, the original
reflection of God, the other God, is the principle of creation. The
truth which lies at the foundation of this is the nature of man: the
identity of his self-consciousness with his consciousness of another
who is identical with himself, and of another who is not identical
with himself. And the second, the other who is of like nature, is
necessarily the middle term between the first and third. The idea
of another in general, of one who is essentially different from me,
arises to me first through the idea of one who is essentially like me.
Consciousness of the world is the consciousness of my limitation:
if I knew nothing of a world, I should know nothing of limits; but
the consciousness of my limitation stands in contradiction with the
impulse of my egoism towards unlimitedness. Thus from egoism conceived
as absolute (God is the absolute Self) I cannot pass immediately to
its opposite; I must introduce, prelude, moderate this contradiction
by the consciousness of a being who is indeed another, and in so far
gives me the perception of my limitation, but in such a way as at
the same time to affirm my own nature, make my nature objective to
me. The consciousness of the world is a humiliating consciousness;
the creation was an "act of humility;" but the first stone against
which the pride of egoism stumbles is the thou, the alter ego. The
ego first steels its glance in the eye of a thou before it endures
the contemplation of a being which does not reflect its own image. My
fellow-man is the bond between me and the world. I am, and I feel
myself, dependent on the world, because I first feel myself dependent
on other men. If I did not need man, I should not need the world. I
reconcile myself with the world only through my fellow-man. Without
other men, the world would be for me not only dead and empty, but
meaningless. Only through his fellow does man become clear to himself
and self-conscious; but only when I am clear to myself does the
world become clear to me. A man existing absolutely alone would lose
himself without any sense of his individuality in the ocean of Nature;
he would neither comprehend himself as man nor Nature as Nature. The
first object of man is man. The sense of Nature, which opens to us
the consciousness of the world as a world, is a later product; for it
first arises through the distinction of man from himself. The natural
philosophers of Greece were preceded by the so-called seven Sages,
whose wisdom had immediate reference to human life only.
The ego, then, attains to consciousness of the world through
consciousness of the thou. Thus man is the God of man. That he
is, he has to thank Nature; that he is man, he has to thank man;
spiritually as well as physically he can achieve nothing without
his fellow-man. Four hands can do more than two, but also four eyes
can see more than two. And this combined power is distinguished not
only in quantity but also in quality from that which is solitary. In
isolation human power is limited, in combination it is infinite. The
knowledge of a single man is limited, but reason, science, is
unlimited, for it is a common act of mankind; and it is so, not only
because innumerable men co-operate in the construction of science,
but also in the more profound sense, that the scientific genius of
a particular age comprehends in itself the thinking powers of the
preceding age, though it modifies them in accordance with its own
special character. Wit, acumen, imagination, feeling as distinguished
from sensation, reason as a subjective faculty,--all these so-called
powers of the soul are powers of humanity, not of man as an individual;
they are products of culture, products of human society. Only where
man has contact and friction with his fellow-man are wit and sagacity
kindled; hence there is more wit in the town than in the country,
more in great towns than in small ones. Only where man suns and warms
himself in the proximity of man arise feeling and imagination. Love,
which requires mutuality, is the spring of poetry; and only where man
communicates with man, only in speech, a social act, awakes reason. To
ask a question and to answer are the first acts of thought. Thought
originally demands two. It is not until man has reached an advanced
stage of culture that he can double himself, so as to play the part of
another within himself. To think and to speak are therefore, with all
ancient and sensuous nations, identical; they think only in speaking;
their thought is only conversation. The common people, i.e., people
in whom the power of abstraction has not been developed, are still
incapable of understanding what is written if they do not read it
audibly, if they do not pronounce what they read. In this point of view
Hobbes correctly enough derives the understanding of man from his ears!
Reduced to abstract logical categories, the creative principle in
God expresses nothing further than the tautological proposition:
the different can only proceed from a principle of difference,
not from a simple being. However the Christian philosophers and
theologians insisted on the creation of the world out of nothing,
they were unable altogether to evade the old axiom--"Nothing comes
from nothing," because it expresses a law of thought. It is true that
they supposed no real matter as the principle of the diversity of
material things, but they made the divine understanding (and the Son
is the wisdom, the science, the understanding of the Father)--as that
which comprehends within itself all things as spiritual matter--the
principle of real matter. The distinction between the heathen eternity
of matter and the Christian creation in this respect is only that the
heathens ascribed to the world a real, objective eternity, whereas
the Christians gave it an invisible, immaterial eternity. Things were
before they existed positively,--not, indeed, as an object of sense,
but of the subjective understanding. The Christians, whose principle
is that of absolute subjectivity, conceive all things as effected only
through this principle. The matter posited by their subjective thought,
conceptional, subjective matter, is therefore to them the first
matter,--far more excellent than real, objective matter. Nevertheless,
this distinction is only a distinction in the mode of existence. The
world is eternal in God. Or did it spring up in him as a sudden idea,
a caprice? Certainly man can conceive this too; but, in doing so, he
deifies nothing but his own irrationality. If, on the contrary, I abide
by reason, I can only derive the world from its essence, its idea,
i.e., one mode of its existence from another mode; in other words,
I can derive the world only from itself. The world has its basis in
itself, as has everything in the world which has a claim to the name
of species. The differentia specifica, the peculiar character, that
by which a given being is what it is, is always in the ordinary sense
inexplicable, undeducible, is through itself, has its cause in itself.
The distinction between the world and God as the creator of the world
is therefore only a formal one. The nature of God--for the divine
understanding, that which comprehends within itself all things,
is the divine nature itself; hence God, inasmuch as he thinks and
knows himself, thinks and knows at the same time the world and all
things--the nature of God is nothing else than the abstract, thought
nature of the world; the nature of the world nothing else than the
real, concrete, perceptible nature of God. Hence creation is nothing
more than a formal act; for that which, before the creation, was an
object of thought, of the understanding, is by creation simply made an
object of sense, its ideal contents continuing the same; although it
remains absolutely inexplicable how a real material thing can spring
out of a pure thought. [61]
So it is with plurality and difference--if we reduce the world to
these abstract categories--in opposition to the unity and identity
of the Divine nature. Real difference can be derived only from a
being which has a principle of difference in itself. But I posit
difference in the original being, because I have originally found
difference as a positive reality. Wherever difference is in itself
nothing, there also no difference is conceived in the principle of
things. I posit difference as an essential category, as a truth,
where I derive it from the original being, and vice versâ: the
two propositions are identical. The rational expression is this:
Difference lies as necessarily in the reason as identity.
But as difference is a positive condition of the reason, I cannot
deduce it without presupposing it; I cannot explain it except by
itself, because it is an original, self-luminous, self-attesting
reality. Through what means arises the world, that which is
distinguished from God? through the distinguishing of God from
himself in himself. God thinks himself, he is an object to himself;
he distinguishes himself from himself. Hence this distinction, the
world, arises only from a distinction of another kind, the external
distinction from an internal one, the static distinction from a dynamic
one,--from an act of distinction: thus I establish difference only
through itself, i.e., it is an original concept, a ne plus ultra of
my thought, a law, a necessity, a truth. The last distinction that
I can think is the distinction of a being from and in itself. The
distinction of one being from another is self-evident, is already
implied in their existence, is a palpable truth: they are two. But I
first establish difference for thought when I discern it in one and
the same being, when I unite it with the law of identity. Herein lies
the ultimate truth of difference. The cosmogonic principle in God,
reduced to its last elements, is nothing else than the act of thought
in its simplest forms made objective. If I remove difference from
God, he gives me no material for thought; he ceases to be an object
of thought; for difference is an essential principle of thought. And
if I consequently place difference in God, what else do I establish,
what else do I make an object, than the truth and necessity of this
principle of thought?
CHAPTER IX.
THE MYSTERY OF MYSTICISM, OR OF NATURE IN GOD.
Interesting material for the criticism of cosmogonic and theogonic
fancies is furnished in the doctrine--revived by Schelling and drawn
from Jacob Böhme--of eternal Nature in God.
God is pure spirit, clear self-consciousness, moral personality;
Nature, on the contrary, is, at least partially, confused,
dark, desolate, immoral, or to say no more, unmoral. But it is
self-contradictory that the impure should proceed from the pure,
darkness from light. How then can we remove these obvious difficulties
in the way of assigning a divine origin to Nature? Only by positing
this impurity, this darkness in God, by distinguishing in God himself
a principle of light and a principle of darkness. In other words,
we can only explain the origin of darkness by renouncing the idea of
origin, and presupposing darkness as existing from the beginning. [62]
But that which is dark in Nature is the irrational, the material,
Nature strictly, as distinguished from intelligence. Hence the simple
meaning of this doctrine is, that Nature, Matter, cannot be explained
as a result of intelligence; on the contrary, it is the basis of
intelligence, the basis of personality, without itself having any
basis; spirit without Nature is an unreal abstraction; consciousness
develops itself only out of Nature. But this materialistic doctrine is
veiled in a mystical yet attractive obscurity, inasmuch as it is not
expressed in the clear, simple language of reason, but emphatically
enunciated in that consecrated word of the emotions--God. If the
light in God springs out of the darkness in God, this is only because
it is involved in the idea of light in general, that it illuminates
darkness, thus presupposing darkness, not making it. If then God is
once subjected to a general law,--as he must necessarily be unless
he be made the arena of conflict for the most senseless notions,--if
self-consciousness in God as well as in itself, as in general, is
evolved from a principle in Nature, why is not this natural principle
abstracted from God? That which is a law of consciousness in itself
is a law for the consciousness of every personal being, whether man,
angel, demon, God, or whatever else thou mayest conceive to thyself as
a being. To what then, seen in their true light, do the two principles
in God reduce themselves? The one to Nature, at least to Nature as
it exists in the conception, abstracted from its reality; the other
to mind, consciousness, personality. The one half, the reverse side,
thou dost not name God, but only the obverse side, on which he presents
to thee mind, consciousness: thus his specific essence, that whereby
he is God, is mind, intelligence, consciousness. Why then dost thou
make that which is properly the subject in God as God, i.e., as mind,
into a mere predicate, as if God existed as God apart from mind,
from consciousness? Why, but because thou art enslaved by mystical
religious speculation, because the primary principle in thee is the
imagination, thought being only secondary and serving but to throw
into formulæ the products of the imagination,--because thou feelest
at ease and at home only in the deceptive twilight of mysticism.
Mysticism is deuteroscopy--a fabrication of phrases having a double
meaning. The mystic speculates concerning the essence of Nature or of
man, but under, and by means of, the supposition that he is speculating
concerning another, a personal being, distinct from both. The mystic
has the same objects as the plain, self-conscious thinker; but the
real object is regarded by the mystic, not as itself, but as an
imaginary being, and hence the imaginary object is to him the real
object. Thus here, in the mystical doctrine of the two principles
in God, the real object is pathology, the imaginary one, theology;
i.e., pathology is converted into theology. There would be nothing to
urge against this, if consciously real pathology were recognised and
expressed as theology; indeed, it is precisely our task to show that
theology is nothing else than an unconscious, esoteric pathology,
anthropology, and psychology, and that therefore real anthropology,
real pathology, and real psychology have far more claim to the name of
theology than has theology itself, because this is nothing more than
an imaginary psychology and anthropology. But this doctrine or theory
is supposed--and for this reason it is mystical and fantastic--to
be not pathology, but theology, in the old or ordinary sense of the
word; it is supposed that we have here unfolded to us the life of
a Being distinct from us, while nevertheless it is only our own
nature which is unfolded, though at the same time again shut up
from us by the fact that this nature is represented as inhering in
another being. The mystic philosopher supposes that in God, not in us
human individuals,--that would be far too trivial a truth,--reason
first appears after the Passion of Nature;--that not man, but God,
has wrestled himself out of the obscurity of confused feelings and
impulses into the clearness of knowledge; that not in our subjective,
limited mode of conception, but in God himself, the nervous tremors
of darkness precede the joyful consciousness of light; in short, he
supposes that his theory presents not a history of human throes, but a
history of the development, i.e., the throes of God--for developments
(or transitions) are birth-struggles. But, alas! this supposition
itself belongs only to the pathological element.
If, therefore, the cosmogonic process presents to us the Light
of the power of distinction as belonging to the divine essence;
so, on the other hand, the Night or Nature in God represents to us
the Pensées confuses of Leibnitz as divine powers. But the Pensées
confuses--confused, obscure conceptions and thoughts, or more correctly
images--represent the flesh, matter;--a pure intelligence, separate
from matter, has only clear, free thoughts, no obscure, i.e., fleshly
ideas, no material images, exciting the imagination and setting the
blood in commotion. The Night in God, therefore, implies nothing else
than this: God is not only a spiritual, but also a material, corporeal,
fleshly being; but as man is man, and receives his designation, in
virtue not of his fleshly nature, but of his mind, so is it with God.
But the mystic philosopher expresses this only in obscure, mystical,
indefinite, dissembling images. Instead of the rude, but hence all
the more precise and striking expression, flesh, it substitutes
the equivocal, abstract words nature and ground. "As nothing is
before or out of God, he must have the ground of his existence in
himself. This all philosophies say, but they speak of this ground
as a mere idea, without making it something real. This ground
of his existence which God has in himself, is not God considered
absolutely, i.e., in so far as he exists; it is only the ground of his
existence. It is Nature--in God; an existence inseparable from him,
it is true, but still distinct. Analogically (?), this relation may
be illustrated by gravitation and light in Nature." But this ground
is the non-intelligent in God. "That which is the commencement of an
intelligence (in itself) cannot also be intelligent." "In the strict
sense, intelligence is born of this unintelligent principle. Without
this antecedent darkness there is no reality of the Creator." "With
abstract ideas of God as actus purissimus, such as were laid down
by the older philosophy, or such as the modern, out of anxiety to
remove God far from Nature, is always reproducing, we can effect
nothing. God is something more real than a mere moral order of
the world, and has quite another and a more living motive power in
himself than is ascribed to him by the jejune subtilty of abstract
idealists. Idealism, if it has not a living realism as its basis, is as
empty and abstract a system as that of Leibnitz or Spinoza, or as any
other dogmatic system." "So long as the God of modern theism remains
the simple, supposed purely essential, but in fact non-essential
Being that all modern systems make him, so long as a real duality is
not recognised in God, and a limiting, negativing force, opposed to
the expansive affirming force, so long will the denial of a personal
God be scientific honesty." "All consciousness is concentration, is a
gathering together, a collecting of oneself. This negativing force, by
which a being turns back upon itself, is the true force of personality,
the force of egoism." "How should there be a fear of God if there
were no strength in him? But that there should be something in God
which is mere force and strength cannot be held astonishing if only
it be not maintained that he is this alone and nothing besides." [63]
But what then is force and strength which is merely such, if
not corporeal force and strength? Dost thou know any power which
stands at thy command, in distinction from the power of kindness and
reason, besides muscular power? If thou canst effect nothing through
kindness and the arguments of reason, force is what thou must take
refuge in. But canst thou "effect" anything without strong arms and
fists? Is there known to thee, in distinction from the power of the
moral order of the world, "another and more living motive power" than
the lever of the criminal court? Is not Nature without body also an
"empty, abstract" idea, a "jejune subtilty"? Is not the mystery of
Nature the mystery of corporeality? Is not the system of a "living
realism" the system of the organised body? Is there, in general,
any other force, the opposite of intelligence, than the force of
flesh and blood,--any other strength of Nature than the strength of
the fleshly impulses? And the strongest of the impulses of Nature,
is it not the sexual feeling? Who does not remember the old proverb:
"Amare et sapere vix Deo competit?" So that if we would posit in God
a nature, an existence opposed to the light of intelligence,--can we
think of a more living, a more real antithesis, than that of amare
and sapere, of spirit and flesh, of freedom and the sexual impulse?
Personality, individuality, consciousness, without Nature, is
nothing; or, which is the same thing, an empty, unsubstantial
abstraction. But Nature, as has been shown and is obvious, is nothing
without corporeality. The body alone is that negativing, limiting,
concentrating, circumscribing force, without which no personality is
conceivable. Take away from thy personality its body, and thou takest
away that which holds it together. The body is the basis, the subject
of personality. Only by the body is a real personality distinguished
from the imaginary one of a spectre. What sort of abstract, vague,
empty personalities should we be, if we had not the property of
impenetrability,--if in the same place, in the same form in which we
are, others might stand at the same time? Only by the exclusion of
others from the space it occupies does personality prove itself to
be real. But a body does not exist without flesh and blood. Flesh and
blood is life, and life alone is corporeal reality. But flesh and blood
is nothing without the oxygen of sexual distinction. The distinction
of sex is not superficial, or limited to certain parts of the body;
it is an essential one: it penetrates bones and marrow. The substance
of man is manhood; that of woman, womanhood. However spiritual and
supersensual the man may be, he remains always a man; and it is the
same with the woman. Hence personality is nothing without distinction
of sex; personality is essentially distinguished into masculine and
feminine. Where there is no thou, there is no I; but the distinction
between I and thou, the fundamental condition of all personality,
of all consciousness, is only real, living, ardent, when felt as the
distinction between man and woman. The thou between man and woman
has quite another sound than the monotonous thou between friends.
Nature in distinction from personality can signify nothing else than
difference of sex. A personal being apart from Nature is nothing
else than a being without sex, and conversely. Nature is said to
be predicated of God, "in the sense in which it is said of a man
that he is of a strong, healthy nature." But what is more feeble,
what more insupportable, what more contrary to Nature, than a person
without sex, or a person who in character, manners, or feelings denies
sex? What is virtue, the excellence of man as man? Manhood. Of man as
woman? Womanhood. But man exists only as man and woman. The strength,
the healthiness of man consists therefore in this: that as a woman,
he be truly woman; as man, truly man. Thou repudiatest "the horror
of all that is real, which supposes the spiritual to be polluted by
contact with the real." Repudiate then, before all, thy own horror for
the distinction of sex. If God is not polluted by Nature, neither is he
polluted by being associated with the idea of sex. In renouncing sex,
thou renouncest thy whole principle. A moral God apart from Nature
is without basis; but the basis of morality is the distinction of
sex. Even the brute is capable of self-sacrificing love in virtue of
the sexual distinction. All the glory of Nature, all its power, all
its wisdom and profundity, concentrates and individualises itself in
distinction of sex. Why then dost thou shrink from naming the nature
of God by its true name? Evidently, only because thou hast a general
horror of things in their truth and reality; because thou lookest at
all things through the deceptive vapours of mysticism. For this very
reason then, because Nature in God is only a delusive, unsubstantial
appearance, a fantastic ghost of Nature,--for it is based, as we have
said, not on flesh and blood, not on a real ground,--this attempt to
establish a personal God is once more a failure, and I, too, conclude
with the words, "The denial of a personal God will be scientific
honesty:"--and, I add, scientific truth, so long as it is not declared
and shown in unequivocal terms, first à priori, on speculative grounds,
that form, place, corporeality, and sex do not contradict the idea of
the Godhead; and secondly, à posteriori,--for the reality of a personal
being is sustained only on empirical grounds,--what sort of form God
has, where he exists,--in heaven,--and lastly, of what sex he is.
Let the profound, speculative religious philosophers of Germany
courageously shake off the embarrassing remnant of rationalism
which yet clings to them, in flagrant contradiction with their
true character; and let them complete their system, by converting
the mystical "potence" of Nature in God into a really powerful,
generating God.
The doctrine of Nature in God is borrowed from Jacob Böhme. But in
the original it has a far deeper and more interesting significance
than in its second modernised and emasculated edition. Jacob Böhme
has a profoundly religious mind. Religion is the centre of his life
and thought. But at the same time, the significance which has been
given to Nature in modern times--by the study of natural science,
by Spinozism, materialism, empiricism--has taken possession of his
religious sentiment. He has opened his senses to Nature, thrown a
glance into her mysterious being; but it alarms him, and he cannot
harmonise this terror at Nature with his religious conceptions. "When I
looked into the great depths of this world, and at the sun and stars,
also at the clouds, also at the rain and snow, and considered in my
mind the whole creation of this world; then I found in all things evil
and good, love and anger,--in unreasoning things, such as wood, stone,
earth, and the elements, as well as in men and beasts.... But because
I found that in all things there was good and evil, in the elements
as well as in the creatures, and that it goes as well in the world
with the godless as with the pious, also that the barbarous nations
possess the best lands, and have more prosperity than the godly; I
was therefore altogether melancholy and extremely troubled, and the
Scriptures could not console me, though almost all well known to me;
and therewith assuredly the devil was not idle, for he often thrust
upon me heathenish thoughts, of which I will here be silent." [64]
But while his mind seized with fearful earnestness the dark side
of Nature, which did not harmonise with the religious idea of a
heavenly Creator, he was on the other hand rapturously affected by
her resplendent aspects. Jacob Böhme has a sense for Nature. He
preconceives, nay, he feels the joys of the mineralogist, of the
botanist, of the chemist--the joys of "godless natural science." He is
enraptured by the splendour of jewels, the tones of metals, the hues
and odours of plants, the beauty and gentleness of many animals. In
another place, speaking of the revelation of God in the phenomena of
light, the process by which "there arises in the Godhead the wondrous
and beautiful structure of the heavens in various colours and kinds,
and every spirit shows itself in its form specially," he says, "I can
compare it with nothing but with the noblest precious stones, such as
the ruby, emerald, epidote, onyx, sapphire, diamond, jasper, hyacinth,
amethyst, beryl, sardine, carbuncle, and the like." Elsewhere: "But
regarding the precious stones, such as the carbuncle, ruby, emerald,
epidote, onyx, and the like, which are the very best, these have the
very same origin--the flash of light in love. For that flash is born
in tenderness, and is the heart in the centre of the Fountain-spirit,
wherefore those stones also are mild, powerful, and lovely." It is
evident that Jacob Böhme had no bad taste in mineralogy; that he had
delight in flowers also, and consequently a faculty for botany, is
proved by the following passages among others:--"The heavenly powers
gave birth to heavenly joy-giving fruits and colours, to all sorts
of trees and shrubs, whereupon grows the beauteous and lovely fruit
of life: also there spring up in these powers all sorts of flowers
with beauteous heavenly colours and scents. Their taste is various,
in each according to its quality and kind, altogether holy, divine,
and joy-giving." "If thou desirest to contemplate the heavenly,
divine pomp and glory, as they are, and to know what sort of products,
pleasure, or joys there are above: look diligently at this world, at
the varieties of fruits and plants that grow upon the earth,--trees,
shrubs, vegetables, roots, flowers, oils, wines, corn, and everything
that is there, and that thy heart can search out. All this is an
image of the heavenly pomp." [65]
A despotic fiat could not suffice as an explanation of the origin
of Nature to Jacob Böhme; Nature appealed too strongly to his
senses, and lay too near his heart; hence he sought for a natural
explanation of Nature; but he necessarily found no other ground of
explanation than those qualities of Nature which made the strongest
impression on him. Jacob Böhme--this is his essential character--is a
mystical natural philosopher, a theosophic Vulcanist and Neptunist,
[66] for according to him "all things had their origin in fire and
water." Nature had fascinated Jacob's religious sentiments,--not
in vain did he receive his mystical light from the shining of tin
utensils; but the religious sentiment works only within itself;
it has not the force, not the courage, to press forward to the
examination of things in their reality; it looks at all things
through the medium of religion, it sees all in God, i.e., in
the entrancing, soul-possessing splendour of the imagination, it
sees all in images and as an image. But Nature affected his mind
in an opposite manner; hence he must place this opposition in God
himself,--for the supposition of two independently existing, opposite,
original principles would have afflicted his religious sentiment;--he
must distinguish in God himself a gentle, beneficent element, and a
fierce consuming one. Everything fiery, bitter, harsh, contracting,
dark, cold, comes from a divine harshness and bitterness; everything
mild, lustrous, warming, tender, soft, yielding, from a mild, soft,
luminous quality in God. "Thus are the creatures on the earth, in the
water, and in the air, each creature out of its own science, out of
good and evil.... As one sees before one's eyes that there are good
and evil creatures; as venomous beasts and serpents from the centre
of the nature of darkness, from the power of the fierce quality,
which only want to dwell in darkness, abiding in caves and hiding
themselves from the sun. By each animal's food and dwelling we see
whence they have sprang, for every creature needs to dwell with its
mother, and yearns after her, as is plain to the sight." "Gold, silver,
precious stones, and all bright metal, has its origin in the light,
which appeared before the times of anger," &c. "Everything which in
the substance of this world is yielding, soft, and thin, is flowing,
and gives itself forth, and the ground and origin of it is in the
eternal Unity, for unity ever flows forth from itself; for in the
nature of things not dense, as water and air, we can understand no
susceptibility or pain, they being one in themselves. [67] In short,
heaven is as rich as the earth. Everything that is on this earth is
in heaven, [68] all that is in Nature is in God. But in the latter
it is divine, heavenly; in the former, earthly, visible, external,
material, but yet the same." "When I write of trees, shrubs and fruits,
thou must not understand me of earthly things, such as are in this
world; for it is not my meaning that in heaven there grows a dead,
hard, wooden tree, or a stone of earthly qualities. No: my meaning is
heavenly and spiritual, but yet truthful and literal; thus, I mean no
other things than what I write in the letters of the alphabet;" i.e.,
in heaven there are the same trees and flowers, but the trees in heaven
are the trees which bloom and exhale in my imagination, without making
coarse material impressions upon me; the trees on earth are the trees
which I perceive through my senses. The distinction is the distinction
between imagination and perception. "It is not my undertaking," says
Jacob Böhme himself, "to describe the course of all stars, their place
and name, or how they have yearly their conjunction or opposition,
or quadrate, or the like,--what they do yearly and hourly,--which
through long years has been discovered by wise, skilful, ingenious
men, by diligent contemplation and observation, and deep thought and
calculation. I have not learned and studied these things, and leave
scholars to treat of them, but my undertaking is to write according
to the spirit and thought, not according to sight." [69]
The doctrine of Nature in God aims, by naturalism, to establish
theism, especially the theism which regards the Supreme Being as
a personal being. But personal theism conceives God as a personal
being, separate from all material things; it excludes from him all
development, because that is nothing else than the self-separation of
a being from circumstances and conditions which do not correspond to
its true idea. And this does not take place in God, because in him
beginning, end, middle, are not to be distinguished,--because he is
at once what he is, is from the beginning what he is to be, what he
can be; he is the pure unity of existence and essence, reality and
idea, act and will. Deus suum Esse est. Herein theism accords with
the essence of religion. All religions, however positive they may be,
rest on abstraction; they are distinguished only in that from which
the abstraction is made. Even the Homeric gods, with all their living
strength and likeness to man, are abstract forms; they have bodies,
like men, but bodies from which the limitations and difficulties of the
human body are eliminated. The idea of a divine being is essentially
an abstracted, distilled idea. It is obvious that this abstraction
is no arbitrary one, but is determined by the essential stand-point
of man. As he is, as he thinks, so does he make his abstraction.
The abstraction expresses a judgment,--an affirmative and a
negative one at the same time, praise and blame. What man praises
and approves, that is God to him; [70] what he blames, condemns, is
the non-divine. Religion is a judgment. The most essential condition
in religion--in the idea of the divine being--is accordingly the
discrimination of the praiseworthy from the blameworthy, of the perfect
from the imperfect; in a word, of the positive from the negative. The
cultus itself consists in nothing else than in the continual renewal
of the origin of religion--a solemnising of the critical discrimination
between the divine and the non-divine.
The Divine Being is the human being glorified by the death of
abstraction; it is the departed spirit of man. In religion man frees
himself from the limits of life; he here lets fall what oppresses him,
obstructs him, affects him repulsively; God is the self-consciousness
of man freed from all discordant elements; man feels himself free,
happy, blessed in his religion, because he only here lives the life
of genius, and keeps holiday. The basis of the divine idea lies for
him outside of that idea itself; its truth lies in the prior judgment,
in the fact that all which he excludes from God is previously judged
by him to be non-divine, and what is non-divine to be worthless,
nothing. If he were to include the attaining of this idea in the idea
itself, it would lose its most essential significance, its true value,
its beatifying charm. The divine being is the pure subjectivity of
man, freed from all else, from everything objective, having relation
only to itself, enjoying only itself, reverencing only itself--his
most subjective, his inmost self. The process of discrimination, the
separating of the intelligent from the non-intelligent, of personality
from Nature, of the perfect from the imperfect, necessarily therefore
takes place in the subject, not in the object, and the idea of God
lies not at the beginning but at the end of sensible existence, of
the world, of Nature. "Where Nature ceases, God begins," because God
is the ne plus ultra, the last limit of abstraction. That from which
I can no longer abstract is God, the last thought which I am capable
of grasping--the last, i.e., the highest. Id quo nihil majus cogitari
potest, Deus est. That this Omega of sensible existence becomes an
Alpha also, is easily comprehensible; but the essential point is, that
he is the Omega. The Alpha is primarily a consequence; because God is
the last or highest, he is also the first. And this predicate--the
first Being, has by no means immediately a cosmogonic significance,
but only implies the highest rank. The creation in the Mosaic religion
has for its end to secure to Jehovah the predicate of the highest
and first, the true and exclusive God in opposition to idols.
The effort to establish the personality of God through Nature has
therefore at its foundation an illegitimate, profane mingling of
philosophy and religion, a complete absence of criticism and knowledge
concerning the genesis of the personal God. Where personality is held
the essential attribute of God, where it is said--an impersonal God is
no God; there personality is held to be in and by itself the highest
and most real thing, there it is presupposed that everything which
is not a person is dead, is nothing, that only personal existence is
real, absolute existence, is life and truth--but Nature is impersonal,
and is therefore a trivial thing. The truth of personality rests
only on the untruth of Nature. To predicate personality of God is
nothing else than to declare personality as the absolute essence;
but personality is only conceived in distinction, in abstraction
from Nature. Certainly a merely personal God is an abstract God;
but so he ought to be--that is involved in the idea of him; for he is
nothing else than the personal nature of man positing itself out of all
connection with the world, making itself free from all dependence on
nature. In the personality of God man consecrates the supernaturalness,
immortality, independence, unlimitedness of his own personality.
In general, the need of a personal God has its foundation in this, that
only in the attribute of personality does the personal man meet with
himself, find himself. Substance, pure spirit, mere reason, does not
satisfy him, is too abstract for him, i.e., does not express himself,
does not lead him back to himself. And man is content, happy, only when
he is with himself, with his own nature. Hence, the more personal a
man is, the stronger is his need of a personal God. The free, abstract
thinker knows nothing higher than freedom; he does not need to attach
it to a personal being; for him freedom in itself, as such, is a
real positive thing. A mathematical, astronomical mind, a man of pure
understanding, an objective man, who is not shut up in himself, who
feels free and happy only in the contemplation of objective rational
relations, in the reason which lies in things in themselves--such
a man will regard the substance of Spinoza, or some similar idea,
as his highest being, and be full of antipathy towards a personal,
i.e., subjective God. Jacobi therefore was a classic philosopher,
because (in this respect, at least) he was consistent, he was at
unity with himself; as was his God, so was his philosophy--personal,
subjective. The personal God cannot be established otherwise than as
he is established by Jacobi and his disciples. Personality is proved
only in a personal manner.
Personality may be, nay, must be, founded on a natural basis; but
this natural basis is attained only when I cease to grope in the
darkness of mysticism, when I step forth into the clear daylight of
real Nature, and exchange the idea of the personal God for the idea
of personality in general. But into the idea of the personal God,
the positive idea of whom is liberated, disembodied personality,
released from the limiting force of Nature, to smuggle again this very
Nature, is as perverse as if I were to mix Brunswick mum with the
nectar of the gods, in order to give the ethereal beverage a solid
foundation. Certainly the ingredients of animal blood are not to be
derived from the celestial juice which nourishes the gods. But the
flower of sublimation arises only through the evaporation of matter;
why, then, wilt thou mix with the sublimate that very matter from
which thou hast disengaged it? Certainly, the impersonal existence of
Nature is not to be explained by the idea of personality; but where
personality is a truth, or, rather, the absolute truth, Nature has
no positive significance, and consequently no positive basis. The
literal creation out of nothing is here the only sufficient ground of
explanation; for it simply says this: Nature is nothing;--and this
precisely expresses the significance which Nature has for absolute
personality.
CHAPTER X.
THE MYSTERY OF PROVIDENCE, AND CREATION OUT OF NOTHING.
Creation is the spoken word of God; the creative, cosmogonic fiat is
the tacit word, identical with the thought. To speak is an act of the
will; thus, creation is a product of the Will: as in the Word of God
man affirms the divinity of the human word, so in creation he affirms
the divinity of the Will: not, however, the will of the reason, but the
will of the imagination--the absolutely subjective, unlimited will. The
culminating point of the principle of subjectivity is creation out of
nothing. [71] As the eternity of the world or of matter imports nothing
further than the essentiality of matter, so the creation of the world
out of nothing imports simply the non-essentiality, the nothingness
of the world. The commencement of a thing is immediately connected,
in idea if not in time, with its end. "Lightly come, lightly go." The
will has called it into existence--the will calls it back again into
nothing. When? The time is indifferent: its existence or non-existence
depends only on the will. But this will is not its own will:--not only
because a thing cannot will its non-existence, but for the prior reason
that the world is itself destitute of will. Thus the nothingness of the
world expresses the power of the will. The will that it should exist
is, at the same time, the will--at least the possible will--that it
should not exist. The existence of the world is therefore a momentary,
arbitrary, unreliable, i.e., unreal existence.
Creation out of nothing is the highest expression of omnipotence:
but omnipotence is nothing else than subjectivity exempting itself
from all objective conditions and limitations, and consecrating this
exemption as the highest power and reality: nothing else than the
ability to posit everything real as unreal--everything conceivable as
possible: nothing else than the power of the imagination, or of the
will as identical with the imagination, the power of self-will. [72]
The strongest and most characteristic expression of subjective
arbitrariness is, "it has pleased;"--the phrase, "it has pleased
God to call the world of bodies and spirits into existence," is
the most undeniable proof that individual subjectivity, individual
arbitrariness, is regarded as the highest essence--the omnipotent
world-principle. On this ground, creation out of nothing as a work
of the Almighty Will falls into the same category with miracle, or
rather it is the first miracle, not only in time but in rank also;--the
principle of which all further miracles are the spontaneous result. The
proof of this is history itself; all miracles have been vindicated,
explained, and illustrated by appeal to the omnipotence which created
the world out of nothing. Why should not He who made the world out of
nothing, make wine out of water, bring human speech from the mouth of
an ass, and charm water out of a rock? But miracle is, as we shall see
further on, only a product and object of the imagination, and hence
creation out of nothing, as the primitive miracle, is of the same
character. For this reason the doctrine of creation out of nothing has
been pronounced a supernatural one, to which reason of itself could
not have attained; and in proof of this, appeal has been made to the
fact that the pagan philosophers represented the world to have been
formed by the Divine Reason out of already existing matter. But this
supernatural principle is no other than the principle of subjectivity,
which in Christianity exalted itself to an unlimited, universal
monarchy; whereas the ancient philosophers were not subjective enough
to regard the absolutely subjective being as the exclusively absolute
being, because they limited subjectivity by the contemplation of the
world or reality--because to them the world was a truth.
Creation out of nothing, as identical with miracle, is one with
Providence; for the idea of Providence--originally, in its true
religious significance, in which it is not yet infringed upon and
limited by the unbelieving understanding--is one with the idea of
miracle. The proof of Providence is miracle. [73] Belief in Providence
is belief in a power to which all things stand at command to be used
according to its pleasure, in opposition to which all the power
of reality is nothing. Providence cancels the laws of Nature; it
interrupts the course of necessity, the iron bond which inevitably
binds effects to causes; in short, it is the same unlimited,
all-powerful will, that called the world into existence out of
nothing. Miracle is a creatio ex nihilo. He who turns water into
wine, makes wine out of nothing, for the constituents of wine are
not found in water; otherwise, the production of wine would not be a
miraculous, but a natural act. The only attestation, the only proof of
Providence is miracle. Thus Providence is an expression of the same
idea as creation out of nothing. Creation out of nothing can only be
understood and explained in connection with Providence; for miracle
properly implies nothing more than that the miracle worker is the same
as he who brought forth all things by his mere will--God the Creator.
But Providence has relation essentially to man. It is for man's sake
that Providence makes of things whatever it pleases: it is for man's
sake that it supersedes the authority and reality of a law otherwise
omnipotent. The admiration of Providence in Nature, especially in
the animal kingdom, is nothing else than an admiration of Nature,
and therefore belongs merely to naturalism, though to a religious
naturalism; [74] for in Nature is revealed only natural, not divine
Providence--not Providence as it is an object to religion. Religious
Providence reveals itself only in miracles--especially in the miracle
of the Incarnation, the central point of religion. But we nowhere
read that God, for the sake of brutes, became a brute--the very idea
of this is, in the eyes of religion, impious and ungodly; or that
God ever performed a miracle for the sake of animals or plants. On
the contrary, we read that a poor fig-tree, because it bore no fruit
at a time when it could not bear it, was cursed, purely in order to
give men an example of the power of faith over Nature;--and again,
that when the tormenting devils were driven out of men, they were
driven into brutes. It is true we also read: "No sparrow falls to the
ground without your Father;" but these sparrows have no more worth and
importance than the hairs on the head of a man, which are all numbered.
Apart from instinct, the brute has no other guardian spirit, no other
Providence, than its senses or its organs in general. A bird which
loses its eyes has lost its guardian angel; it necessarily goes to
destruction if no miracle happens. We read indeed that a raven brought
food to the prophet Elijah, but not (at least to my knowledge) that an
animal was supported by other than natural means. But if a man believes
that he also has no other Providence than the powers of his race--his
senses and understanding,--he is in the eyes of religion, and of all
those who speak the language of religion, an irreligious man; because
he believes only in a natural Providence, and a natural Providence is
in the eyes of religion as good as none. Hence Providence has relation
essentially to men, and even among men only to the religious. "God
is the Saviour of all men, but especially of them that believe." It
belongs, like religion, only to man; it is intended to express the
essential distinction of man from the brute, to rescue man from the
tyranny of the forces of Nature. Jonah in the whale, Daniel in the den
of lions, are examples of the manner in which Providence distinguishes
(religious) men from brutes. If therefore the Providence which
manifests itself in the organs with which animals catch and devour
their prey, and which is so greatly admired by Christian naturalists,
is a truth, the Providence of the Bible, the Providence of religion,
is a falsehood; and vice versâ. What pitiable and at the same time
ludicrous hypocrisy is the attempt to do homage to both, to Nature,
and the Bible at once! How does Nature contradict the Bible! How
does the Bible contradict Nature! The God of Nature reveals himself
by giving to the lion strength and appropriate organs in order that,
for the preservation of his life, he may in case of necessity kill
and devour even a human being; the God of the Bible reveals himself
by interposing his own aid to rescue the human being from the jaws
of the lion! [75]
Providence is a privilege of man. It expresses the value of man,
in distinction from other natural beings and things; it exempts him
from the connection of the universe. Providence is the conviction of
man of the infinite value of his existence,--a conviction in which he
renounces faith in the reality of external things; it is the idealism
of religion. Faith in Providence is therefore identical with faith in
personal immortality; save only, that in the latter the infinite value
of existence is expressed in relation to time, as infinite duration. He
who prefers no special claims, who is indifferent about himself, who
identifies himself with the world, who sees himself as a part merged in
the whole,--such a one believes in no Providence, i.e., in no special
Providence; but only special Providence is Providence in the sense of
religion. Faith in Providence is faith in one's own worth, the faith
of man in himself; hence the beneficent consequences of this faith,
but hence also false humility, religious arrogance, which, it is true,
does not rely on itself, but only because it commits the care of itself
to the blessed God. God concerns himself about me; he has in view my
happiness, my salvation; he wills that I shall be blest; but that is my
will also: thus, my interest is God's interest, my own will is God's
will, my own aim is God's aim,--God's love for me nothing else than
my self-love deified. Thus when I believe in Providence, in what do
I believe but in the divine reality and significance of my own being?
But where Providence is believed in, belief in God is made dependent on
belief in Providence. He who denies that there is a Providence, denies
that there is a God, or--what is the same thing--that God is God; for a
God who is not the Providence of man, is a contemptible God, a God who
is wanting in the divinest, most adorable attribute. Consequently,
the belief in God is nothing but the belief in human dignity,
[76] the belief in the absolute reality and significance of the
human nature. But belief in a (religious) Providence is belief in
creation out of nothing, and vice versâ; the latter, therefore, can
have no other significance than that of Providence as just developed,
and it has actually no other. Religion sufficiently expresses this
by making man the end of creation. All things exist, not for their
own sake, but for the sake of man. He who, like the pious Christian
naturalists, pronounces this to be pride, declares Christianity itself
to be pride; for to say that the material world exists for the sake of
man, implies infinitely less than to say that God--or at least, if we
follow Paul, a being who is almost God, scarcely to be distinguished
from God--becomes man for the sake of men.
But if man is the end of creation, he is also the true cause of
creation, for the end is the principle of action. The distinction
between man as the end of creation, and man as its cause, is only
that the cause is the latent, inner man, the essential man, whereas
the end is the self-evident, empirical, individual man,--that man
recognises himself as the end of creation, but not as the cause,
because he distinguishes the cause, the essence from himself as
another personal being. [77] But this other being, this creative
principle, is in fact nothing else than his subjective nature
separated from the limits of individuality and materiality, i.e.,
of objectivity, unlimited will, personality posited out of all
connection with the world,--which by creation, i.e., the positing
of the world, of objectivity, of another, as a dependent, finite,
non-essential existence, gives itself the certainty of its exclusive
reality. The point in question in the Creation is not the truth and
reality of the world, but the truth and reality of personality, of
subjectivity in distinction from the world. The point in question is
the personality of God; but the personality of God is the personality
of man freed from all the conditions and limitations of Nature. Hence
the fervent interest in the Creation, the horror of all pantheistic
cosmogonies. The Creation, like the idea of a personal God in general,
is not a scientific, but a personal matter; not an object of the free
intelligence, but of the feelings; for the point on which it hinges
is only the guarantee, the last conceivable proof and demonstration
of personality or subjectivity as an essence quite apart, having
nothing in common with Nature, a supra- and extra-mundane entity. [78]
Man distinguishes himself from Nature. This distinction of his
is his God: the distinguishing of God from Nature is nothing
else than the distinguishing of man from Nature. The antithesis
of pantheism and personalism resolves itself into the question:
Is the nature of man transcendental or immanent, supranaturalistic
or naturalistic? The speculations and controversies concerning the
personality or impersonality of God are therefore fruitless, idle,
uncritical, and odious; for the speculatists, especially those who
maintain the personality, do not call the thing by the right name;
they put the light under a bushel. While they in truth speculate only
concerning themselves, only in the interest of their own instinct of
self-preservation; they yet will not allow that they are splitting
their brains only about themselves; they speculate under the delusion
that they are searching out the mysteries of another being. Pantheism
identifies man with Nature, whether with its visible appearance, or its
abstract essence. Personalism isolates, separates, him from Nature;
converts him from a part into the whole, into an absolute essence by
himself. This is the distinction. If, therefore, you would be clear
on these subjects, exchange your mystical, perverted anthropology,
which you call theology, for real anthropology, and speculate in
the light of consciousness and Nature concerning the difference
or identity of the human essence with the essence of Nature. You
yourselves admit that the essence of the pantheistical God is nothing
but the essence of Nature. Why, then, will you only see the mote in
the eyes of your opponents, and not observe the very obvious beam
in your own eyes? why make yourselves an exception to a universally
valid law? Admit that your personal God is nothing else than your own
personal nature, that while you believe in and construct your supra-
and extra-natural God, you believe in and construct nothing else than
the supra- and extra-naturalism of your own self.
In the Creation, as everywhere else, the true principle is concealed
by the intermingling of universal, metaphysical, and even pantheistic
definitions. But one need only be attentive to the closer definitions
to convince oneself that the true principle of creation is the
self-affirmation of subjectivity in distinction from Nature. God
produces the world outside himself; at first it is only an idea, a
plan, a resolve; now it becomes an act, and therewith it steps forth
out of God as a distinct and, relatively at least, a self-subsistent
object. But just so subjectivity in general, which distinguishes
itself from the world, which takes itself for an essence distinct from
the world, posits the world out of itself as a separate existence,
indeed, this positing out of self, and the distinguishing of self,
is one act. When therefore the world is posited outside of God, God
is posited by himself, is distinguished from the world. What else
then is God but your subjective nature, when the world is separated
from it? [79] It is true that when astute reflection intervenes,
the distinction between extra and intra is disavowed as a finite and
human (?) distinction. But to the disavowal by the understanding,
which in relation to religion is pure misunderstanding, no credit
is due. If it is meant seriously, it destroys the foundation of
the religious consciousness; it does away with the possibility,
the very principle of the creation, for this rests solely on the
reality of the above-mentioned distinction. Moreover, the effect of
the creation, all its majesty for the feelings and the imagination,
is quite lost, if the production of the world out of God is not taken
in the real sense. What is it to make, to create, to produce, but
to make that which in the first instance is only subjective, and so
far invisible, non-existent, into something objective, perceptible,
so that other beings besides me may know and enjoy it, and thus to
put something out of myself, to make it distinct from myself? Where
there is no reality or possibility of an existence external to me,
there can be no question of making or creating. God is eternal, but
the world had a commencement; God was, when as yet the world was not;
God is invisible, not cognisable by the senses, but the world is
visible, palpable, material, and therefore outside of God; for how
can the material as such, body, matter, be in God? The world exists
outside of God, in the same sense in which a tree, an animal, the
world in general, exists outside of my conception, outside of myself,
is an existence distinct from subjectivity. Hence, only when such an
external existence is admitted, as it was by the older philosophers
and theologians, have we the genuine, unmixed doctrine of the religious
consciousness. The speculative theologians and philosophers of modern
times, on the contrary, foist in all sorts of pantheistic definitions,
although they deny the principle of pantheism; and the result of this
process is simply an absolutely self-contradictory, insupportable
fabrication of their own.
Thus the creation of the world expresses nothing else than
subjectivity, assuring itself of its own reality and infinity
through the consciousness that the world is created, is a product
of will, i.e., a dependent, powerless, unsubstantial existence. The
"nothing" out of which the world was produced, is a still inherent
nothingness. When thou sayest the world was made out of nothing, thou
conceivest the world itself as nothing, thou clearest away from thy
head all the limits to thy imagination, to thy feelings, to thy will,
for the world is the limitation of thy will, of thy desire; the world
alone obstructs thy soul; it alone is the wall of separation between
thee and God,--thy beatified, perfected nature. Thus, subjectively,
thou annihilatest the world; thou thinkest God by himself, i.e.,
absolutely unlimited subjectivity, the subjectivity or soul which
enjoys itself alone, which needs not the world, which knows nothing
of the painful bonds of matter. In the inmost depths of thy soul
thou wouldest rather there were no world, for where the world is,
there is matter, and where there is matter there is weight and
resistance, space and time, limitation and necessity. Nevertheless,
there is a world, there is matter. How dost thou escape from the
dilemma of this contradiction? How dost thou expel the world from thy
consciousness, that it may not disturb thee in the beatitude of the
unlimited soul? Only by making the world itself a product of will, by
giving it an arbitrary existence always hovering between existence
and non-existence, always awaiting its annihilation. Certainly
the act of creation does not suffice to explain the existence of
the world or matter (the two are not separable), but it is a total
misconception to demand this of it, for the fundamental idea of the
creation is this: there is to be no world, no matter; and hence its
end is daily looked forward to with longing. The world in its truth
does not here exist at all, it is regarded only as the obstruction,
the limitation of subjectivity; how could the world in its truth and
reality be deduced from a principle which denies the world?
In order to recognise the above developed significance of the creation
as the true one, it is only necessary seriously to consider the fact,
that the chief point in the creation is not the production of earth
and water, plants and animals, for which indeed there is no God,
but the production of personal beings--of spirits, according to the
ordinary phrase. God is the idea of personality as itself a person,
subjectivity existing in itself apart from the world, existing for self
alone, without wants, posited as absolute existence, the me without
a thee. But as absolute existence for self alone contradicts the idea
of true life, the idea of love; as self-consciousness is essentially
united with the consciousness of a thee, as solitude cannot, at least
in perpetuity, preserve itself from tedium and uniformity; thought
immediately proceeds from the divine Being to other conscious beings,
and expands the idea of personality which was at first condensed in
one being to a plurality of persons. [80] If the person is conceived
physically, as a real man, in which form he is a being with wants, he
appears first at the end of the physical world, when the conditions
of his existence are present,--as the goal of creation. If, on the
other hand, man is conceived abstractly as a person, as is the case in
religious speculation, this circuit is dispensed with, and the task
is the direct deduction of the person, i.e., the self-demonstration,
the ultimate self-verification of the human personality. It is true
that the divine personality is distinguished in every possible way
from the human in order to veil their identity; but these distinctions
are either purely fantastic, or they are mere assertions, devices
which exhibit the invalidity of the attempted deduction. All positive
grounds of the creation reduce themselves only to the conditions,
to the grounds, which urge upon the me the consciousness of the
necessity of another personal being. Speculate as much as you will,
you will never derive your personality from God, if you have not
beforehand introduced it, if God himself be not already the idea of
your personality, your own subjective nature.
CHAPTER XI.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CREATION IN JUDAISM.
The doctrine of the Creation sprang out of Judaism; indeed, it is the
characteristic, the fundamental doctrine of the Jewish religion. The
principle which lies at its foundation is, however, not so much the
principle of subjectivity as of egoism. The doctrine of the Creation
in its characteristic significance arises only on that stand-point
where man in practice makes Nature merely the servant of his will
and needs, and hence in thought also degrades it to a mere machine,
a product of the will. Now its existence is intelligible to him,
since he explains and interprets it out of himself, in accordance with
his own feelings and notions. The question, Whence is Nature or the
world? presupposes wonder that it exists, or the question, Why does
it exist? But this wonder, this question, arises only where man has
separated himself from Nature and made it a mere object of will. The
author of the Book of Wisdom says truly of the heathens, that, "for
admiration of the beauty of the world they did not raise themselves
to the idea of the Creator." To him who feels that Nature is lovely,
it appears an end in itself, it has the ground of its existence in
itself: in him the question, Why does it exist? does not arise. Nature
and God are identified in his consciousness, his perception, of the
world. Nature, as it impresses his senses, has indeed had an origin,
has been produced, but not created in the religious sense, is not
an arbitrary product. And by this origin he implies nothing evil;
originating involves for him nothing impure, undivine; he conceives
his gods themselves as having had an origin. The generative force
is to him the primal force: he posits, therefore, as the ground of
Nature, a force of Nature,--a real, present, visibly active force, as
the ground of reality. Thus does man think where his relation to the
world is æsthetic or theoretic (for the theoretic view was originally
the æsthetic view, the prima philosophia), where the idea of the world
is to him the idea of the cosmos, of majesty, of deity itself. Only
where such a theory was the fundamental principle could there be
conceived and expressed such a thought as that of Anaxagoras:--Man
is born to behold the world. [81] The standpoint of theory is the
standpoint of harmony with the world. The subjective activity, that
in which man contents himself, allows himself free play, is here
the sensuous imagination alone. Satisfied with this, he lets Nature
subsist in peace, and constructs his castles in the air, his poetical
cosmogonies, only out of natural materials. When, on the contrary,
man places himself only on the practical standpoint and looks at the
world from thence, making the practical standpoint the theoretical
one also, he is in disunion with Nature; he makes Nature the abject
vassal of his selfish interest, of his practical egoism. The theoretic
expression of this egoistical, practical view, according to which
Nature is in itself nothing, is this: Nature or the world is made,
created, the product of a command. God said, Let the world be, and
straightway the world presented itself at his bidding. [82]
Utilism is the essential theory of Judaism. The belief in a special
Divine Providence is the characteristic belief of Judaism; belief
in Providence is belief in miracle; but belief in miracle exists
where Nature is regarded only as an object of arbitrariness, of
egoism, which uses Nature only as an instrument of its own will and
pleasure. Water divides or rolls itself together like a firm mass,
dust is changed into lice, a staff into a serpent, rivers into blood,
a rock into a fountain; in the same place it is both light and dark
at once, the sun now stands still, now goes backward. And all these
contradictions of Nature happen for the welfare of Israel, purely at
the command of Jehovah, who troubles himself about nothing but Israel,
who is nothing but the personified selfishness of the Israelitish
people, to the exclusion of all other nations,--absolute intolerance,
the secret essence of monotheism.
The Greeks looked at Nature with the theoretic sense; they heard
heavenly music in the harmonious course of the stars; they saw Nature
rise from the foam of the all-producing ocean as Venus Anadyomene. The
Israelites, on the contrary, opened to Nature only the gastric sense;
their taste for Nature lay only in the palate; their consciousness
of God in eating manna. The Greek addicted himself to polite studies,
to the fine arts, to philosophy; the Israelite did not rise above the
alimentary view of theology. "At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the
morning ye shall be filled with bread; and ye shall know that I am
the Lord your God." [83] "And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will
be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me
bread to eat and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's
house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God." [84] Eating is the
most solemn act or the initiation of the Jewish religion. In eating,
the Israelite celebrates and renews the act of creation; in eating,
man declares Nature to be an insignificant object. When the seventy
elders ascended the mountain with Moses, "they saw God; and when they
had seen God, they ate and drank." [85] Thus with them what the sight
of the Supreme Being heightened was the appetite for food.
The Jews have maintained their peculiarity to this day. Their
principle, their God, is the most practical principle in the
world,--namely, egoism; and moreover egoism in the form of
religion. Egoism is the God who will not let his servants come to
shame. Egoism is essentially monotheistic, for it has only one, only
self, as its end. Egoism strengthens cohesion, concentrates man on
himself, gives him a consistent principle of life; but it makes him
theoretically narrow, because indifferent to all which does not relate
to the well-being of self. Hence science, like art, arises only out of
polytheism, for polytheism is the frank, open, unenvying sense of all
that is beautiful and good without distinction, the sense of the world,
of the universe. The Greeks looked abroad into the wide world that they
might extend their sphere of vision; the Jews to this day pray with
their faces turned towards Jerusalem. In the Israelites, monotheistic
egoism excluded the free theoretic tendency. Solomon, it is true,
surpassed "all the children of the East" in understanding and wisdom,
and spoke (treated, agebat) moreover "of trees, from the cedar that
is in Lebanon, even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall,"
and also of "beasts and of fowl, and of creeping things and of fishes"
(1 Kings iv. 30, 34). But it must be added that Solomon did not serve
Jehovah with his whole heart; he did homage to strange gods and strange
women; and thus he had the polytheistic sentiment and taste. The
polytheistic sentiment, I repeat, is the foundation of science and art.
The significance which Nature in general had for the Hebrews is one
with their idea of its origin. The mode in which the genesis of a
thing is explained is the candid expression of opinion, of sentiment
respecting it. If it be thought meanly of, so also is its origin. Men
used to suppose that insects, vermin, sprang from carrion and other
rubbish. It was not because they derived vermin from so uninviting a
source that they thought contemptuously of them, but, on the contrary,
because they thought thus, because the nature of vermin appeared to
them so vile, they imagined an origin corresponding to this nature,
a vile origin. To the Jews Nature was a mere means towards achieving
the end of egoism, a mere object of will. But the ideal, the idol
of the egoistic will is that Will which has unlimited command, which
requires no means in order to attain its end, to realise its object,
which immediately by itself, i.e., by pure will, calls into existence
whatever it pleases. It pains the egoist that the satisfaction of
his wishes and need is only to be attained immediately, that for him
there is a chasm between the wish and its realisation, between the
object in the imagination and the object in reality. Hence, in order
to relieve this pain, to make himself free from the limits of reality,
he supposes as the true, the highest being, One who brings forth an
object by the mere I will. For this reason, Nature, the world, was
to the Hebrews the product of a dictatorial word, of a categorical
imperative, of a magic fiat.
To that which has no essential existence for me in theory I assign
no theoretic, no positive ground. By referring it to Will I only
enforce its theoretic nullity. What we despise we do not honour with
a glance: that which is observed has importance: contemplation is
respect. Whatever is looked at fetters by secret forces of attraction,
overpowers by the spell which it exercises upon the eye, the criminal
arrogance of that Will which seeks only to subject all things to
itself. Whatever makes an impression on the theoretic sense, on the
reason, withdraws itself from the dominion of the egoistic Will:
it reacts, it presents resistance. That which devastating egoism
devotes to death, benignant theory restores to life.
The much-belied doctrine of the heathen philosophers concerning
the eternity of matter, or the world, thus implies nothing more
than that Nature was to them a theoretic reality. [86] The heathens
were idolaters, that is, they contemplated Nature; they did nothing
else than what the profoundly Christian nations do at this day
when they make Nature an object of their admiration, of their
indefatigable investigation. "But the heathens actually worshipped
natural objects." Certainly; for worship is only the childish,
the religious form of contemplation. Contemplation and worship are
not essentially distinguished. That which I contemplate I humble
myself before, I consecrate to it my noblest possession, my heart,
my intelligence, as an offering. The natural philosopher also falls
on his knees before Nature when, at the risk of his life, he snatches
from some precipice a lichen, an insect, or a stone, to glorify it in
the light of contemplation, and give it an eternal existence in the
memory of scientific humanity. The study of Nature is the worship of
Nature--idolatry in the sense of the Israelitish and Christian God;
and idolatry is simply man's primitive contemplation of Nature; for
religion is nothing else than man's primitive, and therefore childish,
popular, but prejudiced, unemancipated consciousness of himself and
of Nature. The Hebrews, on the other hand, raised themselves from
the worship of idols to the worship of God, from the creature to
the Creator; i.e., they raised themselves from the theoretic view
of Nature, which fascinated the idolaters, to the purely practical
view which subjects Nature only to the ends of egoism. "And lest
thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun,
the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldst be
driven to worship them and serve them, which the Lord thy God hath
divided unto (i.e., bestowed upon, largitus est) all nations under
the whole heaven." [87] Thus the creation out of nothing, i.e.,
the creation as a purely imperious act, had its origin only in the
unfathomable depth of Hebrew egoism.
On this ground, also, the creation out of nothing is no object of
philosophy;--at least in any other way than it is so here;--for it cuts
away the root of all true speculation, presents no grappling-point
to thought, to theory; theoretically considered, it is a baseless
air-built doctrine, which originated solely in the need to give
a warrant to utilism, to egoism, which contains and expresses
nothing but the command to make Nature--not an object of thought,
of contemplation, but--an object of utilisation. The more empty
it is, however, for natural philosophy, the more profound is its
"speculative" significance; for just because it has no theoretic
fulcrum, it allows to the speculatist infinite room for the play of
arbitrary, groundless interpretation.
It is in the history of dogma and speculation as in the history of
states. World-old usages, laws, and institutions continue to drag out
their existence long after they have lost their true meaning. What
has once existed will not be denied the right to exist for ever; what
was once good, claims to be good for all times. At this period of
superannuation come the interpreters, the speculatists, and talk of
the profound sense, because they no longer know the true one. [88]
Thus religious speculation deals with the dogmas torn from the
connection in which alone they have any true meaning; instead of
tracing them back critically to their true origin, it makes the
secondary primitive, and the primitive secondary. To it God is
the first, man the second. Thus it inverts the natural order of
things. In reality, the first is man, the second the nature of man
made objective, namely, God. Only in later times, in which religion
is already become flesh and blood, can it be said--As God is, so is
man; although, indeed, this proposition never amounts to anything
more than tautology. But in the origin of religion it is otherwise;
and it is only in the origin of a thing that we can discern its true
nature. Man first unconsciously and involuntarily creates God in his
own image, and after this God consciously and voluntarily creates man
in his own image. This is especially confirmed by the development
of the Israelitish religion. Hence the position of theological
one-sidedness, that the revelation of God holds an even pace with
the development of the human race. Naturally; for the revelation of
God is nothing else than the revelation, the self-unfolding of human
nature. The supranaturalistic egoism of the Jews did not proceed
from the Creator, but conversely, the latter from the former; in the
creation the Israelite justified his egoism at the bar of his reason.
It is true, and it may be readily understood on simply practical
grounds, that even the Israelite could not, as a man, withdraw himself
from the theoretic contemplation and admiration of Nature. But in
celebrating the power and greatness of Nature, he celebrates only
the power and greatness of Jehovah. And the power of Jehovah has
exhibited itself with the most glory in the miracles which it has
wrought in favour of Israel. Hence, in the celebration of this power,
the Israelite has always reference ultimately to himself; he extols
the greatness of Nature only for the same reason that the conqueror
magnifies the strength of his opponent, in order thereby to heighten
his own self-complacency, to make his own fame more illustrious. Great
and mighty is Nature, which Jehovah has created, but yet mightier,
yet greater, is Israel's self-estimation. For his sake the sun stands
still; for his sake, according to Philo, the earth quaked at the
delivery of the law; in short, for his sake all Nature alters its
course. "For the whole creature in his proper kind was fashioned again
anew, serving the peculiar commandments that were given unto them,
that thy children might be kept without hurt." [89] According to Philo,
God gave Moses power over the whole of Nature; all the elements obeyed
him as the Lord of Nature. [90] Israel's requirement is the omnipotent
law of the world, Israel's need the fate of the universe. Jehovah is
Israel's consciousness of the sacredness and necessity of his own
existence,--a necessity before which the existence of Nature, the
existence of other nations, vanishes into nothing; Jehovah is the salus
populi, the salvation of Israel, to which everything that stands in its
way must be sacrificed; Jehovah is exclusive, monarchical arrogance,
the annihilating flash of anger in the vindictive glance of destroying
Israel; in a word, Jehovah is the ego of Israel, which regards itself
as the end and aim, the Lord of Nature. Thus, in the power of Nature
the Israelite celebrates the power of Jehovah, and in the power of
Jehovah the power of his own self-consciousness. "Blessed be God! God
is our help, God is our salvation."--"Jehovah is my strength."--"God
himself hearkened to the word of Joshua, for Jehovah himself fought
for Israel."--"Jehovah is a God of war."
If, in the course of time, the idea of Jehovah expanded itself in
individual minds, and his love was extended, as by the writer of the
Book of Jonah, to man in general, this does not belong to the essential
character of the Israelitish religion. The God of the fathers, to whom
the most precious recollections are attached, the ancient historical
God, remains always the foundation of a religion. [91]
CHAPTER XII.
THE OMNIPOTENCE OF FEELING, OR THE MYSTERY OF PRAYER.
Israel is the historical definition of the specific nature of the
religious consciousness, save only that here this consciousness
was circumscribed by the limits of a particular, a national
interest. Hence, we need only let these limits fall, and we have the
Christian religion. Judaism is worldly Christianity; Christianity,
spiritual Judaism. The Christian religion is the Jewish religion
purified from national egoism, and yet at the same time it is certainly
another, a new religion; for every reformation, every purification,
produces--especially in religious matters, where even the trivial
becomes important--an essential change. To the Jew, the Israelite
was the mediator, the bond between God and man; in his relation to
Jehovah he relied on his character of Israelite; Jehovah himself was
nothing else than the self-consciousness of Israel made objective
as the absolute being, the national conscience, the universal law,
the central point of the political system. [92] If we let fall the
limits of nationality, we obtain--instead of the Israelite--man. As in
Jehovah the Israelite personified his national existence, so in God
the Christian personified his subjective human nature, freed from
the limits of nationality. As Israel made the wants of his national
existence the law of the world, as, under the dominance of these wants,
he deified even his political vindictiveness; so the Christian made
the requirements of human feeling the absolute powers and laws of the
world. The miracles of Christianity, which belong just as essentially
to its characterisation as the miracles of the Old Testament to
that of Judaism, have not the welfare of a nation for their object,
but the welfare of man:--that is, indeed, only of man considered
as Christian; for Christianity, in contradiction with the genuine
universal human heart, recognised man only under the condition,
the limitation, of belief in Christ. But this fatal limitation will
be discussed further on. Christianity has spiritualised the egoism
of Judaism into subjectivity (though even within Christianity this
subjectivity is again expressed as pure egoism), has changed the
desire for earthly happiness, the goal of the Israelitish religion,
into the longing for heavenly bliss, which is the goal of Christianity.
The highest idea, the God of a political community, of a people
whose political system expresses itself in the form of religion,
is Law, the consciousness of the law as an absolute divine power;
the highest idea, the God of unpolitical, unworldly feeling is Love;
the love which brings all the treasures and glories in heaven and
upon earth as an offering to the beloved, the love whose law is the
wish of the beloved one, and whose power is the unlimited power of
the imagination, of intellectual miracle-working.
God is the Love that satisfies our wishes, our emotional wants; he
is himself the realised wish of the heart, the wish exalted to the
certainty of its fulfilment, of its reality, to that undoubting
certainty before which no contradiction of the understanding,
no difficulty of experience or of the external world, maintains
its ground. Certainty is the highest power for man; that which is
certain to him is the essential, the divine. "God is love:" this,
the supreme dictum of Christianity, only expresses the certainty
which human feeling has of itself, as the alone essential, i.e.,
absolute divine power, the certainty that the inmost wishes of the
heart have objective validity and reality, that there are no limits,
no positive obstacles to human feeling, that the whole world, with
all its pomp and glory, is nothing weighed against human feeling. God
is love: that is, feeling is the God of man, nay, God absolutely,
the Absolute Being. God is the nature of human feeling, unlimited,
pure feeling, made objective. God is the optative of the human heart
transformed into the tempus finitum, the certain, blissful "IS,"--the
unrestricted omnipotence of feeling, prayer hearing itself, feeling
perceiving itself, the echo of our cry of anguish. Pain must give
itself utterance; involuntarily the artist seizes the lute that he
may breathe out his sufferings in its tones. He soothes his sorrow
by making it audible to himself, by making it objective; he lightens
the burden which weighs upon his heart by communicating it to the air,
by making his sorrow a general existence. But nature listens not to the
plaints of man, it is callous to his sorrows. Hence man turns away from
Nature, from all visible objects. He turns within, that here, sheltered
and hidden from the inexorable powers, he may find audience for his
griefs. Here he utters his oppressive secrets; here he gives vent to
his stifled sighs. This open-air of the heart, this outspoken secret,
this uttered sorrow of the soul, is God. God is a tear of love, shed
in the deepest concealment over human misery. "God is an unutterable
sigh, lying in the depths of the heart;" [93] this saying is the most
remarkable, the profoundest, truest expression of Christian mysticism.
The ultimate essence of religion is revealed by the simplest act of
religion--prayer; an act which implies at least as much as the dogma
of the Incarnation, although religious speculation stands amazed
at this, as the greatest of mysteries. Not, certainly, the prayer
before and after meals, the ritual of animal egoism, but the prayer
pregnant with sorrow, the prayer of disconsolate love, the prayer
which expresses the power of the heart that crushes man to the ground,
the prayer which begins in despair and ends in rapture.
In prayer, man addresses God with the word of intimate affection--Thou;
he thus declares articulately that God is his alter ego; he confesses
to God, as the being nearest to him, his most secret thoughts, his
deepest wishes, which otherwise he shrinks from uttering. But he
expresses these wishes in the confidence, in the certainty that they
will be fulfilled. How could he apply to a being that had no ear for
his complaints? Thus what is prayer but the wish of the heart expressed
with confidence in its fulfilment? [94] what else is the being that
fulfils these wishes but human affection, the human soul, giving ear
to itself, approving itself, unhesitatingly affirming itself? The man
who does not exclude from his mind the idea of the world, the idea
that everything here must be sought intermediately, that every effect
has its natural cause, that a wish is only to be attained when it is
made an end and the corresponding means are put into operation--such a
man does not pray: he only works; he transforms his attainable wishes
into objects of real activity; other wishes which he recognises as
purely subjective he denies, or regards as simply subjective, pious
aspirations. In other words, he limits, he conditionates his being
by the world, as a member of which he conceives himself; he bounds
his wishes by the idea of necessity. In prayer, on the contrary,
man excludes from his mind the world, and with it all thoughts of
intermediateness and dependence; he makes his wishes--the concerns
of his heart, objects of the independent, omnipotent, absolute being,
i.e., he affirms them without limitation. God is the affirmation [95]
of human feeling; prayer is the unconditional confidence of human
feeling in the absolute identity of the subjective and objective,
the certainty that the power of the heart is greater than the power of
Nature, that the heart's need is absolute necessity, the fate of the
world. Prayer alters the course of Nature; it determines God to bring
forth an effect in contradiction with the laws of Nature. Prayer is the
absolute relation of the human heart to itself, to its own nature;
in prayer, man forgets that there exists a limit to his wishes,
and is happy in this forgetfulness.
Prayer is the self-division of man into two beings,--a dialogue
of man with himself, with his heart. It is essential to the
effectiveness of prayer that it be audibly, intelligibly, energetically
expressed. Involuntarily prayer wells forth in sound; the struggling
heart bursts the barrier of the closed lips. But audible prayer
is only prayer revealing its nature; prayer is virtually, if not
actually, speech,--the Latin word oratio signifies both: in prayer,
man speaks undisguisedly of that which weighs upon him, which affects
him closely; he makes his heart objective;--hence the moral power
of prayer. Concentration, it is said, is the condition of prayer;
but it is more than a condition; prayer is itself concentration,--the
dismissal of all distracting ideas, of all disturbing influences from
without, retirement within oneself, in order to have relation only
with one's own being. Only a trusting, open, hearty, fervent prayer is
said to help; but this help lies in the prayer itself. As everywhere
in religion the subjective, the secondary, the conditionating, is the
prima causa, the objective fact; so here, these subjective qualities
are the objective nature of prayer itself. [96]
It is an extremely superficial view of prayer to regard it as an
expression of the sense of dependence. It certainly expresses such a
sense, but the dependence is that of man on his own heart, on his own
feeling. He who feels himself only dependent, does not open his mouth
in prayer; the sense of dependence robs him of the desire, the courage
for it, for the sense of dependence is the sense of need. Prayer has
its root rather in the unconditional trust of the heart, untroubled
by all thought of compulsive need, that its concerns are objects
of the Absolute Being, that the almighty, infinite nature of the
Father of men is a sympathetic, tender, loving nature, and that thus
the dearest, most sacred emotions of man are divine realities. But
the child does not feel itself dependent on the father as a father;
rather, he has in the father the feeling of his own strength, the
consciousness of his own worth, the guarantee of his existence,
the certainty of the fulfilment of his wishes; on the father rests
the burden of care; the child, on the contrary, lives careless and
happy in reliance on the father, his visible guardian spirit, who
desires nothing but the child's welfare and happiness. The father
makes the child an end, and himself the means of its existence. The
child, in asking something of its father, does not apply to him as
a being distinct from itself, a master, a person in general, but it
applies to him in so far as he is dependent on, and determined by
his paternal feeling, his love for his child. [97] The entreaty is
only an expression of the force which the child exercises over the
father; if, indeed, the word force is appropriate here, since the
force of the child is nothing more than the force of the father's own
heart. Speech has the same form both for entreaty and command, namely,
the imperative. And the imperative of love has infinitely more power
than that of despotism. Love does not command; love needs but gently
to intimate its wishes to be certain of their fulfilment; the despot
must throw compulsion even into the tones of his voice in order to
make other beings, in themselves uncaring for him, the executors of
his wishes. The imperative of love works with electro-magnetic power;
that of despotism with the mechanical power of a wooden telegraph. The
most intimate epithet of God in prayer is the word "Father;" the most
intimate, because in it man is in relation to the absolute nature
as to his own; the word "Father" is the expression of the closest,
the most intense identity,--the expression in which lies the pledge
that my wishes will be fulfilled, the guarantee of my salvation. The
omnipotence to which man turns in prayer is nothing but the Omnipotence
of Goodness, which, for the sake of the salvation of man, makes the
impossible possible;--is, in truth, nothing else than the omnipotence
of the heart, of feeling, which breaks through all the limits of
the understanding, which soars above all the boundaries of Nature,
which wills that there be nothing else than feeling, nothing that
contradicts the heart. Faith in omnipotence is faith in the unreality
of the external world, of objectivity,--faith in the absolute reality
of man's emotional nature: the essence of omnipotence is simply the
essence of feeling. Omnipotence is the power before which no law,
no external condition, avails or subsists; but this power is the
emotional nature, which feels every determination, every law, to be
a limit, a restraint, and for that reason dismisses it. Omnipotence
does nothing more than accomplish the will of the feelings. In prayer
man turns to the Omnipotence of Goodness;--which simply means, that in
prayer man adores his own heart, regards his own feelings as absolute.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE MYSTERY OF FAITH--THE MYSTERY OF MIRACLE.
Faith in the power of prayer--and only where a power, an objective
power, is ascribed to it, is prayer still a religious truth--is
identical with faith in miraculous power; and faith in miracles is
identical with the essence of faith in general. Faith alone prays;
the prayer of faith is alone effectual. But faith is nothing else
than confidence in the reality of the subjective in opposition to
the limitations or laws of Nature and reason,--that is, of natural
reason. The specific object of faith, therefore, is miracle;
faith is the belief in miracle; faith and miracle are absolutely
inseparable. That which is objectively miracle or miraculous power
is subjectively faith; miracle is the outward aspect of faith, faith
the inward soul of miracle; faith is the miracle of mind, the miracle
of feeling, which merely becomes objective in external miracles. To
faith nothing is impossible, and miracle only gives actuality to
this omnipotence of faith: miracles are but a visible example of
what faith can effect. Unlimitedness, supernaturalness, exaltation of
feeling,--transcendence is therefore the essence of faith. Faith has
reference only to things which, in contradiction with the limits or
laws of Nature and reason, give objective reality to human feelings
and human desires. Faith unfetters the wishes of subjectivity from the
bonds of natural reason; it confers what Nature and reason deny; hence
it makes man happy, for it satisfies his most personal wishes. And
true faith is discomposed by no doubt. Doubt arises only where I go
out of myself, overstep the bounds of my personality, concede reality
and a right of suffrage to that which is distinct from myself;--where
I know myself to be a subjective, i.e., a limited being, and seek to
widen my limits by admitting things external to myself. But in faith
the very principle of doubt is annulled; for to faith the subjective
is in and by itself the objective--nay, the absolute. Faith is nothing
else than belief in the absolute reality of subjectivity.
"Faith is that courage in the heart which trusts for all good to
God. Such a faith, in which the heart places its reliance on God alone,
is enjoined by God in the first commandment, where he says, I am the
Lord thy God.... That is, I alone will be thy God; thou shalt seek
no other God; I will help thee out of all trouble. Thou shalt not
think that I am an enemy to thee, and will not help thee. When thou
thinkest so, thou makest me in thine heart into another God than I
am. Wherefore hold it for certain that I am willing to be merciful
to thee."--"As thou behavest thyself, so does God behave. If thou
thinkest that he is angry with thee, he is angry; if thou thinkest
that he is unmerciful and will cast thee into hell, he is so. As thou
believest of God, so is he to thee."--"If thou believest it, thou hast
it; but if thou believest not, thou hast none of it."--"Therefore,
as we believe so does it happen to us. If we regard him as our God,
he will not be our devil. But if we regard him not as our God, then
truly he is not our God, but must be a consuming fire."--"By unbelief
we make God a devil." [98] Thus, if I believe in a God, I have a God,
i.e., faith in God is the God of man. If God is such, whatever it
may be, as I believe him, what else is the nature of God than the
nature of faith? Is it possible for thee to believe in a God who
regards thee favourably, if thou dost not regard thyself favourably,
if thou despairest of man, if he is nothing to thee? What else then
is the being of God but the being of man, the absolute self-love
of man? If thou believest that God is for thee, thou believest
that nothing is or can be against thee, that nothing contradicts
thee. But if thou believest that nothing is or can be against thee,
thou believest--what?--nothing less than that thou art God. [99]
That God is another being is only illusion, only imagination. In
declaring that God is for thee, thou declarest that he is thy own
being. What then is faith but the infinite self-certainty of man, the
undoubting certainty that his own subjective being is the objective,
absolute being, the being of beings?
Faith does not limit itself by the idea of a world, a universe,
a necessity. For faith there is nothing but God, i.e., limitless
subjectivity. Where faith rises the world sinks, nay, has already
sunk into nothing. Faith in the real annihilation of the world--in an
immediately approaching, a mentally present annihilation of this world,
a world antagonistic to the wishes of the Christian, is therefore
a phenomenon belonging to the inmost essence of Christianity;
a faith which is not properly separable from the other elements
of Christian belief, and with the renunciation of which, true,
positive Christianity is renounced and denied. [100] The essence
of faith, as may be confirmed by an examination of its objects down
to the minutest speciality, is the idea that that which man wishes
actually is: he wishes to be immortal, therefore he is immortal;
he wishes for the existence of a being who can do everything which
is impossible to Nature and reason, therefore such a being exists;
he wishes for a world which corresponds to the desires of the heart,
a world of unlimited subjectivity, i.e., of unperturbed feeling,
of uninterrupted bliss, while nevertheless there exists a world
the opposite of that subjective one, and hence this world must pass
away,--as necessarily pass away as God, or absolute subjectivity,
must remain. Faith, love, hope, are the Christian Trinity. Hope has
relation to the fulfilment of the promises, the wishes which are not
yet fulfilled, but which are to be fulfilled; love has relation to
the Being who gives and fulfils these promises; faith to the promises,
the wishes, which are already fulfilled, which are historical facts.
Miracle is an essential object of Christianity, an essential article of
faith. But what is miracle? A supranaturalistic wish realised--nothing
more. The Apostle Paul illustrates the nature of Christian faith by
the example of Abraham. Abraham could not, in a natural way, ever hope
for posterity; Jehovah nevertheless promised it to him out of special
favour, and Abraham believed in spite of Nature. Hence this faith was
reckoned to him as righteousness, as merit; for it implies great force
of subjectivity to accept as certain something in contradiction with
experience, at least with rational, normal experience. But what was
the object of this divine promise? Posterity, the object of a human
wish. And in what did Abraham believe when he believed in Jehovah? In
a Being who can do everything, and can fulfil all wishes. "Is anything
too hard for the Lord?" [101]
But why do we go so far back as to Abraham? We have the most striking
examples much nearer to us. Miracle feeds the hungry, cures men born
blind, deaf, and lame, rescues from fatal diseases, and even raises
the dead at the prayer of relatives. Thus it satisfies human wishes,
and wishes which, though not always intrinsically like the wish for the
restoration of the dead, yet in so far as they appeal to miraculous
power, to miraculous aid, are transcendental, supranaturalistic. But
miracle is distinguished from that mode of satisfying human wishes
and needs which is in accordance with Nature and reason, in this
respect, that it satisfies the wishes of men in a way corresponding
to the nature of wishes--in the most desirable way. Wishes own
no restraint, no law, no time; they would be fulfilled without
delay on the instant. And behold! miracle is as rapid as a wish is
impatient. Miraculous power realises human wishes in a moment, at
one stroke, without any hindrance. That the sick should become well
is no miracle; but that they should become so immediately, at a mere
word of command,--that is the mystery of miracle. Thus it is not in
its product or object that miraculous agency is distinguished from
the agency of Nature and reason, but only in its mode and process;
for if miraculous power were to effect something absolutely new,
never before beheld, never conceived, or not even conceivable, it
would be practically proved to be an essentially different, and at
the same time objective, agency. But the agency which in essence,
in substance, is natural and accordant with the forms of the senses,
and which is supernatural, supersensual, only in the mode or process,
is the agency of the imagination. The power of miracle is therefore
nothing else than the power of the imagination.
Miraculous agency is agency directed to an end. The yearning after the
departed Lazarus, the desire of his relatives to possess him again,
was the motive of the miraculous resuscitation; the satisfaction of
this wish, the end. It is true that the miracle happened "for the
glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby;" but
the message sent to the Master by the sisters of Lazarus, "Behold,
he whom thou lovest is sick," and the tears which Jesus shed,
vindicate for the miracle a human origin and end. The meaning is:
to that power which can awaken the dead no human wish is impossible
to accomplish. [102] And the glory of the Son consists in this: that
he is acknowledged and reverenced as the being who is able to do what
man is unable but wishes to do. Activity towards an end is well known
to describe a circle: in the end it returns upon its beginning. But
miraculous agency is distinguished from the ordinary realisation
of an object in that it realises the end without means, that it
effects an immediate identity of the wish and its fulfilment; that
consequently it describes a circle, not in a curved, but in a straight
line, that is, the shortest line. A circle in a straight line is the
mathematical symbol of miracle. The attempt to construct a circle
with a straight line would not be more ridiculous than the attempt
to deduce miracle philosophically. To reason, miracle is absurd,
inconceivable; as inconceivable as wooden iron or a circle without
a periphery. Before it is discussed whether a miracle can happen,
let it be shown that miracle, i.e., the inconceivable, is conceivable.
What suggests to man the notion that miracle is conceivable is
that miracle is represented as an event perceptible by the senses,
and hence man cheats his reason by material images which screen the
contradiction. The miracle of the turning of water into wine, for
example, implies in fact nothing else than that water is wine,--nothing
else than that two absolutely contradictory predicates or subjects
are identical; for in the hand of the miracle-worker there is no
distinction between the two substances; the transformation is only
the visible appearance of this identity of two contradictories. But
the transformation conceals the contradiction, because the natural
conception of change is interposed. Here, however, is no gradual, no
natural, or, so to speak, organic change; but an absolute, immaterial
one; a pure creatio ex nihilo. In the mysterious and momentous act of
miraculous power, in the act which constitutes the miracle, water is
suddenly and imperceptibly wine: which is equivalent to saying that
iron is wood, or wooden iron.
The miraculous act--and miracle is only a transient act--is therefore
not an object of thought, for it nullifies the very principle of
thought; but it is just as little an object of sense, an object of
real or even possible experience. Water is indeed an object of sense,
and wine also; I first see water and then wine; but the miracle itself,
that which makes this water suddenly wine,--this, not being a natural
process, but a pure perfect without any antecedent imperfect, without
any modus, without way or means, is no object of real, or even of
possible experience. Miracle is a thing of the imagination; and on that
very account is it so agreeable: for the imagination is the faculty
which alone corresponds to personal feeling, because it sets aside
all limits, all laws which are painful to the feelings, and thus makes
objective to man the immediate, absolutely unlimited satisfaction of
his subjective wishes. [103] Accordance with subjective inclination
is the essential characteristic of miracle. It is true that miracle
produces also an awful, agitating impression, so far as it expresses a
power which nothing can resist,--the power of the imagination. But this
impression lies only in the transient miraculous act; the abiding,
essential impression is the agreeable one. At the moment in which
the beloved Lazarus is raised up, the surrounding relatives and
friends are awestruck at the extraordinary, almighty power which
transforms the dead into the living; but soon the relatives fall
into the arms of the risen one, and lead him with tears of joy to
his home, there to celebrate a festival of rejoicing. Miracle springs
out of feeling, and has its end in feeling. Even in the traditional
representation it does not deny its origin; the representation which
gratifies the feelings is alone the adequate one. Who can fail to
recognise in the narrative of the resurrection of Lazarus the tender,
pleasing, legendary tone? [104] Miracle is agreeable, because, as
has been said, it satisfies the wishes of man without labour, without
effort. Labour is unimpassioned, unbelieving, rationalistic; for man
here makes his existence dependent on activity directed to an end,
which activity again is itself determined solely by the idea of the
objective world. But feeling does not at all trouble itself about
the objective world; it does not go out of or beyond itself; it is
happy in itself. The element of culture, the Northern principle of
self-renunciation, is wanting to the emotional nature. The Apostles
and Evangelists were no scientifically cultivated men. Culture, in
general, is nothing else than the exaltation of the individual above
his subjectivity to objective universal ideas, to the contemplation
of the world. The Apostles were men of the people; the people live
only in themselves, in their feelings; therefore Christianity took
possession of the people. Vox populi vox Dei. Did Christianity conquer
a single philosopher, historian, or poet of the classical period? The
philosophers who went over to Christianity were feeble, contemptible
philosophers. All who had yet the classic spirit in them were hostile,
or at least indifferent to Christianity. The decline of culture was
identical with the victory of Christianity. The classic spirit, the
spirit of culture, limits itself by laws,--not indeed by arbitrary,
finite laws, but by inherently true and valid ones; it is determined
by the necessity, the truth of the nature of things; in a word, it is
the objective spirit. In place of this, there entered with Christianity
the principle of unlimited, extravagant, fanatical, supranaturalistic
subjectivity; a principle intrinsically opposed to that of science,
of culture. [105] With Christianity man lost the capability of
conceiving himself as a part of Nature, of the universe. As long as
true, unfeigned, unfalsified, uncompromising Christianity existed,
as long as Christianity was a living, practical truth, so long did
real miracles happen; and they necessarily happened, for faith in
dead, historical, past miracles is itself a dead faith, the first
step towards unbelief, or rather the first and therefore the timid,
uncandid, servile mode in which unbelief in miracle finds vent. But
where miracles happen, all definite forms melt in the golden haze
of imagination and feeling; there the world, reality, is no truth;
there the miracle-working, emotional, i.e., subjective being, is held
to be alone the objective, real being.
To the merely emotional man the imagination is immediately, without his
willing or knowing it, the highest, the dominant activity; and being
the highest, it is the activity of God, the creative activity. To
him feeling is an immediate truth and reality; he cannot abstract
himself from his feelings, he cannot get beyond them: and equally
real is his imagination. The imagination is not to him what it is
to us men of active understanding, who distinguish it as subjective
from objective cognition; it is immediately identical with himself,
with his feelings; and since it is identical with his being, it is
his essential, objective, necessary view of things. For us, indeed,
imagination is an arbitrary activity; but where man has not imbibed
the principle of culture, of theory, where he lives and moves only
in his feelings, the imagination is an immediate, involuntary activity.
The explanation of miracles by feeling and imagination is regarded
by many in the present day as superficial. But let any one transport
himself to the time when living, present miracles were believed in;
when the reality of things without us was as yet no sacred article of
faith; when men were so void of any theoretic interest in the world,
that they from day to day looked forward to its destruction; when
they lived only in the rapturous prospect and hope of heaven, that
is, in the imagination of it (for whatever heaven may be, for them,
so long as they were on earth, it existed only in the imagination);
when this imagination was not a fiction but a truth, nay, the eternal,
alone abiding truth, not an inert, idle source of consolation,
but a practical moral principle determining actions, a principle to
which men joyfully sacrificed real life, the real world with all its
glories;--let him transport himself to those times and he must himself
be very superficial to pronounce the psychological genesis of miracles
superficial. It is no valid objection that miracles have happened,
or are supposed to have happened, in the presence of whole assemblies:
no man was independent, all were filled with exalted supranaturalistic
ideas and feelings; all were animated by the same faith, the same
hope, the same hallucinations. And who does not know that there are
common or similar dreams, common or similar visions, especially among
impassioned individuals who are closely united and restricted to their
own circle? But be that as it may. If the explanation of miracles by
feeling and imagination is superficial, the charge of superficiality
falls not on the explainer, but on that which he explains, namely,
on miracle; for, seen in clear daylight, miracle presents absolutely
nothing else than the sorcery of the imagination, which satisfies
without contradiction all the wishes of the heart. [106]
CHAPTER XIV.
THE MYSTERY OF THE RESURRECTION AND OF THE MIRACULOUS CONCEPTION.
The quality of being agreeable to subjective inclination belongs not
only to practical miracles, in which it is conspicuous, as they have
immediate reference to the interest or wish of the human individual;
it belongs also to theoretical, or more properly dogmatic miracles,
and hence to the Resurrection and the Miraculous Conception.
Man, at least in a state of ordinary well-being, has the wish
not to die. This wish is originally identical with the instinct of
self-preservation. Whatever lives seeks to maintain itself, to continue
alive, and consequently not to die. Subsequently, when reflection and
feeling are developed under the urgency of life, especially of social
and political life, this primary negative wish becomes the positive
wish for a life, and that a better life, after death. But this wish
involves the further wish for the certainty of its fulfilment. Reason
can afford no such certainty. It has therefore been said that all
proofs of immortality are insufficient, and even that unassisted reason
is not capable of apprehending it, still less of proving it. And with
justice; for reason furnishes only general proofs; it cannot give
the certainty of any personal immortality, and it is precisely this
certainty which is desired. Such a certainty requires an immediate
personal assurance, a practical demonstration. This can only be given
to me by the fact of a dead person, whose death has been previously
certified, rising again from the grave; and he must be no indifferent
person, but, on the contrary, the type and representative of all
others, so that his resurrection also may be the type, the guarantee
of theirs. The resurrection of Christ is therefore the satisfied
desire of man for an immediate certainty of his personal existence
after death,--personal immortality as a sensible, indubitable fact.
Immortality was with the heathen philosophers a question in which
the personal interest was only a collateral point. They concerned
themselves chiefly with the nature of the soul, of mind, of the vital
principle. The immortality of the vital principle by no means involves
the idea, not to mention the certainty, of personal immortality. Hence
the vagueness, discrepancy, and dubiousness with which the ancients
express themselves on this subject. The Christians, on the contrary,
in the undoubting certainty that their personal, self-flattering wishes
will be fulfilled, i.e., in the certainty of the divine nature of their
emotions, the truth and unassailableness of their subjective feelings,
converted that which to the ancients was a theoretic problem into an
immediate fact,--converted a theoretic, and in itself open question,
into a matter of conscience, the denial of which was equivalent to
the high treason of atheism. He who denies the resurrection denies the
resurrection of Christ, but he who denies the resurrection of Christ
denies Christ himself, and he who denies Christ denies God. Thus did
"spiritual" Christianity unspiritualise what was spiritual! To the
Christians the immortality of the reason, of the soul, was far too
abstract and negative; they had at heart only a personal immortality,
such as would gratify their feelings, and the guarantee of this lies
in a bodily resurrection alone. The resurrection of the body is the
highest triumph of Christianity over the sublime but certainly abstract
spirituality and objectivity of the ancients. For this reason the
idea of the resurrection could never be assimilated by the pagan mind.
As the Resurrection, which terminates the sacred history (to the
Christian not a mere history, but the truth itself), is a realised
wish, so also is that which commences it, namely, the Miraculous
Conception, though this has relation not so much to an immediately
personal interest as to a particular subjective feeling.
The more man alienates himself from Nature, the more subjective,
i.e., supranatural or antinatural, is his view of things, the
greater the horror he has of Nature, or at least of those natural
objects and processes which displease his imagination, which affect
him disagreeably. [107] The free, objective man doubtless finds
things repugnant and distasteful in Nature, but he regards them as
natural, inevitable results, and under this conviction he subdues
his feeling as a merely subjective and untrue one. On the contrary,
the subjective man, who lives only in the feelings and imagination,
regards these things with a quite peculiar aversion. He has the eye of
that unhappy foundling, who even in looking at the loveliest flower
could pay attention only to the little "black beetle" which crawled
over it, and who by this perversity of perception had his enjoyment
in the sight of flowers always embittered. Moreover, the subjective
man makes his feelings the measure, the standard of what ought to
be. That which does not please him, which offends his transcendental,
supranatural, or antinatural feelings, ought not to be. Even if that
which pleases him cannot exist without being associated with that which
displeases him, the subjective man is not guided by the wearisome
laws of logic and physics, but by the self-will of the imagination;
hence he drops what is disagreeable in a fact, and holds fast alone
what is agreeable. Thus the idea of the pure, holy Virgin pleases
him; still he is also pleased with the idea of the Mother, but only
of the Mother who already carries the infant on her arms.
Virginity in itself is to him the highest moral idea, the cornu copiæ
of his supranaturalistic feelings and ideas, his personified sense
of honour and of shame before common nature. [108] Nevertheless,
there stirs in his bosom a natural feeling also, the compassionate
feeling which makes the Mother beloved. What then is to be done in
this difficulty of the heart, in this conflict between a natural and
a supranatural feeling? The supranaturalist must unite the two, must
comprise in one and the same subject two predicates which exclude each
other. [109] Oh, what a plenitude of agreeable, sweet, supersensual,
sensual emotions lies in this combination!
Here we have the key to the contradiction in Catholicism, that at
the same time marriage is holy and celibacy is holy. This simply
realises, as a practical contradiction, the dogmatic contradiction of
the Virgin Mother. But this wondrous union of virginity and maternity,
contradicting Nature and reason, but in the highest degree accordant
with the feelings and imagination, is no product of Catholicism; it
lies already in the twofold part which marriage plays in the Bible,
especially in the view of the Apostle Paul. The supernatural conception
of Christ is a fundamental doctrine of Christianity, a doctrine which
expresses its inmost dogmatic essence, and which rests on the same
foundation as all other miracles and articles of faith. As death,
which the philosopher, the man of science, the free objective thinker
in general, accepts as a natural necessity, and as indeed all the
limits of nature, which are impediments to feeling, but to reason
are rational laws, were repugnant to the Christians, and were set
aside by them through the supposed agency of miraculous power; so,
necessarily, they had an equal repugnance to the natural process of
generation, and superseded it by miracle. The Miraculous Conception is
not less welcome than the Resurrection to all believers; for it was
the first step towards the purification of mankind, polluted by sin
and Nature. Only because the God-man was not infected with original
sin, could he, the pure one, purify mankind in the eyes of God, to
whom the natural process of generation was an object of aversion,
because he himself is nothing else but supranatural feeling.
Even the arid Protestant orthodoxy, so arbitrary in its criticism,
regarded the conception of the God-producing Virgin as a great,
adorable, amazing, holy mystery of faith, transcending reason. [110]
But with the Protestants, who confined the speciality of the Christian
to the domain of faith, and with whom, in life, it was allowable
to be a man, even this mystery had only a dogmatic, and no longer
a practical significance; they did not allow it to interfere with
their desire of marriage. With the Catholics, and with all the old,
uncompromising, uncritical Christians, that which was a mystery of
faith was a mystery of life, of morality. [111] Catholic morality is
Christian, mystical; Protestant morality was, in its very beginning,
rationalistic. Protestant morality is and was a carnal mingling of
the Christian with the man, the natural, political, civil, social
man, or whatever else he may be called in distinction from the
Christian; Catholic morality cherished in its heart the mystery of
the unspotted virginity. Catholic morality was the Mater dolorosa;
Protestant morality a comely, fruitful matron. Protestantism is
from beginning to end the contradiction between faith and love; for
which very reason it has been the source, or at least the condition,
of freedom. Just because the mystery of the Virgo Deipara had with
the Protestants a place only in theory, or rather in dogma, and no
longer in practice, they declared that it was impossible to express
oneself with sufficient care and reserve concerning it, and that it
ought not to be made an object of speculation. That which is denied in
practice has no true basis and durability in man, is a mere spectre
of the mind; and hence it is withdrawn from the investigation of the
understanding. Ghosts do not brook daylight.
Even the later doctrine (which, however, had been already enunciated
in a letter to St. Bernard, who rejects it), that Mary herself was
conceived without taint of original sin, is by no means a "strange
school-bred doctrine," as it is called by a modern historian. That
which gives birth to a miracle, which brings forth God, must itself
be of miraculous divine origin or nature. How could Mary have had
the honour of being overshadowed by the Holy Ghost if she had not
been from the first pure? Could the Holy Ghost take up his abode in
a body polluted by original sin? If the principle of Christianity,
the miraculous birth of the Saviour, does not appear strange to you,
why think strange the naïve, well-meaning inferences of Catholicism?
CHAPTER XV.
THE MYSTERY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHRIST, OR THE PERSONAL GOD.
The fundamental dogmas of Christianity are realised wishes of
the heart;--the essence of Christianity is the essence of human
feeling. It is pleasanter to be passive than to act, to be redeemed
and made free by another than to free oneself; pleasanter to make
one's salvation dependent on a person than on the force of one's
own spontaneity; pleasanter to set before oneself an object of love
than an object of effort; pleasanter to know oneself beloved by God
than merely to have that simple, natural self-love which is innate
in all beings; pleasanter to see oneself imaged in the love-beaming
eyes of another personal being, than to look into the concave mirror
of self or into the cold depths of the ocean of Nature; pleasanter,
in short, to allow oneself to be acted on by one's own feeling,
as by another, but yet fundamentally identical being, than to
regulate oneself by reason. Feeling is the oblique case of the ego,
the ego in the accusative. The ego of Fichte is destitute of feeling,
because the accusative is the same as the nominative, because it is
indeclinable. But feeling or sentiment is the ego acted on by itself,
and by itself as another being,--the passive ego. Feeling changes the
active in man into the passive, and the passive into the active. To
feeling, that which thinks is the thing thought, and the thing thought
is that which thinks. Feeling is the dream of Nature; and there is
nothing more blissful, nothing more profound than dreaming. But what
is dreaming? The reversing of the waking consciousness. In dreaming,
the active is the passive, the passive the active; in dreaming, I
take the spontaneous action of my own mind for an action upon me from
without, my emotions for events, my conceptions and sensations for true
existences apart from myself. I suffer what I also perform. Dreaming
is a double refraction of the rays of light; hence its indescribable
charm. It is the same ego, the same being in dreaming as in waking;
the only distinction is, that in waking, the ego acts on itself;
whereas in dreaming it is acted on by itself as by another being. I
think myself--is a passionless, rationalistic position; I am thought by
God, and think myself only as thought by God--is a position pregnant
with feeling, religious. Feeling is a dream with the eyes open;
religion the dream of waking consciousness: dreaming is the key to
the mysteries of religion.
The highest law of feeling is the immediate unity of will and deed,
of wishing and reality. This law is fulfilled by the Redeemer. As
external miracles, in opposition to natural activity, realise
immediately the physical wants and wishes of man; so the Redeemer,
the Mediator, the God-man, in opposition to the moral spontaneity of
the natural or rationalistic man, satisfies immediately the inward
moral wants and wishes, since he dispenses man on his own side from
any intermediate activity. What thou wishest is already effected. Thou
desirest to win, to deserve happiness. Morality is the condition,
the means of happiness. But thou canst not fulfil this condition;
that is, in truth, thou needest not. That which thou seekest to do has
already been done. Thou hast only to be passive, thou needest only
believe, only enjoy. Thou desirest to make God favourable to thee,
to appease his anger, to be at peace with thy conscience. But this
peace exists already; this peace is the Mediator, the God-man. He
is thy appeased conscience; he is the fulfilment of the law, and
therewith the fulfilment of thy own wish and effort.
Therefore it is no longer the law, but the fulfiller of the law,
who is the model, the guiding thread, the rule of thy life. He who
fulfils the law annuls the law. The law has authority, has validity,
only in relation to him who violates it. But he who perfectly fulfils
the law says to it: What thou willest I spontaneously will, and
what thou commandest I enforce by deeds; my life is the true, the
living law. The fulfiller of the law, therefore, necessarily steps
into the place of the law; moreover he becomes a new law, one whose
yoke is light and easy. For in place of the merely imperative law,
he presents himself as an example, as an object of love, of admiration
and emulation, and thus becomes the Saviour from sin. The law does not
give me the power to fulfil the law; no! it is hard and merciless;
it only commands, without troubling itself whether I can fulfil it,
or how I am to fulfil it; it leaves me to myself, without counsel
or aid. But he who presents himself to me as an example lights up my
path, takes me by the hand, and imparts to me his own strength. The law
lends no power of resisting sin, but example works miracles. The law is
dead; but example animates, inspires, carries men involuntarily along
with it. The law speaks only to the understanding, and sets itself
directly in opposition to the instincts; example, on the contrary,
appeals to a powerful instinct immediately connected with the activity
of the senses, that of involuntary imitation. Example operates on
the feelings and imagination. In short, example has magical, i.e.,
sense-affecting powers; for the magical or involuntary force of
attraction is an essential property, as of matter in general, so in
particular of that which affects the senses.
The ancients said that if virtue could become visible, its beauty
would win and inspire all hearts. The Christians were so happy as
to see even this wish fulfilled. The heathens had an unwritten, the
Jews a written law; the Christians had a model--a visible, personal,
living law, a law made flesh. Hence the joyfulness especially of
the primitive Christians, hence the glory of Christianity that it
alone contains and bestows the power to resist sin. And this glory
is not to be denied it. Only, it is to be observed that the power
of the exemplar of virtue is not so much the power of virtue as the
power of example in general; just as the power of religious music is
not the power of religion, but the power of music; [112] and that
therefore, though the image of virtue has virtuous actions as its
consequences, these actions are destitute of the dispositions and
motives of virtue. But this simple and true sense of the redeeming
and reconciling power of example in distinction from the power of
law, to which we have reduced the antithesis of the law and Christ,
by no means expresses the full religious significance of the Christian
redemption and reconciliation. In this everything reduces itself to the
personal power of that miraculous intermediate being who is neither
God alone nor man alone, but a man who is also God, and a God who is
also man, and who can therefore only be comprehended in connection
with the significance of miracle. In this, the miraculous Redeemer
is nothing else than the realised wish of feeling to be free from the
laws of morality, i.e., from the conditions to which virtue is united
in the natural course of things; the realised wish to be freed from
moral evils instantaneously, immediately, by a stroke of magic, that
is, in an absolutely subjective, agreeable way. "The word of God,"
says Luther, for example, "accomplishes all things swiftly, brings
forgiveness of sins, and gives thee eternal life, and costs nothing
more than that thou shouldst hear the word, and when thou hast heard
it shouldst believe. If thou believest, thou hast it without pains,
cost, delay, or difficulty." [113] But that hearing of the word of
God which is followed by faith is itself a "gift of God." Thus faith
is nothing else than a psychological miracle, a supernatural operation
of God in man, as Luther likewise says. But man becomes free from sin
and from the consciousness of guilt only through faith,--morality is
dependent on faith, the virtues of the heathens are only splendid sins;
thus he becomes morally free and good only through miracle.
That the idea of miraculous power is one with the idea of the
intermediate being, at once divine and human, has historical proof
in the fact that the miracles of the Old Testament, the delivery of
the law, providence--all the elements which constitute the essence of
religion, were in the later Judaism attributed to the Logos. In Philo,
however, this Logos still hovers in the air between heaven and earth,
now as abstract, now as concrete; that is, Philo vacillates between
himself as a philosopher and himself as a religious Israelite--between
the positive element of religion and the metaphysical idea of deity;
but in such a way that even the abstract element is with him more
or less invested with imaginative forms. In Christianity this Logos
first attained perfect consistence, i.e., religion now concentrated
itself exclusively on that element, that object, which is the basis
of its essential difference. The Logos is the personified essence of
religion. Hence the definition of God as the essence of feeling has
its complete truth only in the Logos.
God as God is feeling as yet shut up, hidden; only Christ is the
unclosed, open feeling or heart. In Christ feeling is first perfectly
certain of itself, and assured beyond doubt of the truth and divinity
of its own nature; for Christ denies nothing to feeling; he fulfils
all its prayers. In God the soul is still silent as to what affects
it most closely,--it only sighs; but in Christ it speaks out fully;
here it has no longer any reserves. To him who only sighs, wishes
are still attended with disquietude; he rather complains that what
he wishes is not, than openly, positively declares what he wishes;
he is still in doubt whether his wishes have the force of law. But
in Christ all anxiety of the soul vanishes; he is the sighing soul
passed into a song of triumph over its complete satisfaction; he is
the joyful certainty of feeling that its wishes hidden in God have
truth and reality, the actual victory over death, over all the powers
of the world and Nature, the resurrection no longer merely hoped for,
but already accomplished; he is the heart released from all oppressive
limits, from all sufferings,--the soul in perfect blessedness, the
Godhead made visible. [114]
To see God is the highest wish, the highest triumph of the
heart. Christ is this wish, this triumph, fulfilled. God, as an object
of thought only, i.e., God as God, is always a remote being; the
relation to him is an abstract one, like that relation of friendship
in which we stand to a man who is distant from us, and personally
unknown to us. However his works, the proofs of love which he gives us,
may make his nature present to us, there always remains an unfilled
void,--the heart is unsatisfied, we long to see him. So long as we
have not met a being face to face, we are always in doubt whether
he be really such as we imagine him; actual presence alone gives
final confidence, perfect repose. Christ is God known personally;
Christ, therefore, is the blessed certainty that God is what the
soul desires and needs him to be. God, as the object of prayer,
is indeed already a human being, since he sympathises with human
misery, grants human wishes; but still he is not yet an object to
the religious consciousness as a real man. Hence, only in Christ
is the last wish of religion realised, the mystery of religious
feeling solved:--solved however in the language of imagery proper
to religion, for what God is in essence, that Christ is in actual
appearance. So far the Christian religion may justly be called the
absolute religion. That God, who in himself is nothing else than the
nature of man, should also have a real existence as such, should be
as man an object to the consciousness--this is the goal of religion;
and this the Christian religion has attained in the incarnation of
God, which is by no means a transitory act, for Christ remains man
even after his ascension,--man in heart and man in form, only that
his body is no longer an earthly one, liable to suffering.
The incarnations of the Deity with the Orientals--the Hindoos, for
example--have no such intense meaning as the Christian incarnation;
just because they happen often they become indifferent, they lose
their value. The manhood of God is his personality; the proposition,
God is a personal being, means: God is a human being, God is a
man. Personality is an abstraction, which has reality only in an actual
man. [115] The idea which lies at the foundation of the incarnations
of God is therefore infinitely better conveyed by one incarnation,
one personality. Where God appears in several persons successively,
these personalities are evanescent. What is required is a permanent,
an exclusive personality. Where there are many incarnations, room is
given for innumerable others; the imagination is not restrained; and
even those incarnations which are already real pass into the category
of the merely possible and conceivable, into the category of fancies
or of mere appearances. But where one personality is exclusively
believed in and contemplated, this at once impresses with the power of
an historical personality; imagination is done away with, the freedom
to imagine others is renounced. This one personality presses on me
the belief in its reality. The characteristic of real personality is
precisely exclusiveness,--the Leibnitzian principle of distinction,
namely, that no one existence is exactly like another. The tone,
the emphasis, with which the one personality is expressed, produces
such an effect on the feelings, that it presents itself immediately
as a real one, and is converted from an object of the imagination
into an object of historical knowledge.
Longing is the necessity of feeling, and feeling longs for a personal
God. But this longing after the personality of God is true, earnest,
and profound only when it is the longing for one personality, when
it is satisfied with one. With the plurality of persons the truth
of the want vanishes, and personality becomes a mere luxury of the
imagination. But that which operates with the force of necessity,
operates with the force of reality on man. That which to the feelings
is a necessary being, is to them immediately a real being. Longing
says: There must be a personal God, i.e., it cannot be that there is
not; satisfied feeling says: He is. The guarantee of his existence
lies for feeling in its sense of the necessity of his existence the
necessity of the satisfaction in the force of the want. Necessity
knows no law besides itself; necessity breaks iron. Feeling knows
no other necessity than its own, than the necessity of feeling,
than longing; it holds in extreme horror the necessity of Nature,
the necessity of reason. Thus to feeling, a subjective, sympathetic,
personal God is necessary; but it demands one personality alone, and
this an historical, real one. Only when it is satisfied in the unity
of personality has feeling any concentration; plurality dissipates it.
But as the truth of personality is unity, and as the truth of unity is
reality, so the truth of real personality is--blood. The last proof,
announced with peculiar emphasis by the author of the fourth Gospel,
that the visible person of God was no phantasm, no illusion, but
a real man, is that blood flowed from his side on the cross. If the
personal God has a true sympathy with distress, he must himself suffer
distress. Only in his suffering lies the assurance of his reality;
only on this depends the impressiveness of the incarnation. To see God
does not satisfy feeling; the eyes give no sufficient guarantee. The
truth of vision is confirmed only by touch. But as subjectively
touch, so objectively the capability of being touched, palpability,
passibility, is the last criterion of reality; hence the passion
of Christ is the highest confidence, the highest self-enjoyment,
the highest consolation of feeling; for only in the blood of Christ
is the thirst for a personal, that is, a human, sympathising, tender
God allayed.
"Wherefore we hold it to be a pernicious error when such (namely,
divine) majesty is taken away from Christ according to his manhood,
thereby depriving Christians of their highest consolation, which they
have in ... the promise of the presence of their Head, King and High
Priest, who has promised them that not his mere Godhead, which to us
poor sinners is as a consuming fire to dry stubble, but he--he the
Man--who has spoken with us, who has proved all sorrows in the human
form which he took upon him, who therefore can have fellow-feeling
with us as his brethren,--that he will be with us in all our need,
according to the nature whereby he is our brother and we are flesh
of his flesh." [116]
It is superficial to say that Christianity is not the religion of one
personal God, but of three personalities. These three personalities
have certainly an existence in dogma; but even there the personality
of the Holy Spirit is only an arbitrary decision which is contradicted
by impersonal definitions; as, for example, that the Holy Spirit is
the gift of the Father and Son. [117] Already the very "procession"
of the Holy Ghost presents an evil prognostic for his personality, for
a personal being is produced only by generation, not by an indefinite
emanation or by spiratio. And even the Father, as the representative of
the rigorous idea of the Godhead, is a personal being only according
to opinion and assertion, not according to his definitions; he is
an abstract idea, a purely rationalistic being. Only Christ is the
plastic personality. To personality belongs form; form is the reality
of personality. Christ alone is the personal God; he is the real
God of Christians, a truth which cannot be too often repeated. [118]
In him alone is concentrated the Christian religion, the essence of
religion in general. He alone meets the longing for a personal God;
he alone is an existence identical with the nature of feeling; on
him alone are heaped all the joys of the imagination, and all the
sufferings of the heart; in him alone are feeling and imagination
exhausted. Christ is the blending in one of feeling and imagination.
Christianity is distinguished from other religions by this, that in
other religions the heart and imagination are divided, in Christianity
they coincide. Here the imagination does not wander, left to itself; it
follows the leadings of the heart; it describes a circle, whose centre
is feeling. Imagination is here limited by the wants of the heart,
it only realises the wishes of feeling, it has reference only to the
one thing needful; in brief, it has, at least generally, a practical,
concentric tendency, not a vagrant, merely poetic one. The miracles of
Christianity--no product of free, spontaneous activity, but conceived
in the bosom of yearning, necessitous feeling--place us immediately
on the ground of common, real life; they act on the emotional man with
irresistible force, because they have the necessity of feeling on their
side. The power of imagination is here at the same time the power of
the heart,--imagination is only the victorious, triumphant heart. With
the Orientals, with the Greeks, imagination, untroubled by the wants of
the heart, revelled in the enjoyment of earthly splendour and glory;
in Christianity, it descended from the palace of the gods into the
abode of poverty, where only want rules,--it humbled itself under
the sway of the heart. But the more it limited itself in extent, the
more intense became its strength. The wantonness of the Olympian gods
could not maintain itself before the rigorous necessity of the heart;
but imagination is omnipotent when it has a bond of union with the
heart. And this bond between the freedom of the imagination and the
necessity of the heart is Christ. All things are subject to Christ;
he is the Lord of the world, who does with it what he will; but this
unlimited power over Nature is itself again subject to the power of
the heart;--Christ commands raging Nature to be still, but only that
he may hear the sighs of the needy.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY AND HEATHENISM.
Christ is the omnipotence of subjectivity, the heart released from
all the bonds and laws of Nature, the soul excluding the world,
and concentrated only on itself, the reality of all the heart's
wishes, the Easter festival of the heart, the ascent to heaven of
the imagination:--Christ therefore is the distinction of Christianity
from heathenism.
In Christianity, man was concentrated only on himself, he unlinked
himself from the chain of sequences in the system of the universe,
he made himself a self-sufficing whole, an absolute, extra- and
supra-mundane being. Because he no longer regarded himself as a being
immanent in the world, because he severed himself from connection
with it, he felt himself an unlimited being--(for the sole limit
of subjectivity is the world, is objectivity),--he had no longer
any reason to doubt the truth and validity of his subjective wishes
and feelings.
The heathens, on the contrary, not shutting out Nature by retreating
within themselves, limited their subjectivity by the contemplation
of the world. Highly as the ancients estimated the intelligence, the
reason, they were yet liberal and objective enough, theoretically as
well as practically, to allow that which they distinguished from mind,
namely, matter, to live, and even to live eternally; the Christians
evinced their theoretical as well as practical intolerance in their
belief that they secured the eternity of their subjective life
only by annihilating, as in the doctrine of the destruction of the
world, the opposite of subjectivity--Nature. The ancients were free
from themselves, but their freedom was that of indifference towards
themselves; the Christians were free from Nature, but their freedom
was not that of reason, not true freedom, which limits itself by
the contemplation of the world, by Nature,--it was the freedom of
feeling and imagination, the freedom of miracle. The ancients were so
enraptured by the cosmos, that they lost sight of themselves, suffered
themselves to be merged in the whole; the Christians despised the
world;--what is the creature compared with the Creator? what are sun,
moon, and earth compared with the human soul? [119] The world passes
away, but man, nay, the individual, personal man, is eternal. If the
Christians severed man from all community with Nature, and hence fell
into the extreme of an arrogant fastidiousness, which stigmatised the
remotest comparison of man with the brutes as an impious violation
of human dignity; the heathens, on the other hand, fell into the
opposite extreme, into that spirit of depreciation which abolishes
the distinction between man and the brute, or even, as was the case,
for example, with Celsus, the opponent of Christianity, degrades man
beneath the brute.
But the heathens considered man not only in connection with the
universe; they considered the individual man, in connection with other
men, as member of a commonwealth. They rigorously distinguished the
individual from the species, the individual as a part from the race as
a whole, and they subordinated the part to the whole. Men pass away,
but mankind remains, says a heathen philosopher. "Why wilt thou grieve
over the loss of thy daughter?" writes Sulpicius to Cicero. "Great,
renowned cities and empires have passed away, and thou behavest thus
at the death of an homunculus, a little human being! Where is thy
philosophy?" The idea of man as an individual was to the ancients a
secondary one, attained through the idea of the species. Though they
thought highly of the race, highly of the excellences of mankind,
highly and sublimely of the intelligence, they nevertheless thought
slightly of the individual. Christianity, on the contrary, cared
nothing for the species, and had only the individual in its eye and
mind. Christianity--not, certainly, the Christianity of the present
day, which has incorporated with itself the culture of heathenism,
and has preserved only the name and some general positions of
Christianity--is the direct opposite of heathenism, and only when
it is regarded as such is it truly comprehended, and untravestied
by arbitrary speculative interpretation; it is true so far as its
opposite is false, and false so far as its opposite is true. The
ancients sacrificed the individual to the species; the Christians
sacrificed the species to the individual. Or, heathenism conceived
the individual only as a part in distinction from the whole of the
species; Christianity, on the contrary, conceived the individual only
in immediate, undistinguishable unity with the species.
To Christianity the individual was the object of an immediate
providence, that is, an immediate object of the Divine Being. The
heathens believed in a providence for the individual only through his
relation to the race, through law, through the order of the world,
and thus only in a mediate, natural, and not miraculous providence;
[120] but the Christians left out the intermediate process, and placed
themselves in immediate connection with the prescient, all-embracing,
universal Being; i.e., they immediately identified the individual
with the universal Being.
But the idea of deity coincides with the idea of humanity. All divine
attributes, all the attributes which make God God, are attributes of
the species--attributes which in the individual are limited, but the
limits of which are abolished in the essence of the species, and even
in its existence, in so far as it has its complete existence only in
all men taken together. My knowledge, my will, is limited; but my limit
is not the limit of another man, to say nothing of mankind; what is
difficult to me is easy to another; what is impossible, inconceivable,
to one age, is to the coming age conceivable and possible. My life is
bound to a limited time; not so the life of humanity. The history of
mankind consists of nothing else than a continuous and progressive
conquest of limits, which at a given time pass for the limits of
humanity, and therefore for absolute insurmountable limits. But
the future always unveils the fact that the alleged limits of the
species were only limits of individuals. The most striking proofs
of this are presented by the history of philosophy and of physical
science. It would be highly interesting and instructive to write a
history of the sciences entirely from this point of view, in order to
exhibit in all its vanity the presumptuous notion of the individual
that he can set limits to his race. Thus the species is unlimited;
the individual alone limited.
But the sense of limitation is painful, and hence the individual
frees himself from it by the contemplation of the perfect Being;
in this contemplation he possesses what otherwise is wanting to
him. With the Christians God is nothing else than the immediate
unity of species and individuality, of the universal and individual
being. God is the idea of the species as an individual--the idea
or essence of the species, which as a species, as universal being,
as the totality of all perfections, of all attributes or realities,
freed from all the limits which exist in the consciousness and feeling
of the individual, is at the same time again an individual, personal
being. Ipse suum esse est. Essence and existence are in God identical;
which means nothing else than that he is the idea, the essence of the
species, conceived immediately as an existence, an individual. The
highest idea on the standpoint of religion is: God does not love,
he is himself love; he does not live, he is life; he is not just, but
justice itself; not a person, but personality itself,--the species,
the idea, as immediately a concrete existence. [121]
Because of this immediate unity of the species with individuality,
this concentration of all that is universal and real in one personal
being, God is a deeply moving object, enrapturing to the imagination;
whereas, the idea of humanity has little power over the feelings,
because humanity is only an abstraction; and the reality which
presents itself to us in distinction from this abstraction is the
multitude of separate, limited individuals. In God, on the contrary,
feeling has immediate satisfaction, because here all is embraced in
one, i.e., because here the species has an immediate existence,--is
an individuality. God is love, is justice, as itself a subject; he
is the perfect universal being as one being, the infinite extension
of the species as an all-comprehending unity. But God is only man's
intuition of his own nature; thus the Christians are distinguished from
the heathens in this, that they immediately identify the individual
with the species--that with them the individual has the significance
of the species, the individual by himself is held to be the perfect
representative of the species--that they deify the human individual,
make him the absolute being.
Especially characteristic is the difference between Christianity
and heathenism concerning the relation of the individual to the
intelligence, to the understanding, to the nous. The Christians
individualised the understanding, the heathens made it a universal
essence. To the heathens, the understanding, the intelligence, was the
essence of man; to the Christians, it was only a part of themselves. To
the heathens therefore only the intelligence, the species, to the
Christians, the individual, was immortal, i.e., divine. Hence follows
the further difference between heathen and Christian philosophy.
The most unequivocal expression, the characteristic symbol of this
immediate identity of the species and individuality in Christianity is
Christ, the real God of the Christians. Christ is the ideal of humanity
become existent, the compendium of all moral and divine perfections
to the exclusion of all that is negative; pure, heavenly, sinless
man, the typical man, the Adam Kadmon; not regarded as the totality
of the species, of mankind, but immediately as one individual, one
person. Christ, i.e., the Christian, religious Christ, is therefore
not the central, but the terminal point of history. The Christians
expected the end of the world, the close of history. In the Bible,
Christ himself, in spite of all the falsities and sophisms of our
exegetists, clearly prophesies the speedy end of the world. History
rests only on the distinction of the individual from the race. Where
this distinction ceases, history ceases; the very soul of history is
extinct. Nothing remains to man but the contemplation and appropriation
of this realised Ideal, and the spirit of proselytism, which seeks
to extend the prevalence of a fixed belief,--the preaching that God
has appeared, and that the end of the world is at hand.
Since the immediate identity of the species and the individual
oversteps the limits of reason and Nature, it followed of course that
this universal, ideal individual was declared to be a transcendent,
supernatural, heavenly being. It is therefore a perversity to
attempt to deduce from reason the immediate identity of the species
and individual, for it is only the imagination which effects this
identity, the imagination to which nothing is impossible, and which
is also the creator of miracles; for the greatest of miracles is the
being who, while he is an individual, is at the same time the ideal,
the species, humanity in the fulness of its perfection and infinity,
i.e., the Godhead. Hence it is also a perversity to adhere to the
biblical or dogmatic Christ, and yet to thrust aside miracles. If
the principle be retained, wherefore deny its necessary consequences?
The total absence of the idea of the species in Christianity is
especially observable in its characteristic doctrine of the universal
sinfulness of men. For there lies at the foundation of this doctrine
the demand that the individual shall not be an individual, a demand
which again is based on the presupposition that the individual by
himself is a perfect being, is by himself the adequate presentation
or existence of the species. [122] Here is entirely wanting the
objective perception, the consciousness, that the thou belongs to the
perfection of the I, that men are required to constitute humanity,
that only men taken together are what man should and can be. All
men are sinners. Granted; but they are not all sinners in the same
way; on the contrary, there exists a great and essential difference
between them. One man is inclined to falsehood, another is not; he
would rather give up his life than break his word or tell a lie; the
third has a propensity to intoxication, the fourth to licentiousness;
while the fifth, whether by favour of Nature, or from the energy of
his character, exhibits none of these vices. Thus, in the moral as
well as the physical and intellectual elements, men compensate for
each other, so that, taken as a whole, they are, as they should be,
they present the perfect man.
Hence intercourse ameliorates and elevates; involuntarily and
without disguise, man is different in intercourse from what he is
when alone. Love especially works wonders, and the love of the sexes
most of all. Man and woman are the complement of each other, and
thus united they first present the species, the perfect man. [123]
Without species, love is inconceivable. Love is nothing else than the
self-consciousness of the species as evolved within the difference
of sex. In love, the reality of the species, which otherwise is
only a thing of reason, an object of mere thought, becomes a matter
of feeling, a truth of feeling; for in love, man declares himself
unsatisfied in his individuality taken by itself, he postulates the
existence of another as a need of the heart; he reckons another as
part of his own being; he declares the life which he has through
love to be the truly human life, corresponding to the idea of man,
i.e., of the species. The individual is defective, imperfect, weak,
needy; but love is strong, perfect, contented, free from wants,
self-sufficing, infinite; because in it the self-consciousness of the
individuality is the mysterious self-consciousness of the perfection
of the race. But this result of love is produced by friendship also,
at least where it is intense, where it is a religion, [124] as it was
with the ancients. Friends compensate for each other; friendship is
a means of virtue, and more: it is itself virtue, dependent however
on participation. Friendship can only exist between the virtuous,
as the ancients said. But it cannot be based on perfect similarity;
on the contrary, it requires diversity, for friendship rests on a
desire for self-completion. One friend obtains through the other what
he does not himself possess. The virtues of the one atone for the
failings of the other. Friend justifies friend before God. However
faulty a man may be, it is a proof that there is a germ of good in him
if he has worthy men for his friends. If I cannot be myself perfect,
I yet at least love virtue, perfection in others. If therefore I am
called to account for any sins, weaknesses, and faults, I interpose
as advocates, as mediators, the virtues of my friend. How barbarous,
how unreasonable would it be to condemn me for sins which I doubtless
have committed, but which I have myself condemned in loving my friends,
who are free from these sins!
But if friendship and love, which themselves are only subjective
realisations of the species, make out of singly imperfect beings an at
least relatively perfect whole, how much more do the sins and failings
of individuals vanish in the species itself, which has its adequate
existence only in the sum total of mankind, and is therefore only
an object of reason! Hence the lamentation over sin is found only
where the human individual regards himself in his individuality as
a perfect, complete being, not needing others for the realisation of
the species, of the perfect man; where instead of the consciousness
of the species has been substituted the exclusive self-consciousness
of the individual; where the individual does not recognise himself
as a part of mankind, but identifies himself with the species, and
for this reason makes his own sins, limits and weaknesses, the sins,
limits, and weaknesses of mankind in general. Nevertheless man cannot
lose the consciousness of the species, for his self-consciousness is
essentially united to his consciousness of another than himself. Where
therefore the species is not an object to him as a species, it
will be an object to him as God. He supplies the absence of the
idea of the species by the idea of God, as the being who is free
from the limits and wants which oppress the individual, and, in
his opinion (since he identifies the species with the individual),
the species itself. But this perfect being, free from the limits of
the individual, is nothing else than the species, which reveals the
infinitude of its nature in this, that it is realised in infinitely
numerous and various individuals. If all men were absolutely alike,
there would then certainly be no distinction between the race and
the individual. But in that case the existence of many men would be
a pure superfluity; a single man would have achieved the ends of the
species. In the one who enjoyed the happiness of existence all would
have had their complete substitute.
Doubtless the essence of man is one, but this essence is infinite;
its real existence is therefore an infinite, reciprocally compensating
variety, which reveals the riches of this essence. Unity in essence is
multiplicity in existence. Between me and another human being--and this
other is the representative of the species, even though he is only one,
for he supplies to me the want of many others, has for me a universal
significance, is the deputy of mankind, in whose name he speaks to me,
an isolated individual, so that, when united only with one, I have a
participated, a human life;--between me and another human being there
is an essential, qualitative distinction. The other is my thou,--the
relation being reciprocal,--my alter ego, man objective to me, the
revelation of my own nature, the eye seeing itself. In another I
first have the consciousness of humanity; through him I first learn,
I first feel, that I am a man: in my love for him it is first clear to
me that he belongs to me and I to him, that we two cannot be without
each other, that only community constitutes humanity. But morally,
also, there is a qualitative, critical distinction between the I and
thou. My fellow-man is my objective conscience; he makes my failings
a reproach to me; even when he does not expressly mention them, he
is my personified feeling of shame. The consciousness of the moral
law, of right, of propriety, of truth itself, is indissolubly united
with my consciousness of another than myself. That is true in which
another agrees with me,--agreement is the first criterion of truth;
but only because the species is the ultimate measure of truth. That
which I think only according to the standard of my individuality
is not binding on another; it can be conceived otherwise; it is an
accidental, merely subjective view. But that which I think according
to the standard of the species, I think as man in general only can
think, and consequently as every individual must think if he thinks
normally, in accordance with law, and therefore truly. That is true
which agrees with the nature of the species, that is false which
contradicts it. There is no other rule of truth. But my fellow-man is
to me the representative of the species, the substitute of the rest,
nay, his judgment may be of more authority with me than the judgment
of the innumerable multitude. Let the fanatic make disciples as the
sand on the sea-shore; the sand is still sand; mine be the pearl--a
judicious friend. The agreement of others is therefore my criterion
of the normalness, the universality, the truth of my thoughts. I
cannot so abstract myself from myself as to judge myself with perfect
freedom and disinterestedness; but another has an impartial judgment;
through him I correct, complete, extend my own judgment, my own
taste, my own knowledge. In short, there is a qualitative, critical
difference between men. But Christianity extinguishes this qualitative
distinction; it sets the same stamp on all men alike, and regards
them as one and the same individual, because it knows no distinction
between the species and the individual: it has one and the same means
of salvation for all men, it sees one and the same original sin in all.
Because Christianity thus, from exaggerated subjectivity, knows nothing
of the species, in which alone lies the redemption, the justification,
the reconciliation and cure of the sins and deficiencies of the
individual, it needed a supernatural and peculiar, nay, a personal,
subjective aid in order to overcome sin. If I alone am the species,
if no other, that is, no qualitatively different men exist, or, which
is the same thing, if there is no distinction between me and others,
if we are all perfectly alike, if my sins are not neutralised by
the opposite qualities of other men: then assuredly my sin is a
blot of shame which cries up to heaven; a revolting horror which
can be exterminated only by extraordinary, superhuman, miraculous
means. Happily, however, there is a natural reconciliation. My
fellow-man is per se the mediator between me and the sacred idea of
the species. Homo homini Deus est. My sin is made to shrink within
its limits, is thrust back into its nothingness, by the fact that it
is only mine, and not that of my fellows.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE CHRISTIAN SIGNIFICANCE OF VOLUNTARY CELIBACY AND MONACHISM.
The idea of man as a species, and with it the significance of the
life of the species, of humanity as a whole, vanished as Christianity
became dominant. Herein we have a new confirmation of the position
advanced, that Christianity does not contain within itself the
principle of culture. Where man immediately identifies the species
with the individual, and posits this identity as his highest being,
as God, where the idea of humanity is thus an object to him only as
the idea of Godhead, there the need of culture has vanished; man has
all in himself, all in his God, consequently he has no need to supply
his own deficiencies by others as the representatives of the species,
or by the contemplation of the world generally; and this need is alone
the spring of culture. The individual man attains his end by himself
alone; he attains it in God,--God is himself the attained goal, the
realised highest aim of humanity; but God is present to each individual
separately. God only is the want of the Christian; others, the human
race, the world, are not necessary to him; he is not the inward need
of others. God fills to me the place of the species, of my fellow-men;
yes, when I turn away from the world, when I am in isolation, I first
truly feel my need of God, I first have a lively sense of his presence,
I first feel what God is, and what he ought to be to me. It is true
that the religious man has need also of fellowship, of edification in
common; but this need of others is always in itself something extremely
subordinate. The salvation of the soul is the fundamental idea,
the main point in Christianity; and this salvation lies only in God,
only in the concentration of the mind on him. Activity for others is
required, is a condition of salvation; but the ground of salvation is
God, immediate reference in all things to God. And even activity for
others has only a religious significance, has reference only to God,
as its motive and end, is essentially only an activity for God,--for
the glorifying of his name, the spreading abroad of his praise. But
God is absolute subjectivity,--subjectivity separated from the world,
above the world, set free from matter, severed from the life of the
species, and therefore from the distinction of sex. Separation from
the world, from matter, from the life of the species, is therefore
the essential aim of Christianity. [125] And this aim had its visible,
practical realisation in Monachism.
It is a self-delusion to attempt to derive monachism from the East. At
least, if this derivation is to be accepted, they who maintain
it should be consistent enough to derive the opposite tendency of
Christendom, not from Christianity, but from the spirit of the Western
nations, the occidental nature in general. But how, in that case,
shall we explain the monastic enthusiasm of the West? Monachism
must rather be derived directly from Christianity itself: it was
necessary consequence of the belief in heaven promised to mankind
by Christianity. Where the heavenly life is a truth, the earthly
life is a lie; where imagination is all, reality is nothing. To him
who believes in an eternal heavenly life, the present life loses
its value,--or rather, it has already lost its value: belief in the
heavenly life is belief in the worthlessness and nothingness of this
life. I cannot represent to myself the future life without longing
for it, without casting down a look of compassion or contempt on this
pitiable earthly life, and the heavenly life can be no object, no law
of faith, without, at the same time, being a law of morality: it must
determine my actions, [126] at least if my life is to be in accordance
with my faith: I ought not to cleave to the transitory things of this
earth. I ought not;--but neither do I wish; for what are all things
here below compared with the glory of the heavenly life? [127]
It is true that the quality of that life depends on the quality, the
moral condition of this; but morality is itself determined by the faith
in eternal life. The morality corresponding to the super-terrestrial
life is simply separation from the world, the negation of this life;
and the practical attestation of this spiritual separation is the
monastic life. [128] Everything must ultimately take an external form,
must present itself to the senses. An inward disposition must become
an outward practice. The life of the cloister, indeed ascetic life in
general, is the heavenly life as it is realised and can be realised
here below. If my soul belongs to heaven, ought I, nay, can I belong to
the earth with my body? The soul animates the body. But if the soul is
in heaven, the body is forsaken, dead, and thus the medium, the organ
of connection between the world and the soul is annihilated. Death,
the separation of the soul from the body, at least from this gross,
material, sinful body, is the entrance into heaven. But if death is
the condition of blessedness and moral perfection, then necessarily
mortification is the one law of morality. Moral death is the necessary
anticipation of natural death; I say necessary, for it would be the
extreme of immorality to attribute the obtaining of heaven to physical
death, which is no moral act, but a natural one common to man and the
brute. Death must therefore be exalted into a moral, a spontaneous
act. "I die daily," says the apostle, and this dictum Saint Anthony,
the founder of monachism, [129] made the theme of his life.
But Christianity, it is contended, demanded only a spiritual
freedom. True; but what is that spiritual freedom which does not
pass into action, which does not attest itself in practice? Or dost
thou believe that it only depends on thyself, on thy will, on thy
intention, whether thou be free from anything? If so, thou art greatly
in error, and hast never experienced what it is to be truly made
free. So long as thou art in a given rank, profession, or relation,
so long art thou, willingly or not, determined by it. Thy will,
thy determination, frees thee only from conscious limitations and
impressions, not from the unconscious ones which lie in the nature
of the case. Thus we do not feel at home, we are under constraint,
so long as we are not locally, physically separated from one with whom
we have inwardly broken. External freedom is alone the full truth of
spiritual freedom. A man who has really lost spiritual interest in
earthly treasures soon throws them out at window, that his heart may
be thoroughly at liberty. What I no longer possess by inclination is
a burden to me; so away with it! What affection has let go, the hand
no longer holds fast. Only affection gives force to the grasp; only
affection makes possession sacred. He who having a wife is as though he
had her not, will do better to have no wife at all. To have as though
one had not, is to have without the disposition to have, is in truth
not to have. And therefore he who says that one ought to have a thing
as though one had it not, merely says in a subtle, covert, cautious
way, that one ought not to have it at all. That which I dismiss from
my heart is no longer mine,--it is free as air. St. Anthony took the
resolution to renounce the world when he had once heard the saying,
"If thou wilt be perfect, go thy way, sell that thou hast and give to
the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come and follow
me." St. Anthony gave the only true interpretation of this text. He
went his way, and sold his possessions, and gave the proceeds to the
poor. Only thus did he prove his spiritual freedom from the treasures
of this world. [130]
Such freedom, such truth, is certainly in contradiction with the
Christianity of the present day, according to which the Lord has
required only a spiritual freedom, i.e., a freedom which demands
no sacrifice, no energy,--an illusory, self-deceptive freedom;--a
freedom from earthly good, which consists in its possession and
enjoyment! For certainly the Lord said, "My yoke is easy." How harsh,
how unreasonable would Christianity be if it exacted from man the
renunciation of earthly riches! Then assuredly Christianity would
not be suited to this world. So far from this, Christianity is in
the highest degree practical and judicious; it defers the freeing
oneself from the wealth and pleasures of this world to the moment of
natural death (monkish mortification is an unchristian suicide);--and
allots to our spontaneous activity the acquisition and enjoyment
of earthly possessions. Genuine Christians do not indeed doubt
the truth of the heavenly life,--God forbid! Therein they still
agree with the ancient monks; but they await that life patiently,
submissive to the will of God, i.e., to their own selfishness,
to the agreeable pursuit of worldly enjoyment. [131] But I turn
away with loathing and contempt from modern Christianity, in which
the bride of Christ readily acquiesces in polygamy, at least in
successive polygamy, and this in the eyes of the true Christian
does not essentially differ from contemporaneous polygamy; but yet
at the same time--oh! shameful hypocrisy!--swears by the eternal,
universally binding, irrefragable sacred truth of God's Word. I turn
back with reverence to the misconceived truth of the chaste monastic
cell, where the soul betrothed to heaven did not allow itself to be
wooed into faithlessness by a strange earthly body!
The unworldly, supernatural life is essentially also an unmarried
life. The celibate lies already, though not in the form of a law,
in the inmost nature of Christianity. This is sufficiently declared
in the supernatural origin of the Saviour,--a doctrine in which
unspotted virginity is hallowed as the saving principle, as the
principle of the new, the Christian world. Let not such passages as,
"Be fruitful and multiply," or, "What God has joined together let
not man put asunder," be urged as a sanction of marriage. The first
passage relates, as Tertullian and Jerome have already observed,
only to the unpeopled earth, not to the earth when filled with men,
only to the beginning, not to the end of the world, an end which
was initiated by the immediate appearance of God upon earth. And
the second also refers only to marriage as an institution of the Old
Testament. Certain Jews proposed the question whether it were lawful
for a man to separate from his wife; and the most appropriate way of
dealing with this question was the answer above cited. He who has once
concluded a marriage ought to hold it sacred. Marriage is intrinsically
an indulgence to the weakness or rather the strength of the flesh,
an evil which therefore must be restricted as much as possible. The
indissolubleness of marriage is a nimbus, a sacred irradiance, which
expresses precisely the opposite of what minds, dazzled and perturbed
by its lustre, seek beneath it. Marriage in itself is, in the sense
of perfected Christianity, a sin, [132] or rather a weakness which
is permitted and forgiven thee only on condition that thou for ever
limitest thyself to a single wife. In short, marriage is hallowed
only in the Old Testament, but not in the New. The New Testament
knows a higher, a supernatural principle, the mystery of unspotted
virginity. [133] "He who can receive it let him receive it." "The
children of this world marry, and are given in marriage: but they which
shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection
from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage: neither can
they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the
children of God, being the children of the resurrection." Thus in
heaven there is no marriage; the principle of sexual love is excluded
from heaven as an earthly, worldly principle. But the heavenly life is
the true, perfected, eternal life of the Christian. Why then should
I, who am destined for heaven, form a tie which is unloosed in my
true destination? Why should I, who am potentially a heavenly being,
not realise this possibility even here? [134] Marriage is already
proscribed from my mind, my heart, since it is expelled from heaven,
the essential object of my faith, hope, and life. How can an earthly
wife have a place in my heaven-filled heart? How can I divide my
heart between God and man? [135] The Christian's love to God is not
an abstract or general love such as the love of truth, of justice, of
science; it is a love to a subjective, personal God, and is therefore
a subjective, personal love. It is an essential attribute of this love
that it is an exclusive, jealous love, for its object is a personal
and at the same time the highest being, to whom no other can be
compared. "Keep close to Jesus [Jesus Christ is the Christian's God],
in life and in death; trust his faithfulness: he alone can help thee,
when all else leaves thee. Thy beloved has this quality, that he will
suffer no rival; he alone will have thy heart, will rule alone in
thy soul as a king on his throne."--"What can the world profit thee
without Jesus? To be without Christ is the pain of hell; to be with
Christ, heavenly sweetness."--"Thou canst not live without a friend:
but if the friendship of Christ is not more than all else to thee,
thou wilt be beyond measure sad and disconsolate."--"Love everything
for Jesus' sake, but Jesus for his own sake. Jesus Christ alone is
worthy to be loved."--"My God, my love [my heart]: thou art wholly
mine, and I am wholly thine."--"Love hopes and trusts ever in God,
even when God is not gracious to it [or tastes bitter, non sapit];
for we cannot live in love without sorrow.... For the sake of the
beloved, the loving one must accept all things, even the hard and
bitter."--"My God and my all, ... in thy presence everything is
sweet to me, in thy absence everything is distasteful.... Without
thee nothing can please me."--"Oh, when at last will that blessed,
longed-for hour appear, when thou wilt satisfy me wholly, and be
all in all to me? So long as this is not granted me, my joy is only
fragmentary."--"When was it well with me without thee? or when was
it ill with me in thy presence? I will rather be poor for thy sake,
than rich without thee. I will rather be a pilgrim on earth with thee,
than the possessor of heaven without thee. Where thou art is heaven;
death and hell where thou art not. I long only for thee."--"Thou
canst not serve God and at the same time have thy joys in earthly
things: thou must wean thyself from all acquaintances and friends,
and sever thy soul from all temporal consolation. Believers in
Christ should regard themselves, according to the admonition of the
Apostle Peter, only as strangers and pilgrims on the earth." [136]
Thus love to God as a personal being is a literal, strict, personal,
exclusive love. How then can I at once love God and a mortal wife? Do
I not thereby place God on the same footing with my wife? No! to a
soul which truly loves God, the love of woman is an impossibility,
is adultery. "He that is unmarried," says the Apostle Paul, "careth
for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord;
but he that is married careth for the things that are of the world,
how he may please his wife."
The true Christian not only feels no need of culture, because this
is a worldly principle and opposed to feeling; he has also no need
of (natural) love. God supplies to him the want of culture, and in
like manner God supplies to him the want of love, of a wife, of a
family. The Christian immediately identifies the species with the
individual; hence he strips off the difference of sex as a burdensome,
accidental adjunct. [137] Man and woman together first constitute
the true man; man and woman together are the existence of the race,
for their union is the source of multiplicity, the source of other
men. Hence the man who does not deny his manhood, is conscious that
he is only a part of a being, which needs another part for the making
up of the whole of true humanity. The Christian, on the contrary,
in his excessive, transcendental subjectivity, conceives that he is,
by himself, a perfect being. But the sexual instinct runs counter to
this view; it is in contradiction with his ideal: the Christian must
therefore deny this instinct.
The Christian certainly experienced the need of sexual love, but only
as a need in contradiction with his heavenly destination, and merely
natural, in the depreciatory, contemptuous sense which this word
had in Christianity,--not as a moral, inward need--not, if I may so
express myself, as a metaphysical, i.e., an essential need, which man
can experience only where he does not separate difference of sex from
himself, but, on the contrary, regards it as belonging to his inmost
nature. Hence marriage is not holy in Christianity; at least it is so
only apparently, illusively; for the natural principle of marriage,
which is the love of the sexes,--however civil marriage may in endless
instances contradict this,--is in Christianity an unholy thing, and
excluded from heaven. [138] But that which man excludes from heaven he
excludes from his true nature. Heaven is his treasure-casket. Believe
not in what he establishes on earth, what he permits and sanctions
here: here he must accommodate himself; here many things come athwart
him which do not fit into his system; here he shuns thy glance,
for he finds himself among strangers who intimidate him. But watch
for him when he throws off his incognito, and shows himself in his
true dignity, his heavenly state. In heaven he speaks as he thinks;
there thou hearest his true opinion. Where his heaven is, there is his
heart,--heaven is his heart laid open. Heaven is nothing but the idea
of the true, the good, the valid,--of that which ought to be; earth,
nothing but the idea of the untrue, the unlawful, of that which ought
not to be. The Christian excludes from heaven the life of the species:
there the species ceases, there dwell only pure sexless individuals,
"spirits;" there absolute subjectivity reigns:--thus the Christian
excludes the life of the species from his conception of the true
life; he pronounces the principle of marriage sinful, negative;
for the sinless, positive life is the heavenly one. [139]
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE CHRISTIAN HEAVEN, OR PERSONAL IMMORTALITY.
The unwedded and ascetic life is the direct way to the heavenly,
immortal life, for heaven is nothing else than life liberated from
the conditions of the species, supernatural, sexless, absolutely
subjective life. The belief in personal immortality has at its
foundation the belief that difference of sex is only an external
adjunct of individuality, that in himself the individual is a sexless,
independently complete, absolute being. But he who belongs to no sex
belongs to no species; sex is the cord which connects the individuality
with the species, and he who belongs to no species, belongs only to
himself, is an altogether independent, divine, absolute being. Hence
only when the species vanishes from the consciousness is the heavenly
life a certainty. He who lives in the consciousness of the species,
and consequently of its reality, lives also in the consciousness of
the reality of sex. He does not regard it as a mechanically inserted,
adventitious stone of stumbling, but as an inherent quality, a chemical
constituent of his being. He indeed recognises himself as a man in
the broader sense, but he is at the same time conscious of being
rigorously determined by the sexual distinction, which penetrates not
only bones and marrow, but also his inmost self, the essential mode
of his thought, will, and sensation. He therefore who lives in the
consciousness of the species, who limits and determines his feelings
and imagination by the contemplation of real life, of real man, can
conceive no life in which the life of the species, and therewith the
distinction of sex, is abolished; he regards the sexless individual,
the heavenly spirit, as an agreeable figment of the imagination.
But just as little as the real man can abstract himself from the
distinction of sex, so little can he abstract himself from his moral or
spiritual constitution, which indeed is profoundly connected with his
natural constitution. Precisely because he lives in the contemplation
of the whole, he also lives in the consciousness that he is himself
no more than a part, and that he is what he is only by virtue of the
conditions which constitute him a member of the whole, or a relative
whole. Every one, therefore, justifiably regards his occupation, his
profession, his art or science, as the highest; for the mind of man
is nothing but the essential mode of his activity. He who is skilful
in his profession, in his art, he who fills his post well, and is
entirely devoted to his calling, thinks that calling the highest and
best. How can he deny in thought what he emphatically declares in act
by the joyful devotion of all his powers? If I despise a thing, how can
I dedicate to it my time and faculties? If I am compelled to do so in
spite of my aversion, my activity is an unhappy one, for I am at war
with myself. Work is worship. But how can I worship or serve an object,
how can I subject myself to it, if it does not hold a high place in
my mind? In brief, the occupations of men determine their judgment,
their mode of thought, their sentiments. And the higher the occupation,
the more completely does a man identify himself with it. In general,
whatever a man makes the essential aim of his life, he proclaims to
be his soul; for it is the principle of motion in him. But through
his aim, through the activity in which he realises this aim, man
is not only something for himself, but also something for others,
for the general life, the species. He therefore who lives in the
consciousness of the species as a reality, regards his existence
for others, his relation to society, his utility to the public, as
that existence which is one with the existence of his own essence--as
his immortal existence. He lives with his whole soul, with his whole
heart, for humanity. How can he hold in reserve a special existence
for himself, how can he separate himself from mankind? How shall he
deny in death what he has enforced in life? And in life his faith is
this: Nec sibi sed toti genitum se credere mundo.
The heavenly life, or what we do not here distinguish from it--personal
immortality, is a characteristic doctrine of Christianity. It is
certainly in part to be found among the heathen philosophers; but
with them it had only the significance of a subjective conception,
because it was not connected with their fundamental view of things. How
contradictory, for example, are the expressions of the Stoics on this
subject! It was among the Christians that personal immortality first
found that principle, whence it follows as a necessary and obvious
consequence. The contemplation of the world, of Nature, of the race,
was always coming athwart the ancients; they distinguished between the
principle of life and the living subject, between the soul, the mind,
and self: whereas the Christian abolished the distinction between soul
and person, species and individual, and therefore placed immediately
in self what belongs only to the totality of the species. But the
immediate unity of the species and individuality is the highest
principle, the God of Christianity,--in it the individual has the
significance of the absolute being,--and the necessary, immanent
consequence of this principle is personal immortality.
Or rather: the belief in personal immortality is perfectly identical
with the belief in a personal God;--i.e., that which expresses the
belief in the heavenly, immortal life of the person, expresses God
also, as he is an object to Christians, namely, as absolute, unlimited
personality. Unlimited personality is God; but heavenly personality, or
the perpetuation of human personality in heaven, is nothing else than
personality released from all earthly encumbrances and limitations;
the only distinction is, that God is heaven spiritualised, while heaven
is God materialised, or reduced to the forms of the senses: that what
in God is posited only in abstracto is in heaven more an object of
the imagination. God is the implicit heaven; heaven is the explicit
God. In the present, God is the kingdom of heaven; in the future,
heaven is God. God is the pledge, the as yet abstract presence and
existence of heaven; the anticipation, the epitome of heaven. Our own
future existence, which, while we are in this world, in this body, is a
separate, objective existence,--is God: God is the idea of the species,
which will be first realised, individualised in the other world. God
is the heavenly, pure, free essence, which exists there as heavenly
pure beings, the bliss which there unfolds itself in a plenitude of
blissful individuals. Thus God is nothing else than the idea or the
essence of the absolute, blessed, heavenly life, here comprised in
an ideal personality. This is clearly enough expressed in the belief
that the blessed life is unity with God. Here we are distinguished and
separated from God, there the partition falls; here we are men, there
gods; here the Godhead is a monopoly, there it is a common possession;
here it is an abstract unity, there a concrete multiplicity. [140]
The only difficulty in the recognition of this is created by
the imagination, which, on the one hand by the conception of the
personality of God, on the other by the conception of the many
personalities which it places in a realm ordinarily depicted in the
hues of the senses, hides the real unity of the idea. But in truth
there is no distinction between the absolute life which is conceived
as God and the absolute life which is conceived as heaven, save that
in heaven we have stretched into length and breadth what in God is
concentrated in one point. The belief in the immortality of man is the
belief in the divinity of man, and the belief in God is the belief
in pure personality, released from all limits, and consequently eo
ipso immortal. The distinctions made between the immortal soul and
God are either sophistical or imaginative; as when, for example, the
bliss of the inhabitants of heaven is again circumscribed by limits,
and distributed into degrees, in order to establish a distinction
between God and the dwellers in heaven.
The identity of the divine and heavenly personality is apparent even
in the popular proofs of immortality. If there is not another and a
better life, God is not just and good. The justice and goodness of God
are thus made dependent on the perpetuity of individuals; but without
justice and goodness God is not God;--the Godhead, the existence of
God, is therefore made dependent on the existence of individuals. If
I am not immortal, I believe in no God; he who denies immortality
denies God. But that is impossible to me: as surely as there is a God,
so surely is there an immortality. God is the certainty of my future
felicity. The interest I have in knowing that God is, is one with the
interest I have in knowing that I am, that I am immortal. God is my
hidden, my assured existence; he is the subjectivity of subjects,
the personality of persons. How then should that not belong to
persons which belongs to personality? In God I make my future into a
present, or rather a verb into a substantive; how should I separate
the one from the other? God is the existence corresponding to my
wishes and feelings: he is the just one, the good, who fulfils my
wishes. Nature, this world, is an existence which contradicts my
wishes, my feelings. Here it is not as it ought to be; this world
passes away; but God is existence as it ought to be. God fulfils my
wishes;--this is only a popular personification of the position: God is
the fulfiller, i.e., the reality, the fulfilment of my wishes. [141]
But heaven is the existence adequate to my wishes, my longing; [142]
thus there is no distinction between God and heaven. God is the power
by which man realises his eternal happiness; God is the absolute
personality in which all individual persons have the certainty of
their blessedness and immortality; God is to subjectivity the highest,
last certainty of its absolute truth and essentiality.
The doctrine of immortality is the final doctrine of religion; its
testament, in which it declares its last wishes. Here therefore it
speaks out undisguisedly what it has hitherto suppressed. If elsewhere
the religious soul concerns itself with the existence of another
being, here it openly considers only its own existence; if elsewhere
in religion man makes his existence dependent on the existence of God,
he here makes the reality of God dependent on his own reality; and
thus what elsewhere is a primitive, immediate truth to him, is here
a derivative, secondary truth: if I am not immortal, God is not God;
if there is no immortality, there is no God;--a conclusion already
drawn by the Apostle Paul. If we do not rise again, then Christ is
not risen, and all is vain. Let us eat and drink. It is certainly
possible to do away with what is apparently or really objectionable
in the popular argumentation, by avoiding the inferential form; but
this can only be done by making immortality an analytic instead of a
synthetic truth, so as to show that the very idea of God as absolute
personality or subjectivity is per se the idea of immortality. God
is the guarantee of my future existence, because he is already the
certainty and reality of my present existence, my salvation, my
trust, my shield from the forces of the external world; hence I need
not expressly deduce immortality, or prove it as a separate truth,
for if I have God, I have immortality also. Thus it was with the
more profound Christian mystics; to them the idea of immortality was
involved in the idea of God; God was their immortal life,--God himself
their subjective blessedness: he was for them, for their consciousness,
what he is in himself, that is, in the essence of religion.
Thus it is shown that God is heaven; that the two are identical. It
would have been easier to prove the converse, namely, that heaven is
the true God of men. As man conceives his heaven, so he conceives his
God; the content of his idea of heaven is the content of his idea of
God, only that what in God is a mere sketch, a concept, is in heaven
depicted and developed in the colours and forms of the senses. Heaven
is therefore the key to the deepest mysteries of religion. As heaven
is objectively the displayed nature of God, so subjectively it is the
most candid declaration of the inmost thoughts and dispositions of
religion. For this reason, religions are as various as are the kingdoms
of heaven, and there are as many different kingdoms of heaven as there
are characteristic differences among men. The Christians themselves
have very heterogeneous conceptions of heaven. [143]
The more judicious among them, however, think and say nothing definite
about heaven or the future world in general, on the ground that it is
inconceivable, that it can only be thought of by us according to the
standard of this world, a standard not applicable to the other. All
conceptions of heaven here below are, they allege, mere images,
whereby man represents to himself that future, the nature of which
is unknown to him, but the existence of which is certain. It is just
so with God. The existence of God, it is said, is certain; but what
he is, or how he exists, is inscrutable. But he who speaks thus has
already driven the future world out of his head; he still holds it
fast, either because he does not think at all about such matters, or
because it is still a want of his heart; but, preoccupied with real
things, he thrusts it as far as possible out of his sight; he denies
with his head what he affirms with his heart; for it is to deny the
future life, to deprive it of the qualities by which alone it is a real
and effective object for man. Quality is not distinct from existence;
quality is nothing but real existence. Existence without quality is a
chimera, a spectre. Existence is first made known to me by quality;
not existence first, and after that quality. The doctrines that God
is not to be known or defined, and that the nature of the future life
is inscrutable, are therefore not originally religious doctrines;
on the contrary, they are the products of irreligion while still in
bondage to religion, or rather hiding itself behind religion; and
they are so for this reason, that originally the existence of God is
posited only with a definite conception of God, the existence of a
future life only with a definite conception of that life. Thus to the
Christian, only his own paradise, the paradise which has Christian
qualities, is a certainty, not the paradise of the Mahometan or the
Elysium of the Greeks. The primary certainty is everywhere quality;
existence follows of course when once quality is certain. In the New
Testament we find no proofs or general propositions such as: there
is a God, there is a heavenly life; we find only qualities of the
heavenly life adduced;--"in heaven they marry not." Naturally;--it
may be answered,--because the existence of God and of heaven is
presupposed. But here reflection introduces a distinction of which
the religious sentiment knows nothing. Doubtless the existence is
presupposed, but only because the quality is itself existence, because
the inviolate religious feeling lives only in the quality, just as to
the natural man the real existence, the thing in itself, lies only in
the quality which he perceives. Thus in the passage above cited from
the New Testament, the virgin or rather sexless life is presupposed
as the true life, which, however, necessarily becomes a future one,
because the actual life contradicts the ideal of the true life. But
the certainty of this future life lies only in the certainty of its
qualities, as those of the true, highest life, adequate to the ideal.
Where the future life is really believed in, where it is a certain
life, there, precisely because it is certain, it is also definite. If
I know not now what and how I shall be; if there is an essential,
absolute difference between my future and my present; neither shall I
then know what and how I was before, the unity of consciousness is at
an end, personal identity is abolished, another being will appear in my
place; and thus my future existence is not in fact distinguished from
non-existence. If, on the other hand, there is no essential difference,
the future is to me an object that may be defined and known. And so
it is in reality. I am the abiding subject under changing conditions;
I am the substance which connects the present and the future into a
unity. How then can the future be obscure to me? On the contrary,
the life of this world is the dark, incomprehensible life, which
only becomes clear through the future life; here I am in disguise;
there the mask will fall; there I shall be as I am in truth. Hence the
position that there indeed is another, a heavenly life, but that what
and how it is must here remain inscrutable, is only an invention of
religious scepticism, which, being entirely alien to the religious
sentiment, proceeds upon a total misconception of religion. That
which irreligious-religious reflection converts into a known image
of an unknown yet certain thing, is originally, in the primitive,
true sense of religion, not an image, but the thing itself. Unbelief,
in the garb of belief, doubts the existence of the thing, but it is too
shallow or cowardly directly to call it in question; it only expresses
doubt of the image or conception, i.e., declares the image to be only
an image. But the untruth and hollowness of this scepticism has been
already made evident historically. Where it is once doubted that the
images of immortality are real, that it is possible to exist as faith
conceives, for example, without a material, real body, and without
difference of sex; there the future existence in general is soon a
matter of doubt. With the image falls the thing, simply because the
image is the thing itself.
The belief in heaven, or in a future life in general, rests on a mental
judgment. It expresses praise and blame; it selects a wreath from the
flora of this world, and this critical florilegium is heaven. That
which man thinks beautiful, good, agreeable, is for him what alone
ought to be; that which he thinks bad, odious, disagreeable, is
what ought not to be; and hence, since it nevertheless exists, it is
condemned to destruction, it is regarded as a negation. Where life is
not in contradiction with a feeling, an imagination, an idea, and where
this feeling, this idea, is not held authoritative and absolute, the
belief in another and a heavenly life does not arise. The future life
is nothing else than life in unison with the feeling, with the idea,
which the present life contradicts. The whole import of the future
life is the abolition of this discordance, and the realisation of a
state which corresponds to the feelings, in which man is in unison
with himself. An unknown, unimagined future is a ridiculous chimera:
the other world is nothing more than the reality of a known idea,
the satisfaction of a conscious desire, the fulfilment of a wish;
[144] it is only the removal of limits which here oppose themselves
to the realisation of the idea. Where would be the consolation, where
the significance of a future life, if it were midnight darkness to
me? No! from yonder world there streams upon me with the splendour
of virgin gold what here shines only with the dimness of unrefined
ore. The future world has no other significance, no other basis of
its existence, than the separation of the metal from the admixture
of foreign elements, the separation of the good from the bad,
of the pleasant from the unpleasant, of the praiseworthy from the
blamable. The future world is the bridal in which man concludes
his union with his beloved. Long has he loved his bride, long has
he yearned after her; but external relations, hard reality, have
stood in the way of his union to her. When the wedding takes place,
his beloved one does not become a different being; else how could he
so ardently long for her? She only becomes his own; from an object
of yearning and affectionate desire she becomes an object of actual
possession. It is true that here below, the other world is only an
image, a conception; still it is not the image of a remote, unknown
thing, but a portrait of that which man loves and prefers before all
else. What man loves is his soul. The heathens enclosed the ashes of
the beloved dead in an urn; with the Christian the heavenly future
is the mausoleum in which he enshrines his soul.
In order to comprehend a particular faith, or religion in general,
it is necessary to consider religion in its rudimentary stages,
in its lowest, rudest condition. Religion must not only be traced
in an ascending line, but surveyed in the entire course of its
existence. It is requisite to regard the various earlier religions as
present in the absolute religion, and not as left behind it in the
past, in order correctly to appreciate and comprehend the absolute
religion as well as the others. The most frightful "aberrations,"
the wildest excesses of the religious consciousness, often afford the
profoundest insight into the mysteries of the absolute religion. Ideas,
seemingly the rudest, are often only the most childlike, innocent, and
true. This observation applies to the conceptions of a future life. The
"savage," whose consciousness does not extend beyond his own country,
whose entire being is a growth of its soil, takes his country with him
into the other world, either leaving Nature as it is, or improving it,
and so overcoming in the idea of the other life the difficulties he
experiences in this. [145] In this limitation of uncultivated tribes
there is a striking trait. With them the future expresses nothing
else than home-sickness. Death separates man from his kindred, from
his people, from his country. But the man who has not extended his
consciousness, cannot endure this separation; he must come back again
to his native land. The negroes in the West Indies killed themselves
that they might come to life again in their fatherland. And, according
to Ossian's conception, "the spirits of those who die in a strange
land float back towards their birthplace." [146] This limitation is
the direct opposite of imaginative spiritualism, which makes man a
vagabond, who, indifferent even to the earth, roams from star to star;
and certainly there lies a real truth at its foundation. Man is what
he is through Nature, however much may belong to his spontaneity;
for even his spontaneity has its foundation in Nature, of which his
particular character is only an expression. Be thankful to Nature! Man
cannot be separated from it. The German, whose God is spontaneity,
owes his character to Nature just as much as the Oriental. To find
fault with Indian art, with Indian religion and philosophy, is to find
fault with Indian Nature. You complain of the reviewer who tears a
passage in your works from the context that he may hand it over to
ridicule. Why are you yourself guilty of that which you blame in
others? Why do you tear the Indian religion from its connection,
in which it is just as reasonable as your absolute religion?
Faith in a future world, in a life after death, is therefore with
"savage" tribes essentially nothing more than direct faith in the
present life--immediate unbroken faith in this life. For them,
their actual life, even with its local limitations, has all, has
absolute value; they cannot abstract from it, they cannot conceive its
being broken off; i.e., they believe directly in the infinitude, the
perpetuity of this life. Only when the belief in immortality becomes a
critical belief, when a distinction is made between what is to be left
behind here, and what is in reserve there, between what here passes
away, and what there is to abide, does the belief in life after death
form itself into the belief in another life; but this criticism, this
distinction, is applied to the present life also. Thus the Christians
distinguish between the natural and the Christian life, the sensual or
worldly and the spiritual or holy life. The heavenly life is no other
than that which is, already here below, distinguished from the merely
natural life, though still tainted with it. That which the Christian
excludes from himself now--for example, the sexual life--is excluded
from the future: the only distinction is, that he is there free from
that which he here wishes to be free from, and seeks to rid himself
of by the will, by devotion, and by bodily mortification. Hence this
life is, for the Christian, a life of torment and pain, because he
is here still beset by a hostile power, and has to struggle with the
lusts of the flesh and the assaults of the devil.
The faith of cultured nations is therefore distinguished from
that of the uncultured in the same way that culture in general is
distinguished from inculture: namely, that the faith of culture is
a discriminating, critical, abstract faith. A distinction implies a
judgment; but where there is a judgment there arises the distinction
between positive and negative. The faith of savage tribes is a
faith without a judgment. Culture, on the contrary, judges: to the
cultured man only cultured life is the true life; to the Christian
only the Christian life. The rude child of Nature steps into the other
life just as he is, without ceremony: the other world is his natural
nakedness. The cultivated man, on the contrary, objects to the idea of
such an unbridled life after death, because even here he objects to
the unrestricted life of Nature. Faith in a future life is therefore
only faith in the true life of the present; the essential elements of
this life are also the essential elements of the other: accordingly,
faith in a future life is not faith in another unknown life; but in
the truth and infinitude, and consequently in the perpetuity, of that
life which already here below is regarded as the authentic life.
As God is nothing else than the nature of man purified from that
which to the human individual appears, whether in feeling or thought,
a limitation, an evil; so the future life is nothing else than the
present life freed from that which appears a limitation or an evil. The
more definitely and profoundly the individual is conscious of the limit
as a limit, of the evil as an evil, the more definite and profound is
his conviction of the future life, where these limits disappear. The
future life is the feeling, the conception of freedom from those
limits which here circumscribe the feeling of self, the existence of
the individual. The only difference between the course of religion and
that of the natural or rational man is, that the end which the latter
arrives at by a straight line, the former only attains by describing
a curved line--a circle. The natural man remains at home because he
finds it agreeable, because he is perfectly satisfied; religion which
commences with a discontent, a disunion, forsakes its home and travels
far, but only to feel the more vividly in the distance the happiness
of home. In religion man separates himself from himself, but only to
return always to the same point from which he set out. Man negatives
himself, but only to posit himself again, and that in a glorified form:
he negatives this life, but only, in the end, to posit it again in
the future life. [147] The future life is this life once lost, but
found again, and radiant with all the more brightness for the joy of
recovery. The religious man renounces the joys of this world, but only
that he may win in return the joys of heaven; or rather he renounces
them because he is already in the ideal possession of heavenly joys;
and the joys of heaven are the same as those of earth, only that they
are freed from the limits and contrarieties of this life. Religion
thus arrives, though by a circuit, at the very goal, the goal of joy,
towards which the natural man hastens in a direct line. To live in
images or symbols is the essence of religion. Religion sacrifices
the thing itself to the image. The future life is the present in the
mirror of the imagination: the enrapturing image is in the sense of
religion the true type of earthly life,--real life only a glimmer of
that ideal, imaginary life. The future life is the present embellished,
contemplated through the imagination, purified from all gross matter;
or, positively expressed, it is the beauteous present intensified.
Embellishment, emendation, presupposes blame, dissatisfaction. But
the dissatisfaction is only superficial. I do not deny the thing to
be of value; just as it is, however, it does not please me; I deny
only the modification, not the substance, otherwise I should urge
annihilation. A house which absolutely displeases me I cause to be
pulled down, not to be embellished. To the believer in a future
life joy is agreeable--who can fail to be conscious that joy is
something positive?--but it is disagreeable to him that here joy
is followed by opposite sensations, that it is transitory. Hence he
places joy in the future life also, but as eternal, uninterrupted,
divine joy (and the future life is therefore called the world of joy),
such as he here conceives it in God; for God is nothing but eternal,
uninterrupted joy, posited as a subject. Individuality or personality
is agreeable to him, but only as unencumbered by objective forces;
hence, he includes individuality also, but pure, absolutely subjective
individuality. Light pleases him; but not gravitation, because this
appears a limitation of the individual; not night, because in it man
is subjected to Nature: in the other world, there is light, but no
weight, no night,--pure, unobstructed light. [148]
As man in his utmost remoteness from himself, in God, always returns
upon himself, always revolves round himself; so in his utmost
remoteness from the world, he always at last comes back to it. The
more extra- and supra-human God appears at the commencement, the more
human does he show himself to be in the subsequent course of things,
or at the close: and just so, the more supernatural the heavenly life
looks in the beginning or at a distance, the more clearly does it,
in the end or when viewed closely, exhibit its identity with the
natural life,--an identity which at last extends even to the flesh,
even to the body. In the first instance the mind is occupied with the
separation of the soul from the body, as in the conception of God
the mind is first occupied with the separation of the essence from
the individual;--the individual dies a spiritual death, the dead
body which remains behind is the human individual; the soul which
has departed from it is God. But the separation of the soul from
the body, of the essence from the individual, of God from man, must
be abolished again. Every separation of beings essentially allied
is painful. The soul yearns after its lost half, after its body;
as God, the departed soul yearns after the real man. As, therefore,
God becomes a man again, so the soul returns to its body, and the
perfect identity of this world and the other is now restored. It
is true that this new body is a bright, glorified, miraculous body,
but--and this is the main point--it is another and yet the same body,
[149] as God is another being than man, and yet the same. Here we
come again to the idea of miracle, which unites contradictories. The
supernatural body is a body constructed by the imagination, for which
very reason it is adequate to the feelings of man: an unburdensome,
purely subjective body. Faith in the future life is nothing else than
faith in the truth of the imagination, as faith in God is faith in
the truth and infinity of human feeling. Or: as faith in God is only
faith in the abstract nature of man, so faith in the heavenly life
is only faith in the abstract earthly life.
But the sum of the future life is happiness, the everlasting bliss of
personality, which is here limited and circumscribed by Nature. Faith
in the future life is therefore faith in the freedom of subjectivity
from the limits of Nature; it is faith in the eternity and infinitude
of personality, and not of personality viewed in relation to the idea
of the species, in which it for ever unfolds itself in new individuals,
but of personality as belonging to already existing individuals:
consequently, it is the faith of man in himself. But faith in the
kingdom of heaven is one with faith in God--the content of both
ideas is the same; God is pure absolute subjectivity released from
all natural limits; he is what individuals ought to be and will be:
faith in God is therefore the faith of man in the infinitude and truth
of his own nature; the Divine Being is the subjective human being in
his absolute freedom and unlimitedness.
Our most essential task is now fulfilled. We have reduced the
supermundane, supernatural, and superhuman nature of God to the
elements of human nature as its fundamental elements. Our process
of analysis has brought us again to the position with which we set
out. The beginning, middle and end of religion is Man.
PART II.
THE FALSE OR THEOLOGICAL ESSENCE OF RELIGION.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE ESSENTIAL STANDPOINT OF RELIGION.
The essential standpoint of religion is the practical or
subjective. The end of religion is the welfare, the salvation, the
ultimate felicity of man; the relation of man to God is nothing else
than his relation to his own spiritual good; God is the realised
salvation of the soul, or the unlimited power of effecting the
salvation, the bliss of man. [150] The Christian religion is specially
distinguished from other religions in this,--that no other has given
equal prominence to the salvation of man. But this salvation is not
temporal earthly prosperity and well-being. On the contrary, the most
genuine Christians have declared that earthly good draws man away from
God, whereas adversity, suffering, afflictions lead him back to God,
and hence are alone suited to Christians. Why? Because in trouble
man is only practically or subjectively disposed; in trouble he has
resource only to the one thing needful; in trouble God is felt to be a
want of man. Pleasure, joy, expands man; trouble, suffering, contracts
and concentrates him; in suffering man denies the reality of the world;
the things that charm the imagination of the artist and the intellect
of the thinker lose their attraction for him, their power over him; he
is absorbed in himself, in his own soul. The soul thus self-absorbed,
self-concentrated, seeking satisfaction in itself alone, denying the
world, idealistic in relation to the world, to Nature in general,
but realistic in relation to man, caring only for its inherent need
of salvation,--this soul is God. God, as the object of religion,--and
only as such is he God,--God in the sense of a nomen proprium, not of a
vague, metaphysical entity, is essentially an object only of religion,
not of philosophy,--of feeling, not of the intellect,--of the heart's
necessity, not of the mind's freedom: in short, an object which is
the reflex not of the theoretical but of the practical tendency in man.
Religion annexes to its doctrines a curse and a blessing, damnation
and salvation. Blessed is he that believeth, cursed is he that
believeth not. Thus it appeals not to reason, but to feeling, to
the desire of happiness, to the passions of hope and fear. It does
not take the theoretic point of view; otherwise it must have been
free to enunciate its doctrines without attaching to them practical
consequences, without to a certain extent compelling belief in them;
for when the case stands thus: I am lost if I do not believe,--the
conscience is under a subtle kind of constraint; the fear of hell urges
me to believe. Even supposing my belief to be in its origin free,
fear inevitably intermingles itself; my conscience is always under
constraint; doubt, the principle of theoretic freedom, appears to me
a crime. And as in religion the highest idea, the highest existence
is God, so the highest crime is doubt in God, or the doubt that God
exists. But that which I do not trust myself to doubt, which I cannot
doubt without feeling disturbed in my soul, without incurring guilt;
that is no matter of theory, but a matter of conscience, no being of
the intellect, but of the heart.
Now as the sole standpoint of religion is the practical or subjective
standpoint, as therefore to religion the whole, the essential man is
that part of his nature which is practical, which forms resolutions,
which acts in accordance with conscious aims, whether physical or
moral, and which considers the world not in itself, but only in
relation to those aims or wants: the consequence is that everything
which lies behind the practical consciousness, but which is the
essential object of theory--theory in its most original and general
sense, namely, that of objective contemplation and experience, of
the intellect, of science [151]--is regarded by religion as lying
outside man and Nature, in a special, personal being. All good, but
especially such as takes possession of man apart from his volition,
such as does not correspond with any resolution or purpose, such as
transcends the limits of the practical consciousness, comes from God;
all wickedness, evil, but especially such as overtakes him against
his will in the midst of his best moral resolutions, or hurries him
along with terrible violence, comes from the devil. The scientific
knowledge of the essence of religion includes the knowledge of the
devil, of Satan, of demons. [152] These things cannot be omitted
without a violent mutilation of religion. Grace and its works
are the antitheses of the devil and his works. As the involuntary,
sensual impulses which flash out from the depths of the nature, and,
in general, all those phenomena of moral and physical evil which are
inexplicable to religion, appear to it as the work of the Evil Being;
so the involuntary movements of inspiration and ecstasy appear to it as
the work of the Good Being, God, of the Holy Spirit or of grace. Hence
the arbitrariness of grace--the complaint of the pious that grace at
one time visits and blesses them, at another forsakes and rejects
them. The life, the agency of grace, is the life, the agency of
emotion. Emotion is the Paraclete of Christians. The moments which
are forsaken by divine grace are the moments destitute of emotion
and inspiration.
In relation to the inner life, grace may be defined as religious
genius; in relation to the outer life as religious chance. Man is
good or wicked by no means through himself, his own power, his
will; but through that complete synthesis of hidden and evident
determinations of things which, because they rest on no evident
necessity, we ascribe to the power of "chance." Divine grace is the
power of chance beclouded with additional mystery. Here we have again
the confirmation of that which we have seen to be the essential law
of religion. Religion denies, repudiates chance, making everything
dependent on God, explaining everything by means of him; but this
denial is only apparent; it merely gives chance the name of the
divine sovereignty. For the divine will, which, on incomprehensible
grounds, for incomprehensible reasons, that is, speaking plainly,
out of groundless, absolute arbitrariness, out of divine caprice, as
it were, determines or predestines some to evil and misery, others
to good and happiness, has not a single positive characteristic to
distinguish it from the power of chance. The mystery of the election
of grace is thus the mystery of chance. I say the mystery of chance;
for in reality chance is a mystery, although slurred over and ignored
by our speculative religious philosophy, which, as in its occupation
with the illusory mysteries of the Absolute Being, i.e., of theology,
it has overlooked the true mysteries of thought and life, so also
in the mystery of divine grace or freedom of election, has forgotten
the profane mystery of chance. [153]
But to return. The devil is the negative, the evil, that springs from
the nature, but not from the will; God is the positive, the good, which
comes from the nature, but not from the conscious action of the will;
the devil is involuntary, inexplicable wickedness; God involuntary,
inexplicable goodness. The source of both is the same, the quality only
is different or opposite. For this reason, the belief in a devil was,
until the most recent times, intimately connected with the belief
in God, so that the denial of the devil was held to be virtually as
atheistic as the denial of God. Nor without reason; for when men once
begin to derive the phenomena of evil from natural causes, they at
the same time begin to derive the phenomena of good, of the divine,
from the nature of things, and come at length either to abolish the
idea of God altogether, or at least to believe in another God than
the God of religion. In this case it most commonly happens that they
make the Deity an idle inactive being, whose existence is equivalent
to non-existence, since he no longer actively interposes in life,
but is merely placed at the summit of things, at the beginning of
the world, as the First Cause. God created the world: this is all
that is here retained of God. The past tense is necessary; for since
that epoch the world pursues its course like a machine. The addition:
He still creates, he is creating at this moment, is only the result
of external reflection; the past tense adequately expresses the
religious idea in this stage; for the spirit of religion is gone
when the operation of God is reduced to a fecit or creavit. It is
otherwise when the genuine religious consciousness says: The fecit
is still to-day a facit. This, though here also it is a product of
reflection, has nevertheless a legitimate meaning, because by the
religious spirit God is really thought of as active.
Religion is abolished where the idea of the world, of so-called
second causes, intrudes itself between God and man. Here a foreign
element, the principle of intellectual culture, has insinuated itself,
peace is broken, the harmony of religion, which lies only in the
immediate connection of man with God, is destroyed. Second causes are
a capitulation of the unbelieving intellect with the still believing
heart. It is true that, according to religion also, God works on man
by means of other things and beings. But God alone is the cause, he
alone is the active and efficient being. What a fellow-creature does
is in the view of religion done not by him, but by God. The other
is only an appearance, a medium, a vehicle, not a cause. But the
"second cause" is a miserable anomaly, neither an independent nor a
dependent being: God, it is true, gives the first impulse, but then
ensues the spontaneous activity of the second cause. [154]
Religion of itself, unadulterated by foreign elements, knows nothing
of the existence of second causes; on the contrary, they are a stone
of stumbling to it; for the realm of second causes, the sensible
world, Nature, is precisely what separates man from God, although
God as a real God, i.e., an external being, is supposed himself to
become in the other world a sensible existence. [155] Hence religion
believes that one day this wall of separation will fall away. One day
there will be no Nature, no matter, no body, at least none such as
to separate man from God: then there will be only God and the pious
soul. Religion derives the idea of the existence of second causes,
that is, of things which are interposed between God and man, only
from the physical, natural, and hence the irreligious or at least
non-religious theory of the universe: a theory which it nevertheless
immediately subverts by making the operations of Nature operations
of God. But this religious idea is in contradiction with the natural
sense and understanding, which concedes a real, spontaneous activity
to natural things. And this contradiction of the physical view with
the religious theory, religion resolves by converting the undeniable
activity of things into an activity of God. Thus, on this view,
the positive idea is God; the negative, the world.
On the contrary, where second causes, having been set in motion, are,
so to speak, emancipated, the converse occurs; Nature is the positive,
God a negative idea. The world is independent in its existence, its
persistence; only as to its commencement is it dependent. God is here
only a hypothetical Being, an inference, arising from the necessity of
a limited understanding, to which the existence of a world viewed by
it as a machine is inexplicable without a self-moving principle;--he
is no longer an original, absolutely necessary Being. God exists not
for his own sake, but for the sake of the world,--merely that he may,
as a First Cause, explain the existence of the world. The narrow
rationalising man takes objection to the original self-subsistence
of the world, because he looks at it only from the subjective,
practical point of view, only in its commoner aspect, only as a piece
of mechanism, not in its majesty and glory, not as the Cosmos. He
conceives the world as having been launched into existence by an
original impetus, as, according to mathematical theory, is the case
with matter once set in motion and thenceforth going on for ever:
that is, he postulates a mechanical origin. A machine must have a
beginning; this is involved in its very idea; for it has not the
source of motion in itself.
All religious speculative cosmogony is tautology, as is apparent from
this example. In cosmogony man declares or realises the idea he has
of the world; he merely repeats what he has already said in another
form. Thus here, if the world is a machine, it is self-evident that it
did not make itself, that, on the contrary, it was created, i.e., had
a mechanical origin. Herein, it is true, the religious consciousness
agrees with the mechanical theory, that to it also the world is a mere
fabric, a product of Will. But they agree only for an instant, only
in the moment of creation; that moment past, the harmony ceases. The
holder of the mechanical theory needs God only as the creator of
the world; once made, the world turns its back on the Creator,
and rejoices in its godless self-subsistence. But religion creates
the world only to maintain it in the perpetual consciousness of its
nothingness, its dependence on God. [156] To the mechanical theorist,
the creation is the last thin thread which yet ties him to religion;
the religion to which the nothingness of the world is a present truth
(for all power and activity is to it the power and activity of God),
is with him only a surviving reminiscence of youth; hence he removes
the creation of the world, the act of religion, the non-existence
of the world (for in the beginning, before the creation, there was
no world, only God), into the far distance, into the past, while
the self-subsistence of the world, which absorbs all his senses and
endeavours, acts on him with the force of the present. The mechanical
theorist interrupts and cuts short the activity of God by the activity
of the world. With him God has indeed still an historical right,
but this is in contradiction with the right he awards to Nature;
hence he limits as much as possible the right yet remaining to God,
in order to gain wider and freer play for his natural causes, and
thereby for his understanding.
With this class of thinkers the creation holds the same position as
miracles, which also they can and actually do acquiesce in, because
miracles exist, at least according to religious opinion. But not
to say that he explains miracles naturally, that is, mechanically,
he can only digest them when he relegates them to the past; for the
present he begs to be excused from believing in them, and explains
everything to himself charmingly on natural principles. When a
belief has departed from the reason, the intelligence, when it is no
longer held spontaneously, but merely because it is a common belief,
or because on some ground or other it must be held; in short, when
a belief is inwardly a past one; then externally also the object
of the belief is referred to the past. Unbelief thus gets breathing
space, but at the same time concedes to belief at least an historical
validity. The past is here the fortunate means of compromise between
belief and unbelief: I certainly believe in miracles, but, nota bene,
in no miracles which happen now--only in those which once happened,
which, thank God! are already plus quam perfecta. So also with
the creation. The creation is an immediate act of God, a miracle,
for there was once nothing but God. In the idea of the creation man
transcends the world, he rises into abstraction from it; he conceives
it as non-existent in the moment of creation; thus he dispels from
his sight what stands between himself and God, the sensible world;
he places himself in immediate contact with God. But the mechanical
thinker shrinks from this immediate contact with God; hence he at
once makes the præsens, if indeed he soars so high, into a perfectum;
he interposes millenniums between his natural or materialistic view
and the thought of an immediate operation of God.
To the religious spirit, on the contrary, God alone is the cause
of all positive effects, God alone the ultimate and also the sole
ground wherewith it answers, or rather repels, all questions which
theory puts forward; for the affirmative of religion is virtually
a negative; its answer amounts to nothing, since it solves the
most various questions always with the same answer, making all the
operations of Nature immediate operations of God, of a designing,
personal, extra-natural or supranatural Being. God is the idea which
supplies the lack of theory. The idea of God is the explanation of
the inexplicable,--which explains nothing because it is supposed to
explain everything without distinction; he is the night of theory,
a night, however, in which everything is clear to religious feeling,
because in it the measure of darkness, the discriminating light of the
understanding, is extinct; he is the ignorance which solves all doubt
by repressing it, which knows everything because it knows nothing
definite, because all things which impress the intellect disappear
before religion, lose their individuality, in the eyes of divine
power are nothing. Darkness is the mother of religion.
The essential act of religion, that in which religion puts into
action what we have designated as its essence, is prayer. Prayer
is all-powerful. What the pious soul entreats for in prayer God
fulfils. But he prays not for spiritual gifts [157] alone, which
lie in some sort in the power of man; he prays also for things which
lie out of him, which are in the power of Nature, a power which it
is the very object of prayer to overcome; in prayer he lays hold
on a supernatural means, in order to attain ends in themselves
natural. God is to him not the causa remota but the causa proxima,
the immediate, efficient cause of all natural effects. All so-called
secondary forces and second causes are nothing to him when he prays;
if they were anything to him, the might, the fervour of prayer would
be annihilated. But in fact they have no existence for him; otherwise
he would assuredly seek to attain his end only by some intermediate
process. But he desires immediate help. He has recourse to prayer in
the certainty that he can do more, infinitely more, by prayer, than
by all the efforts of reason and all the agencies of Nature,--in
the conviction that prayer possesses superhuman and supernatural
powers. [158] But in prayer he applies immediately to God. Thus God
is to him the immediate cause, the fulfilment of prayer, the power
which realises prayer. But an immediate act of God is a miracle;
hence miracle is essential to the religious view. Religion explains
everything miraculously. That miracles do not always happen is indeed
obvious, as that man does not always pray. But the consideration that
miracles do not always happen lies outside the nature of religion, in
the empirical or physical mode of view only. Where religion begins,
there also begins miracle. Every true prayer is a miracle, an act
of the wonder-working power. External miracles themselves only make
visible internal miracles, that is, they are only a manifestation in
time and space, and therefore as a special fact, of what in and by
itself is a fundamental position of religion, namely, that God is,
in general, the supernatural, immediate cause of all things. The
miracle of fact is only an impassioned expression of religion, a
moment of inspiration. Miracles happen only in extraordinary crises,
in which there is an exaltation of the feelings: hence there are
miracles of anger. No miracle is wrought in cold blood. But it
is precisely in moments of passion that the latent nature reveals
itself. Man does not always pray with equal warmth and power. Such
prayers are therefore ineffective. Only ardent prayer reveals the
nature of prayer. Man truly prays when he regards prayer as in itself
a sacred power, a divine force. So it is with miracles. Miracles
happen--no matter whether few or many--wherever there is, as a basis
for them, a belief in the miraculous. But the belief in miracle
is no theoretic or objective mode of viewing the world and Nature;
miracle realises practical wants, and that in contradiction with the
laws which are imperative to the reason; in miracle man subjugates
Nature, as in itself a nullity, to his own ends, which he regards
as a reality; miracle is the superlative expression of spiritual or
religious utilitarianism; in miracle all things are at the service
of necessitous man. It is clear from this, that the conception of
the world which is essential to religion is that of the practical
or subjective standpoint, that God--for the miracle-working power
is identical with God--is a purely practical or subjective Being,
serving, however, as a substitute for a theoretic view, and is thus
no object of thought, of the knowing faculty, any more than miracle,
which owes its origin to the negation of thought. If I place myself
in the point of view of thought, of investigation, of theory, in
which I consider things in themselves, in their mutual relations,
the miracle-working being vanishes into nothing, miracle disappears;
i.e., the religious miracle, which is absolutely different from the
natural miracle, though they are continually interchanged, in order
to stultify reason, and, under the appearance of natural science, to
introduce religious miracle into the sphere of rationality and reality.
But for this very reason--namely, that religion is removed from the
standpoint, from the nature of theory--the true, universal essence
of Nature and humanity, which as such is hidden from religion and
is only visible to the theoretic eye, is conceived as another, a
miraculous and supernatural essence; the idea of the species becomes
the idea of God, who again is himself an individual being, but is
distinguished from human individuals in this, that he possesses their
qualities according to the measure of the species. Hence, in religion
man necessarily places his nature out of himself, regards his nature
as a separate nature; necessarily, because the nature which is the
object of theory lies outside of him, because all his conscious
existence spends itself in his practical subjectivity. God is his
alter ego, his other lost half; God is the complement of himself;
in God he is first a perfect man. God is a need to him; something is
wanting to him without his knowing what it is--God is this something
wanting, indispensable to him; God belongs to his nature. The world
is nothing to religion, [159]--the world, which is in truth the sum
of all reality, is revealed in its glory only by theory. The joys of
theory are the sweetest intellectual pleasures of life; but religion
knows nothing of the joys of the thinker, of the investigator of
Nature, of the artist. The idea of the universe is wanting to it,
the consciousness of the really infinite, the consciousness of the
species. God only is its compensation for the poverty of life, for
the want of a substantial import, which the true life of rational
contemplation presents in unending fulness. God is to religion the
substitute for the lost world,--God is to it in the stead of pure
contemplation, the life of theory.
That which we have designated as the practical or subjective view
is not pure, it is tainted with egoism, for therein I have relation
to a thing only for my own sake; neither is it self-sufficing,
for it places me in relation to an object above my own level. On
the contrary, the theoretic view is joyful, self-sufficing, happy;
for here the object calls forth love and admiration; in the light of
the free intelligence it is radiant as a diamond, transparent as a
rock-crystal. The theoretic view is æsthetic, whereas the practical
is unæsthetic. Religion therefore finds in God a compensation for
the want of an æsthetic view. To the religious spirit the world
is nothing in itself; the admiration, the contemplation of it is
idolatry; for the world is a mere piece of mechanism. [160] Hence
in religion it is God that serves as the object of pure, untainted,
i.e., theoretic or æsthetic contemplation. God is the existence to
which the religious man has an objective relation; in God the object
is contemplated by him for its own sake. God is an end in himself;
therefore in religion he has the significance which in the theoretic
view belongs to the object in general. The general being of theory
is to religion a special being. It is true that in religion man,
in his relation to God, has relation to his own wants as well in a
higher as in the lower sense: "Give us this day our daily bread;"
but God can satisfy all wants of man only because he in himself has
no wants,--because he is perfect blessedness.
CHAPTER XX.
THE CONTRADICTION IN THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.
Religion is the relation of man to his own nature,--therein lies
its truth and its power of moral amelioration;--but to his nature
not recognised as his own, but regarded as another nature, separate,
nay, contradistinguished from his own: herein lies its untruth, its
limitation, its contradiction to reason and morality; herein lies
the noxious source of religious fanaticism, the chief metaphysical
principle of human sacrifices, in a word, the prima materia of all
the atrocities, all the horrible scenes, in the tragedy of religious
history.
The contemplation of the human nature as another, a separately
existent nature, is, however, in the original conception of religion
an involuntary, childlike, simple act of the mind, that is, one which
separates God and man just as immediately as it again identifies
them. But when religion advances in years, and, with years, in
understanding; when, within the bosom of religion, reflection on
religion is awakened, and the consciousness of the identity of the
divine being with the human begins to dawn,--in a word, when religion
becomes theology, the originally involuntary and harmless separation
of God from man becomes an intentional, excogitated separation, which
has no other object than to banish again from the consciousness this
identity which has already entered there.
Hence the nearer religion stands to its origin, the truer, the more
genuine it is, the less is its true nature disguised; that is to
say, in the origin of religion there is no qualitative or essential
distinction whatever between God and man. And the religious man is
not shocked at this identification; for his understanding is still
in harmony with his religion. Thus in ancient Judaism, Jehovah
was a being differing from the human individual in nothing but in
duration of existence; in his qualities, his inherent nature, he was
entirely similar to man,--had the same passions, the same human, nay,
even corporeal properties. Only in the later Judaism was Jehovah
separated in the strictest manner from man, and recourse was had
to allegory in order to give to the old anthropomorphisms another
sense than that which they originally had. So again in Christianity:
in its earliest records the divinity of Christ is not so decidedly
stamped as it afterwards became. With Paul especially, Christ is
still an undefined being, hovering between heaven and earth, between
God and man, or in general, one amongst the existences subordinate to
the highest,--the first of the angels, the first created, but still
created; begotten indeed for our sake; but then neither are angels and
men created, but begotten, for God is their Father also. The Church
first identified him with God, made him the exclusive Son of God,
defined his distinction from men and angels, and thus gave him the
monopoly of an eternal, uncreated existence.
In the genesis of ideas, the first mode in which reflection on
religion, or theology, makes the divine being a distinct being,
and places him outside of man, is by making the existence of God the
object of a formal proof.
The proofs of the existence of God have been pronounced contradictory
to the essential nature of religion. They are so, but only in their
form as proofs. Religion immediately represents the inner nature of
man as an objective, external being. And the proof aims at nothing
more than to prove that religion is right. The most perfect being is
that than which no higher can be conceived: God is the highest that man
conceives or can conceive. This premiss of the ontological proof--the
most interesting proof, because it proceeds from within--expresses
the inmost nature of religion. That which is the highest for man,
from which he can make no further abstraction, which is the positive
limit of his intellect, of his feeling, of his sentiment, that is to
him God--id quo nihil majus cogitari potest. But this highest being
would not be the highest if he did not exist; we could then conceive
a higher being who would be superior to him in the fact of existence;
the idea of the highest being directly precludes this fiction. Not to
exist is a deficiency; to exist is perfection, happiness, bliss. From
a being to whom man gives all, offers up all that is precious to him,
he cannot withhold the bliss of existence. The contradiction to the
religious spirit in the proof of the existence of God lies only in
this, that the existence is thought of separately, and thence arises
the appearance that God is a mere conception, a being existing in
idea only,--an appearance, however, which is immediately dissipated;
for the very result of the proof is, that to God belongs an existence
distinct from an ideal one, an existence apart from man, apart from
thought,--a real self-existence.
The proof therefore is only thus far discordant with the spirit of
religion, that it presents as a formal deduction the implicit enthymeme
or immediate conclusion of religion, exhibits in logical relation,
and therefore distinguishes, what religion immediately unites; for to
religion God is not a matter of abstract thought,--he is a present
truth and reality. But that every religion in its idea of God makes
a latent, unconscious inference, is confessed in its polemic against
other religions. "Ye heathens," says the Jew or the Christian, "were
able to conceive nothing higher as your deities because ye were sunk
in sinful desires. Your God rests on a conclusion, the premisses of
which are your sensual impulses, your passions. You thought thus: the
most excellent life is to live out one's impulses without restraint;
and because this life was the most excellent, the truest, you made it
your God. Your God was your carnal nature, your heaven only a free
theatre for the passions which, in society and in the conditions
of actual life generally, had to suffer restraint." But, naturally,
in relation to itself no religion is conscious of such an inference,
for the highest of which it is capable is its limit, has the force of
necessity, is not a thought, not a conception, but immediate reality.
The proofs of the existence of God have for their aim to make the
internal external, to separate it from man. [161] His existence being
proved, God is no longer a merely relative, but a noumenal being
(Ding an sich): he is not only a being for us, a being in our faith,
our feeling, our nature, he is a being in himself, a being external
to us,--in a word, not merely a belief, a feeling, a thought, but
also a real existence apart from belief, feeling, and thought. But
such an existence is no other than a sensational existence; i.e.,
an existence conceived according to the forms of our senses.
The idea of sensational existence is indeed already involved in
the characteristic expression "external to us." It is true that a
sophistical theology refuses to interpret the word "external" in
its proper, natural sense, and substitutes the indefinite expression
of independent, separate existence. But if the externality is only
figurative, the existence also is figurative. And yet we are here
only concerned with existence in the proper sense, and external
existence is alone the definite, real, unshrinking expression for
separate existence.
Real, sensational existence is that which is not dependent on my
own mental spontaneity or activity, but by which I am involuntarily
affected, which is when I am not, when I do not think of it or feel
it. The existence of God must therefore be in space--in general, a
qualitative, sensational existence. But God is not seen, not heard,
not perceived by the senses. He does not exist for me, if I do not
exist for him; if I do not believe in a God, there is no God for me. If
I am not devoutly disposed, if I do not raise myself above the life
of the senses, he has no place in my consciousness. Thus he exists
only in so far as he is felt, thought, believed in;--the addition
"for me" is unnecessary. His existence therefore is a real one, yet
at the same time not a real one;--a spiritual existence, says the
theologian. But spiritual existence is only an existence in thought,
in feeling, in belief; so that his existence is a medium between
sensational existence and conceptional existence, a medium full of
contradiction. Or: he is a sensational existence, to which however all
the conditions of sensational existence are wanting:--consequently an
existence at once sensational and not sensational, an existence which
contradicts the idea of the sensational, or only a vague existence in
general, which is fundamentally a sensational one, but which, in order
that this may not become evident, is divested of all the predicates
of a real, sensational existence. But such an "existence in general"
is self-contradictory. To existence belongs full, definite reality.
A necessary consequence of this contradiction is Atheism. The existence
of God is essentially an empirical existence, without having its
distinctive marks; it is in itself a matter of experience, and yet
in reality no object of experience. It calls upon man to seek it
in Reality: it impregnates his mind with sensational conceptions
and pretensions; hence, when these are not fulfilled--when, on the
contrary, he finds experience in contradiction with these conceptions,
he is perfectly justified in denying that existence.
Kant is well known to have maintained, in his critique of the proofs
of the existence of God, that that existence is not susceptible of
proof from reason. He did not merit, on this account, the blame
which was cast on him by Hegel. The idea of the existence of God
in those proofs is a thoroughly empirical one; but I cannot deduce
empirical existence from an à priori idea. The only real ground of
blame against Kant is, that in laying down this position he supposed
it to be something remarkable, whereas it is self-evident. Reason
cannot constitute itself an object of sense. I cannot, in thinking,
at the same time represent what I think as a sensible object, external
to me. The proof of the existence of God transcends the limits of the
reason; true; but in the same sense in which sight, hearing, smelling
transcend the limits of the reason. It is absurd to reproach reason
that it does not satisfy a demand which can only address itself
to the senses. Existence, empirical existence, is proved to me by
the senses alone; and in the question as to the being of God, the
existence implied has not the significance of inward reality, of truth,
but the significance of a formal, external existence. Hence there is
perfect truth in the allegation that the belief that God is or is not
has no consequence with respect to inward moral dispositions. It is
true that the thought: There is a God, is inspiring; but here the is
means inward reality; here the existence is a movement of inspiration,
an act of aspiration. Just in proportion as this existence becomes
a prosaic, an empirical truth, the inspiration is extinguished.
Religion, therefore, in so far as it is founded on the existence of
God as an empirical truth, is a matter of indifference to the inward
disposition. As, necessarily, in the religious cultus, ceremonies,
observances, sacraments, apart from the moral spirit or disposition,
become in themselves an important fact: so also, at last, belief in
the existence of God becomes, apart from the inherent quality, the
spiritual import of the idea of God, a chief point in religion. If
thou only believest in God--believest that God is, thou art already
saved. Whether under this God thou conceivest a really divine being
or a monster, a Nero or a Caligula, an image of thy passions, thy
revenge, or ambition, it is all one,--the main point is that thou
be not an atheist. The history of religion has amply confirmed
this consequence which we here draw from the idea of the divine
existence. If the existence of God, taken by itself, had not rooted
itself as a religious truth in minds, there would never have been
those infamous, senseless, horrible ideas of God which stigmatise the
history of religion and theology. The existence of God was a common,
external, and yet at the same time a holy thing:--what wonder, then,
if on this ground the commonest, rudest, most unholy conceptions and
opinions sprang up!
Atheism was supposed, and is even now supposed, to be the negation
of all moral principle, of all moral foundations and bonds: if
God is not, all distinction between good and bad, virtue and vice,
is abolished. Thus the distinction lies only in the existence of
God; the reality of virtue lies not in itself, but out of it. And
assuredly it is not from an attachment to virtue, from a conviction
of its intrinsic worth and importance, that the reality of it is
thus bound up with the existence of God. On the contrary, the belief
that God is the necessary condition of virtue is the belief in the
nothingness of virtue in itself.
It is indeed worthy of remark that the idea of the empirical
existence of God has been perfectly developed in modern times,
in which empiricism and materialism in general have arrived at
their full blow. It is true that even in the original, simple
religious mind, God is an empirical existence to be found in a place,
though above the earth. But here this conception has not so naked,
so prosaic a significance; the imagination identifies again the
external God with the soul of man. The imagination is, in general,
the true place of an existence which is absent, not present to
the senses, though nevertheless sensational in its essence. [162]
Only the imagination solves the contradiction in an existence which
is at once sensational and not sensational; only the imagination
is the preservative from atheism. In the imagination existence has
sensational effects,--existence affirms itself as a power; with the
essence of sensational existence the imagination associates also the
phenomena of sensational existence. Where the existence of God is a
living truth, an object on which the imagination exercises itself,
there also appearances of God are believed in. [163] Where, on the
contrary, the fire of the religious imagination is extinct, where
the sensational effects or appearances necessarily connected with an
essentially sensational existence cease, there the existence becomes
a dead, self-contradictory existence, which falls irrecoverably into
the negation of atheism.
The belief in the existence of God is the belief in a special
existence, separate from the existence of man and Nature. A special
existence can only be proved in a special manner. This faith is
therefore only then a true and living one when special effects,
immediate appearances of God, miracles, are believed in. Where, on the
other hand, the belief in God is identified with the belief in the
world, where the belief in God is no longer a special faith, where
the general being of the world takes possession of the whole man,
there also vanishes the belief in special effects and appearances
of God. Belief in God is wrecked, is stranded on the belief in the
world, in natural effects as the only true ones. As here the belief
in miracles is no longer anything more than the belief in historical,
past miracles, so the existence of God is also only an historical,
in itself atheistic conception.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE CONTRADICTION IN THE REVELATION OF GOD.
With the idea of the existence of God is connected the idea of
revelation. God's attestation of his existence, the authentic testimony
that God exists, is revelation. Proofs drawn from reason are merely
subjective; the objective, the only true proof of the existence of God,
is his revelation. God speaks to man; revelation is the word of God;
he sends forth a voice which thrills the soul, and gives it the joyful
certainty that God really is. The word is the gospel of life,--the
criterion of existence and non-existence. Belief in revelation is the
culminating point of religious objectivism. The subjective conviction
of the existence of God here becomes an indubitable, external,
historical fact. The existence of God, in itself, considered simply
as existence, is already an external, empirical existence; still,
it is as yet only thought, conceived, and therefore doubtful; hence
the assertion that all proofs produce no satisfactory certainty. This
conceptional existence converted into a real existence, a fact, is
revelation. God has revealed himself, has demonstrated himself: who
then can have any further doubt? The certainty of the existence of God
is involved for me in the certainty of the revelation. A God who only
exists without revealing himself, who exists for me only through my own
mental act, such a God is a merely abstract, imaginary, subjective God;
a God who gives me a knowledge of himself through his own act is alone
a God who truly exists, who proves himself to exist,--an objective
God. Faith in revelation is the immediate certainty of the religious
mind, that what it believes, wishes, conceives, really is. Religion
is a dream, in which our own conceptions and emotions appear to us as
separate existences, beings out of ourselves. The religious mind does
not distinguish between subjective and objective,--it has no doubts;
it has the faculty, not of discerning other things than itself, but of
seeing its own conceptions out of itself as distinct beings. What is
in itself a mere theory is to the religious mind a practical belief,
a matter of conscience,--a fact. A fact is that which from being an
object of the intellect becomes a matter of conscience; a fact is that
which one cannot criticise or attack without being guilty of a crime;
[164] a fact is that which one must believe nolens volens; a fact is a
physical force, not an argument,--it makes no appeal to the reason. O
ye shortsighted religious philosophers of Germany, who fling at our
heads the facts of the religious consciousness, to stun our reason and
make us the slaves of your childish superstition,--do you not see that
facts are just as relative, as various, as subjective, as the ideas
of the different religions? Were not the gods of Olympus also facts,
self-attesting existences? [165] Were not the ludicrous miracles of
paganism regarded as facts? Were not angels and demons historical
persons? Did they not really appear to men? Did not Balaam's ass
really speak? Was not the story of Balaam's ass just as much believed
even by enlightened scholars of the last century, as the Incarnation
or any other miracle? A fact, I repeat, is a conception about the
truth of which there is no doubt, because it is no object of theory,
but of feeling, which desires that what it wishes, what it believes,
should be true. A fact is that, the denial of which is forbidden,
if not by an external law, yet by an internal one. A fact is every
possibility which passes for a reality, every conception which,
for the age wherein it is held to be a fact, expresses a want, and
is for that reason an impassable limit of the mind. A fact is every
wish that projects itself on reality: in short, it is everything that
is not doubted simply because it is not--must not be--doubted.
The religious mind, according to its nature as hitherto unfolded,
has the immediate certainty that all its involuntary, spontaneous
affections are impressions from without, manifestations of another
being. The religious mind makes itself the passive, God the active
being. God is activity; but that which determines him to activity,
which causes his activity (originally only omnipotence, potentia)
to become real activity, is not himself,--he needs nothing,--but man,
the religious subject. At the same time, however, man is reciprocally
determined by God; he views himself as passive; lie receives from God
determinate revelations, determinate proofs of his existence. Thus in
revelation man determines himself as that which determines God, i.e.,
revelation is simply the self-determination of man, only that between
himself the determined, and himself the determining, he interposes an
object--God, a distinct being. God is the medium by which man brings
about the reconciliation of himself with his own nature: God is the
bond, the vinculum substantiale, between the essential nature--the
species--and the individual.
The belief in revelation exhibits in the clearest manner the
characteristic illusion of the religious consciousness. The general
premiss of this belief is: man can of himself know nothing of God; all
his knowledge is merely vain, earthly, human. But God is a superhuman
being; God is known only by himself. Thus we know nothing of God beyond
what he reveals to us. The knowledge imparted by God is alone divine,
superhuman, supernatural knowledge. By means of revelation, therefore,
we know God through himself; for revelation is the word of God--God
declaring himself. Hence, in the belief in revelation man makes himself
a negation, he goes out of and above himself; he places revelation
in opposition to human knowledge and opinion; in it is contained a
hidden knowledge, the fulness of all supersensuous mysteries; here
reason must hold its peace. But nevertheless the divine revelation is
determined by the human nature. God speaks not to brutes or angels,
but to men; hence he uses human speech and human conceptions. Man
is an object to God, before God perceptibly imparts himself to man;
he thinks of man; he determines his action in accordance with the
nature of man and his needs. God is indeed free in will; he can
reveal himself or not; but he is not free as to the understanding;
he cannot reveal to man whatever he will, but only what is adapted to
man, what is commensurate with his nature such as it actually is; he
reveals what he must reveal, if his revelation is to be a revelation
for man, and not for some other kind of being. Now what God thinks in
relation to man is determined by the idea of man--it has arisen out of
reflection on human nature. God puts himself in the place of man, and
thinks of himself as this other being can and should think of him; he
thinks of himself, not with his own thinking power, but with man's. In
the scheme of his revelation God must have reference not to himself,
but to man's power of comprehension. That which comes from God to man,
comes to man only from man in God, that is, only from the ideal nature
of man to the phenomenal man, from the species to the individual. Thus,
between the divine revelation and the so-called human reason or nature,
there is no other than an illusory distinction;--the contents of the
divine revelation are of human origin, for they have proceeded not
from God as God, but from God as determined by human reason, human
wants, that is, directly from human reason and human wants. And so in
revelation man goes out of himself, in order, by a circuitous path, to
return to himself! Here we have a striking confirmation of the position
that the secret of theology is nothing else than anthropology--the
knowledge of God nothing else than a knowledge of man!
Indeed, the religious consciousness itself admits, in relation to past
times, the essentially human quality of revelation. The religious
consciousness of a later age is no longer satisfied with a Jehovah
who is from head to foot a man, and does not shrink from becoming
visible as such. It recognises that those were merely images in which
God accommodated himself to the comprehension of men in that age,
that is, merely human images. But it does not apply this mode of
interpretation to ideas accepted as revelation in the present age,
because it is yet itself steeped in those ideas. Nevertheless,
every revelation is simply a revelation of the nature of man to
existing men. In revelation man's latent nature is disclosed to
him, because an object to him. He is determined, affected by his
own nature as by another being; he receives from the hands of God
what his own unrecognised nature entails upon him as a necessity,
under certain conditions of time and circumstance. Reason, the mind
of the species, operates on the subjective, uncultured man only under
the image of a personal being. Moral laws have force for him only
as the commandments of a Divine Will, which has at once the power
to punish and the glance which nothing escapes. That which his own
nature, his reason, his conscience says to him, does not bind him,
because the subjective, uncultured man sees in conscience, in reason,
so far as he recognises it as his own, no universal objective power;
hence he must separate from himself that which gives him moral laws,
and place it in opposition to himself, as a distinct personal being.
Belief in revelation is a childlike belief, and is only respectable so
long as it is childlike. But the child is determined from without, and
revelation has for its object to effect by God's help what man cannot
attain by himself. Hence revelation has been called the education of
the human race. This is correct; only revelation must not be regarded
as outside the nature of man. There is within him an inward necessity
which impels him to present moral and philosophical doctrines in the
form of narratives and fables, and an equal necessity to represent that
impulse as a revelation. The mythical poet has an end in view--that of
making men good and wise; he designedly adopts the form of fable as
the most appropriate and vivid method of representation; but at the
same time, he is himself urged to this mode of teaching by his love
of fable, by his inward impulse. So it is with a revelation enunciated
by an individual. This individual has an aim; but at the same time he
himself lives in the conceptions by means of which he realises this
aim. Man, by means of the imagination, involuntarily contemplates his
inner nature; he represents it as out of himself. The nature of man,
of the species--thus working on him through the irresistible power
of the imagination, and contemplated as the law of his thought and
action--is God.
Herein lie the beneficial moral effects of the belief in revelation.
But as Nature "unconsciously produces results which look as if they
were produced consciously," so revelation generates moral actions,
which do not, however, proceed from morality;--moral actions, but
no moral dispositions. Moral rules are indeed observed, but they are
severed from the inward disposition, the heart, by being represented
as the commandments of an external lawgiver, by being placed in the
category of arbitrary laws, police regulations. What is done is done
not because it is good and right, but because it is commanded by
God. The inherent quality of the deed is indifferent; whatever God
commands is right. [166] If these commands are in accordance with
reason, with ethics, it is well; but so far as the idea of revelation
is concerned, it is accidental. The ceremonial laws of the Jews were
revealed, divine, though in themselves adventitious and arbitrary. The
Jews received from Jehovah the command to steal;--in a special case,
it is true.
But the belief in revelation not only injures the moral sense
and taste,--the æsthetics of virtue; it poisons, nay it destroys,
the divinest feeling in man--the sense of truth, the perception and
sentiment of truth. The revelation of God is a determinate revelation,
given at a particular epoch: God revealed himself once for all in the
year so and so, and that, not to the universal man, to the man of all
times and places, to the reason, to the species, but to certain limited
individuals. A revelation in a given time and place must be fixed in
writing, that its blessings may be transmitted uninjured. Hence the
belief in revelation is, at least for those of a subsequent age, belief
in a written revelation; but the necessary consequence of a faith in
which an historical book, necessarily subject to all the conditions
of a temporal, finite production, is regarded as an eternal, absolute,
universally authoritative word, is--superstition and sophistry.
Faith in a written revelation is a real, unfeigned, and so far
respectable faith, only where it is believed that all in the sacred
writings is significant, true, holy, divine. Where, on the contrary,
the distinction is made between the human and divine, the relatively
true and the absolutely true, the historical and the permanent,--where
it is not held that all without distinction is unconditionally true;
there the verdict of unbelief, that the Bible is no divine book, is
already introduced into the interpretation of the Bible,--there, at
least indirectly, that is, in a crafty, dishonest way, its title to the
character of a divine revelation is denied. Unity, unconditionality,
freedom from exceptions, immediate certitude, is alone the character of
divinity. A book that imposes on me the necessity of discrimination,
the necessity of criticism, in order to separate the divine from
the human, the permanent from the temporary, is no longer a divine,
certain, infallible book,--it is degraded to the rank of profane
books; for every profane book has the same quality, that together
with or in the human it contains the divine, that is, together with
or in the individual it contains the universal and eternal. But that
only is a truly divine book in which there is not merely something
good and something bad, something permanent and something temporary,
but in which all comes as it were from one crucible, all is eternal,
true and good. What sort of a revelation is that in which I must
first listen to the apostle Paul, then to Peter, then to James,
then to John, then to Matthew, then to Mark, then to Luke, until
at last I come to a passage where my soul, athirst for God, can cry
out: Eureka! here speaks the Holy Spirit himself! here is something
for me, something for all times and men. How true, on the contrary,
was the conception of the old faith, when it extended inspiration
to the very words, to the very letters of Scripture! The word is
not a matter of indifference in relation to the thought; a definite
thought can only be rendered by a definite word. Another word, another
letter--another sense. It is true that such faith is superstition;
but this superstition is alone the true, undisguised, open faith,
which is not ashamed of its consequences. If God numbers the hairs
on the head of a man, if no sparrow falls to the ground without his
will, how could he leave to the stupidity and caprice of scribes his
Word--that Word on which depends the everlasting salvation of man? Why
should he not dictate his thoughts to their pen in order to guard
them from the possibility of disfiguration? "But if man were a mere
organ of the Holy Spirit, human freedom would be abolished!" [167] Oh,
what a pitiable argument! Is human freedom, then, of more value than
divine truth? Or does human freedom consist only in the distortion
of divine truth?
And just as necessarily as the belief in a determinate historical
revelation is associated with superstition, so necessarily is it
associated with sophistry. The Bible contradicts morality, contradicts
reason, contradicts itself, innumerable times; and yet it is the Word
of God, eternal truth, and "truth cannot contradict itself." [168]
How does the believer in revelation elude this contradiction between
the idea in his own mind of revelation as divine, harmonious truth,
and this supposed actual revelation? Only by self-deception, only
by the silliest subterfuges, only by the most miserable, transparent
sophisms. Christian sophistry is the necessary product of Christian
faith, especially of faith in the Bible as a divine revelation.
Truth, absolute truth, is given objectively in the Bible, subjectively
in faith; for towards that which God himself speaks I can only be
believing, resigned, receptive. Nothing is left to the understanding,
the reason, but a formal, subordinate office; it has a false position,
a position essentially contradictory to its nature. The understanding
in itself is here indifferent to truth, indifferent to the distinction
between the true and the false; it has no criterion in itself;
whatever is found in revelation is true, even when it is in direct
contradiction with reason. The understanding is helplessly given
over to the haphazard of the most ignoble empiricism;--whatever
I find in divine revelation I must believe, and if necessary, my
understanding must defend it; the understanding is the watchdog of
revelation; it must let everything without distinction be imposed
on it as truth,--discrimination would be doubt, would be a crime:
consequently, nothing remains to it but an adventitious, indifferent,
i.e., disingenuous, sophistical, tortuous mode of thought, which
is occupied only with groundless distinctions and subterfuges, with
ignominious tricks and evasions. But the more man, by the progress of
time, becomes estranged from revelation, the more the understanding
ripens into independence,--the more glaring, necessarily, appears the
contradiction between the understanding and belief in revelation. The
believer can then prove revelation only by incurring contradiction
with himself, with truth, with the understanding, only by the most
impudent assumptions, only by shameless falsehoods, only by the sin
against the Holy Ghost.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE CONTRADICTION IN THE NATURE OF GOD IN GENERAL.
The grand principle, the central point of Christian sophistry, is
the idea of God. God is the human being, and yet he must be regarded
as another, a superhuman being. God is universal, abstract Being,
simply the idea of Being; and yet he must be conceived as a personal,
individual being;--or God is a person, and yet he must be regarded as
God, as universal, i.e., not as a personal being. God is; his existence
is certain, more certain than ours; he has an existence distinct from
us and from things in general, i.e., an individual existence; and yet
his existence must be held a spiritual one, i.e., an existence not
perceptible as a special one. One half of the definition is always in
contradiction with the other half: the statement of what must be held
always annihilates the statement of what is. The fundamental idea is
a contradiction which can be concealed only by sophisms. A God who
does not trouble himself about us, who does not hear our prayers,
who does not see us and love us, is no God; thus humanity is made
an essential predicate of God;--but at the same time it is said:
A God who does not exist in and by himself, out of men, above men,
as another being, is a phantom; and thus it is made an essential
predicate of God that he is non-human and extra-human. A God who is
not as we are, who has not consciousness, not intelligence, i.e., not
a personal understanding, a personal consciousness (as, for example,
the "substance" of Spinoza), is no God. Essential identity with us is
the chief condition of deity; the idea of deity is made dependent on
the idea of personality, of consciousness, quo nihil majus cogitari
potest. But it is said in the same breath, a God who is not essentially
distinguished from us is no God.
The essence of religion is the immediate, involuntary, unconscious
contemplation of the human nature as another, a distinct nature. But
when this projected image of human nature is made an object of
reflection, of theology, it becomes an inexhaustible mine of
falsehoods, illusions, contradictions, and sophisms.
A peculiarly characteristic artifice and pretext of Christian sophistry
is the doctrine of the unsearchableness, the incomprehensibility
of the divine nature. But, as will be shown, the secret of this
incomprehensibility is nothing further than that a known quality
is made into an unknown one, a natural quality into a supernatural,
i.e., an unnatural one, so as to produce the appearance, the illusion,
that the divine nature is different from the human, and is eo ipso
an incomprehensible one.
In the original sense of religion, the incomprehensibility of
God has only the significance of an impassioned expression. Thus,
when we are affected by a surprising phenomenon, we exclaim: It
is incredible, it is beyond conception! though afterwards, when we
recover our self-possession, we find the object of our astonishment
nothing less than incomprehensible. In the truly religious sense,
incomprehensibility is not the dead full stop which reflection places
wherever understanding deserts it, but a pathetic note of exclamation
marking the impression which the imagination makes on the feelings. The
imagination is the original organ of religion. Between God and man,
in the primitive sense of religion, there is on the one hand only a
distinction in relation to existence, according to which God, as a
self-subsistent being, is the antithesis of man as a dependent being;
on the other hand, there is only a quantitative distinction, i.e.,
a distinction derived from the imagination, for the distinctions
of the imagination are only quantitative. The infinity of God in
religion is quantitative infinity; God is and has all that man has,
but in an infinitely greater measure. The nature of God is the nature
of the imagination unfolded, made objective. [169] God is a being
conceived under the forms of the senses, but freed from the limits
of sense,--a being at once unlimited and sensational. But what is the
imagination?--limitless activity of the senses. God is eternal, i.e.,
he exists at all times; God is omnipresent, i.e., he exists in all
places; God is the omniscient being, i.e., the being to whom every
individual thing, every sensible existence, is an object without
distinction, without limitation of time and place.
Eternity and omnipresence are sensational qualities, for in them
there is no negation of existence in time and space, but only of
exclusive limitation to a particular time, to a particular place. In
like manner omniscience is a sensational quality, a sensational
knowledge. Religion has no hesitation in attributing to God himself
the nobler senses: God sees and hears all things. But the divine
omniscience is a power of knowing through the senses while yet the
necessary quality, the essential determination of actual knowledge
through the senses is denied to it. My senses present sensible
objects to me only separately and in succession; but God sees all
sensible things at once, all locality in an unlocal manner, all
temporal things in an untemporal manner, all objects of sense in an
unsensational manner. [170] That is to say: I extend the horizon of
my senses by the imagination; I form to myself a confused conception
of the whole of things; and this conception, which exalts me above the
limited standpoint of the senses, and therefore affects me agreeably,
I posit as a divine reality. I feel the fact that my knowledge is tied
to a local standpoint, to sensational experience, as a limitation;
what I feel as a limitation I do away with in my imagination, which
furnishes free space for the play of my feelings. This negativing of
limits by the imagination is the positing of omniscience as a divine
power and reality. But at the same time there is only a quantitative
distinction between omniscience and my knowledge; the quality of
the knowledge is the same. In fact, it would be impossible for me
to predicate omniscience of an object or being external to myself,
if this omniscience were essentially different from my own knowledge,
if it were not a mode of perception of my own, if it had nothing in
common with my own power of cognition. That which is recognised by the
senses is as much the object and content of the divine omniscience as
of my knowledge. Imagination does away only with the limit of quantity,
not of quality. The proposition that our knowledge is limited, means:
we know only some things, a few things, not all.
The beneficial influence of religion rests on this extension of the
sensational consciousness. In religion man is in the open air, sub
deo; in the sensational consciousness he is in his narrow confined
dwelling-house. Religion has relation essentially, originally--and
only in its origin is it something holy, true, pure, and good--to the
immediate sensational consciousness alone; it is the setting aside of
the limits of sense. Isolated, uninstructed men and nations preserve
religion in its original sense, because they themselves remain in
that mental state which is the source of religion. The more limited
a man's sphere of vision, the less he knows of history, Nature,
philosophy--the more ardently does he cling to his religion.
For this reason the religious man feels no need of culture. Why
had the Hebrews no art, no science, as the Greeks had? Because they
felt no need of it. To them this need was supplied by Jehovah. In
the divine omniscience man raises himself above the limits of his
own knowledge; [171] in the divine omnipresence, above the limits
of his local standpoint; in the divine eternity, above the limits
of his time. The religious man is happy in his imagination; he has
all things in nuce; his possessions are always portable. Jehovah
accompanies me everywhere; I need not travel out of myself; I have
in my God the sum of all treasures and precious things, of all that
is worth knowledge and remembrance. But culture is dependent on
external things; it has many and various wants, for it overcomes the
limits of sensational consciousness and life by real activity, not by
the magical power of the religious imagination. Hence the Christian
religion also, as has been often mentioned already, has in its essence
no principle of culture, for it triumphs over the limitations and
difficulties of earthly life only through the imagination, only in
God, in heaven. God is all that the heart needs and desires--all
good things, all blessings. "Dost thou desire love, or faithfulness,
or truth, or consolation, or perpetual presence?--this is always in
him without measure. Dost thou desire beauty?--he is the supremely
beautiful. Dost thou desire riches?--all riches are in him. Dost thou
desire power?--he is supremely powerful. Or whatever thy heart desires,
it is found a thousandfold in Him, in the best, the single good,
which is God." [172] But how can he who has all in God, who already
enjoys heavenly bliss in the imagination, experience that want, that
sense of poverty, which is the impulse to all culture? Culture has
no other object than to realise an earthly heaven; and the religious
heaven is only realised or won by religious activity.
The difference, however, between God and man, which is originally only
quantitative, is by reflection developed into a qualitative difference;
and thus what was originally only an emotional impression, an immediate
expression of admiration, of rapture, an influence of the imagination
on the feelings, has fixity given to it as an objective quality, as
real incomprehensibility. The favourite expression of reflection in
relation to this subject is, that we can indeed know concerning God
that he has such and such attributes, but not how he has them. For
example, that the predicate of the Creator essentially belongs to God,
that he created the world, and not out of matter already existing,
but out of nothing, by an act of almighty power,--this is clear,
certain--yes, indubitable; but how this is possible naturally passes
our understanding. That is to say: the generic idea is clear, certain,
but the specific idea is unclear, uncertain.
The idea of activity, of making, of creation, is in itself a divine
idea; it is therefore unhesitatingly applied to God. In activity, man
feels himself free, unlimited, happy; in passivity, limited, oppressed,
unhappy. Activity is the positive sense of one's personality. That is
positive which in man is accompanied with joy; hence God is, as we
have already said, the idea of pure, unlimited joy. We succeed only
in what we do willingly; joyful effort conquers all things. But that
is joyful activity which is in accordance with our nature, which we do
not feel as a limitation, and consequently not as a constraint. And the
happiest, the most blissful activity is that which is productive. To
read is delightful, reading is passive activity; but to produce what
is worthy to be read is more delightful still. It is more blessed to
give than to receive. Hence this attribute of the species--productive
activity--is assigned to God; that is, realised and made objective
as divine activity. But every special determination, every mode of
activity is abstracted, and only the fundamental determination, which,
however, is essentially human, namely, production of what is external
to self, is retained. God has not, like man, produced something in
particular, this or that, but all things; his activity is absolutely
universal, unlimited. Hence it is self-evident, it is a necessary
consequence, that the mode in which God has produced the All is
incomprehensible, because this activity is no mode of activity,
because the question concerning the how is here an absurdity,
a question which is excluded by the fundamental idea of unlimited
activity. Every special activity produces its effects in a special
manner, because there the activity itself is a determinate mode of
activity; and thence necessarily arises the question: How did it
produce this? But the answer to the question: How did God make the
world? has necessarily a negative issue, because the world-creating
activity in itself negatives every determinate activity, such as would
alone warrant the question, every mode of activity connected with a
determinate medium, i.e., with matter. This question illegitimately
foists in between the subject or producing activity, and the object
or thing produced, an irrelevant, nay, an excluded intermediate idea,
namely, the idea of particular, individual existence. The activity in
question has relation only to the collective--the All, the world; God
created all things, not some particular thing; the indefinite whole,
the All, as it is embraced by the imagination,--not the determinate,
the particular, as, in its particularity, it presents itself to the
senses, and as, in its totality as the universe, it presents itself
to the reason. Every particular thing arises in a natural way;
it is something determinate, and as such it has--what it is only
tautology to state--a determinate cause. It was not God, but carbon
that produced the diamond; a given salt owes its origin, not to God,
but to the combination of a particular acid with a particular base. God
only created all things together without distinction.
It is true that according to the religious conception, God has created
every individual thing, as included in the whole;--but only indirectly;
for he has not produced the individual in an individual manner,
the determinate in a determinate manner; otherwise he would be a
determinate or conditioned being. It is certainly incomprehensible
how out of this general, indeterminate, or unconditioned activity
the particular, the determinate, can have proceeded; but it is
so only because I here intrude the object of sensational, natural
experience, because I assign to the divine activity another object
than that which is proper to it. Religion has no physical conception
of the world; it has no interest in a natural explanation, which can
never be given but with a mode of origin. Origin is a theoretical,
natural-philosophical idea. The heathen philosophers busied themselves
with the origin of things. But the Christian religious consciousness
abhorred this idea as heathen, irreligious, and substituted the
practical or subjective idea of creation, which is nothing else than
a prohibition to conceive things as having arisen in a natural way,
an interdict on all physical science. The religious consciousness
connects the world immediately with God; it derives all from God,
because nothing is an object to him in its particularity and reality,
nothing is to him as it presents itself to our reason. All proceeds
from God:--that is enough, that perfectly satisfies the religious
consciousness. The question, how did God create? is an indirect doubt
that he did create the world. It was this question which brought man
to atheism, materialism, naturalism. To him who asks it, the world
is already an object of theory, of physical science, i.e., it is an
object to him in its reality, in its determinate constituents. It
is this mode of viewing the world which contradicts the idea of
unconditioned, immaterial activity: and this contradiction leads to
the negation of the fundamental idea--the creation.
The creation by omnipotence is in its place, is a truth, only when
all the phenomena of the world are derived from God. It becomes, as
has been already observed, a myth of past ages where physical science
introduces itself, where man makes the determinate causes, the how of
phenomena, the object of investigation. To the religious consciousness,
therefore, the creation is nothing incomprehensible, i.e.,
unsatisfying; at least it is so only in moments of irreligiousness,
of doubt, when the mind turns away from God to actual things; but it
is highly unsatisfactory to reflection, to theology, which looks with
one eye at heaven and with the other at earth. As the cause, so is
the effect. A flute sends forth the tones of a flute, not those of a
bassoon or a trumpet. If thou hearest the tones of a bassoon, but hast
never before seen or heard any wind-instrument but the flute, it will
certainly be inconceivable to thee how such tones can come out of a
flute. Thus it is here:--the comparison is only so far inappropriate
as the flute itself is a particular instrument. But imagine, if it
be possible, an absolutely universal instrument, which united in
itself all instruments, without being in itself a particular one;
thou wilt then see that it is an absurd contradiction to desire a
particular tone which only belongs to a particular instrument, from
an instrument which thou hast divested precisely of that which is
characteristic in all particular instruments.
But there also lies at the foundation of this dogma of
incomprehensibility the design of keeping the divine activity apart
from the human, of doing away with their similarity, or rather their
essential identity, so as to make the divine activity essentially
different from the human. This distinction between the divine and
human activity is "nothing." God makes,--he makes something external
to himself, as man does. Making is a genuine human idea. Nature gives
birth to, brings forth; man makes. Making is an act which I can omit,
a designed, premeditated, external act;--an act in which my inmost
being is not immediately concerned, in which, while active, I am not
at the same time passive, carried away by an internal impulse. On
the contrary, an activity which is identical with my being is not
indifferent, is necessary to me, as, for example, intellectual
production, which is an inward necessity to me, and for that reason
lays a deep hold on me, affects me pathologically. Intellectual
works are not made,--making is only the external activity applied
to them;--they arise in us. To make is an indifferent, therefore a
free, i.e., optional activity. Thus far then--that he makes--God is
entirely at one with man, not at all distinguished from him; but an
especial emphasis is laid on this, that his making is free, arbitrary,
at his pleasure. "It has pleased God" to create a world. Thus man
here deifies satisfaction in self-pleasing, in caprice and groundless
arbitrariness. The fundamentally human character of the divine activity
is by the idea of arbitrariness degraded into a human manifestation
of a low kind; God, from a mirror of human nature, is converted into
a mirror of human vanity and self-complacency.
And now all at once the harmony is changed into discord; man, hitherto
at one with himself, becomes divided:--God makes out of nothing;
he creates,--to make out of nothing is to create,--this is the
distinction. The positive condition--the act of making--is a human
one; but inasmuch as all that is determinate in this conception is
immediately denied, reflection steps in and makes the divine activity
not human. But with this negation, comprehension, understanding
comes to a stand; there remains only a negative, empty notion,
because conceivability is already exhausted, i.e., the distinction
between the divine and human determination is in truth a nothing,
a nihil negativum of the understanding. The naïve confession of this
is made in the supposition of "nothing" as an object.
God is Love, but not human love; Understanding, but not human
understanding,--no! an essentially different understanding. But wherein
consists this difference? I cannot conceive an understanding which
acts under other forms than those of our own understanding; I cannot
halve or quarter understanding so as to have several understandings;
I can only conceive one and the same understanding. It is true that
I can and even must conceive understanding in itself, i.e., free from
the limits of my individuality; but in so doing I only release it from
limitations essentially foreign to it; I do not set aside its essential
determinations or forms. Religious reflection, on the contrary,
denies precisely that determination or quality which makes a thing
what it is. Only that in which the divine understanding is identical
with the human is something, is understanding, is a real idea; while
that which is supposed to make it another--yes, essentially another
than the human--is objectively nothing, subjectively a mere chimera.
In all other definitions of the Divine Being the "nothing" which
constitutes the distinction is hidden; in the creation, on the
contrary, it is an evident, declared, objective nothing;--and is
therefore the official, notorious nothing of theology in distinction
from anthropology.
But the fundamental determination by which man makes his own nature
a foreign, incomprehensible nature is the idea of individuality
or--what is only a more abstract expression--personality. The
idea of the existence of God first realises itself in the idea of
revelation, and the idea of revelation first realises itself in
the idea of personality. God is a personal being:--this is the
spell which charms the ideal into the real, the subjective into
the objective. All predicates, all attributes of the Divine Being
are fundamentally human; but as attributes of a personal being, and
therefore of a being distinct from man and existing independently,
they appear immediately to be really other than human, yet so as
that at the same time the essential identity always remains at the
foundation. Hence reflection gives rise to the idea of so-called
anthropomorphisms. Anthropomorphisms are resemblances between God
and man. The attributes of the divine and of the human being are not
indeed the same, but they are analogous.
Thus personality is the antidote to pantheism; i.e., by the idea of
personality religious reflection expels from its thought the identity
of the divine and human nature. The rude but characteristic expression
of pantheism is: Man is an effluence or a portion of the Divine Being;
the religious expression is: Man is the image of God, or a being akin
to God;--for according to religion man does not spring from Nature, but
is of divine race, of divine origin. But kinship is a vague, evasive
expression. There are degrees of kinship, near and distant. What sort
of kinship is intended? For the relation of man to God there is but
one form of kinship which is appropriate,--the nearest, profoundest,
most sacred that can be conceived,--the relation of the child to the
father. According to this, God is the father of man, man the son, the
child of God. Here is posited at once the self-subsistence of God and
the dependence of man, and posited as an immediate object of feeling;
whereas in pantheism the part appears just as self-subsistent as the
whole, since this is represented as made up of its parts. Nevertheless
this distinction is only an appearance. The father is not a father
without the child; both together form a correlated being. In love
man renounces his independence, and reduces himself to a part; a
self-humiliation which is only compensated by the fact that the one
whom he loves at the same time voluntarily becomes a part also; that
they both submit to a higher power, the power of the spirit of family,
the power of love. Thus there is here the same relation between God
and man as in pantheism, save that in the one it is represented as
a personal, patriarchal relation, in the other as an impersonal,
general one,--save that pantheism expresses logically and therefore
definitely, directly, what religion invests with the imagination. The
correlation, or rather the identity of God and man is veiled in
religion by representing both as persons or individuals, and God as
a self-subsistent, independent being apart from his paternity:--an
independence which, however, is only apparent, for he who, like the
God of religion, is a father from the depths of the heart, has his
very life and being in his child.
The reciprocal and profound relation of dependence between God as
father and man as child cannot be shaken by the distinction that
only Christ is the true, natural son of God, and that men are but his
adopted sons; so that it is only to Christ as the only-begotten Son,
and by no means to men, that God stands in an essential relation
of dependence. For this distinction is only a theological, i.e., an
illusory one. God adopts only men, not brutes. The ground of adoption
lies in the human nature. The man adopted by divine grace is only
the man conscious of his divine nature and dignity. Moreover, the
only-begotten Son himself is nothing else than the idea of humanity,
than man preoccupied with himself, man hiding from himself and the
world in God,--the heavenly man. The Logos is latent, tacit man;
man is the revealed, expressed Logos. The Logos is only the prelude
of man. That which applies to the Logos applies also to the nature
of man. [173] But between God and the only-begotten Son there is no
real distinction,--he who knows the Son knows the Father also,--and
thus there is none between God and man.
It is the same with the idea that man is the image of God. The
image is here no dead, inanimate thing, but a living being. "Man is
the image of God," means nothing more than that man is a being who
resembles God. Similarity between living beings rests on natural
relationship. The idea of man being the image of God reduces itself
therefore to kinship; man is like God, because he is the child of
God. Resemblance is only kinship presented to the senses; from the
former we infer the latter.
But resemblance is just as deceptive, illusory, evasive an idea as
kinship. It is only the idea of personality which does away with the
identity of nature. Resemblance is identity which will not admit
itself to be identity, which hides itself behind a dim medium,
behind the vapour of the imagination. If I disperse this vapour,
I come to naked identity. The more similar beings are, the less are
they to to be distinguished; if I know the one, I know the other. It
is true that resemblance has its degrees. But also the resemblance
between God and man has its degrees. The good, pious man is more
like God than the man whose resemblance to Him is founded only on
the nature of man in general. And even with the pious man there is a
highest degree of resemblance to be supposed, though this may not be
obtained here below, but only in the future life. But that which man
is to become belongs already to him, at least so far as possibility is
concerned. The highest degree of resemblance is that where there is no
further distinction between two individuals or beings than that they
are two. The essential qualities, those by which we distinguish things
from each other, are the same in both. Hence I cannot distinguish them
in thought, by the reason,--for this all data are wanting;--I can
only distinguish them by figuring them as visible in my imagination
or by actually seeing them. If my eyes do not say, There are really
two separately existent beings, my reason will take both for one
and the same being. Nay, even my eyes may confound the one with the
other. Things are capable of being confounded with each other which
are distinguishable by the sense and not by the reason, or rather
which are different only as to existence, not as to essence. Persons
altogether alike have an extraordinary attraction not only for each
other, but for the imagination. Resemblance gives occasion to all
kinds of mystifications and illusions, because it is itself only an
illusion; my eyes mock my reason, for which the idea of an independent
existence is always allied to the idea of a determinate difference.
Religion is the mind's light, the rays of which are broken by the
medium of the imagination and the feelings, so as to make the same
being appear a double one. Resemblance is to the Reason identity,
which in the realm of reality is divided or broken up by immediate
sensational impressions, in the sphere of religion by the illusions
of the imagination; in short, that which is identical to the reason
is made separate by the idea of individuality or personality. I can
discover no distinction between father and child, archetype and image,
God and man, if I do not introduce the idea of personality. Resemblance
is here the external guise of identity;--the identity which reason,
the sense of truth, affirms, but which the imagination denies; the
identity which allows an appearance of distinction to remain,--a mere
phantasm, which says neither directly yes, nor directly no.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE CONTRADICTION IN THE SPECULATIVE DOCTRINE OF GOD.
The personality of God is thus the means by which man converts the
qualities of his own nature into the qualities of another being,--of
a being external to himself. The personality of God is nothing else
than the projected personality of man.
On this process of projecting self outwards rests also the Hegelian
speculative doctrine, according to which man's consciousness of
God is the self-consciousness of God. God is thought, cognised by
us. According to speculation, God, in being thought by us, thinks
himself or is conscious of himself; speculation identifies the two
sides which religion separates. In this it is far deeper than religion,
for the fact of God being thought is not like the fact of an external
object being thought. God is an inward, spiritual being; thinking,
consciousness, is an inward, spiritual act; to think God is therefore
to affirm what God is, to establish the being of God as an act. That
God is thought, cognised, is essential; that this tree is thought, is
to the tree accidental, unessential. God is an indispensable thought,
a necessity of thought. But how is it possible that this necessity
should simply express the subjective, and not the objective also?--how
is it possible that God--if he is to exist for us, to be an object to
us--must necessarily be thought, if he is in himself like a block,
indifferent whether he be thought, cognised or not? No! it is not
possible. We are necessitated to regard the fact of God being thought
by us, as his thinking himself, or his self-consciousness.
Religious objectivism has two passives, two modes in which God
is thought. On the one hand, God is thought by us, on the other,
he is thought by himself. God thinks himself, independently of his
being thought by us: he has a self-consciousness distinct from,
independent of, our consciousness. This is certainly consistent
when once God is conceived as a real personality; for the real human
person thinks himself, and is thought by another; my thinking of him
is to him an indifferent, external fact. This is the last degree of
anthropopathism. In order to make God free and independent of all that
is human, he is regarded as a formal, real person, his thinking is
confined within himself, and the fact of his being thought is excluded
from him, and is represented as occurring in another being. This
indifference or independence with respect to us, to our thought,
is the attestation of a self-subsistent, i.e., external, personal
existence. It is true that religion also makes the fact of God being
thought into the self-thinking of God; but because this process goes
forward behind its consciousness, since God is immediately presupposed
as a self-existent personal being, the religious consciousness only
embraces the indifference of the two facts.
Even religion, however, does not abide by this indifference of the
two sides. God creates in order to reveal himself: creation is the
revelation of God. But for stones, plants, and animals there is no
God, but only for man; so that Nature exists for the sake of man,
and man purely for the sake of God. God glorifies himself in man:
man is the pride of God. God indeed knows himself even without man;
but so long as there is no other me, so long is he only a possible,
conceptional person. First when a difference from God, a non-divine
is posited, is God conscious of himself; first when he knows what
is not God, does he know what it is to be God, does he know the
bliss of his Godhead. First in the positing of what is other than
himself, of the world, does God posit himself as God. Is God almighty
without creation? No! Omnipotence first realises, proves itself in
creation. What is a power, a property, which does not exhibit, attest
itself? What is a force which affects nothing? a light that does not
illuminate? a wisdom which knows nothing, i.e., nothing real? And what
is omnipotence, what all other divine attributes, if man does not
exist? Man is nothing without God; but also, God is nothing without
man; [174] for only in man is God an object as God; only in man is
he God. The various qualities of man first give difference, which
is the ground of reality in God. The physical qualities of man make
God a physical being--God the Father, who is the creator of Nature,
i.e., the personified, anthropomorphised essence of Nature; [175]
the intellectual qualities of man make God an intellectual being, the
moral, a moral being. Human misery is the triumph of divine compassion;
sorrow for sin is the delight of the divine holiness. Life, fire,
emotion comes into God only through man. With the stubborn sinner
God is angry; over the repentant sinner he rejoices. Man is the
revealed God: in man the divine essence first realises and unfolds
itself. In the creation of Nature God goes out of himself, he has
relation to what is other than himself, but in man he returns into
himself:--man knows God, because in him God finds and knows himself,
feels himself as God. Where there is no pressure, no want, there is no
feeling;--and feeling is alone real knowledge. Who can know compassion
without having felt the want of it? justice without the experience
of injustice? happiness without the experience of distress? Thou
must feel what a thing is; otherwise thou wilt never learn to know
it. It is in man that the divine properties first become feelings,
i.e., man is the self-feeling of God;--and the feeling of God is the
real God; for the qualities of God are indeed only real qualities,
realities, as felt by man,--as feelings. If the experience of human
misery were outside of God, in a being personally separate from him,
compassion also would not be in God, and we should hence have again
the Being destitute of qualities, or more correctly the nothing, which
God was before man or without man. For example:--Whether I be a good
or sympathetic being--for that alone is good which gives, imparts
itself, bonum est communicativum sui,--is unknown to me before the
opportunity presents itself of showing goodness to another being. Only
in the act of imparting do I experience the happiness of beneficence,
the joy of generosity, of liberality. But is this joy apart from
the joy of the recipient? No; I rejoice because he rejoices. I feel
the wretchedness of another, I suffer with him; in alleviating his
wretchedness, I alleviate my own;--sympathy with suffering is itself
suffering. The joyful feeling of the giver is only the reflex,
the self-consciousness of the joy in the receiver. Their joy is a
common feeling, which accordingly makes itself visible in the union
of hands, of lips. So it is here. Just as the feeling of human misery
is human, so the feeling of divine compassion is human. It is only
a sense of the poverty of finiteness that gives a sense of the bliss
of infiniteness. Where the one is not, the other is not. The two are
inseparable,--inseparable the feeling of God as God, and the feeling
of man as man, inseparable the knowledge of man and the self-knowledge
of God. God is a Self only in the human self,--only in the human power
of discrimination, in the principle of difference that lies in the
human being. Thus compassion is only felt as a me, a self, a force,
i.e., as something special, through its opposite. The opposite of God
gives qualities to God, realises him, makes him a Self. God is God,
only through that which is not God. Herein we have also the mystery
of Jacob Böhme's doctrine. It must only be borne in mind that Jacob
Böhme, as a mystic and theologian, places outside of man the feelings
in which the divine being first realises himself, passes from nothing
to something, to a qualitative being apart from the feelings of man
(at least in imagination),--and that he makes them objective in the
form of natural qualities, but in such a way that these qualities still
only represent the impressions made on his feelings. It will then be
obvious that what the empirical religious consciousness first posits
with the real creation of Nature and of man, the mystical consciousness
places before the creation in the premundane God, in doing which,
however, it does away with the reality of the creation. For if God
has what is not-God, already in himself, he has no need first to
create what is not-God in order to be God. The creation of the world
is here a pure superfluity, or rather an impossibility; this God
for very reality does not come to reality; he is already in himself
the full and restless world. This is especially true of Schelling's
doctrine of God, who though made up of innumerable "potences" is yet
thoroughly impotent. Far more reasonable, therefore, is the empirical
religious consciousness, which makes God reveal, i.e., realise himself
in real man, real nature, and according to which man is created purely
for the praise and glory of God. That is to say, man is the mouth of
God, which articulates and accentuates the divine qualities as human
feelings. God wills that he be honoured, praised. Why? because the
passion of man for God is the self-consciousness of God. Nevertheless,
the religious consciousness separates these two properly inseparable
sides, since by means of the idea of personality it makes God and
man independent existences. Now the Hegelian speculation identifies
the two sides, but so as to leave the old contradiction still at
the foundation;--it is therefore only the consistent carrying out,
the completion of a religious truth. The learned mob was so blind
in its hatred towards Hegel as not to perceive that his doctrine, at
least in this relation, does not in fact contradict religion;--that
it contradicts it only in the same way as, in general, a developed,
consequent process of thought contradicts an undeveloped, inconsequent,
but nevertheless radically identical conception.
But if it is only in human feelings and wants that the divine
"nothing" becomes something, obtains qualities, then the being
of man is alone the real being of God,--man is the real God. And
if in the consciousness which man has of God first arises the
self-consciousness of God, then the human consciousness is, per
se, the divine consciousness. Why then dost thou alienate man's
consciousness from him, and make it the self-consciousness of a being
distinct from man, of that which is an object to him? Why dost thou
vindicate existence to God, to man only the consciousness of that
existence? God has his consciousness in man, and man his being in
God? Man's knowledge of God is God's knowledge of himself? What
a divorcing and contradiction! The true statement is this: man's
knowledge of God is man's knowledge of himself, of his own nature. Only
the unity of being and consciousness is truth. Where the consciousness
of God is, there is the being of God,--in man, therefore; in the being
of God it is only thy own being which is an object to thee, and what
presents itself before thy consciousness is simply what lies behind
it. If the divine qualities are human, the human qualities are divine.
Only when we abandon a philosophy of religion, or a theology, which is
distinct from psychology and anthropology, and recognise anthropology
as itself theology, do we attain to a true, self-satisfying identity
of the divine and human being, the identity of the human being with
itself. In every theory of the identity of the divine and human
which is not true identity, unity of the human nature with itself,
there still lies at the foundation a division, a separation into two,
since the identity is immediately abolished, or rather is supposed
to be abolished. Every theory of this kind is in contradiction with
itself and with the understanding,--is a half measure--a thing of
the imagination--a perversion, a distortion; which, however, the more
perverted and false it is, all the more appears to be profound.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE CONTRADICTION IN THE TRINITY.
Religion gives reality or objectivity not only to the human or divine
nature in general as a personal being; it further gives reality to
the fundamental determinations or fundamental distinctions of that
nature as persons. The Trinity is therefore originally nothing else
than the sum of the essential fundamental distinctions which man
perceives in the human nature. According as the mode of conceiving
this nature varies, so also the fundamental determinations on which
the Trinity is founded vary. But these distinctions, perceived in one
and the same human nature, are hypostasised as substances, as divine
persons. And herein, namely, that these different determinations
are in God, hypostases, subjects, is supposed to lie the distinction
between these determinations as they are in God, and as they exist
in man,--in accordance with the law already enunciated, that only
in the idea of personality does the human personality transfer and
make objective its own qualities. But the personality exists only in
the imagination; the fundamental determinations are therefore only
for the imagination hypostases, persons; for reason, for thought,
they are mere relations or determinations. The idea of the Trinity
contains in itself the contradiction of polytheism and monotheism,
of imagination and reason, of fiction and reality. Imagination gives
the Trinity, reason the Unity of the persons. According to reason, the
things distinguished are only distinctions; according to imagination,
the distinctions are things distinguished, which therefore do away
with the unity of the divine being. To the reason, the divine persons
are phantoms, to the imagination realities. The idea of the Trinity
demands that man should think the opposite of what he imagines,
and imagine the opposite of what he thinks,--that he should think
phantoms realities. [176]
There are three Persons, but they are not essentially
distinguished. Tres personæ, but una essentia. So far the conception is
a natural one. We can conceive three and even more persons, identical
in essence. Thus we men are distinguished from one another by personal
differences, but in the main, in essence, in humanity we are one. And
this identification is made not only by the speculative understanding,
but even by feeling. A given individual is a man as we are; punctum
satis; in this feeling all distinctions vanish,--whether he be
rich or poor, clever or stupid, culpable or innocent. The feeling
of compassion, sympathy, is therefore a substantial, essential,
speculative feeling. But the three or more human persons exist apart
from each other, have a separate existence, even when they verify
and confirm the unity of their nature by fervent love. They together
constitute, through love, a single moral personality, but each has
a physical existence for himself. Though they may be reciprocally
absorbed in each other, may be unable to dispense with each other,
they have yet always a formally independent existence. Independent
existence, existence apart from others, is the essential characteristic
of a person, of a substance. It is otherwise in God, and necessarily
so; for while his personality is the same as that of man, it is
held to be the same with a difference, on the ground simply of this
postulate: there must be a difference. The three Persons in God have
no existence out of each other; else there would meet us in the heaven
of Christian dogmatics, not indeed many gods, as in Olympus, but at
least three divine Persons in an individual form, three Gods. The gods
of Olympus were real persons, for they existed apart from each other,
they had the criterion of real personality in their individuality,
though they were one in essence, in divinity; they had different
personal attributes, but were each singly a god, alike in divinity,
different as existing subjects or persons; they were genuine
divine personalities. The three Persons of the Christian Godhead,
on the contrary, are only imaginary, pretended persons, assuredly
different from real persons, just because they are only phantasms,
shadows of personalities, while, notwithstanding, they are assumed to
be real persons. The essential characteristic of personal reality,
the polytheistic element, is excluded, denied as non-divine. But by
this negation their personality becomes a mere phantasm. Only in the
truth of the plural lies the truth of the Persons. The three persons
of the Christian Godhead are not tres Dii, three Gods;--at least they
are not meant to be such;--but unus Deus, one God. The three Persons
end, not, as might have been expected, in a plural, but in a singular;
they are not only Unum--the gods of Olympus are that--but Unus. Unity
has here the significance not of essence only, but also of existence;
unity is the existential form of God. Three are one: the plural is
a singular. God is a personal being consisting of three persons. [177]
The three persons are thus only phantoms in the eyes of reason, for
the conditions or modes under which alone their personality could
be realised, are done away with by the command of monotheism. The
unity gives the lie to the personality; the self-subsistence of the
persons is annihilated in the self-subsistence of the unity--they
are mere relations. The Son is not without the Father, the Father
not without the Son: the Holy Spirit, who indeed spoils the symmetry,
expresses nothing but the relation of the two to each other. But the
divine persons are distinguished from each other only by that which
constitutes their relation to each other. The essential in the Father
as a person is that he is a Father, of the Son that he is a Son. What
the Father is over and above his fatherhood, does not belong to his
personality; therein he is God, and as God identical with the Son as
God. Therefore it is said: God the Father, God the Son, and God the
Holy Ghost:--God is in all three alike. "There is one person of the
Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the
Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all
one;" i.e., they are distinct persons, but without distinction of
substance. The personality, therefore, arises purely in the relation
of the Fatherhood; i.e., the idea of the person is here only a
relative idea, the idea of a relation. Man as a father is dependent,
he is essentially the correlative of the son; he is not a father
without the son; by fatherhood man reduces himself to a relative,
dependent, impersonal being. It is before all things necessary not
to allow oneself to be deceived by these relations as they exist in
reality, in men. The human father is, over and above his paternity,
an independent personal being; he has at least a formal existence for
himself, an existence apart from his son; he is not merely a father,
with the exclusion of all the other predicates of a real personal
being. Fatherhood is a relation which the bad man can make quite an
external one, not touching his personal being. But in God the Father,
there is no distinction between God the Father and God the Son as
God; the abstract fatherhood alone constitutes his personality, his
distinction from the Son, whose personality likewise is founded only
on the abstract sonship.
But at the same time these relations, as has been said, are maintained
to be not mere relations, but real persons, beings, substances. Thus
the truth of the plural, the truth of polytheism is again affirmed,
[178] and the truth of monotheism is denied. To require the reality of
the persons is to require the unreality of the unity, and conversely,
to require the reality of the unity is to require the unreality of the
persons. Thus in the holy mystery of the Trinity,--that is to say,
so far as it is supposed to represent a truth distinct from human
nature,--all resolves itself into delusions, phantasms, contradictions,
and sophisms. [179]
CHAPTER XXV.
THE CONTRADICTION IN THE SACRAMENTS.
As the objective essence of religion, the idea of God, resolves itself
into mere contradictions, so also, on grounds easily understood,
does its subjective essence.
The subjective elements of religion are on the one hand Faith and Love;
on the other hand, so far as it presents itself externally in a cultus,
the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. The sacrament of Faith
is Baptism, the sacrament of Love is the Lord's Supper. In strictness
there are only two sacraments, as there are two subjective elements
in religion, Faith and Love: for Hope is only faith in relation to
the future; so that there is the same logical impropriety in making
it a distinct mental act as in making the Holy Ghost a distinct being.
The identity of the sacraments with the specific essence of religion as
hitherto developed is at once made evident, apart from other relations,
by the fact that they have for their basis natural materials or
things, to which, however, is attributed a significance and effect
in contradiction with their nature. Thus the material of baptism
is water, common, natural water, just as the material of religion
in general is common, natural humanity. But as religion alienates
our own nature from us, and represents it as not ours, so the water
of baptism is regarded as quite other than common water; for it has
not a physical but a hyperphysical power and significance; it is the
Lavacrum regenerationis, it purifies man from the stains of original
sin, expels the inborn devil, and reconciles with God. Thus it is
natural water only in appearance; in truth it is supernatural. In
other words: the baptismal water has supernatural effects (and that
which operates supernaturally is itself supernatural) only in idea,
only in the imagination.
And yet the material of Baptism is said to be natural water. Baptism
has no validity and efficacy if it is not performed with
water. Thus the natural quality of water has in itself value and
significance, since the supernatural effect of baptism is associated
in a supernatural manner with water only, and not with any other
material. God, by means of his omnipotence, could have united the same
effect to anything whatever. But he does not; he accommodates himself
to natural qualities; he chooses an element corresponding, analogous
to his operation. Thus the natural is not altogether set aside; on the
contrary, there always remains a certain analogy with the natural, an
appearance of naturalness. In like manner wine represents blood; bread,
flesh. [180] Even miracle is guided by analogies; water is changed into
wine or blood, one species into another, with the retention of the
indeterminate generic idea of liquidity. So it is here. Water is the
purest, clearest of liquids; in virtue of this its natural character
it is the image of the spotless nature of the Divine Spirit. In short,
water has a significance in itself, as water; it is on account of its
natural quality that it is consecrated and selected as the vehicle
of the Holy Spirit. So far there lies at the foundation of Baptism a
beautiful, profound natural significance. But, at the very same time,
this beautiful meaning is lost again because water has a transcendental
effect,--an effect which it has only through the supernatural power of
the Holy Spirit, and not through itself. The natural quality becomes
indifferent: he who makes wine out of water, can at will unite the
effects of baptismal water with any material whatsoever.
Baptism cannot be understood without the idea of miracle. Baptism
is itself a miracle. The same power which works miracles, and by
means of them, as a proof of the divinity of Christ, turns Jews and
Pagans into Christians,--this same power has instituted baptism and
operates in it. Christianity began with miracles, and it carries
itself forward with miracles. If the miraculous power of baptism
is denied, miracles in general must be denied. The miracle-working
water of baptism springs from the same source as the water which at
the wedding at Cana in Galilee was turned into wine.
The faith which is produced by miracle is not dependent on me, on
my spontaneity, on freedom of judgment and conviction. A miracle
which happens before my eyes I must believe, if I am not utterly
obdurate. Miracle compels me to believe in the divinity of the
miracle-worker. [181] It is true that in some cases it presupposes
faith, namely, where it appears in the light of a reward; but
with that exception it presupposes not so much actual faith as a
believing disposition, willingness, submission, in opposition to an
unbelieving, obdurate, and malignant disposition, like that of the
Pharisees. The end of miracle is to prove that the miracle-worker
is really that which he assumes to be. Faith based on miracle is the
only thoroughly warranted, well-grounded, objective faith. The faith
which is presupposed by miracle is only faith in a Messiah, a Christ
in general; but the faith that this very man is Christ--and this is
the main point--is first wrought by miracle as its consequence. This
presupposition even of an indeterminate faith is, however, by no
means necessary. Multitudes first became believers through miracles;
thus miracle was the cause of their faith. If then miracles do not
contradict Christianity,--and how should they contradict it?--neither
does the miraculous efficacy of baptism contradict it. On the
contrary, if baptism is to have a Christian significance it must
of necessity have a supernaturalistic one. Paul was converted by a
sudden miraculous appearance, when he was still full of hatred to
the Christians. Christianity took him by violence. It is in vain to
allege that with another than Paul this appearance would not have
had the same consequences, and that therefore the effect of it must
still be attributed to Paul. For if the same appearance had been
vouchsafed to others, they would assuredly have become as thoroughly
Christian as Paul. Is not divine grace omnipotent? The unbelief
and non-convertibility of the Pharisees is no counter-argument;
for from them grace was expressly withdrawn. The Messiah must
necessarily, according to a divine decree, be betrayed, maltreated
and crucified. For this purpose there must be individuals who should
maltreat and crucify him: and hence it was a prior necessity that
the divine grace should be withdrawn from those individuals. It
was not indeed totally withdrawn from them, but this was only in
order to aggravate their guilt, and by no means with the earnest
will to convert them. How would it be possible to resist the will
of God, supposing of course that it was his real will, not a mere
velleity? Paul himself represents his conversion as a work of divine
grace thoroughly unmerited on his part; [182] and quite correctly. Not
to resist divine grace, i.e., to accept divine grace, to allow it
to work upon one, is already something good, and consequently is an
effect of the Holy Spirit. Nothing is more perverse than the attempt
to reconcile miracle with freedom of inquiry and thought, or grace
with freedom of will. In religion the nature of man is regarded as
separate from man. The activity, the grace of God is the projected
spontaneity of man, Free Will made objective. [183]
It is the most flagrant inconsequence to adduce the experience that
men are not sanctified, not converted by baptism, as an argument
against its miraculous efficacy, as is done by rationalistic orthodox
theologians; [184] for all kinds of miracles, the objective power
of prayer, and in general all the supernatural truths of religion,
also contradict experience. He who appeals to experience renounces
faith. Where experience is a datum, there religious faith and feeling
have already vanished. The unbeliever denies the objective efficacy
of prayer only because it contradicts experience; the atheist goes
yet further,--he denies even the existence of God, because he does
not find it in experience. Inward experience creates no difficulty
to him; for what thou experiencest in thyself of another existence,
proves only that there is something in thee which thou thyself art
not, which works upon thee independently of thy personal will and
consciousness, without thy knowing what this mysterious something
is. But faith is stronger than experience. The facts which contradict
faith do not disturb it; it is happy in itself; it has eyes only for
itself, to all else it is blind.
It is true that religion, even on the standpoint of its mystical
materialism, always requires the co-operation of subjectivity, and
therefore requires it in the sacraments; but herein is exhibited its
contradiction with itself. And this contradiction is particularly
glaring in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper; for baptism is given
to infants,--though even in them, as a condition of its efficacy, the
co-operation of subjectivity is insisted on, but, singularly enough,
is supplied in the faith of others, in the faith of the parents,
or of their representatives, or of the church in general. [185]
The object in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper is the body of
Christ,--a real body; but the necessary predicates of reality are
wanting to it. Here we have again, in an example presented to the
senses, what we have found in the nature of religion in general. The
object or subject in the religious syntax is always a real human or
natural subject or predicate; but the closer definition, the essential
predicate of this predicate is denied. The subject is sensuous,
but the predicate is not sensuous, i.e., is contradictory to the
subject. I distinguish a real body from an imaginary one only by this,
that the former produces corporeal effects, involuntary effects, upon
me. If therefore the bread be the real body of God, the partaking of
it must produce in me immediate, involuntary sanctifying effects;
I need to make no special preparation, to bring with me no holy
disposition. If I eat an apple, the apple of itself gives rise to
the taste of apple. At the utmost I need nothing more than a healthy
stomach to perceive that the apple is an apple. The Catholics require
a state of fasting as a condition of partaking the Lord's Supper. This
is enough. I take hold of the body with my lips, I crush it with my
teeth, by my oesophagus it is carried into my stomach; I assimilate
it corporeally, not spiritually. [186] Why are its effects not held
to be corporeal? Why should not this body, which is a corporeal,
but at the same time heavenly, supernatural substance, also bring
forth in me corporeal and yet at the same time holy, supernatural
effects? If it is my disposition, my faith, which alone makes the
divine body a means of sanctification to me, which transubstantiates
the dry bread into pneumatic animal substance, why do I still need an
external object? It is I myself who give rise to the effect of the
body on me, and therefore to the reality of the body; I am acted on
by myself. Where is the objective truth and power? He who partakes
the Lord's Supper unworthily has nothing further than the physical
enjoyment of bread and wine. He who brings nothing, takes nothing
away. The specific difference of this bread from common natural bread
rests therefore only on the difference between the state of mind at
the table of the Lord, and the state of mind at any other table. "He
that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation
to himself, not discerning the Lord's body." [187] But this mental
state itself is dependent only on the significance which I give to
this bread. If it has for me the significance not of bread, but of
the body of Christ, then it has not the effect of common bread. In
the significance attached to it lies its effect. I do not eat to
satisfy hunger; hence I consume only a small quantity. Thus to go no
further than the quantity taken, which in every other act of taking
food plays an essential part, the significance of common bread is
externally set aside.
But this supernatural significance exists only in the imagination;
to the senses, the wine remains wine, the bread, bread. The Schoolmen
therefore had recourse to the precious distinction of substance and
accidents. All the accidents which constitute the nature of wine and
bread are still there; only that which is made up by these accidents,
the subject, the substance, is wanting, is changed into flesh and
blood. But all the properties together, whose combination forms this
unity, are the substance itself. What are wine and bread if I take
from them the properties which make them what they are? Nothing. Flesh
and blood have therefore no objective existence; otherwise they must
be an object to the unbelieving senses. On the contrary: the only
valid witnesses of an objective existence--taste, smell, touch,
sight--testify unanimously to the reality of the wine and bread,
and nothing else. The wine and bread are in reality natural, but in
imagination divine substances.
Faith is the power of the imagination, which makes the real unreal,
and the unreal real: in direct contradiction with the truth of the
senses, with the truth of reason. Faith denies what objective reason
affirms, and affirms what it denies. [188] The mystery of the Lord's
Supper is the mystery of faith: [189]--hence the partaking of it is the
highest, the most rapturous, blissful act of the believing soul. The
negation of objective truth which is not gratifying to feeling,
the truth of reality, of the objective world and reason,--a negation
which constitutes the essence of faith,--reaches its highest point
in the Lord's Supper; for faith here denies an immediately present,
evident, indubitable object, maintaining that it is not what the reason
and senses declare it to be, that it is only in appearance bread,
but in reality flesh. The position of the Schoolmen, that according
to the accidents it is bread, and according to the substance flesh,
is merely the abstract, explanatory, intellectual expression of what
faith accepts and declares, and has therefore no other meaning than
this: to the senses or to common perception it is bread, but in truth,
flesh. Where therefore the imaginative tendency of faith has assumed
such power over the senses and reason as to deny the most evident
sensible truths, it is no wonder if believers can raise themselves
to such a degree of exaltation as actually to see blood instead of
wine. Such examples Catholicism has to show. Little is wanting in order
to perceive externally what faith and imagination hold to be real.
So long as faith in the mystery of the Lord's Supper as a holy, nay
the holiest, highest truth, governed man, so long was his governing
principle the imagination. All criteria of reality and unreality, of
unreason and reason, had disappeared: anything whatever that could
be imagined passed for real possibility. Religion hallowed every
contradiction of reason, of the nature of things. Do not ridicule the
absurd questions of the Schoolmen! They were necessary consequences
of faith. That which is only a matter of feeling had to be made a
matter of reason, that which contradicts the understanding had to be
made not to contradict it. This was the fundamental contradiction of
Scholasticism, whence all other contradictions followed of course.
And it is of no particular importance whether I believe the Protestant
or the Catholic doctrine of the Lord's Supper. The sole distinction
is, that in Protestantism it is only on the tongue, in the act of
partaking, that flesh and blood are united in a thoroughly miraculous
manner with bread and wine; [190] while in Catholicism, it is before
the act of partaking, by the power of the priest,--who however here
acts only in the name of the Almighty,--that bread and wine are really
transmuted into flesh and blood. The Protestant prudently avoids a
definite explanation; he does not lay himself open, like the pious,
uncritical simplicity of Catholicism, whose God, as an external object,
can be devoured by a mouse: he shuts up his God within himself, where
he can no more be torn from him, and thus secures him as well from the
power of accident as from that of ridicule; yet, notwithstanding this,
he just as much as the Catholic consumes real flesh and blood in the
bread and wine. Slight indeed was the difference at first between
Protestants and Catholics in the doctrine of the Lord's Supper! Thus
at Anspach there arose a controversy on the question--"whether the body
of Christ enters the stomach, and is digested like other food?" [191]
But although the imaginative activity of faith makes the objective
existence the mere appearance, and the emotional, imaginary existence
the truth and reality; still, in itself or in truth, that which is
really objective is only the natural elements. Even the host in the pyx
of the Catholic priest is in itself only to faith a divine body,--this
external thing, into which he transubstantiates the divine being, is
only a thing of faith; for even here the body is not visible, tangible,
tasteable as a body. That is: the bread is only in its significance
flesh. It is true that to faith this significance has the sense of
actual existence;--as, in general, in the ecstasy of fervid feeling
that which signifies becomes the thing signified;--it is held not to
signify, but to be flesh. But this state of being flesh is not that of
real flesh; it is a state of being which is only believed in, imagined,
i.e., it has only the value, the quality, of a significance, a truth
conveyed in a symbol. [192] A thing which has a special significance
for me, is another thing in my imagination than in reality. The
thing signifying is not itself that which is signified. What it is,
is evident to the senses; what it signifies, is only in my feelings,
conception, imagination,--is only for me, not for others, is not
objectively present. So here. When therefore Zwinglius said that
the Lord's Supper has only a subjective significance, he said the
same thing as his opponents; only he disturbed the illusion of the
religious imagination; for that which "is" in the Lord's Supper, is
only an illusion of the imagination, but with the further illusion
that it is not an illusion. Zwinglius only expressed simply, nakedly,
prosaically, rationalistically, and therefore offensively, what the
others declared mystically, indirectly,--inasmuch as they confessed
[193] that the effect of the Lord's Supper depends only on a worthy
disposition or on faith; i.e., that the bread and wine are the flesh
and blood of the Lord, are the Lord himself, only for him for whom
they have the supernatural significance of the divine body, for on
this alone depends the worthy disposition, the religious emotion. [194]
But if the Lord's Supper effects nothing, consequently is nothing,--for
only that which produces effects, is,--without a certain state of mind,
without faith, then in faith alone lies its reality; the entire event
goes forward in the feelings alone. If the idea that I here receive
the real body of the Saviour acts on the religious feelings, this
idea itself arises from the feelings; it produces devout sentiments,
because it is itself a devout idea. Thus here also the religious
subject is acted on by himself as if by another being, through the
conception of an imaginary object. Therefore the process of the
Lord's Supper can quite well, even without the intermediation of
bread and wine, without any church ceremony, be accomplished in the
imagination. There are innumerable devout poems, the sole theme of
which is the blood of Christ. In these we have a genuinely poetical
celebration of the Lord's Supper. In the lively representation of the
suffering, bleeding Saviour, the soul identifies itself with him;
here the saint in poetic exaltation drinks the pure blood, unmixed
with any contradictory, material elements; here there is no disturbing
object between the idea of the blood and the blood itself.
But though the Lord's Supper, or a sacrament in general, is nothing
without a certain state of mind, without faith, nevertheless
religion presents the sacrament at the same time as something in
itself real, external, distinct from the human being, so that in the
religious consciousness the true thing, which is faith, is made only
a collateral thing, a condition, and the imaginary thing becomes the
principal thing. And the necessary, immanent consequences and effects
of this religious materialism, of this subordination of the human to
the supposed divine, of the subjective to the supposed objective,
of truth to imagination, of morality to religion,--the necessary
consequences are superstition and immorality: superstition, because
a thing has attributed to it an effect which does not lie in its
nature, because a thing is held up as not being what it in truth is,
because a mere conception passes for objective reality; immorality,
because necessarily, in feeling, the holiness of the action as such
is separated from morality, the partaking of the sacrament, even
apart from the state of mind, becomes a holy and saving act. Such,
at least, is the result in practice, which knows nothing of the
sophistical distinctions of theology. In general: wherever religion
places itself in contradiction with reason, it places itself also
in contradiction with the moral sense. Only with the sense of truth
coexists the sense of the right and good. Depravity of understanding is
always depravity of heart. He who deludes and cheats his understanding
has not a veracious, honourable heart; sophistry corrupts the whole
man. And the doctrine of the Lord's Supper is sophistry.
The Truth of the disposition, or of faith as a requisite to communion,
involves the Untruth of the bodily presence of God; and again the
Truth of the objective existence of the divine body involves the
Untruth of the disposition.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE CONTRADICTION OF FAITH AND LOVE.
The Sacraments are a sensible presentation of that contradiction
of idealism and materialism, of subjectivism and objectivism,
which belongs to the inmost nature of religion. But the sacraments
are nothing without Faith and Love. Hence the contradiction in the
sacraments carries us back to the primary contradiction of Faith
and Love.
The essence of religion, its latent nature, is the identity of the
divine being with the human; but the form of religion, or its apparent,
conscious nature, is the distinction between them. God is the human
being; but he presents himself to the religious consciousness as a
distinct being. Now, that which reveals the basis, the hidden essence
of religion, is Love; that which constitutes its conscious form is
Faith. Love identifies man with God and God with man, consequently it
identifies man with man; faith separates God from man, consequently it
separates man from man, for God is nothing else than the idea of the
species invested with a mystical form,--the separation of God from
man is therefore the separation of man from man, the unloosening of
the social bond. By faith religion places itself in contradiction with
morality, with reason, with the unsophisticated sense of truth in man;
by love, it opposes itself again to this contradiction. Faith isolates
God, it makes him a particular, distinct being: love universalises;
it makes God a common being, the love of whom is one with the love of
man. Faith produces in man an inward disunion, a disunion with himself,
and by consequence an outward disunion also; but love heals the wounds
which are made by faith in the heart of man. Faith makes belief in
its God a law: love is freedom,--it condemns not even the atheist,
because it is itself atheistic, itself denies, if not theoretically,
at least practically, the existence of a particular, individual God,
opposed to man. Love has God in itself: faith has God out of itself;
it estranges God from man, it makes him an external object.
Faith, being inherently external, proceeds even to the adoption
of outward fact as its object, and becomes historical faith. It is
therefore of the nature of faith that it can become a totally external
confession; and that with mere faith, as such, superstitious, magical
effects are associated. [195] The devils believe that God is, without
ceasing to be devils. Hence a distinction has been made between faith
in God, and belief that there is a God. [196] But even with this bare
belief in the existence of God, the assimilating power of love is
intermingled;--a power which by no means lies in the idea of faith
as such, and in so far as it relates to external things.
The only distinctions or judgments which are immanent to faith, which
spring out of itself, are the distinctions of right or genuine, and
wrong or false faith; or in general, of belief and unbelief. Faith
discriminates thus: This is true, that is false. And it claims truth
to itself alone. Faith has for its object a definite, specific truth,
which is necessarily united with negation. Faith is in its nature
exclusive. One thing alone is truth, one alone is God, one alone has
the monopoly of being the Son of God; all else is nothing, error,
delusion. Jehovah alone is the true God; all other gods are vain idols.
Faith has in its mind something peculiar to itself; it rests on a
peculiar revelation of God; it has not come to its possessions in an
ordinary way, that way which stands open to all men alike. What stands
open to all is common, and for that reason cannot form a special object
of faith. That God is the creator, all men could know from Nature;
but what this God is in person, can be known only by special grace,
is the object of a special faith. And because he is only revealed
in a peculiar manner, the object of this faith is himself a peculiar
being. The God of the Christians is indeed the God of the heathens,
but with a wide difference:--just such a difference as there is between
me as I am to a friend, and me as I am to a stranger, who only knows
me at a distance. God as he is an object to the Christians, is quite
another than as he is an object to the heathens. The Christians
know God personally, face to face. The heathens know only--and
even this is too large an admission--"what," and not "who," God
is; for which reason they fell into idolatry. The identity of the
heathens and Christians before God is therefore altogether vague;
what the heathens have in common with the Christians--if indeed
we consent to be so liberal as to admit anything in common between
them--is not that which is specifically Christian, not that which
constitutes faith. In whatsoever the Christians are Christians,
therein they are distinguished from the heathens; [197] and they are
Christians in virtue of their special knowledge of God; thus their
mark of distinction is God. Speciality is the salt which first gives a
flavour to the common being. What a being is in special, is the being
itself; he alone knows me, who knows me in specie. Thus the special
God, God as he is an object to the Christians, the personal God, is
alone God. And this God is unknown to heathens, and to unbelievers
in general; he does not exist for them. He is, indeed, said to exist
for the heathens; but mediately, on condition that they cease to be
heathens, and become Christians. Faith makes man partial and narrow;
it deprives him of the freedom and ability to estimate duly what
is different from himself. Faith is imprisoned within itself. It is
true that the philosophical, or, in general, any scientific theorist,
also limits himself by a definite system. But theoretic limitation,
however fettered, short-sighted and narrow-hearted it may be, has
still a freer character than faith, because the domain of theory
is in itself a free one, because here the ground of decision is the
nature of things, argument, reason. But faith refers the decision to
conscience and interest, to the instinctive desire of happiness; for
its object is a special, personal Being, urging himself on recognition,
and making salvation dependent on that recognition.
Faith gives man a peculiar sense of his own dignity and importance. The
believer finds himself distinguished above other men, exalted above
the natural man; he knows himself to be a person of distinction, in
the possession of peculiar privileges; believers are aristocrats,
unbelievers plebeians. God is this distinction and pre-eminence
of believers above unbelievers, personified. [198] Because faith
represents man's own nature as that of another being, the believer
does not contemplate his dignity immediately in himself, but in this
supposed distinct person. The consciousness of his own pre-eminence
presents itself as a consciousness of this person; he has the sense of
his own dignity in this divine personality. [199] As the servant feels
himself honoured in the dignity of his master, nay, fancies himself
greater than a free, independent man of lower rank than his master,
so it is with the believer. [200] He denies all merit in himself,
merely that he may leave all merit to his Lord, because his own
desire of honour is satisfied in the honour of his Lord. Faith is
arrogant, but it is distinguished from natural arrogance in this,
that it clothes its feeling of superiority, its pride, in the idea
of another person, for whom the believer is an object of peculiar
favour. This distinct person, however, is simply his own hidden self,
his personified, contented desire of happiness: for he has no other
qualities than these, that he is the benefactor, the Redeemer, the
Saviour--qualities in which the believer has reference only to himself,
to his own eternal salvation. In fact, we have here the characteristic
principle of religion, that it changes that which is naturally active
into the passive. The heathen elevates himself, the Christian feels
himself elevated. The Christian converts into a matter of feeling,
of receptivity, what to the heathen is a matter of spontaneity. The
humility of the believer is an inverted arrogance,--an arrogance
none the less because it has not the appearance, the external
characteristics of arrogance. He feels himself pre-eminent: this
pre-eminence, however, is not a result of his activity, but a matter
of grace; he has been made pre-eminent; he can do nothing towards
it himself. He does not make himself the end of his own activity,
but the end, the object of God.
Faith is essentially determinate, specific. God according to the
specific view taken of him by faith, is alone the true God. This
Jesus, such as I conceive him, is the Christ, the true, sole prophet,
the only-begotten Son of God. And this particular conception thou
must believe, if thou wouldst not forfeit thy salvation. Faith is
imperative. It is therefore necessary--it lies in the nature of
faith--that it be fixed as dogma. Dogma only gives a formula to
what faith had already on its tongue or in its mind. That when once
a fundamental dogma is established, it gives rise to more special
questions, which must also be thrown into a dogmatic form, that hence
there results a burdensome multiplicity of dogmas,--this is certainly
a fatal consequence, but does not do away with the necessity that
faith should fix itself in dogmas, in order that every one may know
definitely what he must believe and how he can win salvation.
That which in the present day, even from the standpoint of believing
Christianity, is rejected, is compassionated as an aberration, as a
misinterpretation, or is even ridiculed, is purely a consequence of the
inmost nature of faith. Faith is essentially illiberal, prejudiced;
for it is concerned not only with individual salvation, but with
the honour of God. And just as we are solicitous as to whether we
show due honour to a superior in rank, so it is with faith. The
apostle Paul is absorbed in the glory, the honour, the merits of
Christ. Dogmatic, exclusive, scrupulous particularity, lies in the
nature of faith. In food and other matters, indifferent to faith,
it is certainly liberal; but by no means in relation to objects
of faith. He who is not for Christ is against him; that which is
not christian is antichristian. But what is christian? This must be
absolutely determined, this cannot be free. If the articles of faith
are set down in books which proceed from various authors, handed
down in the form of incidental, mutually contradictory, occasional
dicta,--then dogmatic demarcation and definition are even an external
necessity. Christianity owes its perpetuation to the dogmatic formulas
of the Church.
It is only the believing unbelief of modern times which hides
itself behind the Bible, and opposes the biblical dicta to dogmatic
definitions, in order that it may set itself free from the limits
of dogma by arbitrary exegesis. But faith has already disappeared,
is become indifferent, when the determinate tenets of faith are
felt as limitations. It is only religious indifference under the
appearance of religion that makes the Bible, which in its nature and
origin is indefinite, a standard of faith, and under the pretext of
believing only the essential, retains nothing which deserves the name
of faith;--for example, substituting for the distinctly characterised
Son of God, held up by the Church, the vague negative definition of a
Sinless Man, who can claim to be the Son of God in a sense applicable
to no other being,--in a word, of a man, whom one may not trust oneself
to call either a man or a God. But that it is merely indifference
which makes a hiding-place for itself behind the Bible, is evident
from the fact that even what stands in the Bible, if it contradicts
the standpoint of the present day, is regarded as not obligatory,
or is even denied; nay, actions which are essentially Christian,
which are the logical consequences of faith, such as the separation
of believers from unbelievers, are now designated as unchristian.
The Church was perfectly justified in adjudging damnation to heretics
and unbelievers, [201] for this condemnation is involved in the nature
of faith. Faith at first appears to be only an unprejudiced separation
of believers from unbelievers; but this separation is a highly
critical distinction. The believer has God for him, the unbeliever,
against him;--it is only as a possible believer that the unbeliever
has God not against him;--and therein precisely lies the ground of
the requirement that he should leave the ranks of unbelief. But
that which has God against it is worthless, rejected, reprobate;
for that which has God against it is itself against God. To believe,
is synonymous with goodness; not to believe, with wickedness. Faith,
narrow and prejudiced refers all unbelief to the moral disposition. In
its view the unbeliever is an enemy to Christ out of obduracy, out
of wickedness. [202] Hence faith has fellowship with believers only;
unbelievers it rejects. It is well-disposed towards believers, but
ill-disposed towards unbelievers. In faith there lies a malignant
principle.
It is owing to the egoism, the vanity, the self-complacency of
Christians, that they can see the motes in the faith of non-christian
nations, but cannot perceive the beam in their own. It is only in
the mode in which faith embodies itself that Christians differ from
the followers of other religions. The distinction is founded only
on climate or on natural temperament. A warlike or ardently sensuous
people will naturally attest its distinctive religious character by
deeds, by force of arms. But the nature of faith as such is everywhere
the same. It is essential to faith to condemn, to anathematise. All
blessings, all good it accumulates on itself, on its God, as the
lover on his beloved; all curses, all hardship and evil it casts on
unbelief. The believer is blessed, well-pleasing to God, a partaker
of everlasting felicity; the unbeliever is accursed, rejected of God
and abjured by men: for what God rejects man must not receive, must
not indulge;--that would be a criticism of the divine judgment. The
Turks exterminate unbelievers with fire and sword, the Christians with
the flames of hell. But the fires of the other world blaze forth into
this, to glare through the night of unbelief. As the believer already
here below anticipates the joys of heaven, so the flames of the abyss
must be seen to flash here as a foretaste of the awaiting hell,--at
least in the moments when faith attains its highest enthusiasm. [203]
It is true that Christianity ordains no persecution of heretics, still
less conversion by force of arms. But so far as faith anathematises,
it necessarily generates hostile dispositions,--the dispositions
out of which the persecution of heretics arises. To love the man who
does not believe in Christ, is a sin against Christ, is to love the
enemy of Christ, [204] That which God, which Christ does not love,
man must not love; his love would be a contradiction of the divine
will, consequently a sin. God, it is true, loves all men; but only
when and because they are Christians, or at least may be and desire
to be such. To be a Christian is to be beloved by God; not to be a
Christian is to be hated by God, an object of the divine anger. [205]
The Christian must therefore love only Christians--others only
as possible Christians; he must only love what faith hallows and
blesses. Faith is the baptism of love. Love to man as man is only
natural love. Christian love is supernatural, glorified, sanctified
love; therefore it loves only what is Christian. The maxim, "Love
your enemies," has reference only to personal enemies, not to public
enemies, the enemies of God, the enemies of faith, unbelievers. He
who loves the men whom Christ denies, does not believe Christ, denies
his Lord and God. Faith abolishes the natural ties of humanity;
to universal, natural unity, it substitutes a particular unity.
Let it not be objected to this, that it is said in the Bible, "Judge
not, that ye be not judged;" and that thus, as faith leaves to God
the judgment, so it leaves to him the sentence of condemnation. This
and other similar sayings have authority only as the private law of
Christians, not as their public law; belong only to ethics, not to
dogmatics. It is an indication of indifference to faith, to introduce
such sayings into the region of dogma. The distinction between the
unbeliever and the man is a fruit of modern philanthropy. To faith,
the man is merged in the believer; to it, the essential difference
between man and the brute rests only on religious belief. Faith
alone comprehends in itself all virtues which can make man pleasing
to God; and God is the absolute measure, his pleasure the highest
law: the believer is thus alone the legitimate, normal man, man as
he ought to be, man as he is recognised by God. Wherever we find
Christians making a distinction between the man and the believer,
there the human mind has already severed itself from faith; there man
has value in himself, independently of faith. Hence faith is true,
unfeigned, only where the specific difference of faith operates in
all its severity. If the edge of this difference is blunted, faith
itself naturally becomes indifferent, effete. Faith is liberal only in
things intrinsically indifferent. The liberalism of the apostle Paul
presupposes the acceptance of the fundamental articles of faith. Where
everything is made to depend on the fundamental articles of faith,
there arises the distinction between essential and non-essential
belief. In the sphere of the non-essential there is no law,--there
you are free. But obviously it is only on condition of your leaving
the rights of faith intact, that faith allows you freedom.
It is therefore an altogether false defence to say, that faith leaves
judgment to God. It leaves to him only the moral judgment with respect
to faith, only the judgment as to its moral character, as to whether
the faith of Christians be feigned or genuine. So far as classes
are concerned, faith knows already whom God will place on the right
hand, and whom on the left; in relation to the persons who compose
the classes faith is uncertain; but that believers are heirs of the
Eternal Kingdom is beyond all doubt. Apart from this, however, the God
who distinguishes between believers and unbelievers, the condemning and
rewarding God, is nothing else than faith itself. What God condemns,
faith condemns, and vice versâ. Faith is a consuming fire to its
opposite. [206] This fire of faith regarded objectively, is the anger
of God, or what is the same thing, hell; for hell evidently has its
foundation in the anger of God. But this hell lies in faith itself, in
its sentence of damnation. The flames of hell are only the flashings of
the exterminating, vindictive glance which faith casts on unbelievers.
Thus faith is essentially a spirit of partisanship. He who is
not for Christ is against him. [207] Faith knows only friends or
enemies, it understands no neutrality; it is preoccupied only with
itself. Faith is essentially intolerant; essentially, because with
faith is always associated the illusion that its cause is the cause
of God, its honour his honour. The God of faith is nothing else than
the objective nature of faith--faith become an object to itself. Hence
in the religious consciousness also the cause of faith and the cause
of God are identified. God himself is interested: the interest of
faith is the nearest interest of God. "He who toucheth you," says the
prophet Zachariah, "toucheth the apple of His eye." [208] That which
wounds faith, wounds God, that which denies faith, denies God himself.
Faith knows no other distinction than that between the service of God
and the service of idols. Faith alone gives honour to God; unbelief
withdraws from God that which is due to him. Unbelief is an injury to
God, religious high treason. The heathens worship demons; their gods
are devils. "I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they
sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should
have fellowship with devils." [209] But the devil is the negation of
God; he hates God, wills that there should be no God. Thus faith is
blind to what there is of goodness and truth lying at the foundation
of heathen worship; it sees in everything which does not do homage
to its God, i.e., to itself, a worship of idols, and in the worship
of idols only the work of the devil. Faith must therefore, even in
feeling, be only negative towards this negation of God: it is by
inherent necessity intolerant towards its opposite, and in general
towards whatever does not thoroughly accord with itself. Tolerance
on its part would be intolerance towards God, who has the right to
unconditional, undivided sovereignty. Nothing ought to subsist,
nothing to exist, which does not acknowledge God, which does not
acknowledge faith:--"That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
of things in heaven and things on earth, and things under the earth;
and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to
the glory of the Father." [210] Therefore faith postulates a future,
a world where faith has no longer an opposite, or where at least
this opposite exists only in order to enhance the self-complacency
of triumphant faith. Hell sweetens the joys of happy believers. "The
elect will come forth to behold the torments of the ungodly, and at
this spectacle they will not be smitten with sorrow; on the contrary,
while they see the unspeakable sufferings of the ungodly, they,
intoxicated with joy, will thank God for their own salvation." [211]
Faith is the opposite of love. Love recognises virtue even in
sin, truth in error. It is only since the power of faith has been
supplanted by the power of the natural unity of mankind, the power
of reason, of humanity, that truth has been seen even in polytheism,
in idolatry generally,--or at least that there has been any attempt
to explain on positive grounds what faith, in its bigotry, derives
only from the devil. Hence love is reconcilable with reason alone,
not with faith; for as reason, so also love is free, universal, in its
nature; whereas faith is narrow-hearted, limited. Only where reason
rules, does universal love rule; reason is itself nothing else than
universal love. It was faith, not love, not reason, which invented
Hell. To love, Hell is a horror; to reason, an absurdity. It would
be a pitiable mistake to regard Hell as a mere aberration of faith,
a false faith. Hell stands already in the Bible. Faith is everywhere
like itself; at least positive religious faith, faith in the sense in
which it is here taken, and must be taken unless we would mix with it
the elements of reason, of culture,--a mixture which indeed renders
the character of faith unrecognisable.
Thus if faith does not contradict Christianity, neither do those
dispositions which result from faith, neither do the actions which
result from those dispositions. Faith condemns, anathematises; all the
actions, all the dispositions, which contradict love, humanity, reason,
accord with faith. All the horrors of Christian religious history,
which our believers aver not to be due to Christianity, have truly
arisen out of Christianity, because they have arisen out of faith. This
repudiation of them is indeed a necessary consequence of faith; for
faith claims for itself only what is good, everything bad it casts on
the shoulders of unbelief, or of misbelief, or of men in general. But
this very denial of faith that it is itself to blame for the evil in
Christianity, is a striking proof that it is really the originator
of that evil, because it is a proof of the narrowness, partiality,
and intolerance which render it well-disposed only to itself, to its
own adherents, but ill-disposed, unjust towards others. According to
faith, the good which Christians do, is not done by the man, but by
the Christian, by faith; but the evil which Christians do, is not done
by the Christian, but by the man. The evil which faith has wrought in
Christendom thus corresponds to the nature of faith,--of faith as it
is described in the oldest and most sacred records of Christianity,
of the Bible. "If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that
ye have received, let him be accursed," [212] anathema esto,
Gal. i. 9. "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers:
for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and
what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath
Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an
infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye
are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in
them and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my
people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith
the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,"
2 Cor. iv. 14-17. "When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven
with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that
know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:
who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence
of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; when he shall come to
be glorified in his saints, and admired in all them that believe,"
2 Thess. i. 7-10. "Without faith it is impossible to please God,"
Heb. xi. 6. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten
Son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have
everlasting life," John iii. 16. "Every spirit that confesseth that
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit that
confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God:
and this is the spirit of antichrist," 1 John iv. 2, 3. "Who is a
liar, but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist
that denieth the Father and the Son," 1 John ii. 22. "Whosoever
transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not
God: he that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the
Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this
doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed:
for he that biddeth him God speed, is partaker of his evil deeds,"
2 John ix. 11. Thus speaks the apostle of love. But the love which
he celebrates is only the brotherly love of Christians. "God is the
Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe," 1 Tim. iv. 10. A
fatal "specially!" "Let us do good unto all men, especially unto them
who are of the household of faith," Gal. vi. 10. An equally pregnant
"especially!" "A man that is a heretic, after the first and second
admonition reject; knowing that he that is such is subverted, and
sinneth, being condemned of himself," [213] Titus iii. 10, 11. "He
that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth
not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him,"
[214] John iii. 36. "And whosoever shall offend one of these little
ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone
were hanged about his neck, and that he were cast into the sea," Mark
ix. 42; Matt, xviii. 6. "He that believeth and is baptized shall be
saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned," Mark xvi. 16. The
distinction between faith as it is expressed in the Bible and faith
as it has exhibited itself in later times, is only the distinction
between the bud and the plant. In the bud I cannot so plainly see
what is obvious in the matured plant; and yet the plant lay already
in the bud. But that which is obvious, sophists of course will not
condescend to recognise; they confine themselves to the distinction
between explicit and implicit existence,--wilfully overlooking their
essential identity.
Faith necessarily passes into hatred, hatred into persecution, where
the power of faith meets with no contradiction, where it does not
find itself in collision with a power foreign to faith, the power
of love, of humanity, of the sense of justice. Faith left to itself
necessarily exalts itself above the laws of natural morality. The
doctrine of faith is the doctrine of duty towards God,--the highest
duty of faith. By how much God is higher than man, by so much higher
are duties to God than duties towards man; and duties towards God
necessarily come into collision with common human duties. God is not
only believed in, conceived as the universal being, the Father of men,
as Love:--such faith is the faith of love;--he is also represented as
a personal being, a being by himself. And so far as God is regarded as
separate from man, as an individual being, so far are duties to God
separated from duties to man:--faith is, in the religious sentiment,
separated from morality, from love. [215] Let it not be replied
that faith in God is faith in love, in goodness itself; and that
thus faith is itself an expression of a morally good disposition. In
the idea of personality, ethical definitions vanish; they are only
collateral things, mere accidents. The chief thing is the subject,
the divine Ego. Love to God himself, since it is love to a personal
being, is not a moral but a personal love. Innumerable devout hymns
breathe nothing but love to the Lord; but in this love there appears
no spark of an exalted moral idea or disposition.
Faith is the highest to itself, because its object is a divine
personality. Hence it makes salvation dependent on itself, not on
the fulfilment of common human duties. But that which has eternal
salvation as its consequence, necessarily becomes in the mind of
man the chief thing. As therefore inwardly morality is subordinate
to faith, so it must also be outwardly, practically subordinate,
nay, sacrificed, to faith. It is inevitable that there should be
actions in which faith exhibits itself in distinction from morality,
or rather in contradiction with it;--actions which are morally bad,
but which according to faith are laudable, because they have in view
the advantage of faith. All salvation depends on faith: it follows that
all again depends on the salvation of faith. If faith is endangered,
eternal salvation and the honour of God are endangered. Hence
faith absolves from everything; for, strictly considered, it is the
sole subjective good in man, as God is the sole good and positive
being:--the highest commandment therefore is: Believe! [216]
For the very reason that there is no natural, inherent connection
between faith and the moral disposition, that, on the contrary, it
lies in the nature of faith that it is indifferent to moral duties,
[217] that it sacrifices the love of man to the honour of God,--for
this reason it is required that faith should have good works as its
consequence, that it should prove itself by love. Faith destitute of
love, or indifferent to love, contradicts the reason, the natural sense
of right in man, moral feeling, on which love immediately urges itself
as a law. Hence faith, in contradiction with its intrinsic character,
has limits imposed on it by morality: a faith which effects nothing
good, which does not attest itself by love, comes to be held as not a
true and living faith. But this limitation does not arise out of faith
itself. It is the power of love, a power independent of faith, which
gives laws to it; for moral character is here made the criterion of
the genuineness of faith, the truth of faith is made dependent on the
truth of ethics:--a relation which, however, is subversive of faith.
Faith does indeed make man happy; but thus much is certain: it infuses
into him no really moral dispositions. If it ameliorate man, if it
have moral dispositions as its consequence, this proceeds solely
from the inward conviction of the irreversible reality of morals:--a
conviction independent of religious faith. It is morality alone, and
by no means faith, that cries out in the conscience of the believer:
thy faith is nothing, if it does not make thee good. It is not to be
denied that the assurance of eternal salvation, the forgiveness of
sins, the sense of favour and release from all punishment, inclines
man to do good. The man who has this confidence possesses all things;
he is happy; [218] he becomes indifferent to the good things of
this world; no envy, no avarice, no ambition, no sensual desire, can
enslave him; everything earthly vanishes in the prospect of heavenly
grace and eternal bliss. But in him good works do not proceed from
essentially virtuous dispositions. It is not love, not the object
of love, man, the basis of all morality, which is the motive of his
good works. No! he does good not for the sake of goodness itself,
not for the sake of man, but for the sake of God;--out of gratitude
to God, who has done all for him, and for whom therefore he must on
his side do all that lies in his power. He forsakes sin, because it
wounds God, his Saviour, his Benefactor. [219] The idea of virtue is
here the idea of compensatory sacrifice. God has sacrificed himself
for man; therefore man must sacrifice himself to God. The greater the
sacrifice the better the deed. The more anything contradicts man and
Nature, the greater the abnegation, the greater is the virtue. This
merely negative idea of goodness has been especially realised and
developed by Catholicism. Its highest moral idea is that of sacrifice;
hence the high significance attached to the denial of sexual love,--to
virginity. Chastity, or rather virginity, is the characteristic virtue
of the Catholic faith,--for this reason, that it has no basis in
Nature. It is the most fanatical, transcendental, fantastical virtue,
the virtue of supranaturalistic faith;--to faith, the highest virtue,
but in itself no virtue at all. Thus faith makes that a virtue which
intrinsically, substantially, is no virtue; it has therefore no sense
of virtue; it must necessarily depreciate true virtue because it so
exalts a merely apparent virtue, because it is guided by no idea but
that of the negation, the contradiction of human nature.
But although the deeds opposed to love which mark Christian religious
history, are in accordance with Christianity, and its antagonists
are therefore right in imputing to it the horrible actions resulting
from dogmatic creeds; those deeds nevertheless at the same time
contradict Christianity, because Christianity is not only a religion
of faith, but of love also,--pledges us not only to faith, but to
love. Uncharitable actions, hatred of heretics, at once accord and
clash with Christianity? how is that possible? Perfectly. Christianity
sanctions both the actions that spring out of love, and the actions
that spring from faith without love. If Christianity had made love
only its law, its adherents would be right,--the horrors of Christian
religious history could not be imputed to it; if it had made faith only
its law, the reproaches of its antagonists would be unconditionally,
unrestrictedly true. But Christianity has not made love free; it has
not raised itself to the height of accepting love as absolute. And
it has not given this freedom, nay, cannot give it, because it is a
religion,--and hence subjects love to the dominion of faith. Love is
only the exoteric, faith the esoteric doctrine of Christianity; love
is only the morality, faith the religion of the Christian religion.
God is love. This is the sublimest dictum of Christianity. But
the contradiction of faith and love is contained in the very
proposition. Love is only a predicate, God the subject. What, then,
is this subject in distinction from love? And I must necessarily ask
this question, make this distinction. The necessity of the distinction
would be done away with only if it were said conversely: Love is
God, love is the absolute being. Thus love would take the position
of the substance. In the proposition "God is love," the subject is
the darkness in which faith shrouds itself; the predicate is the
light, which first illuminates the intrinsically dark subject. In
the predicate I affirm love, in the subject faith. Love does not
alone fill my soul: I leave a place open for my uncharitableness by
thinking of God as a subject in distinction from the predicate. It is
therefore inevitable that at one moment I lose the thought of love,
at another the thought of God, that at one moment I sacrifice the
personality of God to the divinity of love, at another the divinity of
love to the personality of God. The history of Christianity has given
sufficient proof of this contradiction. Catholicism, especially, has
celebrated Love as the essential deity with so much enthusiasm, that
to it the personality of God has been entirely lost in this love. But
at the same time it has sacrificed love to the majesty of faith. Faith
clings to the self-subsistence of God; love does away with it. "God
is love," means, God is nothing by himself: he who loves, gives up
his egoistical independence; he makes what he loves indispensable,
essential to his existence. But while Self is being sunk in the
depths of love, the idea of the Person rises up again and disturbs
the harmony of the divine and human nature which had been established
by love. Faith advances with its pretensions, and allows only just so
much to Love as belongs to a predicate in the ordinary sense. It does
not permit love freely to unfold itself; it makes love the abstract,
and itself the concrete, the fact, the basis. The love of faith is
only a rhetorical figure, a poetical fiction of faith,--faith in
ecstasy. If faith comes to itself, Love is fled.
This theoretic contradiction must necessarily manifest itself
practically. Necessarily; for in Christianity love is tainted by faith,
it is not free, it is not apprehended truly. A love which is limited
by faith is an untrue love. [220] Love knows no law but itself; it is
divine through itself; it needs not the sanction of faith; it is its
own basis. The love which is bound by faith is a narrow-hearted, false
love, contradicting the idea of love, i.e., self-contradictory,--a love
which has only a semblance of holiness, for it hides in itself the
hatred that belongs to faith; it is only benevolent so long as faith
is not injured. Hence, in this contradiction with itself, in order
to retain the semblance of love, it falls into the most diabolical
sophisms, as we see in Augustine's apology for the persecution of
heretics. Love is limited by faith; hence it does not regard even
the uncharitable actions which faith suggests as in contradiction
with itself; it interprets the deeds of hatred which are committed
for the sake of faith as deeds of love. And it necessarily falls
into such contradictions, because the limitation of love by faith is
itself a contradiction. If it once is subjected to this limitation,
it has given up its own judgment, its inherent measure and criterion,
its self-subsistence; it is delivered up without power of resistance
to the promptings of faith.
Here we have again an example, that much which is not found in the
letter of the Bible, is nevertheless there in principle. We find the
same contradictions in the Bible as in Augustine, as in Catholicism
generally; only that in the latter they are definitely declared,
they are developed into a conspicuous, and therefore revolting
existence. The Bible curses through faith, blesses through love. But
the only love it knows is a love founded on faith. Thus here already
it is a love which curses, an unreliable love, a love which gives
me no guarantee that it will not turn into hatred; for if I do not
acknowledge the articles of faith, I am out of the sphere of love, a
child of hell, an object of anathema, of the anger of God, to whom the
existence of unbelievers is a vexation, a thorn in the eye. Christian
love has not overcome hell, because it has not overcome faith. Love
is in itself unbelieving, faith unloving. And love is unbelieving
because it knows nothing more divine than itself, because it believes
only in itself as absolute truth.
Christian love is already signalised as a particular, limited love, by
the very epithet, Christian. But love is in its nature universal. So
long as Christian love does not renounce its qualification of
Christian, does not make love, simply, its highest law, so long is it a
love which is injurious to the sense of truth, for the very office of
love is to abolish the distinction between Christianity and so-called
heathenism;--so long is it a love which by its particularity is in
contradiction with the nature of love, an abnormal, loveless love,
which has therefore long been justly an object of sarcasm. True love is
sufficient to itself; it needs no special title, no authority. Love is
the universal law of intelligence and Nature;--it is nothing else than
the realisation of the unity of the species through the medium of moral
sentiment. To found this love on the name of a person, is only possible
by the association of superstitious ideas, either of a religious or
speculative character. For with superstition is always associated
particularism, and with particularism, fanaticism. Love can only be
founded on the unity of the species, the unity of intelligence--on
the nature of mankind; then only is it a well-grounded love, safe
in its principle, guaranteed, free, for it is fed by the original
source of love, out of which the love of Christ himself arose. The
love of Christ was itself a derived love. He loved us not out of
himself, by virtue of his own authority, but by virtue of our common
human nature. A love which is based on his person is a particular,
exclusive love, which extends only so far as the acknowledgment of
this person extends, a love which does not rest on the proper ground
of love. Are we to love each other because Christ loved us? Such
love would be an affected, imitative love. Can we truly love each
other only if we love Christ? Is Christ the cause of love? Is he not
rather the apostle of love? Is not the ground of his love the unity
of human nature? Shall I love Christ more than mankind? Is not such
love a chimerical love? Can I step beyond the idea of the species? Can
I love anything higher than humanity? What ennobled Christ was love;
whatever qualities he had, he held in fealty to love; he was not the
proprietor of love, as he is represented to be in all superstitious
conceptions. The idea of love is an independent idea; I do not first
deduce it from the life of Christ; on the contrary, I revere that
life only because I find it accordant with the law, the idea of love.
This is already proved historically by the fact that the idea of love
was by no means first introduced into the consciousness of mankind with
and by Christianity,--is by no means peculiarly Christian. The horrors
of the Roman Empire present themselves with striking significance
in company with the appearance of this idea. The empire of policy
which united men after a manner corresponding with its own idea, was
coming to its necessary end. Political unity is a unity of force. The
despotism of Rome must turn in upon itself, destroy itself. But
it was precisely through this catastrophe of political existence
that man released himself entirely from the heart-stifling toils
of politics. In the place of Rome appeared the idea of humanity;
to the idea of dominion succeeded the idea of love. Even the Jews,
by imbibing the principle of humanity contained in Greek culture, had
by this time mollified their malignant religious separatism. Philo
celebrates love as the highest virtue. The extinction of national
differences lay in the idea of humanity itself. Thinking minds had
very early overstepped the civil and political separation of man
from man. Aristotle distinguishes the man from the slave, and places
the slave, as a man, on a level with his master, uniting them in
friendship. Epictetus, the slave, was a Stoic; Antoninus, the emperor,
was a Stoic also: thus did philosophy unite men. The Stoics taught
[221] that man was not born for his own sake, but for the sake of
others, i.e., for love: a principle which implies infinitely more
than the celebrated dictum of the Emperor Antoninus, which enjoined
the love of enemies. The practical principle of the Stoics is so
far the principle of love. The world is to them one city, men its
citizens. Seneca, in the sublimest sayings, extols love, clemency,
humanity, especially towards slaves. Thus political rigour and
patriotic narrowness were on the wane.
Christianity was a peculiar manifestation of these human tendencies;--a
popular, consequently a religious, and certainly a most intense
manifestation of this new principle of love. That which elsewhere
made itself apparent in the process of culture, expressed itself
here as religious feeling, as a matter of faith. Christianity thus
reduced a general unity to a particular one, it made love collateral
to faith; and by this means it placed itself in contradiction with
universal love. The unity was not referred to its true origin. National
differences indeed disappeared; but in their place difference of faith,
the opposition of Christian and un-Christian, more vehement than a
national antagonism, and also more malignant, made its appearance
in history.
All love founded on a special historical phenomenon contradicts,
as has been said, the nature of love, which endures no limits,
which triumphs over all particularity. Man is to be loved for man's
sake. Man is an object of love because he is an end in himself,
because he is a rational and loving being. This is the law of the
species, the law of the intelligence. Love should be immediate,
undetermined by anything else than its object;--nay, only as such
is it love. But if I interpose between my fellow-man and myself
the idea of an individuality, in whom the idea of the species is
supposed to be already realised, I annihilate the very soul of love,
I disturb the unity by the idea of a third external to us; for in that
case my fellow-man is an object of love to me only on account of his
resemblance or relation to this model, not for his own sake. Here all
the contradictions reappear which we have in the personality of God,
where the idea of the personality by itself, without regard to the
qualities which render it worthy of love and reverence, fixes itself
in the consciousness and feelings. Love is the subjective reality of
the species, as reason is its objective reality. In love, in reason,
the need of an intermediate person disappears. Christ is nothing
but an image, under which the unity of the species has impressed
itself on the popular consciousness. Christ loved men: he wished to
bless and unite them all without distinction of sex, age, rank, or
nationality. Christ is the love of mankind to itself embodied in an
image--in accordance with the nature of religion as we have developed
it--or contemplated as a person, but a person who (we mean, of course,
as a religious object) has only the significance of an image, who is
only ideal. For this reason love is pronounced to be the characteristic
mark of the disciples. But love, as has been said, is nothing else than
the active proof, the realisation of the unity of the race, through the
medium of the moral disposition. The species is not an abstraction;
it exists in feeling, in the moral sentiment, in the energy of
love. It is the species which infuses love into me. A loving heart
is the heart of the species throbbing in the individual. Thus Christ,
as the consciousness of love, is the consciousness of the species. We
are all one in Christ. Christ is the consciousness of our identity. He
therefore who loves man for the sake of man, who rises to the love of
the species, to universal love, adequate to the nature of the species,
[222] he is a Christian, is Christ himself. He does what Christ did,
what made Christ Christ. Thus, where there arises the consciousness
of the species as a species, the idea of humanity as a whole, Christ
disappears, without, however, his true nature disappearing; for he
was the substitute for the consciousness of the species, the image
under which it was made present to the people, and became the law of
the popular life.
CHAPTER XXVII.
CONCLUDING APPLICATION.
In the contradiction between Faith and Love which has just been
exhibited, we see the practical, palpable ground of necessity that
we should raise ourselves above Christianity, above the peculiar
stand-point of all religion. We have shown that the substance and
object of religion is altogether human; we have shown that divine
wisdom is human wisdom; that the secret of theology is anthropology;
that the absolute mind is the so-called finite subjective mind. But
religion is not conscious that its elements are human; on the contrary,
it places itself in opposition to the human, or at least it does
not admit that its elements are human. The necessary turning-point of
history is therefore the open confession, that the consciousness of God
is nothing else than the consciousness of the species; that man can
and should raise himself only above the limits of his individuality,
and not above the laws, the positive essential conditions of his
species; that there is no other essence which man can think, dream of,
imagine, feel, believe in, wish for, love and adore as the absolute,
than the essence of human nature itself. [223]
Our relation to religion is therefore not a merely negative, but a
critical one; we only separate the true from the false;--though we
grant that the truth thus separated from falsehood is a new truth,
essentially different from the old. Religion is the first form
of self-consciousness. Religions are sacred because they are the
traditions of the primitive self-consciousness. But that which in
religion holds the first place--namely, God--is, as we have shown,
in itself and according to truth, the second, for it is only the
nature of man regarded objectively; and that which to religion is the
second--namely, man--must therefore be constituted and declared the
first. Love to man must be no derivative love; it must be original. If
human nature is the highest nature to man, then practically also the
highest and first law must be the love of man to man. Homo homini Deus
est:--this is the great practical principle:--this is the axis on which
revolves the history of the world. The relations of child and parent,
of husband and wife, of brother and friend--in general, of man to
man--in short, all the moral relations are per se religious. Life as
a whole is, in its essential, substantial relations, throughout of a
divine nature. Its religious consecration is not first conferred by
the blessing of the priest. But the pretension of religion is that
it can hallow an object by its essentially external co-operation;
it thereby assumes to be itself the only holy power; besides itself
it knows only earthly, ungodly relations; hence it comes forward in
order to consecrate them and make them holy.
But marriage--we mean, of course, marriage as the free bond of love
[224]--is sacred in itself, by the very nature of the union which is
therein effected. That alone is a religious marriage, which is a true
marriage, which corresponds to the essence of marriage--of love. And
so it is with all moral relations. Then only are they moral,--then
only are they enjoyed in a moral spirit, when they are regarded as
sacred in themselves. True friendship exists only when the boundaries
of friendship are preserved with religious conscientiousness, with
the same conscientiousness with which the believer watches over the
dignity of his God. Let friendship be sacred to thee, property sacred,
marriage sacred,--sacred the well-being of every man; but let them
be sacred in and by themselves.
In Christianity the moral laws are regarded as the commandments
of God; morality is even made the criterion of piety; but ethics
have nevertheless a subordinate rank, they have not in themselves a
religious significance. This belongs only to faith. Above morality
hovers God, as a being distinct from man, a being to whom the
best is due, while the remnants only fall to the share of man. All
those dispositions which ought to be devoted to life, to man--all
the best powers of humanity, are lavished on the being who wants
nothing. The real cause is converted into an impersonal means, a
merely conceptional, imaginary cause usurps the place of the true
one. Man thanks God for those benefits which have been rendered to
him even at the cost of sacrifice by his fellow-man. The gratitude
which he expresses to his benefactor is only ostensible; it is
paid, not to him, but to God. He is thankful, grateful to God,
but unthankful to man. [225] Thus is the moral sentiment subverted
into religion! Thus does man sacrifice man to God! The bloody human
sacrifice is in fact only a rude, material expression of the inmost
secret of religion. Where bloody human sacrifices are offered to God,
such sacrifices are regarded as the highest thing, physical existence
as the chief good. For this reason life is sacrificed to God, and it
is so on extraordinary occasions; the supposition being that this is
the way to show him the greatest honour. If Christianity no longer, at
least in our day, offers bloody sacrifices to its God, this arises, to
say nothing of other reasons, from the fact that physical existence is
no longer regarded as the highest good. Hence the soul, the emotions
are now offered to God, because these are held to be something
higher. But the common case is, that in religion man sacrifices some
duty towards man--such as that of respecting the life of his fellow,
of being grateful to him--to a religious obligation,--sacrifices
his relation to man to his relation to God. The Christians, by
the idea that God is without wants, and that he is only an object
of pure adoration, have certainly done away with many pernicious
conceptions. But this freedom from wants is only a metaphysical idea,
which is by no means part of the peculiar nature of religion. When
the need for worship is supposed to exist only on one side, the
subjective side, this has the invariable effect of one-sidedness,
and leaves the religious emotions cold; hence, if not in express
words, yet in fact, there must be attributed to God a condition
corresponding to the subjective need, the need of the worshipper, in
order to establish reciprocity. [226] All the positive definitions
of religion are based on reciprocity. The religious man thinks of
God because God thinks of him; he loves God because God has first
loved him. God is jealous of man; religion is jealous of morality;
[227] it sucks away the best forces of morality; it renders to man
only the things that are man's, but to God the things that are God's;
and to him is rendered true, living emotion,--the heart.
When in times in which peculiar sanctity was attached to religion,
we find marriage, property, and civil law respected, this has not
its foundation in religion, but in the original, natural sense of
morality and right, to which the true social relations are sacred
as such. He to whom the Right is not holy for its own sake will
never be made to feel it sacred by religion. Property did not become
sacred because it was regarded as a divine institution, but it was
regarded as a divine institution because it was felt to be in itself
sacred. Love is not holy because it is a predicate of God, but it is
a predicate of God because it is in itself divine. The heathens do
not worship the light or the fountain because it is a gift of God,
but because it has of itself a beneficial influence on man, because
it refreshes the sufferer; on account of this excellent quality they
pay it divine honours.
Wherever morality is based on theology, wherever the right is made
dependent on divine authority, the most immoral, unjust, infamous
things can be justified and established. I can found morality on
theology only when I myself have already defined the Divine Being by
means of morality. In the contrary case, I have no criterion of the
moral and immoral, but merely an unmoral, arbitrary basis, from which I
may deduce anything I please. Thus, if I would found morality on God,
I must first of all place it in God: for Morality, Right, in short,
all substantial relations, have their only basis in themselves, can
only have a real foundation--such as truth demands--when they are thus
based. To place anything in God, or to derive anything from God, is
nothing more than to withdraw it from the test of reason, to institute
it as indubitable, unassailable, sacred, without rendering an account
why. Hence self-delusion, if not wicked, insidious design, is at the
root of all efforts to establish morality, right, on theology. Where
we are in earnest about the right we need no incitement or support
from above. We need no Christian rule of political right: we need only
one which is rational, just, human. The right, the true, the good,
has always its ground of sacredness in itself, in its quality. Where
man is in earnest about ethics, they have in themselves the validity
of a divine power. If morality has no foundation in itself, there is
no inherent necessity for morality; morality is then surrendered to
the groundless arbitrariness of religion.
Thus the work of the self-conscious reason in relation to religion
is simply to destroy an illusion:--an illusion, however, which is
by no means indifferent, but which, on the contrary, is profoundly
injurious in its effect on mankind; which deprives man as well of the
power of real life as of the genuine sense of truth and virtue; for
even love, in itself the deepest, truest emotion, becomes by means
of religiousness merely ostensible, illusory, since religious love
gives itself to man only for God's sake, so that it is given only in
appearance to man, but in reality to God.
And we need only, as we have shown, invert the religious
relations--regard that as an end which religion supposes to be a
means--exalt that into the primary which in religion is subordinate,
the accessory, the condition,--at once we have destroyed the illusion,
and the unclouded light of truth streams in upon us. The sacraments
of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, which are the characteristic symbols
of the Christian religion, may serve to confirm and exhibit this truth.
The Water of Baptism is to religion only the means by which the Holy
Spirit imparts itself to man. But by this conception it is placed
in contradiction with reason, with the truth of things. On the one
hand, there is virtue in the objective, natural quality of water;
on the other, there is none, but it is a merely arbitrary medium of
divine grace and omnipotence. We free ourselves from these and other
irreconcilable contradictions, we give a true significance to Baptism,
only by regarding it as a symbol of the value of water itself. Baptism
should represent to us the wonderful but natural effect of water on
man. Water has, in fact, not merely physical effects, but also, and
as a result of these, moral and intellectual effects on man. Water
not only cleanses man from bodily impurities, but in water the scales
fall from his eyes: he sees, he thinks more clearly; he feels himself
freer; water extinguishes the fire of appetite. How many saints have
had recourse to the natural qualities of water in order to overcome
the assaults of the devil! What was denied by Grace has been granted
by Nature. Water plays a part not only in dietetics, but also in moral
and mental discipline. To purify oneself, to bathe, is the first,
though the lowest of virtues. [228] In the stream of water the fever of
selfishness is allayed. Water is the readiest means of making friends
with Nature. The bath is a sort of chemical process, in which our
individuality is resolved into the objective life of Nature. The man
rising from the water is a new, a regenerate man. The doctrine that
morality can do nothing without means of grace has a valid meaning if,
in place of imaginary, supernatural means of grace, we substitute
natural means. Moral feeling can effect nothing without Nature; it
must ally itself with the simplest natural means. The profoundest
secrets lie in common everyday things, such as supranaturalistic
religion and speculation ignore, thus sacrificing real mysteries
to imaginary, illusory ones; as here, for example, the real power
of water is sacrificed to an imaginary one. Water is the simplest
means of grace or healing for the maladies of the soul as well as of
the body. But water is effectual only where its use is constant and
regular. Baptism, as a single act, is either an altogether useless
and unmeaning institution, or, if real effects are attributed to it,
a superstitious one. But it is a rational, a venerable institution,
if it is understood to typify and celebrate the moral and physical
curative virtues of water.
But the sacrament of water required a supplement. Water, as a universal
element of life, reminds us of our origin from Nature, an origin
which we have in common with plants and animals. In Baptism we bow
to the power of a pure Nature-force; water is the element of natural
equality and freedom, the mirror of the golden age. But we men are
distinguished from the plants and animals, which together with the
inorganic kingdom we comprehend under the common name of Nature;--we
are distinguished from Nature. Hence we must celebrate our distinction,
our specific difference. The symbols of this our difference are bread
and wine. Bread and wine are, as to their materials, products of
Nature; as to their form, products of man. If in water we declare:
Man can do nothing without Nature; by bread and wine we declare:
Nature needs man, as man needs Nature. In water, human mental activity
is nullified; in bread and wine it attains self-satisfaction. Bread
and wine are supernatural products,--in the only valid and true sense,
the sense which is not in contradiction with reason and Nature. If in
water we adore the pure force of Nature, in bread and wine we adore
the supernatural power of mind, of consciousness, of man. Hence this
sacrament is only for man matured into consciousness; while baptism is
imparted to infants. But we at the same time celebrate here the true
relation of mind to Nature: Nature gives the material, mind gives the
form. The sacrament of Baptism inspires us with thankfulness towards
Nature, the sacrament of bread and wine with thankfulness towards
man. Bread and wine typify to us the truth that Man is the true God
and Saviour of man.
Eating and drinking is the mystery of the Lord's Supper;--eating
and drinking is, in fact, in itself a religious act; at least, ought
to be so. [229] Think, therefore, with every morsel of bread which
relieves thee from the pain of hunger, with every draught of wine
which cheers thy heart, of the God who confers these beneficent gifts
upon thee,--think of man! But in thy gratitude towards man forget not
gratitude towards holy Nature! Forget not that wine is the blood of
plants, and flour the flesh of plants, which are sacrificed for thy
well-being! Forget not that the plant typifies to thee the essence of
Nature, which lovingly surrenders itself for thy enjoyment! Therefore
forget not the gratitude which thou owest to the natural qualities of
bread and wine! And if thou art inclined to smile that I call eating
and drinking religious acts, because they are common everyday acts, and
are therefore performed by multitudes without thought, without emotion;
reflect, that the Lord's Supper is to multitudes a thoughtless,
emotionless act, because it takes place often; and, for the sake of
comprehending the religious significance of bread and wine, place
thyself in a position where the daily act is unnaturally, violently
interrupted. Hunger and thirst destroy not only the physical but also
the mental and moral powers of man; they rob him of his humanity--of
understanding, of consciousness. Oh! if thou shouldst ever experience
such want, how wouldst thou bless and praise the natural qualities of
bread and wine, which restore to thee thy humanity, thy intellect! It
needs only that the ordinary course of things be interrupted in order
to vindicate to common things an uncommon significance, to life,
as such, a religious import. Therefore let bread be sacred for us,
let wine be sacred, and also let water be sacred! Amen.
APPENDIX.
EXPLANATIONS--REMARKS--ILLUSTRATIVE CITATIONS.
§ 1.
Man has his highest being, his God, in himself; not in himself as an
individual, but in his essential nature, his species. No individual
is an adequate representation of his species, but only the human
individual is conscious of the distinction between the species and
the individual; in the sense of this distinction lies the root of
religion. The yearning of man after something above himself is nothing
else than the longing after the perfect type of his nature, the
yearning to be free from himself, i.e., from the limits and defects
of his individuality. Individuality is the self-conditionating,
the self-limitation of the species. Thus man has cognisance of
nothing above himself, of nothing beyond the nature of humanity;
but to the individual man this nature presents itself under the
form of an individual man. Thus, for example, the child sees the
nature of man above itself in the form of its parents, the pupil
in the form of his tutor. But all feelings which man experiences
towards a superior man, nay, in general, all moral feelings which
man has towards man, are of a religious nature. [230] Man feels
nothing towards God which he does not also feel towards man. Homo
homini deus est. Want teaches prayer; but in misfortune, in sorrow,
man kneels to entreat help of man also. Feeling makes God a man, but
for the same reason it makes man a God. How often in deep emotion,
which alone speaks genuine truth, man exclaims to man: Thou art,
thou hast been my redeemer, my saviour, my protecting spirit, my
God! We feel awe, reverence, humility, devout admiration, in thinking
of a truly great, noble man; we feel ourselves worthless, we sink
into nothing, even in the presence of human greatness. The purely,
truly human emotions are religious; but for that reason the religious
emotions are purely human: the only difference is, that the religious
emotions are vague, indefinite; but even this is only the case when
the object of them is indefinite. Where God is positively defined,
is the object of positive religion, there God is also the object
of positive, definite human feelings, the object of fear and love,
and therefore he is a positively human being; for there is nothing
more in God than what lies in feeling. If in the heart there is fear
and terror, in God there is anger; if in the heart there is joy, hope,
confidence, in God there is love. Fear makes itself objective in anger;
joy in love, in mercy. "As it is with me in my heart, so is it with
God." "As my heart is, so is God."--Luther (Th. i. p. 72). But a
merciful and angry God--Deus vere irascitur (Melancthon)--is a God
no longer distinguishable from the human feelings and nature. Thus
even in religion man bows before the nature of man under the form
of a personal human being; religion itself expressly declares--and
all anthropomorphisms declare this in opposition to Pantheism.--quod
supra nos nihil ad nos; that is, a God who inspires us with no human
emotions, who does not reflect our own emotions, in a word, who is
not a man,--such a God is nothing to us, has no interest for us,
does not concern us. (See the passages cited in this work from Luther.)
Religion has thus no dispositions and emotions which are peculiar
to itself; what it claims as belonging exclusively to its object,
are simply the same dispositions and emotions that man experiences
either in relation to himself (as, for example, to his conscience),
or to his fellow-man, or to Nature. You must not fear men, but God;
you must not love man,--i.e., not truly, for his own sake,--but God;
you must not humble yourselves before human greatness, but only before
the Lord; not believe and confide in man, but only in God. Hence
comes the danger of worshipping false gods in distinction from the
true God. Hence the "jealousy" of God. "Ego Jehova, Deus tuus, Deus
sum zelotypus. Ut zelotypus vir dicitur, qui rivalem pati nequit:
sic Deus socium in cultu, quem ab hominibus postulat, ferre non
potest." (Clericus, Comment. in Exod. c. 20, v. 5.) Jealousy arises
because a being preferred and loved by me directs to another the
feelings and dispositions which I claim for myself. But how could I be
jealous if the impressions and emotions which I excite in the beloved
being were altogether peculiar and apart, were essentially different
from the impressions which another can make on him? If, therefore,
the emotions of religion were objectively, essentially different
from those which lie out of religion, there would be no possibility
of idolatry in man or of jealousy in God. As the flute has another
sound to me than the trumpet, and I cannot confound the impressions
produced by the former with the impressions produced by the latter;
so I could not transfer to a natural or human being the emotions of
religion, if the object of religion, God, were specifically different
from the natural or human being, and consequently the impressions
which he produced on me were specific, peculiar.
§ 2.
Feeling alone is the object of feeling. Feeling is sympathy; feeling
arises only in the love of man to man. Sensations man has in isolation;
feelings only in community. Only in sympathy does sensation rise into
feeling. Feeling is æsthetic, human sensation; only what is human is
the object of feeling. In feeling man is related to his fellow-man as
to himself; he is alive to the sorrows, the joys of another as his
own. Thus only by communication does man rise above merely egoistic
sensation into feeling;--participated sensation is feeling. He who
has no need of participating has no feeling. But what does the hand,
the kiss, the glance, the voice, the tone, the word--as the expression
of emotion--impart? Emotion. The very same thing which, pronounced or
performed without the appropriate tone, without emotion, is only an
object of indifferent perception, becomes, when uttered or performed
with emotion, an object of feeling. To feel is to have a sense of
sensations, to have emotion in the perception of emotion. Hence the
brutes rise to feeling only in the sexual relation, and therefore
only transiently; for here the being experiences sensation not in
relation to itself taken alone, or to an object without sensation,
but to a being having like emotions with itself,--not to another as a
distinct object, but to an object which in species is identical. Hence
Nature is an object of feeling to me only when I regard it as a being
akin to me and in sympathy with me.
It is clear from what has been said, that only where in truth, if not
according to the subjective conception, the distinction between the
divine and human being is abolished, is the objective existence of God,
the existence of God as an objective, distinct being, abolished:--only
there, I say, is religion made a mere matter of feeling, or conversely,
feeling the chief point in religion. The last refuge of theology
therefore is feeling. God is renounced by the understanding; he has
no longer the dignity of a real object, of a reality which imposes
itself on the understanding; hence he is transferred to feeling;
in feeling his existence is thought to be secure. And doubtless this
is the safest refuge; for to make feeling the essence of religion is
nothing else than to make feeling the essence of God. And as certainly
as I exist, so certainly does my feeling exist; and as certainly as
my feeling exists, so certainly does my God exist. The certainty of
God is here nothing else than the self-certainty of human feeling, the
yearning after God is the yearning after unlimited, uninterrupted, pure
feeling. In life the feelings are interrupted; they collapse; they are
followed by a state of void, of insensibility. The religious problem,
therefore, is to give fixity to feeling in spite of the vicissitudes of
life, and to separate it from repugnant disturbances and limitations:
God himself is nothing else than undisturbed, uninterrupted feeling,
feeling for which there exists no limits, no opposite. If God were
a being distinct from thy feeling, he would be known to thee in some
other way than simply in feeling; but just because thou perceivest him
only by feeling, he exists only in feeling--he is himself only feeling.
§ 3.
God is man's highest feeling of self, freed from all contrarieties
or disagreeables. God is the highest being; therefore, to feel God is
the highest feeling. But is not the highest feeling also the highest
feeling of self? So long as I have not had the feeling of the highest,
so long I have not exhausted my capacity of feeling, so long I do
not yet fully know the nature of feeling. What, then, is an object to
me in my feeling of the highest being? Nothing else than the highest
nature of my power of feeling. So much as a man can feel, so much is
(his) God. But the highest degree of the power of feeling is also the
highest degree of the feeling of self. In the feeling of the low I feel
myself lowered, in the feeling of the high I feel myself exalted. The
feeling of self and feeling are inseparable, otherwise feeling would
not belong to myself. Thus God, as an object of feeling, or what is
the same thing, the feeling of God, is nothing else than man's highest
feeling of self. But God is the freest, or rather the absolutely
only free being; thus God is man's highest feeling of freedom. How
couldst thou be conscious of the highest being as freedom, or freedom
as the highest being, if thou didst not feel thyself free? But when
dost thou feel thyself free? When thou feelest God. To feel God is
to feel oneself free. For example, thou feelest desire, passion, the
conditions of time and place, as limits. What thou feelest as a limit
thou strugglest against, thou breakest loose from, thou deniest. The
consciousness of a limit, as such, is already an anathema, a sentence
of condemnation pronounced on this limit, for it is an oppressive,
disagreeable, negative consciousness. Only the feeling of the good,
of the positive, is itself good and positive--is joy. Joy alone
is feeling in its element, its paradise, because it is unrestricted
activity. The sense of pain in an organ is nothing else than the sense
of a disturbed, obstructed, thwarted activity; in a word, the sense
of something abnormal, anomalous. Hence thou strivest to escape from
the sense of limitation into unlimited feeling. By means of the will,
or the imagination, thou negativest limits, and thus obtainest the
feeling of freedom. This feeling of freedom is God. God is exalted
above desire and passion, above the limits of space and time. But
this exaltation is thy own exaltation above that which appears to
thee as a limit. Does not this exaltation of the divine being exalt
thee? How could it do so, if it were external to thee? No; God is
an exalted being only for him who himself has exalted thoughts and
feelings. Hence the exaltation of the divine being varies according to
that which different men or nations perceive as a limitation to the
feeling of self, and which they consequently negative or eliminate
from their ideal.
§ 4.
The distinction between the "heathen," or philosophic, and the
Christian God--the non-human, or pantheistic, and the human, personal
God--reduces itself only to the distinction between the understanding
or reason and the heart or feelings. Reason is the self-consciousness
of the species, as such; feeling is the self-consciousness of
individuality; the reason has relation to existences, as things;
the heart to existences, as persons. I am is an expression of the
heart; I think, of the reason. Cogito, ergo sum? No! Sentio, ergo
sum. Feeling only is my existence; thinking is my non-existence,
the negation of my individuality, the positing of the species; reason
is the annihilation of personality. To think is an act of spiritual
marriage. Only beings of the same species understand each other;
the impulse to communicate thought is the intellectual impulse of
sex. Reason is cold, because its maxim is, audiatur et altera pars,
because it does not interest itself in man alone; but the heart is
a partisan of man. Reason loves all impartiality, but the heart only
what is like itself. It is true that the heart has pity also on the
brutes, but only because it sees in the brute something more than the
brute. The heart loves only what it identifies with itself. It says:
Whatsoever thou dost to this being, thou dost to me. The heart loves
only itself; does not get beyond itself, beyond man. The superhuman
God is nothing else than the supernatural heart; the heart does not
give us the idea of another, of a being different from ourselves. "For
the heart, Nature is an echo, in which it hears only itself. Emotion,
in the excess of its happiness, transfers itself to external things. It
is the love which can withhold itself from no existence, which gives
itself forth to all; but it only recognises as existing that which
it knows to have emotion." [231] Reason, on the contrary, has pity
on animals, not because it finds itself in them, or identifies them
with man, but because it recognises them as beings distinct from man,
not existing simply for the sake of man, but also as having rights
of their own. The heart sacrifices the species to the individual,
the reason sacrifices the individual to the species. The man without
feeling has no home, no private hearth. Feeling, the heart, is the
domestic life; the reason is the res publica of man. Reason is the
truth of Nature, the heart is the truth of man. To speak popularly,
reason is the God of Nature, the heart the God of man;--a distinction
however which, drawn thus sharply, is, like the others, only admissible
in antithesis. Everything which man wishes, but which reason, which
Nature denies, the heart bestows. God, immortality, freedom, in the
supranaturalistic sense, exist only in the heart. The heart is itself
the existence of God, the existence of immortality. Satisfy yourselves
with this existence! You do not understand your heart; therein lies
the evil. You desire a real, external, objective immortality, a God
out of yourselves. Here is the source of delusion.
But as the heart releases man from the limits, even the essential
limits of Nature; reason, on the other hand, releases Nature from
the limits of external finiteness. It is true that Nature is the
light and measure of reason;--a truth which is opposed to abstract
Idealism. Only what is naturally true is logically true; what has no
basis in Nature has no basis at all. That which is not a physical
law is not a metaphysical law. Every true law in metaphysics can
and must be verified physically. But at the same time reason is
also the light of Nature;--and this truth is the barrier against
crude materialism. Reason is the nature of things come fully to
itself, re-established in its entireness. Reason divests things of
the disguises and transformations which they have undergone in the
conflict and agitation of the external world, and reduces them to
their true character. Most, indeed nearly all, crystals--to give
an obvious illustration--appear in Nature under a form altogether
different from their fundamental one; nay, many crystals never have
appeared in their fundamental form. Nevertheless, the mineralogical
reason has discovered that fundamental form. Hence nothing is more
foolish than to place Nature in opposition to reason, as an essence in
itself incomprehensible to reason. If reason reduces transformations
and disguises to their fundamental forms, does it not effect that which
lies in the idea of Nature itself, but which, prior to the operation of
reason, could not be effected on account of external hindrances? What
else then does reason do than remove external disturbances, influences,
and obstructions, so as to present a thing as it ought to be, to make
the existence correspond to the idea; for the fundamental form is
the idea of the crystal. Another popular example. Granite consists of
mica, quartz, and feldspar. But frequently other kinds of stone are
mingled with it. If we had no other guide and tutor than the senses,
we should without hesitation reckon as constituent parts of granite
all the kinds of stone which we ever find in combination with it;
we should say yes to everything the senses told us, and so never
come to the true idea of granite. But reason says to the credulous
senses: Quod non. It discriminates; it distinguishes the essential
from the accidental elements. Reason is the midwife of Nature;
it explains, enlightens, rectifies and completes Nature. Now that
which separates the essential from the non-essential, the necessary
from the accidental, what is proper to a thing from what is foreign,
which restores what has been violently sundered to unity, and what has
been forcibly united to freedom,--is not this divine? Is not such an
agency as this the agency of the highest, of divine love? And how would
it be possible that reason should exhibit the pure nature of things,
the original text of the universe, if it were not itself the purest,
most original essence? But reason has no partiality for this or that
species of things. It embraces with equal interest the whole universe;
it interests itself in all things and beings without distinction,
without exception;--it bestows the same attention on the worm which
human egoism tramples under its feet, as on man, as on the sun in
the firmament. Reason is thus the all-embracing, all-compassionating
being, the love of the universe to itself. To reason alone belongs
the great work of the resurrection and restoration of all things
and beings--universal redemption and reconciliation. Not even the
unreasoning animal, the speechless plant, the unsentient stone,
shall be excluded from this universal festival. But how would it be
possible that reason should interest itself in all beings without
exception, if reason were not itself universal and unlimited in its
nature? Is a limited nature compatible with unlimited interest, or an
unlimited interest with a limited nature? By what dost thou recognise
the limitation of a being but by the limitation of his interest? As
far as the interest extends, so far extends the nature. The desire of
knowledge is infinite; reason then is infinite. Reason is the highest
species of being;--hence it includes all species in the sphere of
knowledge. Reason cannot content itself in the individual; it has
its adequate existence only when it has the species for its object,
and the species not as it has already developed itself in the past and
present, but as it will develop itself in the unknown future. In the
activity of reason I feel a distinction between myself and reason in
me; this distinction is the limit of the individuality; in feeling I
am conscious of no distinction between myself and feeling; and with
this absence of distinction there is an absence also of the sense of
limitation. Hence it arises that to so many men reason appears finite,
and only feeling infinite. And, in fact, feeling, the heart of man
as a rational being, is as infinite, as universal as reason; since
man only truly perceives and understands that for which he has feeling.
Thus reason is the essence of Nature and Man, released from
non-essential limits, in their identity; it is the universal being,
the universal God. The heart, considered in its difference from the
reason, is the private God of man; the personal God is the heart of
man, emancipated from the limits or laws of Nature. [232]
§ 5.
Nature, the world, has no value, no interest for Christians. The
Christian thinks only of himself and the salvation of his soul. "A
te incipiat cogitatio tua et in te finiatur, nec frustra in alia
distendaris, te neglecto. Praeter salutem tuam nihil cogites. De
inter. Domo. (Among the spurious writings of St. Bernard.) Si
te vigilanter homo attendas, mirum est, si ad aliud unquam
intendas.--Divus Bernardus. (Tract. de XII grad. humil. et
sup.).... Orbe sit sol major, an pedis unius latitudine
metiatur? alieno ex lumine an propriis luceat fulgoribus luna? quae
neque scire compendium, neque ignorare detrimentum est ullum.... Res
vestra in ancipiti sita est: salus dico animarum vestrarum.--Arnobius
(adv. gentes, l. ii. c. 61). Quaero igitur ad quam rem scientia
referenda sit; si ad causas rerum naturalium, quae beatitudo erit mihi
proposita, si sciero unde Nilus oriatur, vel quicquid de coelo Physici
delirant?--Lactantius (Instit. div. l. iii. c. 8). Etiam curiosi
esse prohibemur.... Sunt enim qui desertis virtutibus et nescientes
quid sit Deus ... magnum aliquid se agere putant, si universam istam
corporis molem, quam mundum nuncupamus, curiosissime intentissimeque
perquirant.... Reprimat igitur se anima ab hujusmodi vanae cognitionis
cupiditate, si se castam Deo servare disposuit. Tali enim amore
plerumque decipitur, ut (aut) nihil putet esse nisi corpus.--Augustinus
(de Mor. Eccl. cath. l. i. c. 21). De terrae quoque vel qualitate
vel positione tractare, nihil prosit ad spem futuri, cum satis sit
ad scientiam, quod scripturarum divinarum series comprehendit,
quod Deus suspendit terram in nihilo.--Ambrosius (Hexaemeron,
l. i. c. 6). Longe utique praestantius est, nosse resurrecturam carnem
ac sine fine victuram, quam quidquid in ea medici, scrutando discere
potuerunt.--Augustinus (de Anima et ejus orig. l. iv. c. 10)." "Let
natural science alone.... It is enough that thou knowest fire is hot,
water cold and moist.... Know how thou oughtest to treat thy field,
thy cow, thy house and child--that is enough of natural science
for thee. Think how thou mayest learn Christ, who will show thee
thyself, who thou art, and what is thy capability. Thus wilt thou
learn God and thyself, which no natural master or natural science
ever taught."--Luther (Th. xiii. p. 264).
Such quotations as these, which might be multiplied indefinitely,
show clearly enough that true, religious Christianity has within
it no principle of scientific and material culture, no motive to
it. The practical end and object of Christians is solely heaven,
i.e., the realised salvation of the soul. The theoretical end and
object of Christians is solely God, as the being identical with
the salvation of the soul. He who knows God knows all things; and
as God is infinitely more than the world, so theology is infinitely
more than the knowledge of the world. Theology makes happy, for its
object is personified happiness. Infelix homo, qui scit illa omnia
(created things) te autem nescit, Beatus autem qui te scit, etiam si
illa nesciat.--Augustin (Confess. l. v. c. 4). Who then would, who
could exchange the blessed Divine Being for the unblessed worthless
things of this world? It is true that God reveals himself in Nature,
but only vaguely, dimly, only in his most general attributes;
himself, his true personal nature, he reveals only in religion,
in Christianity. The knowledge of God through Nature is heathenism;
the knowledge of God through himself, through Christ, in whom dwelt
the fulness of the Godhead bodily, is Christianity. What interest,
therefore, should Christians have in occupying themselves with
material, natural things? Occupation with Nature, culture in general,
presupposes, or, at least, infallibly produces, a heathenish, mundane,
anti-theological, anti-supranaturalistic sentiment and belief. Hence
the culture of modern Christian nations is so little to be derived
from Christianity, that it is only to be explained by the negation of
Christianity, a negation which certainly was, in the first instance,
only practical. It is indeed necessary to distinguish between what
the Christians were as Christians and what they were as heathens,
as natural men, and thus between that which they have said and done
in agreement, and that which they have said and done in contradiction
with their faith. (See on this subject the author's P. Bayle.)
How frivolous, therefore, are modern Christians when they deck
themselves in the arts and sciences of modern nations as products
of Christianity! How striking is the contrast in this respect
between these modern boasters and the Christians of older times! The
latter knew of no other Christianity than that which is contained
in the Christian faith, in faith in Christ; they did not reckon
the treasures and riches, the arts and sciences of this world as
part of Christianity. In all these points, they rather conceded the
pre-eminence to the ancient heathens, the Greeks and Romans. "Why
dost thou not also wonder, Erasmus, that from the beginning of the
world there have always been among the heathens higher, rarer people,
of greater, more exalted understanding, more excellent diligence and
skill in all arts, than among Christians or the people of God? Christ
himself says that the children of this world are wiser than the
children of light. Yea, who among the Christians could we compare
for understanding or application to Cicero (to say nothing of the
Greeks, Demosthenes and others)?"--Luther (Th. xix. p. 37). Quid
igitur nos antecellimus? Num ingenio, doctrina, morum moderatione
illos superamus? Nequaquam. Sed vera Dei agnitione, invocatione et
celebratione præstamus.--Melancthonis (et al. Declam. Th. iii. de
vera invocat. Dei).
§ 6.
In religion man has in view himself alone, or, in regarding himself as
the object of God, as the end of the divine activity, he is an object
to himself, his own end and aim. The mystery of the incarnation is
the mystery of the love of God to man, and the mystery of the love
of God to man is the love of man to himself. God suffers--suffers for
me--this is the highest self-enjoyment, the highest self-certainty of
human feeling. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten
Son."--John iii. 16. "If God be for us, who can be against us? He
that spared not his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how shall
he not with him also freely give us all things?"--Rom. viii. 31,
32. "God commendeth his love towards us, in that, while we were
yet sinners, Christ died for us."--Rom. v. 8. "The life which I now
live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved
me, and gave himself for me."--Gal. ii. 20. See also Titus iii. 4;
Heb. ii. 11. "Credimus in unum Deum patrem ... et in unum Dominum
Jesum Christum filium Dei ... Deum ex Deo ... qui propter nos homines
et propter nostram salutem descendit et incarnatus et homo factus
est passus."--Fides Nicaenae Synodi. "Servator ... ex praeexcellenti
in homines charitate non despexit carnis humanae imbecillitatem,
sed ea indutus ad communem venit hominum salutem."--Clemens
Alex. (Stromata, l. vii. ed. Wirceb. 1779). "Christianos autem
haec universa docent, providentiam esse, maxime vero divinissimum et
propter excellentiam amoris erga homines incredibilissimum providentiae
opus, dei incarnatio, quae propter nos facta est."--Gregorii Nysseni
(Philosophiae, l. viii. de Provid. c. i. 1512. B. Rhenanus. Jo. Cono
interp.) "Venit siquidem universitatis creator et Dominus: venit
ad homines, venit propter homines, venit homo."--Divus Bernardus
Clarev. (de Adventu Domini, Basil, 1552). "Videte, Fratres, quantum se
humiliavit propter homines Deus.... Unde non se ipse homo despiciat,
propter quem utique ista subire dignatus est Deus."--Augustinus
(Sermones ad pop. S. 371, c. 3). "O homo propter quem Deus factus est
homo, aliquid magnum te credere debes." (S. 380, c. 2). "Quis de se
desperet pro quo tam humilis esse voluit Filius Dei?" Id. (de Agone
Chr. c. 11). "Quis potest odire hominem cujus naturam et similitudinem
videt in humanitate Dei? Revera qui odit illum, odit Deum."--(Manuale,
c. 26. Among the spurious writings of Augustine.) "Plus nos amat
Deus quam filium pater.... Propter nos filio non pepercit. Et quid
plus addo? et hoc filio justo et hoc filio unigenito et hoc filio
Deo. Et quid dici amplius potest? et hoc pro nobis, i.e. pro malis,
etc."--Salvianus (de gubernatione Dei. Rittershusius, 1611, pp. 126,
127). "Quid enim mentes nostras tantum erigit et ab immortalitatis
desperatione liberat, quam quod tanti nos fecit Deus, ut Dei
filius ... dignatus nostrum inire consortium mala nostra moriendo
perferret."--Petrus Lomb. (lib. iii. dist. 20, c. 1). "Attamen si
illa quae miseriam nescit, misericordia non praecessisset, ad hanc
cujus mater est miseria, non accessisset."--D. Bernardus (Tract. de
XII. gradibus hum. et sup.) "Ecce omnia tua sunt, quae habeo et
unde tibi servio. Verum tamen vice versa tu magis mihi servis, quam
ego tibi. Ecce coelum et terra quae in ministerium hominis creasti,
praesto sunt et faciunt quotidie quaecunque mandasti. Et hoc parum
est: quin etiam Angelos in ministerium hominis ordinasti. Transcendit
autem omnia, quia tu ipse homini servire dignatus es et te ipsum
daturum ei promisisti."--Thomas à Kempis (de Imit. l. iii. c. 10). "Ego
omnipotens et altissimus, qui cuncta creavi ex nihilo me homini propter
te humiliter subjeci.... Pepercit tibi oculus meus, quia pretiosa
fuit anima tua in conspectu meo" (ibid. c. 13). "Fili ego descendi
de coelo pro salute tua, suscepi tuas miserias, non necessitate,
sed charitate trahente" (ibid. c. 18). "Si consilium rei tantae
spectamus, quod totum pertinet, ut s. litterae demonstrant. ad salutem
generis humani, quid potest esse dignius Deo, quam illa tanta hujus
salutis cura, et ut ita dicamus, tantus in ea re sumptus?... Itaque
Jesus Christus ipse cum omnibus Apostolis ... in hoc mysterio Filii
Dei en sarki phanerothentos angelis hominibusque patefactam esse
dicunt magnitudinem sapientis bonitatis divinae."--J. A. Ernesti
(Dignit. et verit. inc. Filii Dei asserta. Opusc. Theol. Lipsiae,
1773, pp. 404, 405. How feeble, how spiritless compared with the
expressions of the ancient faith!) "Propter me Christus suscepit
meas infirmitates, mei corporis subiit passiones, pro me peccatum
h. e. pro omni homine, pro me maledictum factus est, etc. Ille flevit,
ne tu homo diu fleres. Ille injurias passus est, ne tu injuriam tuam
doleres."--Ambrosius (de fide ad Gratianum, l. ii. c. 4). "God is
not against us men. For if God had been against us and hostile to us,
he would not assuredly have taken the poor wretched human nature on
himself." "How highly our Lord God has honoured us, that he has caused
his own Son to become man! How could he have made himself nearer to
us?"--Luther (Th. xvi. pp. 533, 574). "It is to be remarked that he
(Stephen) is said to have seen not God himself but the man Christ,
whose nature is the dearest and likest and most consoling to man,
for a man would rather see a man than an angel or any other creature,
especially in trouble."--Id. (Th. xiii. p. 170). "It is not thy
kingly rule which draws hearts to thee, O wonderful heart!--but
thy having become a man in the fulness of time, and thy walk upon
the earth, full of weariness." "Though thou guidest the sceptre of
the starry realm, thou art still our brother; flesh and blood never
disowns itself." "The most powerful charm that melts my heart is
that my Lord died on the cross for me." "That it is which moves me;
I love thee for thy love, that thou, the creator, the supreme prince,
becamest the Lamb of God for me." "Thanks be to thee, dear Lamb of God,
with thousands of sinners' tears; thou didst die for me on the cross
and didst seek me with yearning." "Thy blood it is which has made
me give myself up to thee, else I had never thought of thee through
my whole life." "If thou hadst not laid hold upon me, I should never
have gone to seek thee." "O how sweetly the soul feeds on the passion
of Jesus! Shame and joy are stirred, O thou son of God and of man,
when in spirit we see thee so willingly go to death on the cross for
us, and each thinks: for me." "The Father takes us under his care,
the Son washes us with his blood, the Holy Spirit is always labouring
that he may guide and teach us." "Ah! King, great at all times, but
never greater than in the blood-stained robe of the martyr." "My
friend is to me and I to him as the Cherubim over the mercy-seat:
we look at each other continually. He seeks repose in my heart, and
I ever hasten towards his: he wishes to be in my soul, and I in the
wound in his side." These quotations are taken from the Moravian
hymn-book (Gesangbuch der Evangelischen Brüdergemeine. Gnadau,
1824). We see clearly enough from the examples above given, that
the deepest mystery of the Christian religion resolves itself into
the mystery of human self-love, but that religious self-love is
distinguished from natural in this, that it changes the active into
the passive. It is true that the more profound, mystical religious
sentiment abhors such naked, undisguised egoism as is exhibited in
the Herrnhut hymns; it does not in God expressly have reference to
itself; it rather forgets, denies itself, demands an unselfish,
disinterested love of God, contemplates God in relation to God,
not to itself. "Causa diligendi Deum, Deus est. Modus sine modo
diligere.... Qui Domino confitetur, non quoniam sibi bonus est, sed
quoniam bonus est, hic vere diligit Deum propter Deum et non propter
seipsum. Te enim quodammodo perdere, tanquam qui non sis et omnino non
sentire te ipsum et a temetipso exinaniri et pene annullari, coelestis
est conversationis, non humanae affectionis" (thus the ideal of love,
which, however, is first realised in heaven).--Bernhardus, Tract. de
dilig. Deo (ad Haymericum). But this free, unselfish love is only the
culmination of religious enthusiasm, in which the subject is merged
in the object. As soon as the distinction presents itself--and it
necessarily does so--so soon does the subject have reference to itself
as the object of God. And even apart from this: the religious subject
denies its ego, its personality, only because it has the enjoyment of
blissful personality in God--God per se the realised salvation of the
soul, God the highest self-contentment, the highest rapture of human
feeling. Hence the saying: "Qui Deum non diligit, seipsum non diligit."
§ 7.
Because God suffers man must suffer. The Christian religion is
the religion of suffering. "Videlicet vestigia Salvatoris sequimur
in theatris. Tale nobis scilicet Christus reliquit exemplum, quem
flerisse legimus, risisse non legimus."--Salvianus (l. c. l. vi. §
181). "Christianorum ergo est pressuram pati in hoc saeculo et
lugere, quorum est aeterna vita."--Origenes (Explan. in Ep. Pauli
ad Rom. l. ii. c. ii. interp. Hieronymo). "Nemo vitam aeternam,
incorruptibilem, immortalemque desiderat, nisi eum vitae hujus
temporalis, corruptibilis, mortalisque poeniteat.... Quid ergo cupimus,
nisi ita non esse ut nunc sumus? Et quid ingemiscimus, nisi poenitendo,
quia ita summus?"--Augustinus (Sermones ad pop. S. 351, c. 3). "Si
quidem aliquid melius et utilius saluti hominum quam pati fuisset,
Christus utique verbo et exemplo ostendisset.... Quoniam per multas
tribulationes oportet nos intrare in regnum Dei."--Thomas à Kempis
(de Imit. l. ii. c. 12). When, however, the Christian religion
is designated as the religion of suffering, this of course
applies only to the Christianity of the "mistaken" Christians
of old times. Protestantism, in its very beginning, denied the
sufferings of Christ as constituting a principle of morality. It is
precisely the distinction between Catholicism and Protestantism,
in relation to this subject, that the latter, out of self-regard,
attached itself only to the merits of Christ, while the former,
out of sympathy, attached itself to his sufferings. "Formerly in
Popery the sufferings of the Lord were so preached, that it was
only pointed out how his example should be imitated. After that,
the time was filled up with the sufferings and sorrows of Mary,
and the compassion with which Christ and his mother were bewailed;
and the only aim was how to make it piteous, and move the people
to compassion and tears, and he who could do this well was held the
best preacher for Passion-Week. But we preach the Lord's sufferings
as the Holy Scripture teaches us.... Christ suffered for the praise
and glory of God ... but to me, and thee, and all of us, he suffered
in order to bring redemption and blessedness.... The cause and
end of the sufferings of Christ is comprised in this--he suffered
for us. This honour is to be given to no other suffering."--Luther
(Th. xvi. p. 182). "Lamb! I weep only for joy over thy suffering;
the suffering was thine, but thy merit is mine!" "I know of no joys
but those which come from thy sufferings." "It remains ever in my
mind that it cost thee thy blood to redeem me." "O my Immanuel! how
sweet is it to my soul when thou permittest me to enjoy the outpouring
of thy blood." "Sinners are glad at heart that they have a Saviour
... it is wondrously beautiful to them to see Jesus on the Cross"
(Moravian hymn-book). It is therefore not to be wondered at if
Christians of the present day decline to know anything more of the
sufferings of Christ. It is they, forsooth, who have first made out
what true Christianity is--they rely solely on the divine word of the
Holy Scriptures. And the Bible, as every one knows, has the valuable
quality that everything may be found in it which it is desired to
find. What once stood there, of course now stands there no longer. The
principle of stability has long vanished from the Bible. Divine
revelation is as changing as human opinion. Tempora mutantur.
§ 8.
The mystery of the Trinity is the mystery of participated, social
life--the mystery of I and thou. "Unum Deum esse confitemur. Non sic
unum Deum, quasi solitarium, nec eundem, qui ipse sibi pater, sit
ipse filius, sed patrem verum, qui genuit filium verum, i.e. Deum
ex Deo ... non creatum, sed genitum."--Concil. Chalced. (Carranza
Summa, 1559. p. 139). "Si quis quod scriptum est: Faciamus hominem,
non patrem ad filium dicere, sed ipsum ad semetipsum asserit dixisse
Deum, anathema sit."--Concil. Syrmiense (ibid. p. 68). "Jubet
autem his verbis: Faciamus hominem, prodeat herba. Ex quibus
apparet, Deum cum aliquo sibi proximo sermones his de rebus
conserere. Necesse est igitur aliquem ei adfuisse, cum quo
universa condens, colloquium miscebat."--Athanasius (Contra Gentes
Orat. Ath. Opp. Parisiis, 1627, Th. i. p. 51). "Professio enim
consortii sustulit intelligentiam singularitatis, quod consortium
aliquid nec potest esse sibi ipsi solitario, neque rursum solitudo
solitarii recipit: faciamus.... Non solitario convenit dicere:
faciamus et nostram."--Petrus Lomb. (l. i. dist. 2, c. 3, e.). The
Protestants explain the passage in the same way. "Quod profecto
aliter intelligi nequit, quam inter ipsas trinitatis personas
quandam de creando homine institutam fuisse consultationem."--Buddeus
(comp. Inst. Theol. dog. cur. J. G. Walch. l. ii. c. i. § 45). "'Let
us make' is the word of a deliberative council. And from these words
it necessarily follows again, that in the Godhead there must be more
than one person.... For the little word 'us' indicates that he who
there speaks is not alone, though the Jews make the text ridiculous
by saying that there is a way of speaking thus, even where there is
only one person."--Luther (Th. i. p. 19). Not only consultations,
but compacts take place between the chief persons in the Trinity,
precisely as in human society. "Nihil aliud superest, quam ut consensum
quemdam patris ac filii adeoque quoddam velut pactum (in relation,
namely, to the redemption of men) inde concludamus."--Buddeus
(Comp. l. iv. c. i. § 4, note 2). And as the essential bond of the
Divine Persons is love, the Trinity is the heavenly type of the closest
bond of love--marriage. "Nunc Filium Dei ... precemur, ut spiritu
sancto suo, qui nexus est et vinculum mutui amoris inter aeternum
patrem ac filium, sponsi et sponsæ pectora conglutinet."--Or. de
Conjugio (Declam. Melancth. Th. iii. p. 453).
The distinctions in the Divine essence of the Trinity are
natural, physical distinctions. "Jam de proprietatibus personarum
videamus.... Et est proprium solius patris, non quod non est
natus ipse, sed quod unum filium genuerit, propriumque solius
filii, non quod ipse non genuit, sed quod de patris essentia
natus est."--Hylarius in l. iii. de Trinitate. "Nos filii Dei
sumus, sed non talis hic filius. Hic enim verus et proprius
est filius origine, non adoptione, veritate, non nuncupatione,
nativitate, non creatione."--Petrus L. (l. i. dist. 26, cc. 2,
4). "Quodsi dum eum aeternum confitemur, profitemur ipsum Filium
ex Patre, quomodo is, qui genitus est, genitoris frater esse
poterit?... Non enim ex aliquo principio praeexistente Pater et
Filius procreati sunt, ut fratres existimari queant, sed Pater
principium Filii et genitor est: et Pater Pater est neque ullius
Filius fuit, et Filius Filius est et non frater."--Athanasius
(Contra Arianos. Orat. II. Ed. c. T. i. p. 320). "Qui (Deus)
cum in rebus quae nascuntur in tempore, sua bonitate effecerit,
ut suae substantiae prolem quaelibet res gignat, sicut homo gignit
hominem, non alterius naturae, sed ejus cujus ipse est, vide quam
impie dicatur ipse non gennisse id quod ipse est."--Augustinus
(Ep. 170, § 6. ed. Antwp. 1700). "Ut igitur in natura hominum filium
dicimus genitum de substantia patris, similem patri: ita secunda
persona Filius dicitur, quia de substantia Patris natus est et
ejus est imago."--Melancthon (Loci praecipui Theol. Witebergae,
1595, p. 30). "As a corporeal son has his flesh and blood and
nature from his father, so also the Son of God, born of the
Father, has his divine nature from the Father of Eternity."--Luther
(Th. ix. p. 408). H. A. Roel, a theologian of the school of Descartes
and Coccejus, had advanced this thesis: "Filium Dei, Secundam Deitatis
personam improprie dici genitam." This was immediately opposed by
his colleague, Camp. Vitringa, who declared it an unheard-of thesis,
and maintained: "Generationem Filii Dei ab aeterno propriissime
enunciari." Other theologians also contended against Roel, and
declared: "Generationem in Deo esse maxime veram et propriam."--(Acta
Erudit. Supplem. T. i. S. vii. p. 377, etc.). That in the Bible
also the Filius Dei signifies a real son is unequivocally implied in
this passage: "God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten
Son." If the love of God, which this passage insists upon, is to be
regarded as a truth, then the Son also must be a truth, and, in plain
language, a physical truth. On this lies the emphasis that God gave
his own Son for us--in this alone the proof of his great love. Hence
the Herrnhut hymn-book correctly apprehends the sense of the Bible
when it says of "the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is also
our Father:" "His Son is not too dear. No! he gives him up for me,
that he may save me from the eternal fire by his dear blood. Thou
hast so loved the world that thy heart consents to give up the Son,
thy joy and life, to suffering and death."
God is a threefold being, a trinity of persons, means: God is not
only a metaphysical, abstract, spiritual, but a physical being. The
central point of the Trinity is the Son, for the Father is Father only
through the Son; but the mystery of the generation of the Son is the
mystery of physical nature. The Son is the need of sensuousness,
or of the heart, satisfied in God; for all wishes of the heart,
even the wish for a personal God and for heavenly felicity,
are sensuous wishes;--the heart is essentially materialistic, it
contents itself only with an object which is seen and felt. This is
especially evident in the conception that the Son, even in the midst
of the Divine Trinity, has the human body as an essential, permanent
attribute. Ambrosius: "Scriptum est Ephes. i.: Secundum carnem igitur
omnia ipsi subjecta traduntur." Chrysostomus: "Christum secundum carnem
pater jussit a cunctis angelis adorari." Theodoretus: "Corpus Dominicum
surrexit quidem a mortuis, divina glorificata gloria ... corpus
tamen est et habet, quam prius habuit, circumscriptionem." (See
Concordienbuchs-anhang. "Zeugnisse der h. Schrift und Altväter von
Christo," and Petrus L. l. iii. dist. 10, cc. 1, 2. See also on this
subject Luther, Th. xix. pp. 464-468.) In accordance with this the
United Brethren say: "I will ever embrace thee in love and faith,
until, when at length my lips are pale in death, I shall see thee
bodily." "Thy eyes, thy mouth, the body wounded for us, on which we
so firmly rely,--all that I shall behold."
Hence the Son of God is the darling of the human heart, the bridegroom
of the soul, the object of a formal, personal love. "O Domine Jesu,
si adeo sunt dulces istae lachrymae, quae ex memoria et desiderio tui
excitantur, quam dulce erit gaudium, quod ex manifesta tui visione
capietur? Si adeo dulce est flere pro te, quam dulce erit gaudere de
te. Sed quid hujusmodi secreta colloquia proferimus in publicum? Cur
ineffabiles et innarrabiles affectus communibus verbis conamur
exprimere? Inexperti talia non intelligunt. Zelotypus est sponsus
iste.... Delicatus est sponsus iste."--Scala Claustralium (sive de modo
orandi. Among the spurious writings of St. Bernard). "Luge propter
amorem Jesu Christi, sponsi tui, quosque eum videre possis."--(De
modo bene vivendi. Sermo x. id.) "Adspectum Christi, qui adhuc
inadspectabilis et absens amorem nostrum meruit et exercuit,
frequentius scripturae commemorant. Joh. xiv. 3; 1 Joh. iii. 1;
1 Pet. i. 8; 1 Thess. iv. 17. Ac quis non jucundum credat videre
corpus illud, cujus velut instrumento usus est filius Dei ad
expianda peccata, et absentem tandem amicum salutare?"--Doederlein
(Inst. Theol. Chr. l. ii. P. ii. C. ii. Sect. ii. § 302. Obs. 3). "Quod
oculis corporis Christum visuri simus, dubio caret."--J. Fr. Buddeus
(Comp. Inst. Theol. Dogm. l. ii. c. iii. § 10).
The distinction between God with the Son, or the sensuous God, and God
without the Son, or God divested of sensuousness, is nothing further
than the distinction between the mystical and the rational man. The
rational man lives and thinks; with him life is the complement of
thought, and thought the complement of life, both theoretically,
inasmuch as he convinces himself of the reality of sensuousness through
the reason itself, and practically, inasmuch as he combines activity
of life with activity of thought. That which I have in life, I do not
need to posit beyond life, in spirit, in metaphysical existence, in
God; love, friendship, perception, the world in general, give me what
thought does not, cannot give me, nor ought to give me. Therefore I
dismiss the needs of the heart from the sphere of thought, that reason
may not be clouded by desires;--in the demarcation of activities
consists the wisdom of life and thought;--I do not need a God who
supplies by a mystical, imaginary physicalness or sensuousness
the absence of the real. My heart is satisfied before I enter into
intellectual activity; hence my thought is cold, indifferent, abstract,
i.e., free, in relation to the heart, which oversteps its limits,
and improperly mixes itself with the affairs of the reason. Thus I
do not think in order to satisfy my heart, but to satisfy my reason,
which is not satisfied by the heart; I think only in the interest
of reason, from pure desire of knowledge, I seek in God only the
contentment of the pure, unmixed intelligence. Necessarily, therefore,
the God of the rational thinker is another than the God of the heart,
which in thought, in reason, only seeks its own satisfaction. And
this is the aim of the mystic, who cannot endure the luminous fire
of discriminating and limiting criticism; for his mind is always
beclouded by the vapours which rise from the unextinguished ardour
of his feelings. He never attains to abstract, i.e., disinterested,
free thought, and for that reason he never attains to the perception
of things in their naturalness, truth, and reality.
One more remark concerning the Trinity. The older theologians said
that the essential attributes of God as God were made manifest by
the light of natural reason. But how is it that reason can know the
Divine Being, unless it be because the Divine Being is nothing else
than the objective nature of the intelligence itself? Of the Trinity,
on the other hand, they said that it could only be known through
revelation. Why not through reason; because it contradicts reason,
i.e., because it does not express a want of the reason, but a sensuous,
emotional want. In general, the proposition that an idea springs from
revelation means no more than that it has come to us by the way of
tradition. The dogmas of religion have arisen at certain times out
of definite wants, under definite relations and conceptions; for this
reason, to the men of a later time, in which these relations, wants,
conceptions, have disappeared, they are something unintelligible,
incomprehensible, only traditional, i.e., revealed. The antithesis
of revelation and reason reduces itself only to the antithesis of
history and reason, only to this, that mankind at a given time is no
longer capable of that which at another time it was quite capable of;
just as the individual man does not unfold his powers at all times
indifferently, but only in moments of special appeal from without or
incitement from within. Thus the works of genius arise only under
altogether special inward and outward conditions which cannot thus
coincide more than once; they are apax legomena. "Einmal ist alles
wahre nur." The true is born but once. Hence a man's own works often
appear to him in later years quite strange and incomprehensible. He no
longer knows how he produced them or could produce them, i.e., he can
no longer explain them out of himself, still less reproduce them. And
just as it would be folly if, in riper years, because the productions
of our youth have become strange and inexplicable to us in their tenor
and origin, we were to refer them to a special inspiration from above;
so it is folly, because the doctrines and ideas of a past age are
no longer recognised by the reason of a subsequent age, to claim for
them a supra- and extra-human, i.e., an imaginary, illusory origin.
§ 9.
The creation out of nothing expresses the non-divineness,
non-essentiality, i.e., the nothingness of the world.
That is created which once did not exist, which some time will
exist no longer, to which, therefore, it is possible not to exist,
which we can think of as not existing, in a word, which has not its
existence in itself, is not necessary. "Cum enim res producantur ex suo
non-esse, possunt ergo absolute non-esse, adeoque implicat, quod non
sunt necessariæ."--Duns Scotus (ap. Rixner, B. ii. p. 78). But only
necessary existence is existence. If I am not necessary, do not feel
myself necessary, I feel that it is all one whether I exist or not,
that thus my existence is worthless, nothing. "I am nothing," and "I
am not necessary," is fundamentally the same thing. "Creatio non est
motus, sed simplicis divinae voluntatis vocatio ad esse eorum, quae
antea nihil fuerunt et secundum se ipsa et nihil sunt et ex nihilo
sunt."--Albertus M. (de. Mirab. Scient. Dei P. ii. Tr. i. Qu. 4,
Art. 5, memb. ii.) But the position that the world is not necessary,
has no other bearing than to prove that the extra- and supra-mundane
being (i.e., in fact, the human being) is the only necessary, only
real being. Since the one is non-essential and temporal, the other is
necessarily the essential, existent, eternal. The creation is the proof
that God is, that he is exclusively true and real. "Sanctus Dominus
Deus omnipotens in principio, quod est in te, in sapientia tua, quae
nata est de substantia tua, fecisti aliquid et de nihilo. Fecisti enim
coelum et terram non de te, nam esset aequale unigenito tuo, ac per hoc
et tibi, et nullo modo justum esset, ut aequale tibi esset, quod in te
non esset. Et aliud praeter te non erat, unde faceres ea Deus.... Et
ideo de nihilo fecisti coelum et terram."--Augustinus (Confessionum
l. xii c. 7). "Vere enim ipse est, quia incommutabilis est. Omnis enim
mutatio facit non esse quod erat.... Ei ergo qui summe est, non potest
esse contrarium nisi quod non est.--Si solus ipse incommutabilis, omnia
quae fecit, quia ex nihilo id est ex eo quod omnino non est--fecit,
mutabilia sunt."--Augustin (de nat. boni adv. Manich. cc. 1,
19). "Creatura in nullo debet parificari Deo, si autem non habuisset
initium durationis et esse, in hoc parificaretur Deo."--(Albertus
M. l. c. Quaest. incidens 1). The positive, the essential in the
world is not that which makes it a world, which distinguishes it from
God--this is precisely its finiteness and nothingness--but rather that
in it which is not itself, which is God. "All creatures are a pure
nothing ... they have no essential existence, for their existence
hangs on the presence of God. If God turned himself away a moment,
they would fall to nothing."--(Predigten vor. u. zu. Tauleri Zeiten,
ed. c. p. 29. See also Augustine, e.g. Confess. l. vii. c. 11). This
is quite correctly said from the standpoint of religion, for God
is the principle of existence, the being of the world, though he
is represented as a personal being distinct from the world. The
world lasts so long as God wills. The world is transient, but man
eternal. "Quamdiu vult, omnia ejus virtute manent atque consistunt,
et finis eorum in Dei voluntatem recurrit, et ejus arbitrio
resolvuntur."--Ambrosius (Hexaemeron. l. i. c. 5). "Spiritus
enim a Deo creati nunquam esse desinunt.... Corpora coelestia
tam diu conservantur, quamdiu Deus ea vult permanere."--Buddeus
(Comp. l. ii. c. ii. § 47). "The dear God does not alone create,
but what he creates he keeps with his own being, until he wills that
it shall be no longer. For the time will come when the sun, moon,
and stars shall be no more."--Luther (Th. ix. s. 418). "The end will
come sooner than we think."--Id. (Th. xi. s. 536). By means of the
creation out of nothing man gives himself the certainty that the world
is nothing, is powerless against man. "We have a Lord who is greater
than the whole world; we have a Lord so powerful, that when he only
speaks all things are born.... Wherefore should we fear, since he is
favourable to us?"--Id. (Th. vi. p. 293). Identical with the belief in
the creation out of nothing is the belief in the eternal life of man,
in the victory over death, the last constraint which nature imposes
on man--in the resurrection of the dead. "Six thousand years ago
the world was nothing; and who has made the world?... The same God
and Creator can also awake thee from the dead; he will do it, and
can do it."--Id. (Th. xi. p. 426. See also 421, &c.) "We Christians
are greater and more than all creatures, not in or by ourselves, but
through the gift of God in Christ, against whom the world is nothing,
and can do nothing."--Id. (Th. xi. p. 377).
§ 10.
The Creation in the Israelitish religion has only a particular,
egoistic aim and purport. The Israelitish religion is the religion of
the most narrow-hearted egoism. Even the later Israelites, scattered
throughout the world, persecuted and oppressed, adhered with immovable
firmness to the egoistic faith of their forefathers. "Every Israelitish
soul by itself is, in the eyes of the blessed God, dearer and more
precious than all the souls of a whole nation besides." "The Israelites
are among the nations what the heart is among the members." "The end
in the creation of the world was Israel alone. The world was created
for the sake of the Israelites; they are the fruit, other nations
are their husks." "All the heathens are nothing for him (God); but
for the Israelites God has a use.... They adore and bless the name
of the holy and blessed God every day, therefore they are numbered
every hour, and made as (numerous as) the grains of corn." "If the
Israelites were not, there would fall no rain on the world, and the sun
would not rise but for their sakes." "He (God) is our kinsman, and we
are his kindred.... No power or angel is akin to us, for the Lord's
portion is his people" (Deut. xxxii. 9). "He who rises up against
an Israelite (to injure him), does the same thing as if he rose up
against God." "If anyone smite an Israelite on the cheek, it is the
same as if he smote the cheek of the divine majesty."--Eisenmengers
(Entdecktes Judenthum, T. i. Kap. 14). The Christians blamed the
Jews for this arrogance, but only because the kingdom of God was
taken from them and transferred to the Christians. Accordingly,
we find the same thoughts and sentiments in the Christians as in
the Israelites. "Know that God so takes thee unto himself that
thy enemies are his enemies."--Luther (T. vi. p. 99). "It is the
Christians for whose sake God spares the whole world.... The Father
makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on
the just and on the unjust. Yet this happens only for the sake of the
pious and thankful." (T. xvi. p. 506.) "He who despises me despises
God." (T. xi. p. 538.) "God suffers, and is despised and persecuted,
in us." (T. iv. p. 577.) Such declarations as these are, I should
think, argumenta ad hominem for the identity of God and man.
§ 11.
The idea of Providence is the religious consciousness of man's
distinction from the brutes, from Nature in general. "Doth God take
care for oxen?" (1 Cor. ix. 9.) "Nunquid curae est Deo bobus? inquit
Paulus. Ad nos ea cura dirigitur, non ad boves, equos, asinos, qui
in usum nostrum sunt conditi."--J. L. Vivis Val. (de Veritate Fidei
Chr. Bas. 1544, p. 108). "Providentia Dei in omnibus aliis creaturis
respicit ad hominem tanquam ad metam suam. Multis passeribus vos pluris
estis. Matth. x. 31. Propter peccatum hominis natura subjecta est
vanitati. Rom. viii. 20."--M. Chemnitii (Loci theol. Francof. 1608,
P. i. p. 312). "Nunquid enim cura est Deo de bobus? Et sicut non
est cura Deo de bobus, ita nec de aliis irrationalibus. Dicit tamen
scriptura (Sapient. vi.) quia ipsi cura est de omnibus. Providentiam
ergo et curam universaliter de cunctis, quae condidit, habet.... Sed
specialem providentiam atque curam habet de rationalibus."--Petrus
L. (l. i. dist. 39, c. 3). Here we have again an example how Christian
sophistry is a product of Christian faith, especially of faith in the
Bible as the word of God. First we read that God cares not for oxen;
then that God cares for everything, and therefore for oxen. That is
a contradiction; but the word of God must not contradict itself. How
does faith escape from this contradiction? By distinguishing between a
general and a special providence. But general providence is illusory,
is in truth no providence. Only special providence is providence in
the sense of religion.
General providence--the providence which extends itself equally to
irrational and rational beings, which makes no distinction between
man and the lilies of the field or the fowls of the air, is nothing
else than the idea of Nature--an idea which man may have without
religion. The religious consciousness admits this when it says:
he who denies providence abolishes religion, places man on a level
with the brutes;--thus declaring that the providence in which the
brutes have a share is in truth no providence. Providence partakes of
the character of its object; hence the providence which has plants
and animals for its object is in accordance with the qualities and
relations of plants and animals. Providence is nothing else than
the inward nature of a thing; this inward nature is its genius,
its guardian spirit--the necessity of its existence. The higher,
the more precious a being is,--the more ground of existence it has,
the more necessary it is, the less is it open to annihilation. Every
being is necessary only through that by which it is distinguished
from other beings; its specific difference is the ground of its
existence. So man is necessary only through that by which he is
distinguished from the brutes; hence providence is nothing else
than man's consciousness of the necessity of his existence, of the
distinction between his nature and that of other beings; consequently
that alone is the true providence in which this specific difference
of man becomes an object to him. But this providence is special,
i.e., the providence of love, for only love interests itself in
what is special to a being. Providence without love is a conception
without basis, without reality. The truth of providence is love. God
loves men, not brutes, not plants; for only for man's sake does he
perform extraordinary deeds, deeds of love--miracles. Where there
is no community there is no love. But what bond can be supposed to
unite brutes, or natural things in general, with God? God does not
recognise himself in them, for they do not recognise him;--where I
find nothing of myself, how can I love? "God who thus promises, does
not speak with asses and oxen, as Paul says: Doth God take care for
oxen? but with rational creatures made in his likeness, that they may
live for ever with him." Luther (Th. ii. s. 156). God is first with
himself in man; in man first begins religion, providence; for the
latter is not something different from the former, on the contrary,
religion is itself the providence of man. He who loses religion, i.e.,
faith in himself, faith in man, in the infinite significance of his
being, in the necessity of his existence, loses providence. He alone is
forsaken who forsakes himself; he alone is lost who despairs; he alone
is without God who is without faith, i.e., without courage. Wherein
does religion place the true proof of providence? in the phenomena
of Nature, as they are objects to us out of religion,--in astronomy,
in physics, in natural history? No! In those appearances which are
objects of religion, of faith only, which express only the faith
of religion in itself, i.e., in the truth and reality of man,--in
the religious events, means, and institutions which God has ordained
exclusively for the salvation of man, in a word, in miracles; for the
means of grace, the sacraments, belong to the class of providential
miracles. "Quamquam autem haec consideratio universae naturae nos
admonet de Deo ... tamen nos referamus initio mentem et oculos ad
omnia testimonia, in quibus se Deus ecclesiae patefecit ad eductionem
ex Aegypto, ad vocem sonantem in Sinai, ad Christum resuscitantem
mortuos et resuscitatum, etc.... Ideo semper defixae sint mentes
in horum testimoniorum cogitationem et his confirmatae articulum de
Creatione meditentur, deinde considerent etiam vestigia Dei impressae
naturae."--Melancthon (Loci de Creat. p. 62, ed. cit.). "Mirentur
alii creationem, mihi magis libet mirari redemptionem. Mirabile est,
quod caro nostra et ossa nostra a Deo nobis sunt formata, mirabilius
adhuc est, quod ipse Deus caro de carne nostra et os de ossibus nostris
fieri voluit."--J. Gerhard (Med. s. M. 15). "The heathens know God
no further than that he is a Creator."--Luther (T. ii. p. 327). That
providence has only man for its essential object is evident from this,
that to religious faith all things and beings are created for the sake
of man. "We are lords not only of birds, but of all living creatures,
and all things are given for our service, and are created only for
our sake."--Luther (T. ix. p. 281). But if things are created only
for the sake of man, they are also preserved only for the sake of
man. And if things are mere instruments of man, they stand under
the protection of no law, they are, in relation to man, without
rights. This outlawing of things explains miracle.
The negation of providence is the negation of God. "Qui ergo
providentiam tollit, totum Dei substantiam tollit et quid dicit
nisi Deum non esse?... Si non curat humana, sive nesciens, cessat
omnis causa pietatis, cum sit spes nulla salutis."--Joa. Trithemius
(Tract. de Provid. Dei). "Nam qui nihil aspici a Deo affirmant prope
est ut cui adspectum adimunt, etiam substantiam tollant."--Salvianus
(l. c. l. iv.). "Aristotle almost falls into the opinion that
God--though he does not expressly name him a fool--is such a one that
he knows nothing of our affairs, nothing of our designs, understands,
sees, regards nothing but himself.... But what is such a God or Lord
to us? of what use is he to us?"--Luther (in Walch's Philos. Lexikon,
art. Vorsehung). Providence is therefore the most undeniable, striking
proof that in religion, in the nature of God himself, man is occupied
only with himself, that the mystery of theology is anthropology, that
the substance, the content of the infinite being, is the "finite"
being. "God sees men," means: in God man sees only himself; "God
cares for man," means: a God who is not active is no real God. But
there is no activity without an object: it is the object which first
converts activity from a mere power into real activity. This object is
man. If man did not exist, God would have no cause for activity. Thus
man is the motive principle, the soul of God. A God who does not see
and hear man, who has not man in himself, is blind and deaf, i.e.,
inert, empty, unsubstantial. Thus the fulness of the divine nature
is the fulness of the human; thus the Godhead of God is humanity. I
for myself, is the comfortless mystery of epicureanism, stoicism,
pantheism; God for me, this is the consolatory mystery of religion,
of Christianity. Is man for God's sake, or God for man's? It is true
that in religion man exists for God's sake, but only because God
exists for man's sake. I am for God because God is for me.
Providence is identical with miraculous power, supernaturalistic
freedom from Nature, the dominion of arbitrariness over law. "Etsi
(sc. Deus) sustentat naturam, tamen contra ordinem jussit aliquando
Solem regredi, etc.... Ut igitur invocatio vere fieri possit,
cogitemus Deum sic adesse suo opificio, non, ut Stoici fingunt,
alligatum secundis causis, sed sustentantem naturam et multa suo
liberrimo consilio moderantem.... Multa facit prima causa praeter
secundas, quia est agens liberum."--Melancthon (Loci de Causâ
Peccati, pp. 82, 83, ed. cit.) "Scriptura vero tradit, Deum in
actione providentiae esse agens liberum, qui ut plurimum quidem
ordinem sui operis servet, illi tamen ordini non sit alligatus,
sed 1) quicquid facit per causas secundas, illud possit etiam sine
illis per se solum facere 2) quod ex causis secundis possit alium
effectum producere, quam ipsarum dispositio et natura ferat 3)
quod positis ausis secundis in actu, Deus tamen effectum possit
impedire, mutare, mitigare, exasperare.... Non igitur est connexio
causarum Stoica in actionibus providentiae Dei."--M. Chemnitius
(l. c. pp. 316, 317). "Liberrime Deus imperat naturae--Naturam saluti
hominum attemperat propter Ecclesiam.... Omnino tribuendus est Deo hic
honos, quod possit et velit opitulari nobis, etiam cum a tota natura
destituimur, contra seriem omnium secundarum causarum.... Et multa
accidunt plurimis hominibus, in quibus mirandi eventus fateri eos
cogunt, se a Deo sine causis secundis servatos esse."--C. Peucerus
(de Praecip. Divinat. gen. Servestae, 1591, p. 44). "Ille tamen qui
omnium est conditor, nullis instrumentis indiget. Nam si id continuo
fit, quicquid ipse vult, velle illius erit author atque instrumentum;
nec magis ad haec regenda astris indiget, quam cum luto aperuit
oculos coeci, sicut refert historia Evangelica. Lutum enim magis
videbatur obturaturum oculos, quam aperturum. Sed ipse ostendere nobis
voluit omnem naturam esse sibi instrumentum ad quidvis, quantumcunque
alienum."--J. L. Vives (l. c. 102). "How is this to be reconciled? The
air gives food and nourishment, and here stones or rocks flow with
water; it is a marvellous gift. And it is also strange and marvellous
that corn grows out of the earth. Who has this art and this power? God
has it, who can do such unnatural things, that we may thence imagine
what sort of a God he is and what sort of power he has, that we may
not be terrified at him nor despair, but firmly believe and trust him,
that he can make the leather in the pocket into gold, and can make dust
into corn on the earth, and the air a cellar for me full of wine. He
is to be trusted, as having such great power, and we may know that we
have a God who can perform these deeds of skill, and that around him
it rains and snows with miraculous works."--Luther (T. iii. p. 594).
The omnipotence of Providence is the omnipotence of human feeling
releasing itself from all conditions and laws of Nature. This
omnipotence is realised by prayer. Prayer is Almighty. "The prayer
of faith shall save the sick.... The effectual fervent prayer of a
righteous man availeth much. Elias was a man subject to like passions
as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain; and it
rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And
he prayed again, and the heavens gave rain and the earth brought forth
her fruit."--James v. 15-18. "If ye have faith and doubt not, ye shall
not only do this which is done to the fig-tree, but also if ye shall
say unto this mountain, Be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea,
it shall be done, and all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer,
believing, ye shall receive."--Matt. xxi. 21, 22. That under this
mountain which the power of faith is to overcome are to be understood
not only very difficult things--res difficillimae, as the exegetists
say, who explain this passage as a proverbial, hyperbolical mode of
speech among the Jews, but rather things which according to Nature and
reason are impossible, is proved by the case of the instantaneously
withered fig-tree, to which the passage in question refers. Here
indubitably is declared the omnipotence of prayer, of faith, before
which the power of Nature vanishes into nothing. "Mutanturquoque
ad preces ea quae ex naturae causis erant sequutura, quemadmodum
in Ezechia contigit, rege Juda, cui, quod naturales causarum
progressus mortem minabantur, dictum est a propheta Dei: Morieris
et non vives; sed is decursus naturae ad regis preces mutatus est et
mutaturum se Deus praeviderat."--J. L. Vives (l. c. p. 132). "Saepe
fatorum saevitiam lenit Deus, placatus piorum votis."--Melancthon
(Epist. Sim. Grynaeo). "Cedit natura rerum precibus Moysi. Eliae,
Elisaei, Jesaiae et omnium piorum, sicut Christus inquit Matt. 21:
Omnia quae petetis, credentes accipietis."--Id. (Loci de Creat. p. 64,
ed. cit.). Celsus calls on the Christians to aid the Emperor and not to
decline military service. Whereupon Origen answers. "Precibus nostris
profligantes omnes bellorum excitatores daemonas et perturbatores
pacis ac foederum plus conferimus regibus, quam qui arma gestant pro
Republica."--Origenes (adv. Celsum. S. Glenio int. l. viii.). Human
need is the necessity of the Divine Will. In prayer man is the active,
the determining, God the passive, the determined. God does the will of
man. "God does the will of those that fear him, and he gives his will
up to ours.... For the text says clearly enough, that Lot was not to
stay in all the plain, but to escape to the mountain. But this his
wish God changes, because Lot fears him and prays to him." "And we
have other testimonies in the Scriptures which prove that God allows
himself to be turned and subjects his will to our wish." "Thus it was
according to the regular order of God's power that the sun should
maintain its revolution and wonted course; but when Joshua in his
need called on the Lord and commanded the sun that it should stand
still, it stood still at Joshua's word. How great a miracle this was,
ask the astronomers."--Luther (T. ii. p. 226). "Lord, I am here and
there in great need and danger of body and soul, and therefore want
thy help and comfort. Item: I must have this and that; therefore I
entreat thee that thou give it me." "He who so prays and perseveres
unabashed does right, and our Lord God is well pleased with him,
for he is not so squeamish as we men."--Id. (T. xvi. p. 150).
§ 12.
Faith is the freedom and blessedness which feeling finds in
itself. Feeling objective to itself and active in this freedom,
the reaction of feeling against Nature, is the arbitrariness
of the imagination. The objects of faith therefore necessarily
contradict Nature, necessarily contradict Reason, as that
which represents the nature of things. "Quid magis contra
fidem, quam credere nolle, quidquid non possit ratione
attingere?... Nam illam quae in Deum est fides, beatus papa
Gregorius negat plane habere meritum, si ei humana ratio praebeat
experimentum."--Bernardus (contr. Abelard. Ep. ad. Dom. Papam
Innocentium). "Partus virginis nec ratione colligitur,
nec exemplo monstratur. Quodsi ratione colligitur non erit
mirabile."--Conc. Toletan. XI. Art. IV. (Summa. Carranza.) "Quid
autem incredibile, si contra usum originis naturalis peperit Maria et
virgo permanet: quando contra usum naturae mare vidit et fugit atque
in fontem suum Jordanis fluenta remearunt? Non ergo excedit fidem,
quod virgo peperit, quando legimus, quod petra vomuit aquas et in
montis speciem maris unda solidata est. Non ergo excedit fidem,
quod homo exivit de virgine, quando petra profluit, scaturivit
ferrum supra aquas, ambulavit homo supra aquas."--Ambrosius
(Epist. L. x. Ep. 81. edit. Basil. Amerbach. 1492 et 1516). "Mira
sunt fratres, quae de isto sacramento dicuntur.... Haec sunt quae
fidem necessario exigunt, rationem omnino non admittunt."--Bernardus
(de Coena Dom.). "Quid ergo hic quaeris naturae ordinem in Christi
corpore, cum praeter naturam sit ipse partus ex virgine."--Petrus
Lomb. (l. iv. dist. 10, c. 2). "Laus fidei est credere quod
est supra rationem, ubi homo abnegat intellectum et omnes
sensus." (Addit. Henrici de Vurimaria. ibid. dist. 12, c. 5.) "All the
articles of our faith appear foolish and ridiculous to reason." ... "We
Christians seem fools to the world for believing that Mary was the true
mother of this child, and was nevertheless a pure virgin. For this is
not only against all reason, but also against the creation of God,
who said to Adam and Eve, 'Be fruitful and multiply.'" "We ought not
to inquire whether a thing be possible, but we should say, God has
said it, therefore it will happen, even if it be impossible. For
although I cannot see or understand it, yet the Lord can make the
impossible possible, and out of nothing can make all things."--Luther
(T. xvi. pp. 148, 149, 570). "What is more miraculous than that God and
man is one Person? that he is the Son of God and the Son of Mary, and
yet only one Son? Who will comprehend this mystery in all eternity,
that God is man, that a creature is the Creator, and the Creator
a creature?"--Id. (T. vii. p. 128). The essential object of faith,
therefore, is miracle; but not common, visible miracle, which is an
object even to the bold eye of curiosity and unbelief in general;
not the appearance, but the essence of miracle; not the fact, but
the miraculous power, the Being who works miracles, who attests and
reveals himself in miracle. And this miraculous power is to faith
always present; even Protestantism believes in the uninterrupted
perpetuation of miraculous power; it only denies the necessity that
it should still manifest itself in special visible signs, for the
furtherance of dogmatic ends. "Some have said that signs were the
revelation of the Spirit in the commencement of Christianity and have
now ceased. That is not correct; for there is even now such a power,
and though it is not used, that is of no importance. For we have still
the power to perform such signs." "Now, however, that Christianity
is spread abroad and made known to all the world, there is no need
to work miracles, as in the times of the apostles. But if there were
need for it, if the Gospel were oppressed and persecuted, we must
truly apply ourselves to this, and must also work miracles."--Luther
(Th. xiii. pp. 642, 648). Miracle is so essential, so natural to
faith, that to it even natural phenomena are miracles, and not in the
physical sense, but in the theological, supranaturalistic sense. "God,
in the beginning, said: Let the earth bring forth grass and herbs,
&c. That same word which the Creator spoke brings the cherry out of
the dry bough and the cherry-tree out of the little kernel. It is
the omnipotence of God which makes young fowls and geese come out
of the eggs. Thus God preaches to us daily of the resurrection of
the dead, and has given us as many examples and experiences of this
article as there are creatures."--Luther (Th. x. p. 432. See also
Th. iii. pp. 586, 592, and Augustine, e.g., Enarr. in Ps. 90, Sermo
ii. c. 6). If, therefore, faith desires and needs no special miracle,
this is only because to it everything is fundamentally miracle,
everything an effect of divine, miraculous power. Religious faith
has no sense, no perception for Nature. Nature, as it exists for us,
has no existence for faith. To it the will of God is alone the ground,
the bond, the necessity of things. "God ... could indeed have made us
men, as he did Adam and Eve, by himself, without father and mother,
as he could reign without princes, as he could give light without
sun and stars, and bread without fields and ploughs and labour. But
it is not his will to do thus."--Luther (Th. xvi. p. 614). It is true
"God employs certain means, and so conducts his miraculous works as to
use the service of Nature and instruments." Therefore we ought--truly
on very natural grounds--"not to despise the means and instruments of
Nature." "Thus it is allowable to use medicine, nay, it ought to be
used, for it is a means created in order to preserve health."--Luther
(Th. i. p. 508). But--and that alone is decisive--it is not necessary
that I should use natural means in order to be cured; I can be cured
immediately by God. What God ordinarily does by means of Nature,
he can also do without, nay, in opposition to Nature, and actually
does it thus, in extraordinary cases, when he will. "God," says
Luther in the same place, "could indeed easily have preserved Noah
and the animals through a whole year without food, as he preserved
Moses, Elijah, and Christ forty days without any food." Whether he
does it often or seldom is indifferent; it is enough if he only
does it once; what happens once can happen innumerable times. A
single miracle has universal significance--the significance of an
example. "This deed, the passage through the Red Sea, happened as a
figure and example, to show us that it will be so with us."--Luther
(Th. iii. p. 596). "These miracles are written for us, who are
chosen."--Ib. (Th. ix. p. 142). The natural means which God employs
when he does no miracle, have no more significance than those which
he employs when he performs miracles. If the animals, God so willing
it, can live as well without food as with it, food is in itself
as unnecessary for the preservation of life, as indifferent, as
non-essential, as arbitrary, as the clay with which Christ anointed
the eyes of the blind man to whom he restored sight, as the staff
with which Moses divided the sea ("God could have done it just as
well without the staff"). "Faith is stronger than heaven and earth,
or all creatures." "Faith turns water into stones; out of fire it
can bring water, and out of water fire."--Luther (Th. iii. pp. 564,
565). That is to say, for faith there exists no limit, no law, no
necessity, no Nature; there exists only the will of God, against which
all things and powers are nothing. If therefore the believer, when in
sickness and distress, has recourse notwithstanding to natural means,
he only follows the voice of his natural reason. The one means of
cure which is congruous with faith, which does not contradict faith,
which is not thrust upon it, whether consciously and voluntarily
or not, from without,--the one remedy for all evil and misery is
prayer; for "prayer is almighty."--Luther (Th. iv. p. 27). Why then
use a natural means also? For even in case of its application, the
effect which follows is by no means its own, but the effect of the
supernatural will of God, or rather the effect of faith, of prayer;
for prayer, faith determines the will of God. "Thy faith hath saved
thee." Thus the natural means which faith recognises in practice it
nullifies in theory, since it makes the effect of such means an effect
of God,--i.e., an effect which could have taken place just as well
without this means. The natural effect is therefore nothing else than
a circumstantial, covert, concealed miracle; a miracle however which
has not the appearance of a miracle, but can only be perceived as
such by the eyes of faith. Only in expression, not in fact, is there
any difference between an immediate and mediate, a miraculous and
natural operation of God. When faith makes use of a natural means, it
speaks otherwise than it thinks; when it supposes a miracle it speaks
as it thinks, but in both cases it thinks the same. In the mediate
agency of God faith is in disunion with itself, for the senses here
deny what faith affirms; in miracle, on the contrary, it is at one
with itself, for there the appearance coincides with the reality,
the senses with faith, the expression with the fact. Miracle is the
terminus technicus of faith.
§ 13.
The Resurrection of Christ is bodily, i.e., personal immortality,
presented as a sensible indubitable fact.
"Resurrexit Christus, absoluta res est.--Ostendit se ipsum
discipulis et fidelibus suis, contrectata est soliditas
corporis.... Confirmata fides est non solum in cordibus, sed
etiam in oculis hominum."--Augustinus (Sermones ad Pop. S. 242,
c. I. S. 361, c. S. See also on this subject Melancthon, Loci: de
Resurr. Mort.). "The philosophers ... held that by death the soul
was released from the body, and that after it was thus set free from
the body, as from a prison, it came into the assembly of the gods,
and was relieved from all corporeal burthens. Of such an immortality
the philosophers allowed men to dream, though they did not hold it to
be certain, nor could defend it. But the Holy Scriptures teach of the
resurrection and eternal life in another manner, and place the hope
of it so certainly before our eyes, that we cannot doubt it."--Luther
(Th. i. p. 549).
§ 14.
Christianity made man an extramundane, supernatural being. "We have
here no abiding city, but we seek one to come."--Heb. xiii. 14. "Whilst
we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord."--2
Cor. v. 6. "If in this body, which is properly our own, we
are strangers, and our life in this body is nothing else than
a pilgrimage; how much more then are the possessions which we
have for the sake of the body, such as fields, houses, gold, &c.,
nothing else than idle, strange things, to be used as if we were on
a pilgrimage?" "Therefore we must in this life live like strangers
until we reach the true fatherland, and receive a better life which
is eternal."--Luther (Th. ii. pp. 240, 370 a). "Our conversation
(politeuma, civitas aut jus civitatis) is in heaven, from whence
also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change
our vile body that it may be like unto his glorious body, according
to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto
himself."--Phil. iii. 20, 21. "Neque mundus generat hominem, neque
mundi homo pars est."--Lactantius (Div. Inst. l. ii. c. 6). "Coelum
de mundo: homo supra mundum."--Ambrosius (Epist. l. vi. Ep. 38,
ed. cit.). "Agnosce o homo dignitatem tuam, agnosce gloriam
conditionis humanae. Est enim tibi cum mundo corpus ... sed est
tibi etiam sublimius aliquid, nec omnino comparandus es caeteris
creaturis."--Bernardus (Opp. Basil. 1552, p. 79). "At Christianus
... ita supra totum mundum ascendit, nec consistit in coeli convexis,
sed transcensis mente locis supercoelestibus ductu divini spiritus
velut jam extra mundum raptus offert Deo preces."--Origenes (contra
Celspum. ed. Hoeschelio, p. 370). "Totus quidem iste mundus ad unius
animae pretium aestimari non potest. Non enim pro toto mundo Deus
animam suam dare voluit, quam pro anima humana dedit. Sublimius
est ergo animae pretium, quae non nisi sanguine Christi redimi
potest."--Medit. devotiss. c. ii. (Among the spurious writings of
St. Bernard.) "Sapiens anima ... Deum tantummodo sapiens hominem
in homine exuit, Deoque plene et in omnibus affecta, omnem infra
Deum creaturam non aliter quam Deus attendit. Relicto ergo corpore
et corporeis omnibus curis et impedimentis omnium quae sunt praeter
Deum obliviscitur, nihilque praeter Deum attendens quasi se solam,
solumque Deum existimans," etc.--De Nat. et Dign. Amoris Divini,
cc. 14, 15. (Ib.) "Quid agis frater in saeculo, qui major es
mundo?"--Hieronymus (ad Heliod. de Laude Vitae solit.).
§ 15.
The celibate and monachism--of course only in their original,
religious significance and form--are sensible manifestations, necessary
consequences, of the supranaturalistic, extramundane character of
Christianity. It is true that they also contradict Christianity;
the reason of this is shown by implication in the present work; but
only because Christianity is itself a contradiction. They contradict
exoteric, practical, but not esoteric, theoretical Christianity;
they contradict Christian love so far as this love relates to man,
but not Christian faith, not Christian love so far as it loves man
only for God's sake. There is certainly nothing concerning celibacy
and monachism in the Bible; and that is very natural. In the beginning
of Christianity the great matter was the recognition of Jesus as the
Christ, the Messiah--the conversion of the heathens and Jews. And this
conversion was the more pressing, the nearer the Christians supposed
the day of judgment and the destruction of the world;--periculum
in mora. There was not time or opportunity for a life of quietude,
for the contemplation of monachism. Hence there necessarily reigned
at that time a more practical and even liberal sentiment than at a
later period, when Christianity had attained to worldly dominion,
and thus the enthusiasm of proselytism was extinguished. "Apostoli
(says the Church, quite correctly: Carranza, l. c. p. 256) cum fides
inciperet, ad fidelium imbecillitatem se magis demittebant, cum autem
evangelii praedicatio sit magis ampliata, oportet et Pontifices ad
perfectam continentiam vitam suam dirigere." When once Christianity
realised itself in a worldly form, it must also necessarily develop
the supranaturalistic, supramundane tendency of Christianity
into a literal separation from the world. And this disposition to
separation from life, from the body, from the world,--this first
hyper-cosmic then anti-cosmic tendency, is a genuinely biblical
disposition and spirit. In addition to the passages already cited,
and others universally known, the following may stand as examples:
"He that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life
eternal." "I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good
thing."--Rom. vii. 18. ("Veteres enim omnis vitiositatis in agendo
origenes ad corpus referebant."--J. G. Rosenmüller Scholia.) "Forasmuch
then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also
with the same mind; for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased
from sin."--1 Pet. iv. 1. "I have a desire to depart, and to be with
Christ."--Phil. i. 23. "We are confident and willing rather to be
absent from the body and present with the Lord."--2 Cor. v. 8. Thus,
according to these passages, the partition-wall between God and man
is the body (at least the fleshly, actual body); thus the body as a
hindrance to union with God is something worthless, to be denied. That
by the world, which is denied in Christianity, is by no means to be
understood a life of mere sensuality, but the real objective world,
is to be inferred in a popular manner from the belief that at the
advent of the Lord, i.e., the consummation of the Christian religion,
heaven and earth will pass away.
The difference between the belief of the Christians and that of
the heathen philosophers as to the destruction of the world is not
to be overlooked. The Christian destruction of the world is only
a crisis of faith,--the separation of the Christian from all that
is anti-christian, the triumph of faith over the world, a judgment
of God, an anti-cosmical, supernaturalistic act. "But the heavens
and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store,
reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of
ungodly men."--2 Pet. iii. 7. The heathen destruction of the world is
a crisis of the cosmos itself, a process which takes place according
to law, which is founded in the constitution of Nature. "Sic origo
mundi, non minus solem et lunam et vices siderum et animalium ortus,
quam quibus mutarentur terrena, continuit. In his fuit inundatio,
quae non secus quam hiems, quam aestas, lege mundi venit."--Seneca
(Nat. Qu. l. iii. c. 29). It is the principle of life immanent in the
world, the essence of the world itself, which evolves this crisis
out of itself. "Aqua et ignis terrenis dominantur. Ex his ortus et
ex his interitus est."--(Ibid. c. 28.) "Quidquid est, non erit; nec
peribit, sed resolvetur."--(Idem. Epist. 71.) The Christians excluded
themselves from the destruction of the world. "And he shall send
his angels with a great sound of a trumpet; and they shall gather
together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to
the other."--Matt. xxiv. 31. "But there shall not a hair of your head
perish.... And then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud
with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to
pass, then look up and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth
nigh."--Luke xxi. 18, 27, 28. "Watch ye therefore and pray always, that
ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come
to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man."--Ib. 36. The heathens,
on the contrary, identified their fate with the fate of the world. "Hoc
universum, quod omnia divina humanaque complectitur ... dies aliquis
dissipabit et in confusionem veterem tenebrasque demerget. Eat
nunc aliquis et singulas comploret animas. Quis tam superbae
impotentisque arrogantiae est, ut in hac naturae necessitate, omnia
ad eundem finem revocantis, se unum ac suos seponi velit."--Seneca
(Cons. ad Polyb. cc. 20, 21). "Ergo quandoque erit terminus rebus
humanis.... Non muri quenquam, non turres tuebuntur. Non proderunt
templa supplicibus."--(Nat. Qu. L. iii. c. 29.) Thus here we have again
the characteristic distinction between heathenism and Christianity. The
heathen forgot himself in the world, the Christian forgot the world
in himself. And as the heathen identified his destruction with the
destruction of the world, so he identified his immortality with
the immortality of the world. To the heathen, man was a common,
to the Christian, a select being; to the latter immortality was a
privilege of man, to the former a common good which he vindicated
to himself only because, and in so far as, he assigned to other
beings a share in it also. The Christians expected the destruction
of the world immediately, because the Christian religion has in it
no cosmical principle of development:--all which developed itself in
Christendom developed itself only in contradiction with the original
nature of Christianity;--because by the existence of God in the flesh,
i.e., by the immediate identity of the species with the individual,
everything was attained, the thread of history was cut short, no
other thought of the future remained than the thought of a repetition
of the second coming of the Lord. The heathens, on the contrary,
placed the destruction of the world in the distant future, because,
living in the contemplation of the universe, they did not set heaven
and earth in motion on their own account,--because they extended and
freed their self-consciousness by the consciousness of the species,
placed immortality only in the perpetuation of the species, and thus
did not reserve the future to themselves, but left it to the coming
generations. "Veniet tempus quo posteri nostri tam aperta nos nescisse
mirentur."--Seneca (Nat. Qu. l. vii. c. 25). He who places immortality
in himself abolishes the principle of historical development. The
Christians did indeed, according to Peter, expect a new heaven and
a new earth. But with this Christian, i.e., superterrestrial earth,
the theatre of history is for ever closed, the end of the actual
world is come. The heathens, on the contrary, set no limits to the
development of the cosmos; they supposed the world to be destroyed
only to arise again renovated as a real world; they granted it eternal
life. The Christian destruction of the world was a matter of feeling,
an object of fear and longing; the heathen, a matter of reason,
an inference from the contemplation of nature.
Unspotted Virginity is the principle of Salvation, the principle of
the regenerate Christian world. "Virgo genuit mundi salutem; virgo
peperit vitam universorum.... Virgo portavit, quem mundus iste
capere aut sustinere non potest.... Per virum autem et mulierem
caro ejecta de paradiso: per virginem juncta est Deo."--Ambrosius
(Ep. L. x. Ep. 82). "Jure laudatur bona uxor, sed melius pia
virgo praefertur, dicente Apostolo (1 Cor. vii.). Bonum conjugium,
per quod est inventa posteritas successionis humanae; sed melius
virginitas, per quam regni coelestis haereditas acquisita et
coelestium meritorum reperta successio. Per mulierem cura successit:
per virginem salus evenit."--(Id. Ep. 81.) "Castitas jungit hominem
coelo.... Bona est castitas conjugalis, sed melior est continentia
vidualis. Optima vero integritas virginalis."--De modo bene vivendi,
Sermo 22. (Among the spurious writings of Bernard.) "Pulchritudinem
hominis non concupiscas."--(Ibid. S. 23.) "Fornicatio major est
omnibus peccatis.... Audi beati Isidori verba: Fornicatione coinquinari
deterius est omni peccato."--(Ibid.) "Virginitas cui gloriae merito non
praefertur? Angelicae? Angelus habet virginitatem, sed non carnem,
sane felicior, quam fortior in hac parte."--Bernardus (Ep. 113,
ad Sophiam Virginem). "Memento semper, quod paradisi colonum de
possessione sua mulier ejecerit."--Hieronymus (Ep. Nepotiano). "In
paradiso virginitas conversabatur.... Ipse Christus virginitatis
gloria non modo ex patre sine initio et sine duorum concursu genitus,
sed et homo secundum nos factus, super nos ex virgine sine alieno
consortio incarnatus est. Et ipse virginitatem veram et perfectam
esse, in se ipso demonstravit. Unde hanc nobis legem non statuit
(non enim omnes capiunt verbum hoc, ut ipse dixit) sed opere nos
erudivit."--Joan. Damasc. (Orthod. Fidei, l. iv. c. 25).
Now if abstinence from the satisfaction of the sensual impulse,
the negation of difference of sex and consequently of sexual
love,--for what is this without the other?--is the principle of the
Christian heaven and salvation; then necessarily the satisfaction
of the sexual impulse, sexual love, on which marriage is founded,
is the source of sin and evil. And so it is held. The mystery of
original sin is the mystery of sexual desire. All men are conceived
in sin because they were conceived with sensual, i.e., natural
pleasure. The act of generation, as an act of sensual enjoyment,
is sinful. Sin is propagated from Adam down to us, simply because
its propagation is the natural act of generation. This is the
mystery of Christian original sin. "Atque hic quam alienus a vero
sit, etiam hic reprehenditur, quod voluptatem in homine Deo authore
creatam asserit principaliter. Sed hoc divinae scriptura redarguit,
quae serpentis insidiis atque illecebris infusam Adae atque Evae
voluptatem docet, siquidem ipse serpens voluptas sit.... Quomodo
igitur voluptas ad paradisum revocare nos potest, quae sola nos
paradiso exuit?"--Ambrosius (Ep. L. x. Ep. 82). "Voluptas ipsa
sine culpa nullatenus esse potest."--Petrus L. (l. iv. dist. 31,
c. 5). "Omnes in peccatis nati sumus, et ex carnis delectatione
concepti culpam originalem nobiscum traximus."--Gregorius (Petrus
L. l. ii. dist. 30, c. 2). "Firmissime tene et nullatenus dubites,
omnem hominem, qui per concubitum viri et mulieris concipitur,
cum originali peccato nasci.... Ex his datur intelligi, quid sit
originale peccatum, scl. vitium concupiscentiae, quod in omnes
concupiscentialiter natos per Adam intravit."--(Ibid. c. 3, see
also dist. 31, c. 1.) "Peccati causa ex carne est."--Ambrosius
(ibid.) "Christus peccatum non habet, nec originale traxit, nec suum
addidit: extra voluptatem carnalis libidinis venit, non ibi fuit
complexus maritalis.... Omnis generatus, damnatus."--Augustinus
(Serm. ad Pop. S. 294, cc. 10, 16). "Homo natus de muliere et ob
hoc cum reatu."--Bernardus (de Consid. l. ii.). "Peccatum quomodo
non fuit, ubi libido non defuit?... Quo pacto, inquam, aut sanctus
asseretur conceptus, qui de spiritus non est, ne dicam de peccato
est?"--Id. (Epist. 174, edit. cit.). "All that is born into the world
of man and woman is sinful, under God's anger and curse, condemned to
death." "All men born of a father and mother are children of wrath
by nature, as St. Paul testifies, Ephes. ii." "We have by nature a
tainted, sinful conception and birth."--Luther (Th. xvi. 246, 573). It
is clear from these examples, that "carnal intercourse"--even a kiss is
carnal intercourse--is the radical sin, the radical evil of mankind;
and consequently the basis of marriage, the sexual impulse, honestly
outspoken, is a product of the devil. It is true that the creature
as the work of God is good, but it has long ceased to exist as it was
created. The devil has alienated the creature from God and corrupted
it to the very foundation. "Cursed be the ground for thy sake." The
fall of the creature, however, is only an hypothesis by which faith
drives from its mind the burdensome, disquieting contradiction,
that Nature is a product of God, and yet, as it actually is, does
not harmonise with God, i.e., with the Christian sentiment.
Christianity certainly did not pronounce the flesh as flesh,
matter as matter, to be something sinful, impure; on the contrary,
it contended vehemently against the heretics who held this opinion
and rejected marriage. (See for example Augustin. contra Faustum,
l. 29, c. 4, l. 30, c. 6. Clemens Alex. Stromata, lib. iii. and
Bernard. Super Cantica, Sermo 66.) But quite apart from the hatred
to heretics which so inspired the holy Christian Church and made
it so politic, this protest rested on grounds which by no means
involved the recognition of Nature as such, and under limitations,
i.e., negations, which make the recognition of Nature merely apparent
and illusory. The distinction between the heretics and the orthodox
is only this, that the latter said indirectly, covertly, secretly,
what the former declared plainly, directly, but for that very reason
offensively. Pleasure is not separable from matter. Material pleasure
is nothing further, so to speak, than the joy of matter in itself,
matter proving itself by activity. Every joy is self-activity, every
pleasure a manifestation of force, energy. Every organic function is,
in a normal condition, united with enjoyment; even breathing is a
pleasurable act, which is not perceived as such only because it is an
uninterrupted process. He therefore who declares generation, fleshly
intercourse, as such, to be pure, but fleshly intercourse united with
sensual pleasure to be a consequence of original sin and consequently
itself a sin, acknowledges only the dead, not the living flesh--he
raises a mist before us, he condemns, rejects the act of generation,
and matter in general, though under the appearance of not rejecting
it, of acknowledging it. The unhypocritical, honest acknowledgment
of sensual life is the acknowledgment of sensual pleasure. In brief,
he who, like the Bible, like the Church, does not acknowledge fleshly
pleasure--that, be it understood, which is natural, normal, inseparable
from life--does not acknowledge the flesh. That which is not recognised
as an end in itself (it by no means follows that it should be the
ultimate end) is in truth not recognised at all. Thus he who allows
me wine only as medicine forbids me the enjoyment of wine. Let not
the liberal supply of wine at the wedding at Cana be urged. For that
scene transports us, by the metamorphosis of water into wine, beyond
Nature into the region of supernaturalism. Where, as in Christianity,
a supernatural, spiritual body is regarded as the true, eternal body,
i.e., a body from which all objective, sensual impulses, all flesh,
all nature, is removed, there real, i.e., sensual fleshly matter is
denied, is regarded as worthless, nothing.
Certainly Christianity did not make celibacy a law (save at a later
period for the priests). But for the very reason that chastity,
or rather privation of marriage, of sex, is the highest, the most
transcendent, supernaturalistic, heavenly virtue, it cannot and must
not be lowered into a common object of duty; it stands above the
law, it is the virtue of Christian grace and freedom. "Christus
hortatur idoneos ad coelibatum, ut donum recte tueantur;
idem Christus iis, qui puritatem extra conjugium non, retinent,
praecipit, ut pure in conjugio vivant."--Melancthon. (Responsio ad
Colonienses. Declam. T. iii.). "Virginitas non est jussa, sed admonita,
quia nimis est excelsa."--De modo bene viv. (Sermo 21). "Et qui
matrimonio jungit virginem suam, benefacit, et qui non jungit, melius
facit. Quod igitur bonum est, non vitandum est, et quod est melius
eligendum est. Itaque non imponitur, sed proponitur. Et ideo bene
Apostolus dixit: De virginibus autem praeceptum non habeo, consilium
autem do. Ubi praeceptum est, ibi lex est, ubi consilium, ibi gratia
est.... Praeceptum enim castitatis est, consilium integritatis.... Sed
nec vidua praeceptum accipit, sed consilium. Consilium autem non semel
datum, sed saepe repetitum."--Ambrosius (Liber. de viduis). That is to
say: celibacy, abstinence from marriage, is no law in the common or
Jewish sense, but a law in the Christian sense, or for the Christian
sentiment, which takes Christian virtue and perfection as the rule
of conscience, as the ideal of feeling,--no despotic but a friendly
law, no public but a secret, esoteric law--a mere counsel, i.e.,
a law which does not venture to express itself as a law, a law for
those of finer feelings, not for the great mass. Thou mayst marry;
yes indeed! without any fear of committing a sin, i.e., a public,
express, plebeian sin; but thou dost all the better if thou dost not
marry; meanwhile this is only my undictatorial, friendly advice. Omnia
licent, sed omnia non expediunt. What is allowed in the first member
of the sentence is retracted in the second. Licet, says the man;
non expedit, says the Christian. But only that which is good for the
Christian is for the man, so far as he desires to be a Christian, the
standard of doing and abstaining. "Quae non expediunt, nec licent,"
such is the conclusion arrived at by the sentiment of Christian
nobility. Marriage is therefore only an indulgence to the weakness, or
rather the strength of the flesh, a taint of nature in Christianity,
a falling short of the genuine, perfect Christian sentiment; being,
however, nevertheless good, laudable, even holy, in so far as it is the
best antidote to fornication. For its own sake, as the self-enjoyment
of sexual love, it is not acknowledged, not consecrated; thus the
holiness of marriage in Christianity is only an ostensible holiness,
only illusion, for that which is not acknowledged for its own sake
is not acknowledged at all, while yet there is a deceitful show of
acknowledgment. Marriage is sanctioned not in order to hallow and
satisfy the flesh, but to restrict the flesh, to repress it, to kill
it--to drive Beelzebub out by Beelzebub. "Quae res et viris et feminis
omnibus adest ad matrimonium et stuprum? Commixtio carnis scilicet,
cujus concupiscentiam Dominus stupro adaequavit.... Ideo virginis
principalis sanctitas, quia caret stupri affinitati."--Tertullianus
(de Exhort. Cast. c. 9). "Et de ipso conjugis melius aliquid, quam
concessisti, monuisti."--Augustinus (Confess. x. c. 30). "It is
better to marry than to burn."--I Cor. vii. 9. But how much better
is it, says Tertullian, developing this text, neither to marry nor to
burn.... "Possum dicere, quod permittitur bonum non est."--(Ad Uxorem,
l. i. c. 3.) "De minoribus bonis est conjugiam, quod non meretur
palmam, sed est in remedium.... Prima institutio habuit praeceptum,
secunda indulgentiam. Didicimus enim ab Apostolo, humano generi
propter vitandam fornicationem indultum esse conjugium."--Petrus
Lomb. (l. iv. dist. 26, c. 2). "The Master of the Sentences says
rightly, that in Paradise marriage was ordained as service, but
after sin as medicine."--Luther (Th. i. p. 349). "Where marriage
and virginity are compared, certainly chastity is a nobler gift
than marriage."--Id. (Th. i. p. 319). "Those whom the weakness
of nature does not compel to marriage, but who are such that
they can dispense with marriage, these do rightly to abstain from
marriage."--Id. (Th. v. p. 538). Christian sophistry will reply to
this, that only marriage which is not Christian, only that which is
not consecrated by the spirit of Christianity, i.e., in which Nature
is not veiled in pious images, is unholy. But if marriage, if Nature
is first made holy by relation to Christ, it is not the holiness of
marriage which is declared, but of Christianity; and marriage, Nature,
in and by itself, is unholy. And what is the semblance of holiness
with which Christianity invests marriage, in order to becloud the
understanding, but a pious illusion? Can the Christian fulfil his
marriage duties without surrendering himself, willingly or not, to
the passion of love? Yes indeed. The Christian has for his object the
replenishing of the Christian Church, not the satisfaction of love. The
end is holy, but the means in itself unholy. And the end sanctifies,
exculpates the means. "Conjugalis concubitus generandi gratia non
habet culpam." Thus the Christian, at least the true Christian,
denies, or at least is bound to deny Nature, while he satisfies it;
he does not wish for, he rather contemns the means in itself; he seeks
only the end in abstracto; he does with religious, supranaturalistic
horror what he does, though against his will, with natural, sensual
pleasure. The Christian does not candidly confess his sensuality, he
denies Nature before his faith, and his faith before Nature, i.e.,
he publicly disavows what he privately does. Oh, how much better,
truer, purer-hearted in this respect were the heathens, who made no
secret of their sensuality, than the Christians, who, while gratifying
the flesh, at the same time deny that they gratify it! To this day
the Christians adhere theoretically to their heavenly origin and
destination; to this day, out of supranaturalistic affectation,
they deny their sex, and turn away with mock modesty from every
sensuous picture, every naked statue, as if they were angels; to
this day they repress, even by legal force, every open-hearted,
ingenuous self-confession even of the most uncorrupt sensuality,
only stimulating by this public prohibition the secret enjoyment
of sensuality. What then, speaking briefly and plainly, is the
distinction between Christians and heathens in this matter? The
heathens confirmed, the Christians contradicted their faith by their
lives. The heathens do what they mean to do, the Christians what they
do not mean: the former, where they sin, sin with their conscience,
the latter against their conscience; the former sin simply, the
latter doubly; the former from hypertrophy, the latter from atrophy
of the flesh. The specific crime of the heathens is the ponderable,
palpable crime of licentiousness, that of the Christians is the
imponderable, theological crime of hypocrisy,--that hypocrisy of
which Jesuitism is indeed the most striking, world-historical,
but nevertheless only a particular manifestation. "Theology makes
sinners," says Luther--Luther, whose positive qualities, his heart
and understanding, so far as they applied themselves to natural
things, were not perverted by theology. And Montesquieu gives the
best commentary on this saying of Luther's when he says: "La dévotion
trouve, pour faire de mauvaises actions, des raisons, qu'un simple
honnête homme ne saurait trouver."--(Pensées Diverses.)
§ 16.
The Christian heaven is Christian truth. That which its excluded from
heaven is excluded from true Christianity. In heaven the Christian is
free from that which he wishes to be free from here--free from the
sexual impulse, free from matter, free from Nature in general. "In
the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but
are as the angels of God in heaven."--Matt. xxii. 30. "Meats for the
belly, and the belly for meats; but God shall destroy (katargesei,
make useless) both it and them."--1 Cor. vi. 13. "Now this I say,
brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven,
neither doth corruption inherit incorruption."--Ib. xv. 50. "They
shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the
sun light on them, nor any heat."--Rev. vii. 16. "And there shall
be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the
sun."--Ib. xxii. 5. "Comedere, bibere, vigilare, dormire, quiescere,
laborare et caeteris necessitatibus naturae subjacere, vere magna
miseria est et afflictio homini devoto, qui libenter esset absolutus
et liber ab omni peccato. Utinam non essent istae necessitates,
sed solum spirituales animae refectiones, quas heu! satis raro
degustamus."--Thomas à K. (de Imit. 1. i. cc. 22, 25). See also on this
subject S. Gregorii Nyss. de Anima et Resurr., Lipsiae, 1837, pp. 98,
144, 153). It is true that the Christian immortality, in distinction
from the heathen, is not the immortality of the soul, but that of
the flesh, that is, of the whole man. "Scientia immortalis visa est
res illis (the heathen philosophers) atque incorruptibilis. Nos
autem, quibus divina revelatio illuxit ... novimus, non solum
mentem, sed affectus perpurgatos, neque animam tantum, sed etiam
corpus ad immortalitatem assumptum iri suo tempore."--Baco de
Verul. (de Augm. Scien. 1. i.). On this account Celsus reproached
the Christians with a desiderium corporis. But this immortal body
is, as has been already remarked, an immaterial, i.e., a thoroughly
fanciful, subjective body--a body which is the direct negation of
the real, natural body. The ideal on which this faith hinges is not
the recognition or glorification of nature, of matter as such, but
rather the reality of the emotive imagination, the satisfaction of
the unlimited, supranaturalistic desire of happiness, to which the
actual, objective body is a limitation.
As to what the angels strictly are, whom heavenly souls will be like,
the Bible is as far from giving us any definite information as on
other weighty subjects; it only calls them pneumata, spirits, and
declares them to be higher than men. The later Christians expressed
themselves more definitely on this subject; more definitely,
but variously. Some assigned bodies to the angels, others not;
a difference which, however, is only apparent, since the angelic
body is only a phantasmal one. But concerning the human body of
the resurrection, they had not only different, but even opposite,
conceptions; indeed, these contradictions lay in the nature of the
case, necessarily resulted from the fundamental contradiction of the
religious consciousness which, as we have shown, exhibits itself in
the incompatible propositions that the body which is raised is the
same individual body which we had before the resurrection, and that
nevertheless it is another. It is the same body even to the hair,
"cum nec periturus sit capillus, ut ait Dominus: Capillus de capite
vestro non peribit."--Augustinus und Petrus, L. l. iv. dist. 44,
c. 1. Nevertheless it is the same in such a way that everything
burdensome, everything contradictory to transcendental feeling,
is removed. "Immo sicut dicit Augustinus: Detrahentur vitia et
remanebit natura. Superexcrescentia autem capillorum et unguium
est de superfluitate et vitio naturae. Si enim non peccasset homo,
crescerent ungues et capilli ejus usque ad determinatam quantitatem,
sicut in leonibus et avibus."--(Addit. Henrici ab Vurimaria,
ibid. edit. Basiliae, 1513.) What a specific, naïve, ingenuous,
confident, harmonious faith! The risen body, as the same and yet
another, a new body, has hair and nails, otherwise it would be a
maimed body, deprived of an essential ornament, and consequently the
resurrection would not be a restitutio in integrum; moreover they are
the same hair and nails as before, but yet so modified that they are
in accordance with the body. Why do not the believing theologians
of modern times enter into such specialities as occupied the older
theologians? Because their faith is itself only general, indefinite,
i.e., a faith which they only suppose themselves to possess; because,
from fear of their understanding, which has long been at issue with
their faith, from fear of risking their feeble faith by bringing
it to the light, that is, considering it in detail, they suppress
the consequences, the necessary determinations of their faith, and
conceal them from their understanding.
§ 17.
What faith denies on earth it affirms in heaven; what it renounces
here it recovers a hundred-fold there. In this world, faith occupies
itself with nullifying the body; in the other world, with establishing
it. Here the main point is the separation of the soul from the body,
there the main point is the reunion of the body with the soul. "I
would live not only according to the soul, but according to the body
also. I would have the corpus with me; I would that the body should
return to the soul and be united with it."--Luther (Th. vii. p. 90). In
that which is sensuous, Christ is supersensuous; but for that reason,
in the supersensuous he is sensuous. Heavenly bliss is therefore by
no means merely spiritual, it is equally corporeal, sensuous--a state
in which all wishes are fulfilled. "Whatever thy heart seeks joy and
pleasure in, that shall be there in abundance. For it is said, God
shall be all in all. And where God is, there must be all good things
that can ever be desired." "Dost thou desire to see acutely, and to
hear through walls, and to be so light that thou mayst be wherever
thou wilt in a moment, whether here below on the earth, or above in
the clouds, that shall all be, and what more thou canst conceive, which
thou couldst have in body and soul, thou shalt have abundantly if thou
hast him."--Luther (Th. x. pp. 380, 381). Certainly eating, drinking,
and marriage find no place in the Christian heaven, as they do in the
Mohammedan; but only because with these enjoyments want is associated,
and with want matter, i.e., passion, dependence, unhappiness. "Illic
ipsa indigentia morietur. Tunc vere dives eris, quando nullius indigens
eris."--Augustin. (Serm. ad Pop. p. 77, c. 9). The pleasures of this
earth are only medicines, says the same writer; true health exists only
in immortal life--"vera sanitas, nisi quando vera immortalitas." The
heavenly life, the heavenly body, is as free and unlimited as
wishes, as omnipotent as imagination. "Futurae ergo resurrectionis
corpus imperfectae felicitatis erit, si cibos sumere non potuerit,
imperfectae felicitatis, si cibus eguerit."--Augustin. (Epist. 102,
§ 6, edit. cit). Nevertheless, existence in a body without fatigue,
without heaviness, without disagreeables, without disease, without
mortality, is associated with the highest corporeal well-being. Even
the knowledge of God in heaven is free from any effort of thought or
faith, is sensational, immediate knowledge--intuition. The Christians
are indeed not agreed whether God, as God, the essentia Dei, will
be visible to bodily eyes. (See, for example, Augustin. Serm. ad
Pop. p. 277, and Buddeus, Comp. Inst. Th. l. ii. c. 3, § 4.) But
in this difference we again have only the contradiction between the
abstract and the real God; the former is certainly not an object of
vision, but the latter is so. "Flesh and blood is the wall between
me and Christ, which will be torn away.... There everything will
be certain. For in that life the eyes will see, the mouth taste,
and the nose smell it; the treasure will shine into the soul and
life.... Faith will cease, and I shall behold with my eyes."--Luther
(Th. ix. p. 595). It is clear from this again, that God, as he is
an object of religious sentiment, is nothing else than a product
of the imagination. The heavenly beings are supersensuous sensuous,
immaterial material beings, i.e., beings of the imagination; but they
are like God, nay, identical with God, consequently God also is a
supersensuous sensuous, an immaterial material being.
§ 18.
The contradiction in the Sacraments is the contradiction of
naturalism and supernaturalism. In the first place the natural
qualities of water are pronounced essential to Baptism. "Si quis
dixerit aquam veram et naturalem non esse de necessitate Baptismi
atque ideo verba illa domini nostri Jesu Christi: Nisi quis renatus
fuerit ex aqua et Spiritu sancto, ad metamorpham aliquam detorserit,
anathema sit.--Concil. Trident. (Sessio vii. Can. ii. de Bapt.) De
substantia hujus sacramenti sunt verbum et elementum.... Non ergo
in alio liquore potest consecrari baptismus nisi in aqua.--Petrus
Lomb. (l. iv. dist. 3, c. l. c. 5). Ad certitudinem baptismi requiritur
major quam unius guttae quantitas.... Necesse est ad valorem baptismi
fieri contactum physicum inter aquam et corpus baptizati, ita ut non
sufficiat, vestes tantum ipsius aqua tingi.... Ad certitudinem baptismi
requiritur, ut saltem talis pars corporis abluatur, ratione cujus homo
solet dici vere ablutus, v. 6, collum, humeri, pectus et praesertim
caput.--Theolog. Schol. (P. Mezger. Aug. Vind. 1695, Th. iv. pp. 230,
231). Aquam, eamque veram ac naturalem in baptismo adhibendam esse,
exemplo Joannis ... non minus vero et Apostolorum Act. viii. 36, x. 47,
patet.--F. Buddeus (Com. Inst. Th. dog. l. iv. c. i. § 5)." Thus water
is essential. But now comes the negation of the natural qualities
of water. The significance of Baptism is not the natural power of
water, but the supernatural, almighty power of the Word of God,
who instituted the use of water as a sacrament, and now by means of
this element imparts himself to man in a supernatural, miraculous
manner, but who could just as well have chosen any other element
in order to produce the same effect. So Luther, for example, says:
"Understand the distinction, that Baptism is quite another thing than
all other water, not on account of its natural quality, but because
here something more noble is added. For God himself brings hither
his glory, power, and might ... as St. Augustine also hath taught:
'accedat verbum ad elementum et fit sacramentum.'" "Baptize them
in the name of the Father, &c. Water without these words is mere
water.... Who will call the baptism of the Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost mere water? Do we not see what sort of spice God puts into
this water? When sugar is thrown into water it is no longer water,
but a costly claret or other beverage. Why then do we here separate
the word from the water and say, it is mere water; as if the word of
God, yea, God himself, were not with and in the water.... Therefore,
the water of Baptism is such a water as takes away sin, death, and
unhappiness, helps us in heaven and to everlasting life. It is become
a precious sugared water, aromaticum, and restorative, since God has
mingled himself therewith."--Luther (Th. xvi. p. 105).
As with the water in Baptism, which sacrament is nothing without
water, though this water is nevertheless in itself indifferent, so
is it with the wine and bread in the Eucharist, even in Catholicism,
where the substance of bread and wine is destroyed by the power of
the Almighty. "Accidentia eucharistica tamdiu continent Christum,
quamdiu retinent illud temperamentum, cum quo connaturaliter
panis et vini substantia permaneret: ut econtra, quando tanta fit
temperamenti dissolutio, illorumque corruptio, ut sub iis substantia
panis et vini naturaliter remanere non posset, desinunt continere
Christum."--Theol. Schol. (Mezger. l. c. p. 292). That is to say: so
long as the bread remains bread, so long does the bread remain flesh;
when the bread is gone, the flesh is gone. Therefore a due portion
of bread, at least enough to render bread recognisable as such, must
be present, for consecration to be possible.--(Ib. p. 284.) For the
rest, Catholic transubstantiation, the conversio realis et physica
totius panis in corpus Christi, is only a consistent continuation of
the miracles of the Old and New Testaments. By the transformation of
water into wine, of a staff into a serpent, of stones into brooks
(Ps. cxiv.) by these biblical transubstantiations the Catholics
explained and proved the turning of bread into flesh. He who does not
stumble at those transformations, has no right, no reason to hesitate
at accepting this. The Protestant doctrine of the Lord's Supper is
not less in contradiction with reason than the Catholic. "The body of
Christ cannot be partaken otherwise than in two ways, spiritually or
bodily. Again, this bodily partaking cannot be visible or perceptible,"
i.e., is not bodily, "else no bread would remain. Again, it cannot
be mere bread; otherwise it would not be a bodily communion of the
body of Christ, but of bread. Therefore the bread broken must also
be truly and corporeally the body of Christ, although invisibly"
(i.e., incorporeally).--Luther (Th. xix. p. 203). The difference is,
that the Protestant gives no explanation concerning the mode in which
bread can be flesh and wine blood. "Thereupon we stand, believe,
and teach, that the body of Christ is truly and corporeally taken
and eaten in the Lord's Supper. But how this takes place, or how he
is in the bread, we know not, and are not bound to know."--Id. (ut
sup. p. 393). "He who will be a Christian must not ask, as our
fanatics and factionaries do, how it can be that bread is the body of
Christ and wine the blood of Christ."--Id. (Th. xvi. p. 220). "Cum
retineamus doctrinam de praesentia corporis Christi, quid opus est
quaerere de modo?"--Melancthon (Vita Mel. Camerarius, ed. Strobel,
Halae, 1777, p. 446). Hence the Protestants as well as the Catholics
took refuge in Omnipotence, the grand source of ideas contradictory
to reason.--(Concord. Summ. Beg. Art. 7, Aff. 3, Negat. 13. See also
Luther, e.g., Th. xix. p. 400.)
An instructive example of theological incomprehensibleness and
supernaturalness is afforded by the distinction, in relation to the
Eucharist (Concordienb. Summ. Beg. art. 7), between partaking with
the mouth and partaking in a fleshly or natural manner. "We believe,
teach, and confess that the body of Christ is taken in the bread and
wine, not alone spiritually by faith, but also with the mouth, yet not
in a Capernaitic, but a supernatural heavenly manner, for the sake
of sacramental union." "Probe namque discrimen inter manducationem
oralem et naturalem tenendum est. Etsi enim oralem manducationem
adseramus atque propugnemus, naturalem tamen non admittimus.... Omnis
equidem manducatio naturalis etiam oralis est, sed non vicissim oralis
manducatio statim est naturalis.... Unicus itaque licet sit actus,
unicumque organum, quo panem et corpus Christi, itemque vinum et
sanguinem Christi accipimus, modus (yes, truly, the mode) nihilominus
maximopere differt, cum panem et vinum modo naturali et sensibili,
corpus et sanguinem Christi simul equidem cum pane et vino, at modo
supernaturali et insensibili, qui adeo etiam a nemine mortalium (nor,
assuredly, by any God) explicare potest, revera interim et ore corporis
accipiamus."--Jo. Fr. Buddeus (l. c. Lib. v. c. i. § 15).
§ 19.
Dogma and Morality, Faith and Love, contradict each other in
Christianity. It is true that God, the object of faith, is in himself
the idea of the species in a mystical garb--the common Father of
men--and so far love to God is mystical love to man. But God is not
only the universal being; he is also a peculiar, personal being,
distinguished from love. Where the being is distinguished from
love arises arbitrariness. Love acts from necessity, personality
from will. Personality proves itself as such only by arbitrariness;
personality seeks dominion, is greedy of glory; it desires only to
assert itself, to enforce its own authority. The highest worship of God
as a personal being is therefore the worship of God as an absolutely
unlimited, arbitrary being. Personality, as such, is indifferent to
all substantial determinations which lie in the nature of things;
inherent necessity, the coercion of natural qualities, appears to it
a constraint. Here we have the mystery of Christian love. The love of
God, as the predicate of a personal being, has here the significance
of grace, favour: God is a gracious master, as in Judaism he was a
severe master. Grace is arbitrary love,--love which does not act from
an inward necessity of the nature, but which is equally capable of not
doing what it does, which could, if it would, condemn its object; thus
it is a groundless, unessential, arbitrary, absolutely subjective,
merely personal love. "He hath mercy on whom he will have mercy,
and whom he will he hardeneth (Rom. ix. 18).... The king does what
he will. So is it with the will of God. He has perfect right and
full power to do with us and all creatures as he will. And no wrong
is done to us. If his will had a measure or rule, a law, ground, or
cause, it would not be the divine will. For what he wills is right,
because he wills it. Where there is faith and the Holy Spirit ... it
is believed that God would be good and kind even if he consigned all
men to damnation. 'Is not Esau Jacob's brother? said the Lord. Yet
I have loved Jacob and hated Esau.'"--Luther (Th. xix. pp. 83, 87,
90, 91, 97). Where love is understood in this sense, jealous watch
is kept that man attribute nothing to himself as merit, that the
merit may lie with the divine personality alone; there every idea
of necessity is carefully dismissed, in order, through the feeling
of obligation and gratitude, to be able to adore and glorify the
personality exclusively. The Jews deified the pride of ancestry;
the Christians, on the other hand, interpreted and transformed
the Jewish aristocratic principle of hereditary nobility into the
democratic principle of nobility of merit. The Jew makes salvation
depend on birth, the Catholic on the merit of works, the Protestant
on the merit of faith. But the idea of obligation and meritoriousness
allies itself only with a deed, a work, which cannot be demanded of me,
or which does not necessarily proceed from my nature. The works of
the poet, of the philosopher, can be regarded in the light of merit
only as considered externally. They are works of genius--inevitable
products: the poet must bring forth poetry, the philosopher must
philosophise. They have the highest satisfaction in the activity of
creation, apart from any collateral or ulterior purpose. And it is
just so with a truly noble moral action. To the man of noble feeling,
the noble action is natural: he does not hesitate whether he should do
it or not, he does not place it in the scales of choice; he must do
it. Only he who so acts is a man to be confided in. Meritoriousness
always involves the notion that a thing is done, so to speak, out of
luxury, not out of necessity. The Christians indeed celebrated the
highest act in their religion, the act of God becoming man, as a work
of love. But Christian love in so far as it reposes on faith, on the
idea of God as a master, a Dominus, has the significance of an act
of grace, of a love in itself superfluous. A gracious master is one
who foregoes his rights, a master who does out of graciousness what,
as a master, he is not bound to do--what goes beyond the strict idea
of a master. To God, as a master, it is not even a duty to do good
to man; he has even the right--for he is a master bound by no law--to
annihilate man if he will. In fact, mercy is optional, non-necessary
love, love in contradiction with the essence of love, love which
is not an inevitable manifestation of the nature, love which the
master, the subject, the person (personality is only an abstract,
modern expression for sovereignty) distinguishes from himself as a
predicate which he can either have or not have without ceasing to be
himself. This internal contradiction necessarily manifested itself
in the life, in the practice of Christianity; it gave rise to the
practical separation of the subject from the predicate, of faith from
love. As the love of God to man was only an act of grace, so also the
love of man to man was only an act of favour or grace on the part of
faith. Christian love is the graciousness of faith, as the love of
God is the graciousness of personality or supremacy. (On the divine
arbitrariness, see also J. A. Ernesti's treatise previously cited:
"Vindiciæ arbitrii divini.")
Faith has within it a malignant principle. Christian faith, and nothing
else, is the ultimate ground of Christian persecution and destruction
of heretics. Faith recognises man only on condition that he recognises
God, i.e., faith itself. Faith is the honour which man renders to
God. And this honour is due unconditionally. To faith the basis of all
duties is faith in God: faith is the absolute duty; duties to men are
only derivative, subordinate. The unbeliever is thus an outlaw [233]--a
man worthy of extermination. That which denies God must be itself
denied. The highest crime is the crime laesae majestatis Dei. To faith
God is a personal being--the supremely personal, inviolable, privileged
being. The acme of personality is honour; hence an injury towards
the highest personality is necessarily the highest crime. The honour
of God cannot be disavowed as an accidental, rude, anthropomorphic
conception. For is not the personality, even the existence of God,
a sensuous, anthropomorphic conception? Let those who renounce the
honour be consistent enough to renounce the personality. From the idea
of personality results the idea of honour, and from this again the idea
of religious offences. "Quicunque Magistratibus male precatus fuerit,
pro eorum arbitrio poenas luito; quicunque vero idem scelus erga Deum
admiserit ... lapidibus blasphemiae causa obruitur."--(Lev. xxiv. 15,
16. See also Deut. xii., whence the Catholics deduce the right to
kill heretics. Boehmer, l. c. l. v. Th. vii. § 44.) "Eos autem merito
torqueri, qui Deum nesciunt, ut impios, ut injustos, nisi profanus
nemo deliberat: quum parentem omnium et dominum omnium non minus
sceleris sit ignorare, quam laedere."--Minucii Fel. Oct. c. 35. "Ubi
erunt legis praecepta divinae, quae dicunt: honora patrem et matrem,
si vocabulum patris, quod in homine honorari praecipitur, in Deo impune
violatur?"--Cypriani Epist. 73 (ed. Gersdorf). "Cur enim, cum datum
sit divinitus homini liberum arbitrium, adulteria legibus puniantur
et sacrilegia permittantur? An fidem non servare levius est animam
Deo, quam feminam viro?"--Augustinus (de Correct. Donatist. lib. ad
Bonifacium, c. 5). "Si hi qui nummos adulterant morte mulctantur, quid
de illis statuendum censemus, qui fidem pervertere conantur?"--Paulus
Cortesius (in Sententias (Petri L.) iii. l. dist. vii.). "Si enim
illustrem ac praepotentem virum nequaquam exhonorari a quoquam licet,
et si quisquam exhonoraverit, decretis legalibus reus sistitur et
injuriarum auctor jure damnatur: quanto utique majoris piaculi crimen
est, injuriosum quempiam Deo esse? Semper enim per dignitatem injuriam
perferentis crescit culpa facientis, quia necesse est, quanto major
est persona ejus qui contumeliam patitur, tanto major sit noxa ejus,
qui facit." Thus speaks Salvianus (de Gubernat. Dei, l. vi. p. 218,
edit. cit.)--Salvianus, who is called Magistrum Episcoporum, sui
saeculi Jeremiam, Scriptorem Christianissimum, Orbis christiani
magistrum. But heresy, unbelief in general--heresy is only a definite,
limited unbelief--is blasphemy, and thus is the highest, the most
flagitious crime. Thus to cite only one among innumerable examples,
J. Oecolampadius writes to Servetus: "Dum non summam patientiam prae
me fero, dolens Jesum Christum filium Dei sic dehonestari, parum
christiane tibi agere videor. In aliis mansuetus ero: in blasphemiis
quae in Christum, non item."--(Historia Mich. Serveti. H. ab Allwoerden
Helmstadii, 1737, p. 13). For what is blasphemy? Every negation of
an idea, of a definition, in which the honour of God, the honour
of faith is concerned. Servetus fell as a sacrifice to Christian
faith. Calvin said to Servetus two hours before his death: "Ego vero
ingenue praefatus, me nunquam privatus injurias fuisse persecutum,"
and parted from him with a sense of being thoroughly sustained by the
Bible: "Ab haeretico homine, qui autokatakritos peccabat, secundum
Pauli praeceptum discessi."--(Ibid. p. 120.) Thus it was by no means
a personal hatred, though this may have been conjoined,--it was a
religious hatred which brought Servetus to the stake--the hatred which
springs from the nature of unchecked faith. Even Melancthon is known
to have approved the execution of Servetus. The Swiss theologians,
whose opinion was asked by the Genevans, very subtilely abstained, in
their answer, from mentioning the punishment of death, [234] but agreed
with the Genevans in this--"Horrendos Serveti errores detestandos esse,
severiusque idcirco in Servetum animadvertendum." Thus there is no
difference as to the principle, only as to the mode of punishment. Even
Calvin himself was so Christian as to desire to alleviate the horrible
mode of death to which the Senate of Geneva condemned Servetus. (See on
this subject, e.g., M. Adami, Vita Calvini, p. 90; Vita Bezae, p. 207;
Vitae Theol. Exter. Francof. 1618.) We have, therefore, to consider
this execution as an act of general significance--as a work of faith,
and that not of Roman Catholic, but of reformed, biblical, evangelical
faith. That heretics must not be compelled to a profession of the faith
by force was certainly maintained by most of the lights of the Church,
but there nevertheless lived in them the most malignant hatred of
heretics. Thus, for example, St. Bernard says (Super Cantica, § 66)
in relation to heretics: "Fides suadenda est, non imponenda," but he
immediately adds: "Quamquam melius procul dubio gladio coercerentur,
illius videlicet, qui non sine causa gladium portat, quam in suum
errorem multos trajicere permittantur." If the faith of the present
day no longer produces such flagrant deeds of horror, this is due
only to the fact that the faith of this age is not an uncompromising,
living faith, but a sceptical, eclectic, unbelieving faith, curtailed
and maimed by the power of art and science. Where heretics are no
longer burned either in the fires of this world or of the other,
there faith itself has no longer any fire, any vitality. The faith
which allows variety of belief renounces its divine origin and rank,
degrades itself to a subjective opinion. It is not to Christian faith,
not to Christian love (i.e., love limited by faith); no! it is to
doubt of Christian faith, to the victory of religious scepticism,
to free-thinkers, to heretics, that we owe tolerance, freedom of
opinion. It was the heretics, persecuted by the Christian Church, who
alone fought for freedom of conscience. Christian freedom is freedom
in non-essentials only: on the fundamental articles of faith freedom
is not allowed. When, however, Christian faith--faith considered in
distinction from love, for faith is not one with love, "potestis habere
fidem sine caritate" (Augustinus, Serm. ad Pop. § 90)--is pronounced
to be the principle, the ultimate ground of the violent deeds of
Christians towards heretics (that is, such deeds as arose from real
believing zeal), it is obviously not meant that faith could have these
consequences immediately and originally, but only in its historical
development. Still, even to the earliest Christians the heretic was
an antichrist, and necessarily so--"adversus Christum sunt haeretici"
(Cyprianus, Epist. 76, § 14, edit. cit.)--accursed--"apostoli ... in
epistolis haereticos exsecrati sunt" (Cyprianus, ib. § 6)--a lost
being, doomed by God to hell and everlasting death. "Thou hearest that
the tares are already condemned and sentenced to the fire. Why then
wilt thou lay many sufferings on a heretic? Dost thou not hear that
he is already judged to a punishment heavier than he can bear? Who
art thou, that thou wilt interfere and punish him who has already
fallen under the punishment of a more powerful master? What would I do
against a thief already sentenced to the gallows?... God has already
commanded his angels, who in his own time will be the executioners
of heretics."--Luther (Th. xvi. p. 132). When therefore the State,
the world, became Christian, and also, for that reason, Christianity
became worldly, the Christian religion a State religion; then it was
a necessary consequence that the condemnation of heretics, which was
at first only religious or dogmatic, became a political, practical
condemnation, and the eternal punishment of hell was anticipated by
temporal punishment. If, therefore, the definition and treatment of
heresy as a punishable crime is in contradiction with the Christian
faith, it follows that a Christian king, a Christian State, is in
contradiction with it; for a Christian State is that which executes
the Divine judgments of faith with the sword, which makes earth a
heaven to believers, a hell to unbelievers. "Docuimus ... pertinere
ad reges religiosos, non solum adulteria vel homicidia vel hujusmodi
alia flagitia seu facinora, verum etiam sacrilegia severitate
congrua cohibere."--Augustinus (Epist. ad Dulcitium). "Kings ought
thus to serve the Lord Christ by helping with laws that his honour
be furthered. Now when the temporal magistracy finds scandalous
errors, whereby the honour of the Lord Christ is blasphemed and
men's salvation hindered, and a schism arises among the people
... where such false teachers will not be admonished and cease
from preaching, there ought the temporal magistracy confidently
to arm itself, and know that nothing else befits its office but to
apply the sword and all force, that doctrine may be pure and God's
service genuine and unperverted, and also that peace and unity may
be preserved."--Luther (Th. xv. pp. 110, 111). Let it be further
remarked here, that Augustine justifies the application of coercive
measures for the awaking of Christian faith by urging that the Apostle
Paul was converted to Christianity by a deed of force--a miracle. (De
Correct. Donat. c. 6.) The intrinsic connection between temporal and
eternal, i.e., political and spiritual punishment, is clear from this,
that the same reasons which have been urged against the temporal
punishment of heresy are equally valid against the punishment of
hell. If heresy or unbelief cannot be punished here because it is a
mere mistake, neither can it be punished by God in hell. If coercion
is in contradiction with the nature of faith, so is hell; for the
fear of the terrible consequence of unbelief, the torments of hell,
urge to belief against knowledge and will. Boehmer, in his Jus. Eccl.,
argues that heresy and unbelief should be struck out of the category
of crimes, that unbelief is only a vitium theologicum, a peccatum
in Deum. But God, in the view of faith, is not only a religious,
but a political, juridical being, the King of kings, the true head
of the State. "There is no power but of God ... it is the minister of
God"--Rom. xiii. 1, 4. If, therefore, the juridical idea of majesty, of
kingly dignity and honour, applies to God, sin against God, unbelief,
must by consequence come under the definition of crime. And as with
God, so with faith. Where faith is still a truth, and a public truth,
there no doubt is entertained that it can be demanded of every one,
that every one is bound to believe. Be it further observed, that the
Christian Church has gone so far in its hatred against heretics,
that according to the canon law even the suspicion of heresy is
a crime, "ita ut de jure canonico revera crimen suspecti detur,
cujus existentiam frustra in jure civili quaerimus."--Boehmer
(l. c. v. Tit. vii. §§ 23-42).
The command to love enemies extends only to personal enemies, not to
the enemies of God, the enemies of faith. "Does not the Lord Christ
command that we should love even our enemies? How then does David
here boast that he hates the assembly of the wicked, and sits not
with the ungodly?... For the sake of the person I should love them;
but for the sake of the doctrine I should hate them. And thus I must
hate them or hate God, who commands and wills that we should cleave to
his word alone.... What I cannot love with God, I must hate; if they
only preach something which is against God, all love and friendship
is destroyed;--thereupon I hate thee, and do thee no good. For
faith must be uppermost, and where the word of God is attacked, hate
takes the place of love.... And so David means to say: I hate them,
not because they have done injury and evil to me and led a bad and
wicked life, but because they despise, revile, blaspheme, falsify,
and persecute the word of God." "Faith and love are two things. Faith
endures nothing, love endures all things. Faith curses, love blesses:
faith seeks vengeance and punishment, love seeks forbearance and
forgiveness." "Rather than God's word should fall and heresy stand,
faith would wish all creatures to be destroyed; for through heresy
men lose God himself."--Luther (Th. vi. p. 94; Th. v. pp. 624,
630). See also, on this subject, my treatise in the Deutsches
Jahrb. and Augustini Enarrat. in Psalm cxxxviii. (cxxxix.). As Luther
distinguishes the person from the enemy of God, so Augustine here
distinguishes the man from the enemy of God, from the unbeliever, and
says: We should hate the ungodliness in the man, but love the humanity
in him. But what, then, in the eyes of faith, is the man in distinction
from faith, man without faith, i.e., without God? Nothing: for the sum
of all realities, of all that is worthy of love, of all that is good
and essential, is faith, as that which alone apprehends and possesses
God. It is true that man as man is the image of God, but only of the
natural God, of God as the Creator of Nature. But the Creator is only
God as he manifests himself outwardly; the true God, God as he is in
himself, the inward essence of God, is the triune God, is especially
Christ. (See Luther, Th. xiv. pp. 2, 3, and Th. xvi. p. 581.) And the
image of this true, essential, Christian God, is only the believer,
the Christian. Moreover, man is not to be loved for his own sake,
but for God's. "Diligendus est propter Deum, Deus vero propter se
ipsum."--Augustinus (de Doctrina Chr. 1. i. cc. 22, 27). How, then,
should the unbelieving man, who has no resemblance to the true God,
be an object of love?
§ 20.
Faith separates man from man, puts in the place of the natural
unity founded in Nature and Love a supernatural unity--the unity
of Faith. "Inter Christianum et gentilem non fides tantum debet,
sed etiam vita distinguere.... Nolite, ait Apostolus, jugum
ducere cum infidelibus.... Sit ergo inter nos et illos maxima
separatio."--Hieronymus (Epist. Caelantiæ matronae).... "Prope
nihil gravius quam copulari alienigeniae.... Nam cum ipsum conjugium
velamine sacerdotali et benedictione sanctificari oporteat: quomodo
potest conjugium dici, ubi non est fidei concordia?... Saepe plerique
capti amore feminarum fidem suam prodiderunt."--Ambrosius (Ep. 70,
Lib. ix.). "Non enim licet christiano cum gentili vel judaeo inire
conjugium."--Petrus L. (l. iv. dist. 39, c. 1). And this separation is
by no means unbiblical. On the contrary, we find that, in support of
it, the Fathers appeal directly to the Bible. The well-known passage
of the Apostle Paul concerning marriage between heathens and Christians
relates only to marriages which had taken place before conversion, not
to those which were yet to be contracted. Let the reader refer to what
Peter Lombard says in the book already cited. "The first Christians
did not acknowledge, did not once listen to, all those relatives who
sought to turn them away from the hope of the heavenly reward. This
they did through the power of the Gospel, for the sake of which all
love of kindred was to be despised; inasmuch as ... the brotherhood
of Christ far surpassed natural brotherhood. To us the Fatherland and
a common name is not so dear, but that we have a horror even of our
parents, if they seek to advise something against the Lord."--G. Arnold
(Wahre Abbild. der ersten Christen. B. iv. c. 2). "Qui amat patrem
et matrem plus quam me, non est me dignus Matth. x. ... in hoc
vos non agnosco parentes, sed hostes.... Alioquin quid mihi et
vobis? Quid a vobis habeo nisi peccatum et miseriam?"--Bernardus
(Epist. iii. Ex persona Heliae monachi ad parentes suos). "Etsi
impium est, contemnere matrem, contemnere tamen propter Christum
piissimum est."--Bernardus (Ep. 104. See also Ep. 351, ad Hugonem
novitium). "Audi sententiam Isidori: multi canonicorum, monachorum
... temporali salute suorum parentum perdunt animas suas.... Servi
Dei qui parentum suorum utilitatem procurant a Dei amore se
separant."--De modo bene vivendi (S. vii.). "Omnem hominem fidelem
judica tuum esse fratrem."--(Ibid. Sermo 13). "Ambrosius dicit,
longe plus nos debere diligere filios quos de fonte levamus,
quam quos carnaliter (genuimus."--Petrus L. (l. iv. dist. 6,
c. 5, addit. Henr. ab Vurim.). "Infantes nascuntur cum peccato,
nec fiunt haeredes vitae aeternae sine remissione peccati.... Cum
igitur dubium non sit in infantibus esse peccatum, debet aliquod
esse discrimen infantium Ethnicorum, qui manent rei, et infantium in
Ecclesia, qui recipiuntur a Deo per ministerium."--Melancthon (Loci de
bapt. inf. Argum. II. Compare with this the passage above cited from
Buddeus, as a proof of the narrowness of the true believer's love). "Ut
Episcopi vel Clerici in eos, qui Catholici Christiani non sunt, etiam
si consanguinei fuerint, nec per donationes rerum suarum aliquid
conferant."--Concil. Carthag. III. can. 13 (Summa Carranza). "Cum
haereticis nec orandum, nec psallendum."--Concil. Carthag. IV. can. 72
(ibid.).
Faith has the significance of religion, love only that of
morality. This has been declared very decidedly by Protestantism. The
doctrine that love does not justify in the sight of God, but only
faith, expresses nothing further than that love has no religious
power and significance. (Apol. Augsb. Confess. art. 3. Of Love and
the Fulfilment of the Law.) It is certainly here said: "What the
scholastic writers teach concerning the love of God is a dream, and
it is impossible to know and love God before we know and lay hold
on mercy through faith. For then first does God become objectum
amabile, a lovable, blissful object of contemplation." Thus here
mercy, love is made the proper object of faith. And it is true
that faith is immediately distinguished from love only in this,
that faith places out of itself what love places in itself. "We
believe that our justification, salvation, and consolation, lie out
of ourselves."--Luther (Th. xvi. p. 497; see also Th. ix. p. 587). It
is true that faith in the Protestant sense is faith in the forgiveness
of sins, faith in mercy, faith in Christ, as the God who suffered and
died for men, so that man, in order to attain everlasting salvation,
has nothing further to do on his side than believingly to accept this
sacrifice of God for him. But it is not as love only that God is an
object of faith. On the contrary, the characteristic object of faith
as faith is God as a subject, a person. And is a God who accords no
merit to man, who claims all exclusively for himself, who watches
jealously over his honour--is a self-interested, egoistic God like
this a God of love?
The morality which proceeds from faith has for its principle
and criterion only the contradiction of Nature, of man. As the
highest object of faith is that which most contradicts reason,
the Eucharist, so necessarily the highest virtue of the morality
which is true and obedient to faith is that which most contradicts
Nature. Dogmatic miracles have therefore moral miracles as their
consequence. Antinatural morality is the twin sister of supernatural
faith. As faith vanquishes Nature outside of man, so the morality of
faith vanquishes Nature within man. This practical supernaturalism,
the summit of which is "virginity, the sister of the angels, the queen
of virtues, the mother of all good" (see A. v. Buchers: Geistliches
Suchverloren. (Sämmtl. W. B. vi. 151), has been specially developed
by Catholicism; for Protestantism has held fast only the principle of
Christianity, and has arbitrarily eliminated its logical consequences;
it has embraced only Christian faith and not Christian morality. In
faith, Protestantism has brought man back to the standpoint of
primitive Christianity; but in life, in practice, in morality, it has
restored him to the pre-Christian, the Old Testament, the heathen,
Adamitic, natural standpoint. God instituted marriage in paradise;
therefore even in the present day, even to Christians, the command
Multiply! is valid. Christ advises those only not to marry who
"can receive" this higher rule. Chastity is a supernatural gift;
it cannot therefore be expected of every one. But is not faith also
a supernatural gift, a special gift of God, a miracle, as Luther
says innumerable times, and is it not nevertheless commanded to us
all? Are not all men included in the command to mortify, blind, and
contemn the natural reason? Is not the tendency to believe and accept
nothing which contradicts reason as natural, as strong, as necessary
in us, as the sexual impulse? If we ought to pray to God for faith
because by ourselves we are too weak to believe, why should we not
on the same ground entreat God for chastity? Will he deny us this
gift if we earnestly implore him for it? Never! Thus we may regard
chastity as a universal command equally with faith, for what we
cannot do of ourselves, we can do through God. What speaks against
chastity speaks against faith also, and what speaks for faith speaks
for chastity. One stands and falls with the other; with a supernatural
faith is necessarily associated a supernatural morality. Protestantism
tore this bond asunder: in faith it affirmed Christianity; in life, in
practice, it denied Christianity, acknowledged the autonomy of natural
reason, of man,--restored man to his original rights. Protestantism
rejected celibacy, chastity, not because it contradicted the Bible,
but because it contradicts man and nature. "He who will be single
renounces the name of man, and proves or makes himself an angel or
spirit.... It is pitiable folly to wonder that a man takes a wife,
or for any one to be ashamed of doing so, since no one wonders that
men are accustomed to eat and drink."--Luther (Th. xix. pp. 368,
369). Does this unbelief as to the possibility and reality of chastity
accord with the Bible, where celibacy is eulogised as a laudable,
and consequently a possible, attainable state? No! It is in direct
contradiction with the Bible. Protestantism, in consequence of its
practical spirit, and therefore by its own inherent force, repudiated
Christian supranaturalism in the sphere of morality. Christianity
exists for it only in faith--not in law, not in morality, not in the
State. It is true that love (the compendium of morality) belongs
essentially to the Christian, so that where there is no love,
where faith does not attest itself by love, there is no faith, no
Christianity. Nevertheless love is only the outward manifestation of
faith, only a consequence, and only human. "Faith alone deals with
God," "faith makes us gods;" love makes us merely men, and as faith
alone is for God, so God is for faith alone, i.e., faith alone is
the divine, the Christian in man. To faith belongs eternal life, to
love only this temporal life. "Long before Christ came God gave this
temporal, earthly life to the whole world, and said that man should
love him and his neighbour. After that he gave the world to his Son
Christ, that we through and by him should have eternal life.... Moses
and the law belong to this life, but for the other life we must have
the Lord."--Luther (Th. xvi. p. 459). Thus although love belongs to
the Christian, yet is the Christian a Christian only through this,
that he believes in Christ. It is true that to serve one's neighbour,
in whatever way, rank, or calling, is to serve God. But the God whom I
serve in fulfilling a worldly or natural office is only the universal,
mundane, natural, pre-Christian God. Government, the State, marriage,
existed prior to Christianity, was an institution, an ordinance
of God, in which he did not as yet reveal himself as the true God,
as Christ. Christ has nothing to do with all these worldly things;
they are external, indifferent to him. But for this very reason, every
worldly calling and rank is compatible with Christianity; for the true,
Christian service of God is faith alone, and this can be exercised
everywhere. Protestantism binds men only in faith, all the rest it
leaves free, but only because all the rest is external to faith.
It is true that we are bound by the commandments of Christian morality,
as, for example, "Avenge not yourselves," &c., but they have validity
for us only as private, not as public persons. The world is governed
according to its own laws. Catholicism "mingled together the worldly
and spiritual kingdoms," i.e., it sought to govern the world by
Christianity. But "Christ did not come on earth to interfere in the
government of the Emperor Augustus and teach him how to reign."--Luther
(Th. xvi. p. 49). Where worldly government begins Christianity ends;
there worldly justice, the sword, war, litigation, prevail. As a
Christian I let my cloak be stolen from me without resistance, but
as a citizen I seek to recover it by law. "Evangelium non abolet jus
naturæ."--Melancthon (de Vindicta Loci. See also on this subject
M. Chemnitii Loci Theol. de Vindicta). In fact, Protestantism is
the practical negation of Christianity, the practical assertion of
the natural man. It is true that Protestantism also commands the
mortifying of the flesh, the negation of the natural man; but apart
from the fact that this negation has for Protestantism no religious
significance and efficacy, does not justify, i.e., make acceptable
to God, procure salvation; the negation of the flesh in Protestantism
is not distinguished from that limitation of the flesh which natural
reason and morality enjoin on man. The necessary practical consequences
of the Christian faith Protestantism has relegated to the other world,
to heaven--in other words, has denied them. la heaven first ceases
the worldly standpoint of Protestantism; there we no longer marry,
there first we are new creatures; but here everything remains as of old
"until that life; there the external life will be changed, for Christ
did not come to change the creature."--Luther (Th. xv. p. 62). Here
we are half heathens, half Christians; half citizens of the earth,
half citizens of heaven. Of this division, this disunity, this chasm,
Catholicism knows nothing. What it denies in heaven, i.e., in faith, it
denies, also, as far as possible, on earth, i.e., in morality. "Grandis
igitur virtutis est et sollicitate diligentiae, superare quod nata sis:
in carne non carnaliter vivere, tecum pugnare quotidie."--Hieronymus
(Ep. Furiae Rom. nobilique viduae). "Quanto igitur natura amplius
vincitur et premitur, tanto major gratia infunditur."--Thomas à
K. (Imit. l. iii. c. 54). "Esto robustus tam in agendo, quam in
patiendo naturae contraria."--(Ibid. c. 49.) "Beatus ille homo, qui
propter te, Domine, omnibus creaturis licentiam abeundi tribuit,
qui naturae vim facit et concupiscentias carnis fervore spiritus
crucifigit" (c. 48). "Adhuc proh dolor! vivit in me verus homo, non est
totus crucifixus."--(Ibid. c. 34, l. iii. c. 19, l. ii. c. 12.) And
these dicta by no means emanate simply from the pious individuality
of the author of the work De Imitatione Christi; they express the
genuine morality of Catholicism, that morality which the saints
attested by their lives, and which was sanctioned even by the Head of
the Church, otherwise so worldly. Thus it is said, for example, in
the Canonizatio S. Bernhardi Abbatis per Alexandrum papam III. anno
Ch. 1164. Litt. apost ... primo ad. Praelatos Eccles. Gallic.:
"In afflictione vero corporis sui usque adeo sibi mundum, seque
mundo reddidit crucifixum, ut confidamus martyrum quoque eum merita
obtinere sanctorum, etc." It was owing to this purely negative moral
principle that there could be enunciated within Catholicism itself the
gross opinion that mere martyrdom, without the motive of love to God,
obtains heavenly blessedness.
It is true that Catholicism also in practice denied the
supranaturalistic morality of Christianity; but its negation has
an essentially different significance from that of Protestantism;
it is a negation de facto but not de jure. The Catholic denied in
life what he ought to have affirmed in life,--as, for example, the
vow of chastity,--what he desired to affirm, at least if he was a
religious Catholic, but which in the nature of things he could not
affirm. Thus he gave validity to the law of Nature, he gratified the
flesh, in a word, he was a man, in contradiction with his essential
character, his religious principle and conscience. Adhuc proh
dolor! vivit in me verus homo. Catholicism has proved to the world
that the supernatural principle of faith in Christianity, applied to
life, made a principle of morals, has immoral, radically corrupting
consequences. This experience Protestantism made use of, or rather
this experience called forth Protestantism. It made the illegitimate,
practical negation of Christianity--illegitimate in the sense of
true Catholicism, though not in that of the degenerate Church--the
law, the norm of life. You cannot in life, at least in this life,
be Christians, peculiar, superhuman beings, therefore ye ought not
to be such. And it legitimised this negation of Christianity before
its still Christian conscience, by Christianity itself, pronounced
it to be Christian;--no wonder, therefore, that now at last modern
Christianity not only practically but theoretically represents
the total negation of Christianity as Christianity. When, however,
Protestantism is designated as the contradiction, Catholicism as
the unity of faith and practice, it is obvious that in both cases we
refer only to the essence, to the principle.
Faith sacrifices man to God. Human sacrifice belongs to the very idea
of religion. Bloody human sacrifices only dramatise this idea. "By
faith Abraham offered up Isaac."--Heb. xi. 17. "Quanto major Abraham,
qui unicum filium voluntate jugulavit.... Jepte obtulit virginem filiam
et idcirco in enumeratione sanctorum ab Apostolo ponitur."--Hieronymus
(Epist. Juliano). On the human sacrifices in the Jewish religion
we refer the reader to the works of Daumer and Ghillany. In the
Christian religion also it is only blood, the sacrifice of the Son of
Man, which allays God's anger and reconciles him to man. Therefore
a pure, guiltless man must fall a sacrifice. Such blood alone is
precious, such alone has reconciling power. And this blood, shed on
the cross for the allaying of the divine anger, Christians partake
in the Lord's Supper, for the strengthening and sealing of their
faith. But why is the blood taken under the form of wine, the flesh
under the form of bread? That it may not appear as if Christians ate
real human flesh and drank human blood, that the natural man may not
shrink from the mysteries of the Christian faith. "Etenim ne humana
infirmitas esum carnis et potum sanguinis in sumptione horreret,
Christus velari et palliari illa duo voluit speciebus panis et
vini."--Bernard. (edit. cit. pp. 189-191). "Sub alia autem specie
tribus de causis carnem et sanguinem tradit Christus et deinceps
sumendum instituit. Ut fides scil. haberet meritum, quae est de
his quae non videntur, quod fides non habet meritum, ubi humana
ratio praebet experimentum. Et ideo etiam ne abhorreret animus quod
cerneret oculus; quod non habemus in usu carnem crudam comedere
et sanguinem bibere.... Et etiam ideo ne ab incredulis religioni
christianae insultaretur. Unde Augustinus: Nihil rationabilius,
quam ut sanguinis similitudinem sumamus, ut et ita veritas non desit
et ridiculum nullum fiat a paganis, quod cruorem occisi hominis
bibamus."--Petrus Lomb. (Sent. lib. iv. dist. ii. c. 4).
But as the bloody human sacrifice, while it expresses the utmost
abnegation of man, is at the same time the highest assertion of
his value;--for only because human life is regarded as the highest,
because the sacrifice of it is the most painful, costs the greatest
conquest over feeling, is it offered to God;--so the contradiction
of the Eucharist with human nature is only apparent. Apart from the
fact that flesh and blood are, as St. Bernard says, clothed with
bread and wine, i.e., that in truth it is not flesh but bread, not
blood but wine, which is partaken,--the mystery of the Eucharist
resolves itself into the mystery of eating and drinking. "All
ancient Christian doctors ... teach that the body of Christ is
not taken spiritually alone by faith, which happens also out of
the Sacraments, but also corporeally; not alone by believers,
by the pious, but also by unworthy, unbelieving, false and wicked
Christians." "There are thus two ways of eating Christ's flesh, one
spiritual ... such spiritual eating however is nothing else than
faith.... The other way of eating the body of Christ is to eat it
corporeally or sacramentally."--(Concordienb. Erkl. art. 7). "The
mouth eats the body of Christ bodily."--Luther (against the
"fanatics." Th. xix. p. 417). What then forms the specific difference
of the Eucharist? Eating and drinking. Apart from the Sacrament,
God is partaken of spiritually; in the Sacrament he is partaken of
materially, i.e., he is eaten and drunken, assimilated by the body. But
how couldst thou receive God into thy body, if it were in thy esteem
an organ unworthy of God? Dost thou pour wine into a water-cask? Dost
thou not declare thy hands and lips holy when by means of them thou
comest in contact with the Holy One? Thus if God is eaten and drunken,
eating and drinking is declared to be a divine act; and this is what
the Eucharist expresses, though in a self-contradictory, mystical,
covert manner. But it is our task to express the mystery of religion,
openly and honourably, clearly and definitely. Life is God; the
enjoyment of life is the enjoyment of God; true bliss in life is true
religion. But to the enjoyment of life belongs the enjoyment of eating
and drinking. If therefore life in general is holy, eating and drinking
must be holy. Is this an irreligious creed? Let it be remembered that
this irreligion is the analysed, unfolded, unequivocally expressed
mystery of religion itself. All the mysteries of religion ultimately
resolve themselves, as we have shown, into the mystery of heavenly
bliss. But heavenly bliss is nothing else than happiness freed from
the limits of reality. The Christians have happiness for their object
just as much as the heathens; the only difference is, that the heathens
place heaven on earth, the Christians place earth in heaven. Whatever
is, whatever is really enjoyed, is finite; that which is not, which
is believed in and hoped for, is infinite.
§ 21.
The Christian religion is a contradiction. It is at once the
reconciliation and the disunion, the unity and the opposition, of God
and man. This contradiction is personified in the God-man. The unity
of the Godhead and manhood is at once a truth and an untruth. We
have already maintained that if Christ was God, if he was at
once man and another being conceived as incapable of suffering,
his suffering was an illusion. For his suffering as man was no
suffering to him as God. No! what he acknowledged as man he denied
as God. He suffered only outwardly, not inwardly, i.e., he suffered
only apparently, not really; for he was man only in appearance,
in form, in the external; in truth, in essence, in which alone he
was an object to the believer, he was God. It would have been true
suffering only if he had suffered as God also. What he did not
experience in his nature as God, he did not experience in truth,
in substance. And, incredible as it is, the Christians themselves
half directly, half indirectly, admit that their highest, holiest
mystery is only an illusion, a simulation. This simulation indeed
lies at the foundation of the thoroughly unhistorical, [235]
theatrical, illusory Gospel of John. One instance, among others,
in which this is especially evident, is the resurrection of Lazarus,
where the omnipotent arbiter of life and death evidently sheds tears
only in ostentation of his manhood, and expressly says: "Father,
I thank thee that thou hast heard me, and I know that thou hearest
me always, but for the sake of the people who stand round I said it,
that they may believe in thee." The simulation thus indicated in the
Gospel has been developed by the Church into avowed delusion. "Si
credas susceptionem corporis, adjungas divinitatis compassionem,
portionem utique perfidiae, non perfidiam declinasti. Credis enim,
quod tibi prodesse praesumis, non credis quod Deo dignum est.... Idem
enim patiebatur et non patiebatur.... Patiebatur secundum corporis
susceptionem, ut suscepti corporis veritas crederetur et non patiebatur
secundum verbi impassibilem divinitatem.... Erat igitur immortalis
in morte, impassibilis in passione.... Cur divinitati attribuis
aerumnas corporis et infirmum doloris humani divinae connectis
naturae?"--Ambrosius (de incarnat. domin. sacr. cc. 4, 5). "Juxta
hominis naturam proficiebat sapientia, non quod ipse sapientior esset
ex tempore ... sed eandem, qua plenus erat, sapientiam caeteris ex
tempore paulatim demonstrabat.... In aliis ergo non in se proficiebat
sapientia et gratia."--Gregorius in homil. quadam (ap. Petrus
Lomb. l. iii. dist. 13, c. 1). "Proficiebat ergo humanus sensus in eo
secundum ostensionem et aliorum hominum opinionem. Ita enim patrem et
matrem dicitur ignorasse in infantia, quia ita se gerebat et habebat
ac si agnitionis expers esset."--Petrus L. (ibid. c. 2). "Ut homo ergo
dubitat, ut homo locutus est."--Ambrosius. "His verbis innui videtur,
quod Christus non inquantum Deus vel Dei filius, sed inquantum homo
dubitaverit affectu humano. Quod ea ratione dictum accipi potest: non
quod ipse dubitaverit, sed quod modum gessit dubitantis et hominibus
dubitare videbatur."--Petrus L. (ibid. dist. 17, c. 2). In the first
part of the present work we have exhibited the truth, in the second
part the untruth of religion, or rather of theology. The truth is only
the identity of God and man. Religion is truth only when it affirms
human attributes as divine, falsehood when, in the form of theology,
it denies these attributes, separating God from man as a different
being. Thus, in the first part we had to show the truth of God's
suffering; here we have the proof of its untruth, and not a proof
which lies in our own subjective view, but an objective proof--the
admission of theology itself, that its highest mystery, the Passion of
God, is only a deception, an illusion. It is therefore in the highest
degree uncritical, untruthful, and arbitrary to explain the Christian
religion, as speculative philosophy has done, only as the religion of
reconciliation between God and man, and not also as the religion of
disunion between the divine and human nature,--to find in the God-man
only the unity, and not also the contradiction of the divine and
human nature. Christ suffered only as man, not as God. Capability of
suffering is the sign of real humanity. It was not as God that he was
born, that he increased in wisdom, and was crucified; i.e., all human
conditions remained foreign to him as God. "Si quis non confitetur
proprie et vere substantialem differentiam naturarum post ineffabilem
unionem, ex quibus unus et solus extitit Christus, in ea salvatum, sit
condemnatus."--Concil. Later. I. can. 7 (Carranza). The divine nature,
notwithstanding the position that Christ was at once God and man,
is just as much dissevered from the human nature in the incarnation
as before it, since each nature excludes the conditions of the other,
although both are united in one personality, in an incomprehensible,
miraculous, i.e., untrue manner, in contradiction with the relation in
which, according to their definition, they stand to each other. Even
the Lutherans, nay, Luther himself, however strongly he expresses
himself concerning the community and union of the human and divine
nature in Christ, does not escape from the irreconcilable division
between them. "God is man, and man is God, but thereby neither the
natures nor their attributes are confounded, but each nature retains
its essence and attributes." "The Son of God himself has truly suffered
and truly died, but according to the human nature which he had assumed;
for the divine nature can neither suffer nor die." "It is truly said,
the Son of God suffers. For although the one part (so to speak), as
the Godhead, does not suffer, still the person who is God suffers in
the other half, the manhood; for in truth the Son of God was crucified
for us, that is, the person who is God; for the person is crucified
according to his manhood." "It is the person that does and suffers all,
one thing according to this nature, another according to that nature,
all which the learned well know."--(Concordienb. Erklär. art. 8.) "The
Son of God and God himself is killed and murdered, for God and man is
one person. Therefore God was crucified, and died, and became man;
not God apart from humanity, but united with it; not according
to the Godhead, but according to the human nature which he had
assumed."--Luther (Th. iii. p. 502). Thus only in the person, i.e.,
only in a nomen proprium, not in essence, not in truth, are the two
natures united. "Quando dicitur: Deus est homo vel homo est Deus,
propositio ejusmodi vocatur personalis. Ratio est, quia unionem
personalem in Christo supponit. Sine tali enim naturarum in Christo
unione nunquam dicere potuissem, Deum esse hominem aut hominem esse
Deum.... Abstracta autem naturae de se invicem enuntiari non posse,
longe est manifestissimum.... Dicere itaque non licet, divina natura
est humana aut deitas est humanitas et vice versa."--J. F. Buddeus
(Comp. Inst. Theol. Dogm. l. iv. c. ii. § 11). Thus the union of the
divine and human natures in the incarnation is only a deception, an
illusion. The old dissidence of God and man lies at the foundation of
this dogma also, and operates all the more injuriously, is all the more
odious, that it conceals itself behind the appearance, the imagination
of unity. Hence Socinianism, far from being superficial when it denied
the Trinity and the God-man, was only consistent, only truthful. God
was a triune being, and yet he was to be held purely simple,
absolute unity, an ens simplicissimum; thus the Unity contradicted the
Trinity. God was God-man, and yet the Godhead was not to be touched or
annulled by the manhood, i.e., it was to be essentially distinct; thus
the incompatibility of the divine and human attributes contradicted the
unity of the two natures. According to this, we have in the very idea
of the God-man the arch-enemy of the God-man,--rationalism, blended,
however, with its opposite--mysticism. Thus Socinianism only denied
what faith itself denied, and yet, in contradiction with itself,
at the same time affirmed; it only denied a contradiction, an untruth.
Nevertheless the Christians have celebrated the incarnation as a
work of love, as a self-renunciation of God, an abnegation of his
majesty--Amor triumphat de Deo; for the love of God is an empty word
if it is understood as a real abolition of the distinction between him
and man. Thus we have, in the very central point of Christianity, the
contradiction of Faith and Love developed in the close of the present
work. Faith makes the suffering of God a mere appearance, love makes
it a truth. Only on the truth of the suffering rests the true positive
impression of the incarnation. Strongly, then, as we have insisted on
the contradiction and division between the divine and the human nature
in the God-man, we must equally insist on their community and unity,
in virtue of which God is really man and man is really God. Here then
we have the irrefragable and striking proof that the central point,
the supreme object of Christianity, is nothing else than man, that
Christians adore the human individual as God, and God as the human
individual. "This man born of the Virgin Mary is God himself, who has
created heaven and earth."--Luther (Th. ii. p. 671). "I point to the
man Christ and say: That is the Son of God."--(Th. xix. p. 594.) "To
give life, to have all power in heaven and earth, to have all things
in his hands, all things put under his feet, to purify from sin,
and so on, are divine, infinite attributes, which, according to the
declaration of the Holy Scriptures, are given and imparted to the
man Christ." "Therefore we believe, teach, and confess that the Son
of Man ... now not only as God, but also as man, knows all things,
can do all things, is present with all creatures." "We reject and
condemn the doctrine that he (the Son of God) is not capable according
to his human nature of omnipotence and other attributes of the divine
nature."--(Concordienb. Summar. Begr. u. Erklär. art. 8.) "Unde et
sponte sua fluit, Christo etiam qua humanam naturam spectato cultum
religiosum deberi."--Buddeus (l. c. l. iv. c. ii. § 17). The
same is expressly taught by the Fathers and the Catholics,
e.g., "Eadem adoratione adoranda in Christo est divinitas et
humanitas.... Divinitas intrinsece inest humanitati per unionem
hypostaticam: ergo humanitas Christi seu Christus ut homo potest
adorari absoluto cultu latriae."--Theol. Schol. (sec. Thomam
Aq. P. Metzger. iv. p. 124). It is certainly said that it is not
man, not flesh and blood by itself, which is worshipped, but the
flesh united with God, so that the cultus applies not to the flesh,
or man, but to God. But it is here as with the worship of saints and
images. As the saint is adored in the image and God in the saint,
only because the image and the saint are themselves adored, so God is
worshipped in the human body only because the human flesh is itself
worshipped. God becomes flesh, man, because man is in truth already
God. How could it enter into thy mind to bring the human flesh into
so close a relation and contact with God if it were something impure,
degrading, unworthy of God? If the value, the dignity of the human
flesh does not lie in itself, why dost thou not make other flesh--the
flesh of brutes the habitation of the Divine Spirit? True it is said:
Man is only the organ in, with, and by which the Godhead works, as
the soul in the body. But this pretext also is refuted by what has
been said above. God chose man as his organ, his body, because only in
man did he find an organ worthy of him, suitable, pleasing to him. If
the nature of man is indifferent, why did not God become incarnate in
a brute? Thus God comes into man only out of man. The manifestation
of God in man is only a manifestation of the divinity and glory of
man. "Noscitur ex alio, qui non cognoscitur ex se"--this trivial
saying is applicable here. God is known through man, whom he honours
with his personal presence and indwelling, and known as a human being,
for what any one prefers, selects, loves, in his objective nature; and
man is known through God, and known as a divine being, for only that
which is worthy of God, which is divine, can be the object, organ,
and habitation of God. True it is further said: It is Jesus Christ
alone, and no other man, who is worshipped as God. But this argument
also is idle and empty. Christ is indeed one only, but he is one who
represents all. He is a man as we are, "our brother, and we are flesh
of his flesh and bone of his bone." "In Jesus Christ our Lord every
one of us is a portion of flesh and blood. Therefore where my body is,
there I believe that I myself reign. Where my flesh is glorified,
there I believe that I am myself glorious. Where my blood rules,
there I hold that I myself rule."--Luther (Th. xvi. p. 534). This
then is an undeniable fact: Christians worship the human individual
as the supreme being, as God. Not indeed consciously, for it is
the unconsciousness of this fact which constitutes the illusion of
the religious principle. But in this sense it may be said that the
heathens did not worship the statues of the gods; for to them also
the statue was not a statue, but God himself. Nevertheless they did
worship the statue; just as Christians worship the human individual,
though, naturally, they will not admit it.
§ 22.
Man is the God of Christianity, Anthropology the mystery of Christian
Theology. The history of Christianity has had for its grand result
the unveiling of this mystery--the realisation and recognition of
theology as anthropology. The distinction between Protestantism and
Catholicism--the old Catholicism, which now exists only in books,
not in actuality--consists only in this, that the latter is Theology,
the former Christology, i.e., (religious) Anthropology. Catholicism
has a supranaturalistic, abstract God, a God who is other than human, a
not human, a superhuman being. The goal of Catholic morality, likeness
to God, consists therefore in this, to be not a man, but more than a
man--a heavenly abstract being, an angel. Only in its morality does
the essence of a religion realise, reveal itself: morality alone
is the criterion, whether a religious dogma is felt as a truth or
is a mere chimera. Thus the doctrine of a superhuman, supernatural
God is a truth only where it has as its consequence a superhuman,
supernatural, or rather antinatural morality. Protestantism, on the
contrary, has not a supranaturalistic but a human morality, a morality
of and for flesh and blood; consequently its God, at least its true,
real God, is no longer an abstract, supranaturalistic being, but a
being of flesh and blood. "This defiance the devil hears unwillingly,
that our flesh and blood is the Son of God, yea, God himself,
and reigns in heaven over all."--Luther (Th. xvi. p. 573). "Out
of Christ there is no God, and where Christ is, there is the whole
Godhead."--Id. (Th. xix. p. 403). Catholicism has, both in theory and
practice, a God who, in spite of the predicate of love, exists for
himself, to whom therefore man only comes by being against himself,
denying himself, renouncing his existence for self; Protestantism,
on the contrary, has a God who, at least practically, virtually,
has not an existence for himself, but exists only for man, for the
welfare of man. Hence in Catholicism the highest act of the cultus,
"the mass of Christ," is a sacrifice of man,--the same Christ, the
same flesh and blood, is sacrificed to God in the Host as on the
cross; in Protestantism, on the contrary, it is a sacrifice, a gift
of God: God sacrifices himself, surrenders himself to be partaken
by man. (See Luther, e.g., Th. xx. p. 259; Th. xvii. p. 529.) In
Catholicism manhood is the property, the predicate of the Godhead (of
Christ)--God is man; in Protestantism, on the contrary, Godhead is
the property, the predicate of manhood (Christ)--man is God. "This,
in time past, the greatest theologians have done--they have fled
from the manhood of Christ to his Godhead, and attached themselves
to that alone, and thought that we should not know the manhood of
Christ. But we must so rise to the Godhead of Christ, and hold by
it in such a way, as not to forsake the manhood of Christ and come
to the Godhead alone. Thou shouldst know of no God, nor Son of God,
save him who was born of the Virgin Mary and became man. He who
receives his manhood has also his Godhead."--Luther (Th. ix. pp. 592,
598). [236] Or, briefly thus: in Catholicism, man exists for God;
in Protestantism, God exists for man. [237] "Jesus Christ our Lord
was conceived for us, born for us, suffered for us, was crucified,
died, and was buried for us. Our Lord rose from the dead for our
consolation, sits for our good at the right hand of the Almighty
Father, and is to judge the living and the dead for our comfort. This
the holy Apostles and beloved Fathers intended to intimate in their
confession by the words: Us and our Lord--namely, that Jesus Christ
is ours, whose office and will it is to help us ... so that we should
not read or speak the words coldly, and interpret them only of Christ,
but of ourselves also."--Luther (Th. xvi. p. 538). "I know of no God
but him who gave himself for me. Is not that a great thing that God
is man, that God gives himself to man and will be his, as man gives
himself to his wife and is hers? But if God is ours, all things are
ours."--(Th. xii. p. 283.) "God cannot be a God of the dead, who are
nothing, but is a God of the living. If God were a God of the dead,
he would be as a husband who had no wife, or as a father who had
no son, or as a master who had no servant. For if he is a husband,
he must have a wife. If he is a father, he must have a son. If he is
a master, he must have a servant. Or he would be a fictitious father,
a fictitious master, that is, nothing. God is not a God like the idols
of the heathens, neither is he an imaginary God, who exists for himself
alone, and has none who call upon him and worship him. A God is he
from whom everything is to be expected and received.... If he were God
for himself alone in heaven, and we had no good to rely on from him,
he would be a God of stone or straw.... If he sat alone in heaven
like a clod, he would not be God."--(Th. xvi. p. 465). "God says:
I the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth am thy God.... To be a God
means to redeem us from all evil and trouble that oppresses us, as sin,
hell, death, &c."--(Th. ii. p. 327.) "All the world calls that a God
in whom man trusts in need and danger, on whom he relies, from whom
all good is to be had and who can help. Thus reason describes God,
that he affords help to man, and does good to him, bestows benefits
upon him. This thou seest also in this text: 'I am the Lord thy God,
who brought thee out of the land of Egypt.' There we are taught what
God is, what is his nature, and what are his attributes,--namely,
that he does good, delivers from dangers, and helps out of trouble
and all calamities."--(Th. iv. pp. 236, 237.) But if God is a living,
i.e., real God, is God in general, only in virtue of this--that he is
a God to man, a being who is useful, good, beneficent to man; then, in
truth, man is the criterion, the measure of God, man is the absolute,
divine being. The proposition: A God existing only for himself is
no God--means nothing else than that God without man is not God;
where there is no man there is no God; if thou takest from God the
predicate of humanity, thou takest from him the predicate of deity;
if his relation to man is done away with, so also is his existence.
Nevertheless Protestantism, at least in theory, has retained
in the background of this human God the old supranaturalistic
God. Protestantism is the contradiction of theory and practice; it has
emancipated the flesh, but not the reason. According to Protestantism,
Christianity, i.e., God, does not contradict the natural impulses of
man:--"Therefore we ought now to know that God does not condemn or
abolish the natural tendency in man which was implanted in Nature
at the creation, but that he awakens and preserves it."--Luther
(Th. iii. p. 290). But it contradicts reason, and is therefore,
theoretically, only an object of faith. We have shown, however,
that the nature of faith, the nature of God, is itself nothing else
than the nature of man placed out of man, conceived as external to
man. The reduction of the extrahuman, supernatural, and antirational
nature of God to the natural, immanent, inborn nature of man,
is therefore the liberation of Protestantism, of Christianity in
general, from its fundamental contradiction, the reduction of it to
its truth,--the result, the necessary, irrepressible, irrefragable
result of Christianity.
THE END.
NOTES
[1] The opening paragraphs of this Preface are omitted, as having
too specific a reference to transient German polemics to interest
the English reader.
[2] For example, in considering the sacraments, I limit myself to two;
for in the strictest sense (see Luther, T. xvii. p. 558), there are
no more.
[3] "Objectum intellectus esse illimitatum sive omne verum ac, ut
loquuntur, omne ens ut ens, ex eo constat, quod ad nullum non genus
rerum extenditur, nullumque est, cujus cognoscendi capax non sit,
licet ob varia obstacula multa sint, quæ re ipsa non norit."--Gassendi
(Opp. Omn. Phys.).
[4] The obtuse Materialist says: "Man is distinguished from the brute
only by consciousness--he is an animal with consciousness superadded;"
not reflecting, that in a being which awakes to consciousness,
there takes place a qualitative change, a differentiation of the
entire nature. For the rest, our words are by no means intended to
depreciate the nature of the lower animals. This is not the place to
enter further into that question.
[5] "Toute opinion est assez forte pour se faire exposer au prix de
la vie."--Montaigne.
[6] Homini homine nihil pulchrius. (Cic. de Nat. D. l. i.) And this
is no sign of limitation, for he regards other beings as beautiful
besides himself; he delights in the beautiful forms of animals, in
the beautiful forms of plants, in the beauty of nature in general. But
only the absolute, the perfect form, can delight without envy in the
forms of other beings.
[7] "The understanding is percipient only of understanding, and
what proceeds thence."--Reimarus (Wahrh. der Natürl. Religion,
iv. Abth. § 8).
[8] "Verisimile est, non minus quam geometriæ, etiam musicæ
oblectationem ad plures quam ad nos pertinere. Positis enim aliis
terris atque animalibus ratione et auditu pollentibus, cur tantum
his nostris contigisset ea voluptas, quæ sola ex sono percipi
potest?"--Christ. Hugenius (Cosmotheor., l. i.).
[9] De Genesi ad litteram, l. v. c. 16.
[10] "Unusquisque vestrum non cogitat, prius se debere Deum nosse,
quam colere."--M. Minucii Felicis Octavianus, c. 24.
[11] The meaning of this parenthetic limitation will be clear in
the sequel.
[12] "Les perfections de Dieu sont celles de nos âmes, mais il les
possede sans bornes--il y a en nous quelque puissance, quelque
connaissance quelque bonté, mais elles sont toutes entières en
Dieu."--Leibnitz (Théod. Preface). "Nihil in anima esse putemus
eximium, quod non etiam divinæ naturæ proprium sit--Quidquid a Deo
alienum extra definitionem animæ"--St. Gregorius Nyss. "Est ergo,
ut videtur, disciplinarum omnium pulcherrima et maxima se ipsum
nosse; si quis enim se ipsum norit, Deum cognoscet."--Clemens
Alex. (Pæd. 1. iii. c. 1).
[13] For religious faith there is no other distinction between the
present and future God than that the former is an object of faith,
of conception, of imagination, while the latter is to be an object of
immediate, that is, personal, sensible perception. In this life and
in the next he is the same God; but in the one he is incomprehensible,
in the other comprehensible.
[14] Inter creatorem et creaturam non potest
tanta similitudo notari, quin inter eos major sit
dissimilitudo notanda.--Later. Conc. can. 2. (Summa
Omn. Conc. Carranza. Antw. 1559. p. 326.) The last distinction between
man and God, between the finite and infinite nature, to which the
religious speculative imagination soars, is the distinction between
Something and Nothing, Ens and Non-Ens; for only in Nothing is all
community with other beings abolished.
[15] Gloriam suam plus amat Deus quam omnes creaturas. "God can
only love himself, can only think of himself, can only work for
himself. In creating man, God seeks his own ends, his own glory,"
&c.--Vide P. Bayle, Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Philos. u. Menschh.,
pp. 104-107.
[16] Pelagianism denies God, religion--isti tantam tribuunt
potestatem voluntati, ut pietati auferant orationem. (Augustin de
Nat. et Grat. cont. Pelagium, c. 58.) It has only the Creator, i.e.,
Nature, as a basis, not the Saviour, the true God of the religious
sentiment--in a word, it denies God; but, as a consequence of this,
it elevates man into a God, since it makes him a being not needing
God, self-sufficing, independent. (See on this subject Luther against
Erasmus and Augustine, l. c. c. 33.) Augustinianism denies man; but,
as a consequence of this, it reduces God to the level of man, even
to the ignominy of the cross, for the sake of man. The former puts
man in the place of God, the latter puts God in the place of man;
both lead to the same result--the distinction is only apparent,
a pious illusion. Augustinianism is only an inverted Pelagianism;
what to the latter is a subject, is to the former an object.
[17] The religious, the original mode in which man becomes objective
to himself, is (as is clearly enough, explained in this work) to
be distinguished from the mode in which this occurs in reflection
and speculation; the latter is voluntary, the former involuntary,
necessary--as necessary as art, as speech. With the progress of time,
it is true; theology coincides with religion.
[18] Deut. xxiii. 12, 13.
[19] See, for example, Gen. xxxv. 2; Levit. xi. 44; xx. 26; and the
Commentary of Le Clerc on these passages.
[20] Augustine, in his work Contra Academicos, which he wrote when
he was still in some measure a heathen, says (l. iii. c. 12) that the
highest good of man consists in the mind or in the reason. On the other
hand, in his Libr. Retractationum, which he wrote as a distinguished
Christian and theologian, he revises (l. i. c. 1) this declaration
as follows:--Verius dixissem in Deo. Ipso enim mens fruitur, ut beata
sit, tanquam summo bono suo. But is there any distinction here? Where
my highest good is, is not there my nature also?
[21] Kant, Vorles. über d. philos. Religionsl., Leipzig, 1817, p. 39.
[22] Kant, l. c., p. 80.
[23] To guard against mistake, I observe that I do not apply to the
understanding the expression self-subsistent essence, and other
terms of a like character, in my own sense, but that I am here
placing myself on the standpoint of onto-theology, of metaphysical
theology in general, in order to show that metaphysics is resolvable
into psychology, that the onto-theological predicates are merely
predicates of the understanding.
[24] Malebranche. (See the author's Geschichte der Philos., 1
Bd. p. 322.) "Exstaretne alibi diversa ab hac ratio? censereturque
injustum aut scelestum in Jove aut Marte, quod apud nos
justum ac præclarum habetur? Certe nec verisimile nec omnino
possibile."--Chr. Hugenii (Cosmotheoros, lib. i.).
[25] In religion, the representation or expression of the nothingness
of man before God is the anger of God; for as the love of God is
the affirmation, his anger is the negation of man. But even this
anger is not taken in earnest. "God ... is not really angry. He is
not thoroughly in earnest even when we think that he is angry, and
punishes."--Luther (Th. viii. p. 208).
[26] Luther, Concordienbuch, Art. 8, Erklär.
[27] Luther, Sämmtliche Schriften und Werke, Leipzig, 1729,
fol. Th. iii. p. 589. It is according to this edition that references
are given throughout the present work.
[28] Predigten etzlicher Lehrer vor und zu Tauleri Zeiten, Hamburg,
1621, p. 81.
[29] "That which, in our own judgment, derogates from our self-conceit,
humiliates us. Thus the moral law inevitably humiliates every man
when he compares with it the sensual tendency of his nature."--Kant,
Kritik der prakt. Vernunft, 4th edition, p. 132.
[30] "Omnes peccavimus.... Parricide cum lega cæperunt et illis
facinus poena monstravit."--Seneca. "The law destroys us."--Luther
(Th. xvi. s. 320).
[31] "Das Rechtsgefühl der Sinnlichkeit."
[32] "This, my God and Lord, has taken upon him my nature, flesh
and blood such as I have, and has been tempted and has suffered in
all things like me, but without sin; therefore he can have pity on
my weakness.--Hebrews v. Luther (Th. xvi. s. 533). "The deeper we
can bring Christ into the flesh the better."--(Ibid. s. 565.) "God
himself, when he is dealt with out of Christ, is a terrible
God, for no consolation is found in him, but pure anger and
disfavour."--(Th. xv. s. 298.)
[33] "Such descriptions as those in which the Scriptures speak of God
as of a man, and ascribe to him all that is human, are very sweet and
comforting--namely, that he talks with us as a friend, and of such
things as men are wont to talk of with each other; that he rejoices,
sorrows, and suffers, like a man, for the sake of the mystery of the
future humanity of Christ."--Luther (Th. ii. p. 334).
[34] "Deus homo factus est, ut homo Deus fieret."--Augustinus (Serm. ad
Pop. p. 371, c. 1). In Luther, however (Th. i. p. 334), there is a
passage which indicates the true relation. When Moses called man
"the image of God, the likeness of God," he meant, says Luther,
obscurely to intimate that "God was to become man." Thus here the
incarnation of God is clearly enough represented as a consequence of
the deification of man.
[35] It was in this sense that the old uncompromising enthusiastic
faith celebrated the Incarnation. "Amor triumphat de Deo," says
St. Bernard. And only in the sense of a real self-renunciation,
self-negation of the Godhead, lies the reality, the vis of the
Incarnation; although this self-negation is in itself merely a
conception of the imagination, for, looked at in broad daylight,
God does not negative himself in the Incarnation, but he shows
himself as that which he is, as a human being. The fabrications which
modern rationalistic orthodoxy and pietistic rationalism have advanced
concerning the Incarnation, in opposition to the rapturous conceptions
and expressions of ancient faith, do not deserve to be mentioned,
still less controverted.
[36] "Nos scimus affici Deum misericordia nostri et non solum
respicere lacrymas nostras, sed etiam numerare stillulas, sicut
scriptum in Psalmo LVI. Filius Dei vere afficitur sensu miseriarum
nostrarum."--Melancthonis et aliorum (Declam. Th. iii. p. 286, p. 450).
[37] St. Bernard resorts to a charmingly sophistical play of
words:--"Impassibilis est Deus, sed non incompassibilis, cui proprium
est misereri semper et parcere."--(Sup. Cant. Sermo 26.) As if
compassion were not suffering--the suffering of love, it is true, the
suffering of the heart. But what does suffer if not thy sympathising
heart? No love, no suffering. The material, the source of suffering,
is the universal heart, the common bond of all beings.
[38] Religion speaks by example. Example is the law of religion. What
Christ did is law. Christ suffered for others; therefore, we should do
likewise. "Quæ necessitas fuit ut sic exinaniret se, sic humiliaret
se, sic abbreviaret se Dominus majestatis; nisi ut vos similiter
faciatis?"--Bernardus (in Die nat. Domini). "We ought studiously to
consider the example of Christ.... That would move us and incite us,
so that we from our hearts should willingly help and serve other
people, even though it might be hard, and we must suffer on account
of it."--Luther (Th. xv. p. 40).
[39] "Hærent plerique hoc loco. Ego autem non solum excusandum
non puto, sed etiam nusquam magis pietatem ejus majestatemque
demiror. Minus enim contulerat mihi, nisi meum suscepisset
affectum. Ergo pro me doluit, qui pro se nihil habuit, quod
doleret."--Ambrosius (Exposit. in Lucæ Ev. l. x. c. 22).
[40] "Quando enim illi (Deo) appropinquare auderemus in sua
impassibilitate manenti?"--Bernardus (Tract. de xii. Grad. Humil. et
Superb.).
[41] "Deus meus pendet in patibulo et ego voluptati operam
dabo?"--(Form. Hon. Vitæ. Among the spurious writings of
St. Bernard.) "Memoria crucifixi crucifigat in te carnem
tuam."--Joh. Gerhard (Medit. Sacræ, M. 37).
[42] "It is better to suffer evil than to do good."--Luther
(Th. iv. s. 15).
[43] "Pati voluit, ut compati disceret, miser fieri, ut misereri
disceret."--Bernhard (de Grad.). "Miserere nostri, quoniam
carnis imbecillitatem, tu ipse eam passus, expertus es."--Clemens
Alex. Pædag. l. i. c. 8.
[44] "Dei essentia est extra omnes creaturas, sicut ab æterno fuit Deus
in se ipso; ab omnibus ergo creaturis amorem tuum abstrahas."--John
Gerhard (Medit. Sacræ, M. 31). "If thou wouldst have the Creator,
thou must do without the creature. The less of the creature,
the more of God. Therefore, abjure all creatures, with all their
consolations."--J. Tauler (Postilla. Hamburg, 1621, p. 312). "If a
man cannot say in his heart with truth: God and I are alone in the
world--there is nothing else,--he has no peace in himself."--G. Arnold
(Von Verschmähung der Welt. Wahre Abbild der Ersten Christen, L. 4,
c. 2, § 7).
[45] "Exigit ergo Deus timeri ut Dominus, honorari ut pater, ut
sponsus amari. Quid in his præstat, quid eminet?--Amor." Bernardus
(Sup. Cant. Serm. 83).
[46] Just as the feminine spirit of Catholicism--in distinction from
Protestantism, whose principle is the masculine God, the masculine
spirit--is the Mother of God.
[47] "Dum Patris et Filii proprietates communionemque delectabilem
intueor, nihil delectabilius in illis invenio, quam mutuum amoris
affectum."--Anselmus (in Rixner's Gesch. d. Phil. II. B. Anh. p. 18).
[48] "Natus est de Patre semper et matre semel; de Patre sine sexu,
de matre sine usu. Apud patrem quippe defuit concipientis uterus; apud
matrem defuit seminantis amplexus."--Augustinus (Serm. ad Pop. p. 372,
c. 1, ed. Bened. Antw. 1701).
[49] In Jewish mysticism, God, according to one school, is a
masculine, the Holy Spirit a feminine principle, out of whose
intermixture arose the Son, and with him the world. Gfrörer,
Jahrb. d. H. i. Abth. pp. 332-334. The Herrnhuters also called the
Holy Spirit the mother of the Saviour.
[50] "For it could not have been difficult or impossible to God to
bring his Son into the world without a mother; but it was his will
to use the woman for that end."--Luther (Th. ii. p. 348).
[51] In the Concordienbuch, Erklär. Art. 8, and in the Apol. of
the Augsburg Confession, Mary is nevertheless still called the
"Blessed Virgin, who was truly the Mother of God, and yet remained
a virgin,"--"worthy of all honour."
[52] "Sit monachus quasi Melchisedec sine patre,
sine matre, sine genealogia: neque patrem sibi vocet
super terram. Imo sic existimet, quasi ipse sit solus et
Deus. (Specul. Monach. Pseudo-Bernard.) Melchisedec ... refertur
ad exemplum, ut tanquam sine patre et sine matre sacerdos esse
debeat."--Ambrosius.
[53] "Negas ergo Deum, si non omnia filio, quæ Dei sunt,
deferentur."--Ambrosius de Fide ad Gratianum, l. iii. c. 7. On the same
ground the Latin Church adhered so tenaciously to the dogma that the
Holy Spirit proceeded not from the Father alone, as the Greek Church
maintained, but from the Son also. See on this subject J. G. Walchii,
Hist. Contr. Gr. et Lat. de Proc. Spir. S. Jenæ, 1751.
[54] This is expressed very significantly in the Incarnation. God
renounces, denies his majesty, power, and affinity, in order to
become a man; i.e., man denies the God who is not himself a man, and
only affirms the God who affirms man. Exinanivit, says St. Bernard,
majestate et potentia, non bonitate et misericordia. That which cannot
be renounced, cannot be denied, is thus the Divine goodness and mercy,
i.e., the self-affirmation of the human heart.
[55] It is obvious that the Image of God has also another
signification, namely, that the personal, visible man is God
himself. But here the image is considered simply as an image.
[56] Let the reader only consider, for example, the Transfiguration,
the Resurrection, and the Ascension of Christ.
[57] "Sacram imaginem Domini nostri Jesu Christi et omnium
Salvatoris æquo honore cum libro sanctorum evangeliorum adorari
decernimus.... Dignum est enim ut ... propter honorem qui ad
principia refertur, etiam derivative imagines honorentur et
adorentur."--Gener. Const. Conc. viii. Art. 10, Can. 3.
[58] "Tanta certe vis nomini Jesu inest contra dæmones, ut nonnunquam
etiam a malis nominatum sit efficax."--Origenes adv. Celsum, l. i;
see also l. iii.
[59] "God reveals himself to us, as the Speaker, who has, in himself,
an eternal uncreated Word, whereby he created the world and all things,
with slight labour, namely, with speech, so that to God it is not more
difficult to create than it is to us to name."--Luther, Th. i. p. 302.
[60] "Hylarius ... Si quis innascibilem et sine initio dicat filium,
quasi duo sine principio et duo innascibilia, et duo innata dicens,
duos faciat Deos, anathema sit. Caput autem quod est principium
Christi, Deus.... Filium innascibilem confiteri impiissimum
est."--Petrus Lomb. Sent. l. i. dist. 31, c. 4.
[61] It is therefore mere self-delusion to suppose that the hypothesis
of a creation explains the existence of the world.
[62] It is beside our purpose to criticise this crass mystical
theory. We merely remark here, that darkness can be explained only
when it is derived from light; that the derivation of the darkness
in Nature from light appears an impossibility only when it is not
perceived that even in darkness there is a residue of light, that
the darkness in Nature is not an absolute, but a modified darkness,
tempered by light.
[63] Schelling, Ueber das Wesen der Menschlichen Freiheit, 429, 432,
427. Denkmal Jacobi's, s. 82, 97-99.
[64] Kernhafter Auszug ... J. Böhme: Amsterdam, 1718, p. 58.
[65] L. c. pp. 480, 338, 340, 323.
[66] The Philosophus teutonicus walked physically as well as mentally
on volcanic ground. "The town of Görlitz is paved throughout with pure
basalt."--Charpentier, Mineral. Geographie der Chursächsischen Lande,
p. 19.
[67] L. c. pp. 468, 617, 618.
[68] According to Swedenborg, the angels in heaven have clothes
and dwellings. "Their dwellings are altogether such as the
dwellings or houses on earth, but far more beautiful; there are
apartments, rooms, and sleeping chambers therein in great number,
and entrance-courts, and round about gardens, flowers, meadows, and
fields." (E. v. S. Auserlesene Schriften, 1 Th. Frankf. a. M. 1776,
p. 190, and 96.) Thus to the mystic this world is the other world;
but for that reason the other world is this world.
[69] L. c. p. 339, p. 69.
[70] "Quidquid enim unus quisque super cætera colit: hoc illi Deus
est."--Origines Explan. in Epist. Pauli ad Rom. c. l.
[71] "Quare fecit Deus coelum et terram? Quia voluit. Voluntas enim Dei
causa est coeli et terræ et ideo major est voluntas Dei quam coelum et
terra. Qui autem dicit: quare voluit facere coelum et terram? majus
aliquid quærit, quam est voluntas Dei, nihil enim majus invenire
potest."--Augustinus (de Genesi adv. Manich. l. i. c. 2).
[72] A more profound origin of the creation out of nothing lies in
the emotional nature, as is both directly and indirectly declared in
this work. But arbitrariness is, in fact, the will of the emotions,
their external manifestation of force.
[73] "Certissimum divinæ providentiæ; testimonium præbent
miracula."--H. Grotius (de Verit. Rel. Christ. l. i. § 13).
[74] It is true that religious naturalism, or the acknowledgment of
the Divine in Nature, is also an element of the Christian religion,
and yet more of the Mosaic, which was so friendly to animals. But
it is by no means the characteristic, the Christian tendency of
the Christian religion. The Christian, the religious Providence,
is quite another than that which clothes the lilies and feeds the
ravens. The natural Providence lets a man sink in the water, if he
has not learned to swim; but the Christian, the religious Providence,
leads him with the hand of omnipotence over the water unharmed.
[75] In this contrast of the religious, or biblical, and the natural
Providence, the author had especially in view the vapid, narrow
theology of the English natural philosophers.
[76] "Qui Deos negant, nobilitatem generis humani destruunt."--Bacon
(Serm. Fidel. 16).
[77] In Clemens Alex. (Coh. ad Gentes) there is an interesting
passage. It runs in the Latin translation (the bad Augsburg edition,
1778) thus:--"At nos ante mundi constitutionem fuimus, ratione futuræ
nostræ productionis, in ipso Deo quodammodo tum præexistentes. Divini
igitur Verbi sive Rationis, nos creaturæ rationales sumus, et per
eum primi esse dicimur, quoniam in principio erat verbum." Yet more
decidedly, however, has Christian mysticism declared the human nature
to be the creative principle, the ground of the world. "Man, who,
before time was, existed in eternity, works with God all the works
that God wrought a thousand years ago, and now, after a thousand
years, still works." "All creatures have sprung forth through
man."--Predigten, vor u. zu Tauleri Zeiten (Ed. c. p. 5, p. 119).
[78] Hence is explained why all attempts of speculative theology and of
its kindred philosophy to make the transition from God to the world,
or to derive the world from God, have failed and must fail. Namely,
because they are fundamentally false, from being made in ignorance
of the idea on which the Creation really turns.
[79] It is not admissible to urge against this the omnipresence of
God, the existence of God in all things, or the existence of things in
God. For, apart from the consideration that the future destruction of
the world expresses clearly enough its existence outside of God, i.e.,
its non-divineness, God is in a special manner only in man; but I am at
home only where I am specially at home. "Nowhere is God properly God,
but in the soul. In all creatures there is something of God; but in the
soul God exists completely, for it is his resting-place."--Predigten
etzlicher Lehrer, &c., p. 19. And the existence of things in God,
especially where it has no pantheistic significance, and any such
is here excluded, is equally an idea without reality, and does not
express the special sentiments of religion.
[80] Here is also the point where the Creation represents to us
not only the Divine power, but also the Divine love. "Quia bonus
est (Deus), sumus" (Augustin). In the beginning, before the world,
God was alone. "Ante omnia Deus erat solus, ipsi sibi et mundus et
locus et omnia. Solus autem; quia nihil extrinsecus præter ipsum"
(Tertullian). But there is no higher happiness than to make another
happy, bliss lies in the act of imparting. And only joy, only
love imparts. Hence man conceives imparting love as the principle
of existence. "Extasis bono non sinit ipsum manere in se ipso"
(Dionysius A.). Everything positive establishes, attests itself, only
by itself. The divine love is the joy of life, establishing itself,
affirming itself. But the highest self-consciousness of life, the
supreme joy of life is the love which confers happiness. God is the
bliss of existence.
[81] In Diogenes (L. 1. ii. c. iii. § 6), it is literally, "for the
contemplation of the sun, the moon and the heavens." Similar ideas were
held by other philosophers. Thus the Stoics also said:--"Ipse autem
homo ortus est ad mundum contemplandum et imitandum."--Cic. (de Nat.).
[82] "Hebræi numen verbo quidquid videtur efficiens describunt
et quasi imperio omnia creata tradunt, ut facilitatem in
eo quod vult efficiendo, summamque ejus in omnia potentiam
ostendant."--Ps. xxxiii. 6. "Verbo Jehovæ coeli facti
sunt."--Ps. cxlviii. 5. "Ille jussit eaque creata sunt."--J. Clericus
(Comment, in Mosem. Genes, i. 3).
[83] Exod. xvi. 12.
[84] Gen. xxviii. 20.
[85] Exod. xxiv. 10, 11. "Tantum abest ut mortui sint, ut contra
convivium hilares celebrarint."--Clericus.
[86] It is well known, however, that their opinions on this point
were various. (See e.g. Aristoteles de Coelo, 1. i. c. 10.) But their
difference is a subordinate one, since the creative agency itself is
with them a more or less cosmical being.
[87] Deut. iv. 19. "Licet enim ea, quæ sunt in coelo, non sint hominum
artificia, at hominum tamen gratia condita fuerunt. Ne quis igitur
solem adoret, sed solis effectorem desideret."--Clemens Alex. (Coh. ad
Gentes).
[88] But of course they only do this in the case of the "absolute
religion;" for with regard to other religions they hold up the ideas
and customs which are foreign to us, and of which we do not know the
original meaning and purpose, as senseless and ludicrous. And yet, in
fact, to worship the urine of cows, which the Parsees and Hindoos drink
that they may obtain forgiveness of sins, is not more ludicrous than
to worship the comb or a shred of the garment of the Mother of God.
[89] Wisd. xix. 6.
[90] See Gfrörer's Philo.
[91] We may here observe, that certainly the admiration of the power
and glory of God in general, and so of Jehovah, as manifested in
Nature, is in fact, though not in the consciousness of the Israelite,
only admiration of the power and glory of Nature. (See, on this
subject, P. Bayle, Ein Beitrag, &c., pp. 25-29.) But to prove this
formally lies out of our plan, since we here confine ourselves to
Christianity, i.e., the adoration of God in man (Deum colimus per
Christum. Tertullian, Apolog. c. 21). Nevertheless, the principle of
this proof is stated in the present work.
[92] "The greater part of Hebrew poetry, which is often held to be
only spiritual, is political."--Herder.
[93] Sebastian Frank von Wörd in Zinkgrefs Apophthegmata deutscher
Nation.
[94] It would be an imbecile objection to say that God fulfils only
those wishes, those prayers, which are uttered in his name, or in
the interest of the Church of Christ, in short, only the wishes which
are accordant with his will; for the will of God is the will of man,
or rather God has the power, man the will: God makes men happy, but
man wills that he may be happy. A particular wish may not be granted;
but that is of no consequence, if only the species, the essential
tendency is accepted. The pious soul whose prayer has failed consoles
himself, therefore, by thinking that its fulfilment would not have been
salutary for him. "Nullo igitur modo vota aut preces sunt irritæ aut
infrugiferæ et recte dicitur, in petitione rerum corporalium aliquando
Deum exaudire nos, non ad voluntatem nostram, sed ad salutem."--Oratio
de Precatione, in Declamat. Melancthonis, Th. iii.
[95] Ja-wort.
[96] Also, on subjective grounds, social prayer is more effectual
than isolated prayer. Community enhances the force of emotion,
heightens confidence. What we are unable to do alone we are able to
do with others. The sense of solitude is the sense of limitation:
the sense of community is the sense of freedom. Hence it is that
men, when threatened by the destructive powers of Nature, crowd
together. "Multorum preces impossibile est, ut non impetrent, inquit
Ambrosius.... Sanctæ orationis fervor quanto inter plures collectior
tanto ardet diutius ac intensius cor divinum penetrat.... Negatur
singularitati, quod conceditur charitati."--Sacra Hist. de Gentis
Hebr. ortu. P. Paul. Mezger. Aug. Vind. 1700, pp. 668, 669.
[97] In the excellent work, Theanthropos, eine Reihe von Aphorismen
(Zurich, 1838), the idea of the sense of dependence, of omnipotence,
of prayer, and of love, is admirably developed.
[98] Luther (Th. xv. p. 282; Th. xvi. pp. 491-493).
[99] "God is Almighty; but he who believes is a God." Luther (in
Chr. Kapps Christus u. die Weltgeschichte, s. 11). In another place
Luther calls faith the "Creator of the Godhead;" it is true that he
immediately adds, as he must necessarily do on his standpoint, the
following limitation:--"Not that it creates anything in the Divine
Eternal Being, but that it creates that Being in us" (Th. xi. p. 161).
[100] This belief is so essential to the Bible, that without it the
biblical writers can scarcely be understood. The passage 2 Pet. iii. 8,
as is evident from the tenor of the whole chapter, says nothing
in opposition to an immediate destruction of the world; for though
with the Lord a thousand years are as one day, yet at the same time
one day is as a thousand years, and therefore the world may, even by
to-morrow, no longer exist. That in the Bible a very near end of the
world is expected and prophesied, although the day and hour are not
determined, only falsehood or blindness can deny. (See on this subject
Lützelberger.) Hence religious Christians, in almost all times, have
believed that the destruction of the world is near at hand--Luther,
for example, often says that "The last day is not far off" (e.g.,
Th. xvi. p. 26);--or at least their souls have longed for the end of
the world, though they have prudently left it undecided whether it
be near or distant. See Augustin (de Fine Sæculi ad Hesychium, c. 13).
[101] Gen. xviii. 14.
[102] "To the whole world it is impossible to raise the dead, but
to the Lord Christ, not only is it not impossible, but it is no
trouble or labour to him.... This Christ did as a witness and a sign
that he can and will raise from death. He does it not at all times
and to every one.... It is enough that he has done it a few times;
the rest he leaves to the last day."--Luther (Th. xvi. p. 518). The
positive, essential significance of miracle is therefore that the
divine nature is the human nature. Miracles confirm, authenticate
doctrine. What doctrine? Simply this, that God is a Saviour of men,
their Redeemer out of all trouble, i.e., a being corresponding to
the wants and wishes of man, and therefore a human being. What the
God-man declares in words, miracle demonstrates ad oculos by deeds.
[103] This satisfaction is certainly so far limited, that it is united
to religion, to faith in God: a remark which however is so obvious
as to be superfluous. Hut this limitation is in fact no limitation,
for God himself is unlimited, absolutely satisfied, self-contented
human feeling.
[104] The legends of Catholicism--of course only the best, the really
pleasing ones--are, as it were, only the echo of the keynote which
predominates in this New Testament narrative. Miracle might be fitly
defined as religious humour. Catholicism especially has developed
miracle on this its humorous side.
[105] Culture in the sense in which it is here taken. It is highly
characteristic of Christianity, and a popular proof of our positions,
that the only language in which the Divine Spirit was and is held
to reveal himself in Christianity is not the language of a Sophocles
or a Plato, of art and philosophy, but the vague, unformed, crudely
emotional language of the Bible.
[106] Many miracles may realty have had originally a physical
or physiological phenomenon as their foundation. But we are here
considering only the religious significance and genesis of miracle.
[107] "If Adam had not fallen into sin, nothing would have been known
of the cruelty of wolves, lions, bears, &c., and there would not have
been in all creation anything vexatious and dangerous to man ...;
no thorns, or thistles, or diseases ...; his brow would not have
been wrinkled; no foot, or hand, or other member of the body would
have been feeble or infirm."--"But now, since the Fall, we all know
and feel what a fury lurks in our flesh, which not only burns and
rages with lust and desire, but also loathes, when once obtained,
the very thing it has desired. But this is the fault of original sin,
which has polluted all creatures; wherefore I believe that before the
Fall the sun was much brighter, water much clearer, and the land much
richer, and fuller of all sorts of plants."--Luther (Th. i. s. 322,
323, 329, 337).
[108] "Tantum denique abest incesti cupido, ut nonnullis rubori sit
etiam pudica conjunctio."--M. Felicis, Oct. c. 31. One Father was so
extraordinarily chaste that he had never seen a woman's face, nay, he
dreaded even touching himself, "se quoque ipsum attingere quodammodo
horrebat." Another Father had so fine an olfactory sense in this
matter, that on the approach of an unchaste person he perceived an
insupportable odour.--Bayle (Dict. Art. Mariana Rem. C.). But the
supreme, the divine principle of this hyperphysical delicacy is the
Virgin Mary; hence the Catholics name her Virginum Gloria, Virginitatis
corona, Virginitatis typus et forma puritatis, Virginum vexillifera,
Virginitatis magistra, Virginum prima, Virginitatis primiceria.
[109] "Salve sancta parens, enixa puerpera Regem,
Gaudia matris habens cum virginitatis honore."
Theol. Schol. Mezger. t. iv. p. 132.
[110] See e.g. J. D. Winckler, Philolog. Lactant. s. Brunsvigæ, 1754,
pp. 247-254.
[111] See on this subject Philos. und Christenthum, by L. Feuerbach.
[112] In relation to this, the confession of Augustine
is interesting: "Ita fluctuo inter periculum voluptatis et
experimentum salubritatis: magisque adducor ... cantandi cousuetudinem
approbare in ecclesia, ut per oblectamenta aurium infirmior animus
in affectum pietatis assurgat. Tamen cum mihi accidit, ut nos
amplius cantus, quam res quæ canitur moveat, poenaliter me peccare
confiteor."--Confess. l. x. c. 33.
[113] Th. xvi. p. 490.
[114] "Because God has given us his Son, he has with him given
us everything, whether it be called devil, sin, hell, heaven,
righteousness, life; all, all must be ours, because the Son is ours as
a gift, in whom all else is included."--Luther (Th. xv. p. 311). "The
best part of the resurrection has already happened; Christ, the
head of all Christendom, has passed through death and risen from
the dead. Moreover, the most excellent part of me, my soul, has
likewise passed through death, and is with Christ in the heavenly
being. What harm, then, can death and the grave do me?"--Luther
(Th. xvi. p. 235). "A Christian man has equal power with Christ, has
fellowship with him and a common tenure." (Th. xiii. p. 648.) "Whoever
cleaves to Christ has as much as he." (Th. xvi. p. 574.)
[115] This exhibits clearly the untruthfulness and vanity of the modern
speculations concerning the personality of God. If you are not ashamed
of a personal God, do not be ashamed of a corporeal God. An abstract
colourless personality, a personality without flesh and blood, is an
empty shade.
[116] Concordienb. Erklär. Art. 8.
[117] This was excellently shown by Faustus Socinus. See his
Defens. Animadv. in Assert. Theol. Coll. Posnan. de trino et uno
Deo. Irenopoli, 1656, c. 11.
[118] Let the reader examine, with reference to this, the writings of
the Christian orthodox theologians against the heterodox; for example,
against the Socinians. Modern theologians, indeed, agree with the
latter, as is well known, in pronouncing the divinity of Christ as
accepted by the Church to be unbiblical; but it is undeniably the
characteristic principle of Christianity, and even if it does not
stand in the Bible in the form which is given to it by dogma, it is
nevertheless a necessary consequence of what is found in the Bible. A
being who is the fulness of the Godhead bodily, who is omniscient (John
xvi. 30) and almighty (raises the dead, works miracles), who is before
all things, both in time and rank, who has life in himself (though an
imparted life) like as the Father has life in himself,--what, if we
follow out the consequences, can such a being be, but God? "Christ is
one with the Father in will;"--but unity of will presupposes unity of
nature. "Christ is the ambassador, the representative of God;"--but
God can only be represented by a divine being. I can only choose as
my representative one in whom I find the same or similar qualities
as in myself; otherwise I belie myself.
[119] "How much better is it that I should lose the whole world
than that I should lose God, who created the world, and can create
innumerable worlds, who is better than a hundred thousand, than
innumerable worlds? For what sort of a comparison is that of the
temporal with the eternal?... One soul is better than the whole
world."--Luther (Th. xix. p. 21).
[120] It is true that the heathen philosophers also,
as Plato, Socrates, the Stoics (see e.g. J. Lipsius,
Physiol. Stoic. l. i. diss. xi.), believed that the divine providence
extended not merely to the general, but also to the particular,
the individual; but they identified providence with Nature, law,
necessity. The Stoics, who were the orthodox speculatists of
heathenism, did indeed believe in miracles wrought by providence
(Cic. de Nat. Deor. l. ii. and De Divinat. l. i.); but their miracles
had no such supranaturalistic significance as those of Christianity,
though they also appealed to the supranaturalistic axiom: "Nihil est
quod Deus efficere non possit."
[121] "Dicimur amare et Deus; dicimur nosse et Deus. Et multa in hunc
modum. Sed Deus amat ut charitas, novit ut veritas, etc."--Bernard,
(de Consider. l. v.).
[122] It is true that in one sense the individual is the absolute--in
the phraseology of Leibnitz, the mirror of the universe, of the
infinite. But in so far as there are many individuals, each is only
a single, and, as such, a finite mirror of the infinite. It is true
also, in opposition to the abstraction of a sinless man, that each
individual regarded in himself is perfect, and only by comparison
imperfect, for each is what alone he can be.
[123] With the Hindoos (Inst. of Menu) he alone is "a perfect man
who consists of three united persons, his wife, himself, and his
son. For man and wife, and father and son, are one." The Adam of the
Old Testament also is incomplete without woman; he feels his need of
her. But the Adam of the New Testament, the Christian, heavenly Adam,
the Adam who is constituted with a view to the destruction of this
world, has no longer any sexual impulses or functions.
[124] "Hæ sane vires amicitiæ mortis contemptum ingenerare
... potuerunt: quibus pene tantum venerationis, quantum Deorum
immortalium ceremoniis debetur. Illis enim publica salus, his privata
continetur."--Valerius Max. l. iv. c. 7.
[125] "The life for God is not this natural life, which is subject
to decay.... Ought we not then to sigh after future things, and be
averse to all these temporal things?... Wherefore we should find
consolation in heartily despising this life and this world, and from
our hearts sigh for and desire the future honour and glory of eternal
life."--Luther (Th. i. s. 466, 467).
[126] "Eo dirigendus est spiritus, quo aliquando est
iturus."--Meditat. Sacræ Joh. Gerhardi. Med. 46.
[127] "Affectanti coelestia, terrena non sapiunt. Æternis inhianti,
fastidio sunt transitoria."--Bernard. (Epist. Ex Persona Heliæ
Monachi ad Parentes). "Nihil nostra refert in hoc ævo, nisi de
eo quam celeriter excedere."--Tertullian (Apol. adv. Gentes,
c. 41). "Wherefore a Christian man should rather be advised to
bear sickness with patience, yea, even to desire that death should
come,--the sooner the better. For, as St. Cyprian says, nothing is
more for the advantage of a Christian than soon to die. But we rather
listen to the pagan Juvenal when he says: 'Orandum est ut sit mens
sana in corpore sano.'"--Luther (Th. iv. s. 15).
[128] "Ille perfectus est qui mente et corpore a seculo est
elongatus."--De Modo Bene Vivendi ad Sororem, s. vii. (Among the
spurious writings of St. Bernard.)
[129] On this subject see "Hieronymus, de Vita Pauli Primi Eremitæ."
[130] Naturally Christianity had only such power when, as Jerome
writes to Demetrius, Domini nostri adhuc calebat cruor et fervebat
recens in credentibus fides. See also on this subject G. Arnold.--Von
der ersten Christen Genügsamkeit u. Verschmähung alles Eigennutzes,
l. c. B. iv. c. 12, § 7-16.
[131] How far otherwise the ancient Christians! "Difficile,
imo impossibile est, ut et præsentibus quis et futuris fruatur
bonis."--Hieronymus (Epist. Juliano). "Delicatus es, frater, si et hic
vis gaudere cum seculo et postea regnare cum Christo."--Ib. (Epist. ad
Heliodorum). "Ye wish to have both God and the creature together,
and that is impossible. Joy in God and joy in the creature cannot
subsist together."--Tauler (ed. c. p. 334). But they were abstract
Christians. And we live now in the age of conciliation. Yes, truly!
[132] "Perfectum autem esse nolle delinquere est."--Hieronymus
(Epist. ad Heliodorum de laude Vitæ solit.). Let me observe once
for all that I interpret the biblical passages concerning marriage
in the sense in which they have been interpreted by the history
of Christianity.
[133] "The marriage state is nothing new or unwonted, and is
lauded and held good even by heathens according to the judgment of
reason."--Luther (Th. ii. p. 377a).
[134] "Præsumendum est hos qui intra paradisum recipi volunt debere
cessare ab ea re, a qua paradisus intactus est."--Tertullian
(de Exhort. cast. c. 13). "Coelibatus angelorum est
imitatio."--Jo. Damasceni (Orthod. Fidei, l. iv. c. 25).
[135] "Quæ non nubit, soli Deo dat operam et ejus cura non
dividitur; pudica autem, quæ nupsit, vitam cum Deo et cum marito
dividit."--Clemens Alex. (Pædag. l. ii.).
[136] Thomas à Kempis de Imit. (l. ii. c. 7, c. 8, l. iii. c. 5,
c. 34, c. 53, c. 59). "Felix illa conscientia et beata virginitas,
in cujus corde præter amorem Christi ... nullus alius versatur
amor."--Hieronymus (Demetriadi, Virgini Deo consecratæ).
[137] "Divisa est ... mulier et virgo. Vide quantæ felicitatis sit,
quæ et nomen sexus amiserit. Virgo jam mulier non vocatur."--Hieronymus
(adv. Helvidium de perpet. Virg. p. 14. Th. ii. Erasmus).
[138] This may be expressed as follows: Marriage has in Christianity
only a moral, no religious significance, no religious principle and
exemplar. It is otherwise with the Greeks, where, for example, "Zeus
and Here are the great archetype of every marriage" (Creuzer, Symbol.);
with the ancient Parsees, where procreation, as "the multiplication
of the human race, is the diminution of the empire of Ahriman," and
thus a religious art and duty (Zend-Avesta); with the Hindoos, where
the son is the regenerated father. Among the Hindoos no regenerate
man could assume the rank of a Sanyassi, that is, of an anchorite
absorbed in God, if he had not previously paid three debts, one of
which was that he had had a legitimate son. Amongst the Christians,
on the contrary, at least the Catholics, it was a true festival of
religious rejoicing when betrothed or even married persons--supposing
that it happened with mutual consent--renounced the married state
and sacrificed conjugal to religious love.
[139] Inasmuch as the religious consciousness restores everything which
it begins by abolishing, and the future life is ultimately nothing
else than the present life re-established, it follows that sex must
be re-established. "Erunt ... similes angelorum. Ergo homines non
desinent ... ut apostolus apostolus sit et Maria Maria."--Hieronymus
(ad Theodorum Viduam). But as the body in the other world is an
incorporeal body, so necessarily the sex there is one without
difference, i.e., a sexless sex.
[140] "Bene dicitur, quod tunc plene videbimus eum sicuti est, cum
similes ei erimus, h. e. erimus quod ipse est. Quibus enim potestas
data est filios Dei fieri, data est potestas, non quidem ut sint Deus,
sed sint tamen quod Deus est: sint sancti, futuri plene beati, quod
Deus est. Nec aliunde hic sancti. nec ibi futuri beati, quam ex Deo
qui eorum et sanctitas et beatitudo est."--De Vita solitar a (among
the spurious writings of St. Bernard). "Finis autem bonæ voluntatis
beatitudo est: vita æterna ipse Deus."--Augustin. (ap. Petrus
Lomb. l. ii. dist. 38, c. 1). "The other man will be renovated in
the spiritual life, i.e., will become a spiritual man, when he shall
be restored into the image of God. For he will be like God, in life,
in righteousness, glory, and wisdom."--Luther (Th. i. p. 324).
[141] "Si bonum est habere corpus incorruptible, quare hoc
facturum Deum volumus dasperere?"--Augustinus (Opp. Antwerp, 1700,
Th. v. p. 698).
[142] "Quare dicitur spiritale corpus, nisi quia ad nutum spiritus
serviet? Nihil tibi contradicet ex te, nihil in te rebellabit adversus
te.... Ubi volueris, eris.... Credere enim debemus talia corpora nos
habituros, ut ubi velimus, quando voluerimus, ibi simus."--Augustinus
(l. c. pp. 703, 705). "Nihil indecorum ibi erit, summma pax erit,
nihil discordans, nihil montruosum, nihil quod offendat adspectum"
(l. c. 707). "Nisi beatus, non vivit ut vult." (De Civ. Dei, l. 14,
c. 25.)
[143] And their conceptions of God are just as heterogeneous. The
pious Germans have a German God, the pious Spaniards a Spanish God,
the French a French God. The French actually have the proverb:
"Le bon Dieu est Français." In fact, polytheism must exist so long
as there are various nations. The real God of a people is the point
d'honneur of its nationality.
[144] "Ibi nostra spes erit res."--Augustin. "Therefore we have the
first fruits of immortal life in hope, until perfection comes at the
last day, wherein we shall see and feel the life we have believed in
and hoped for."--Luther (Th. i. s. 459).
[145] According to old books of travel, however, there are many
tribes which do not believe that the future is identical with the
present, or that it is better, but that it is even worse. Parny
(OEuv. Chois. t. i. Melang.) tells of a dying negro-slave who refused
the inauguration to immortality by baptism in these words: "Je ne veux
point d'une autre vie, car peut-être y serais-je encore votre esclave."
[146] Ahlwardt (Ossian Anm. zu Carthonn.).
[147] There everything will be restored. "Qui modo vivit, erit,
nec me vel dente, vel ungue fraudatum revomet patefacti fossa
sepulchri."--Aurelius Prud. (Apotheos. de Resurr. Carnis Hum.). And
this faith, which you consider rude and carnal, and which you therefore
disavow, is the only consistent, honest, and true faith. To the
identity of the person belongs the identity of the body.
[148] "Neque enim post resurrectionem tempus diebus
ac noctibus numerabitur. Erit magis una dies sine
vespere."--Joh. Damascen. (Orth. Fidei l. ii. c. 1).
[149] "Ipsum (corpus) erit et non ipsum erit."--Augustinus
(v. J. Ch. Doederlein, Inst. Theol. Christ. Altorf, 1781, § 280).
[150] "Præter salutem tuam nihil cogites; solum quæ Dei
sunt cures."--Thomas à K. (de Imit. l. i. c. 23). "Contra
salutem proprium cogites nihil. Minus dixi: contra,
præter dixisse debueram."--Bernhardus (de Consid. ad Eugenium
Pontif. Max. l. ii.). "Qui Deum quærit, de propria salute sollicitus
est."--Clemens Alex. (Cohort. ad Gent.).
[151] Here and in other parts of this work, theory is taken in the
sense in which it is the source of true objective activity,--the
science which gives birth to art,--for man can do only so much as he
knows: "tantum potest quantum scit."
[152] Concerning the biblical conceptions of Satan, his power and
works, see Lützelberger's "Grundzüge der Paulinischen Glaubenslehre,"
and G. Ch. Knapp's "Vorles. über d. Christl. Glaubensl.," § 62-65. To
this subject belongs demoniacal possession, which also has its
attestation in the Bible. See Knapp (§ 65, iii. 2, 3).
[153] Doubtless, this unveiling of the mystery of predestination
will be pronounced atrocious, impious, diabolical. I have nothing to
allege against this; I would rather be a devil in alliance with truth,
than an angel in alliance with falsehood.
[154] A kindred doctrine is that of the Concursus Dei, according to
which, God not only gives the first impulse, but also co-operates in
the agency of the second cause. For the rest, this doctrine is only a
particular form of the contradictory dualism between God and Nature,
which runs through the history of Christianity. On the subject of
this remark, as of the whole paragraph, see Strauss: Die Christliche
Glaubenslehre, B. ii. § 75, 76.
[155] "Dum sumus in hoc corpore, peregrinamur ab eo qui summe
est."--Bernard. Epist. 18 (ed. Basle, 1552). "As long as we live, we
are in the midst of death."--Luther (Th. i. p. 331). The idea of the
future life is therefore nothing else than the idea of true, perfected
religion, freed from the limits and obstructions of this life,--the
future life, as has been already said, nothing but the true opinion
and disposition, the open heart, of religion. Here we believe--there
we behold; i.e., there there is nothing besides God, and thus nothing
between God and the soul; but only for this reason, that there ought
to be nothing between them, because the immediate union of God and the
soul is the true opinion and desire of religion. "We have as yet so to
do with God as with one hidden from us, and it is not possible that in
this life we should hold communion with him face to face. All creatures
are now nothing else than vain masks, under which God conceals himself,
and by which he deals with us."--Luther (Th. xi. p. 70). "If thou
wert only free from the images of created things, thou mightest have
God without intermission."--Tauler (l. c. p. 313).
[156] "Voluntate igitur Dei immobilis manet et stat in seculum terra
... et voluntate Dei movetur et nutat. Non ergo fundamentis suis nixa
subsistit, nec fulcris suis stabilis perseverat, sed Dominus statuit
eam et firmamento voluntatis suæ continet, quia in manu ejus omnes
fines terræ."--Ambrosius (Hexæmeron. l. i. c. 61).
[157] It is only unbelief in the efficacy of prayer which has subtly
limited prayer to spiritual matters.
[158] According to the notion of barbarians, therefore, prayer is a
coercive power, a charm. But this conception is an unchristian one
(although even among many Christians the idea is accepted that prayer
constrains God); for in Christianity God is essentially feeling
satisfied in itself, Almighty goodness, which denies nothing to
(religious) feeling. The idea of coercion presupposes an unfeeling God.
[159] "Natura enim remota providentia et potestate divina prorsus
nihil est."--Lactantius (Div. Inst. lib. 3, c. 28). "Omnia quæ creata
sunt, quamvis ea Deus fecerit valde bona, Creatori tamen comparata,
nec bona sunt, cui comparata nec sunt; altissime quippe et proprio
modo quodam de se ipso dixit: Ego sum, qui sum."--Augustinus (de
Perfectione Just. Hom. c. 14).
[160] "Pulchras formas et varias, nitidos et amoenos colores amant
oculi. Non teneant hæc animam meam; teneat eam Deus qui hæc fecit,
bona quidem valde, sed ipse est bonum meum, non hæc."--Augustinus
(Confess. l. x. c. 34). "Vetiti autem sumus (2 Cor. iv. 18.) converti
ad ea quæ videntur.... Amandus igitur solus Deus est: omnis vero iste
mundus, i.e. omnia sensibilia contemnenda, utendum autem his ad hujus
vitæ necessitatem."--Ib. de Moribus Eccl. Cathol. l. i. c. 20.
[161] At the same time, however, their result is to prove the nature of
man. The various proofs of the existence of God are nothing else than
various highly interesting forms in which the human nature affirms
itself. Thus, for example, the physico-theological proof (or proof
from design) is the self-affirmation of the calculated activity
of the understanding. Every philosophic system is, in this sense,
a proof of the existence of God.
[162] "Christ is ascended on high, ... that is, he not only sits
there above, but he is also here below. And he is gone thither to
the very end that he might be here below, and fill all things, and
be in all places, which he could not do while on earth, for here he
could not be seen by all bodily eyes. Therefore he sits above, where
every man can see him, and he has to do with every man."--Luther
(Th. xiii. p. 643). That is to say: Christ or God is an object, an
existence, of the imagination; in the imagination he is limited to no
place,--he is present and objective to every one. God exists in heaven,
but is for that reason omnipresent; for this heaven is the imagination.
[163] "Thou hast not to complain that thou art less experienced
than was Abraham or Isaac. Thou also hast appearances.... Thou hast
holy baptism, the supper of the Lord, the bread and wine, which are
figures and forms, under and in which the present God speaks to thee,
and acts upon thee, in thy ears, eyes, and heart.... He appears to
thee in baptism, and it is he himself who baptizes thee, and speaks
to thee.... Everything is full of divine appearances and utterances,
if he is on thy side."--Luther (Th. ii. p. 466. See also on this
subject, Th. xix. p. 407).
[164] The denial of a fact is not a matter of indifference; it
is something morally evil,--a disowning of what is known to be
true. Christianity made its articles of faith objective, i.e.,
undeniable, unassailable facts, thus overpowering the reason, and
taking the mind prisoner by the force of external reality: herein
we have the true explanation why and how Christianity, Protestant
as well as Catholic, enunciated and enforced with all solemnity the
principle, that heresy--the denial of an idea or a fact which forms
an article of faith--is an object of punishment by the temporal
power, i.e., a crime. What in theory is an external fact becomes in
practice an external force. In this respect Christianity is far below
Mohammedanism, to which the crime of heresy is unknown.
[165] "Præsentiam sæpe divi suam declarant."--Cicero (de
Nat. D. 1. ii.). Cicero's works (de Nat. D. and de Divinatione)
are especially interesting, because the arguments there used for the
reality of the objects of pagan faith are virtually the same as those
urged in the present day by theologians and the adherents of positive
religion generally for the reality of the objects of Christian faith.
[166] "Quod crudeliter ab hominibus sine Dei jussu fieret aut
factum est, id debuit ab Hebrais fieri, quia a deo vitæ et necis
summo arbitrio, jussi bellum ita gerebant."--J. Clericus (Comm. in
Mos. Num. c. 31, 7). "Multa gessit Samson, quæ vix possent
defendi, nisi Dei, a quo homines pendent, instrumentum fuisse
censeatur."--Ib. (Comm. in Judicum, c. 14, 19). See also Luther,
e.g. (Th. i. p. 339, Th. xvi. p. 495).
[167] It was very justly remarked by the Jansenists against the
Jesuits: "Vouloir reconnoitre dans l'Ecriture quelque chose de la
foiblesse et de l'esprit naturel de l'homme, c'est donner la liberté
à chacun d'en faire le discernment et de rejetter ce qui lui plaira
de l'Ecriture, comme venant plûtot de la foiblesse de l'homme que de
l'esprit de Dieu."--Bâyle (Dict. art. Adam (Jean) Rem. E.).
[168] "Nec in scriptura divina fas sit sentire aliquid
contrarietatis."--Petrus L. (l. ii. dist. ii. c. i.). Similar thoughts
are found in the Fathers.
[169] This is especially apparent in the superlative, and the
preposition super, hyper, which distinguish the divine predicates, and
which very early--as, for example, with the Neo-Platonists, the
Christians among heathen philosophers--played a chief part in theology.
[170] "Scit itaque Deus, quanta sit multitudo pulicum, culicum,
muscarum et piscium et quot nascantur, quotve moriantur, sed non
scit hoc per momenta singula, imo simul et semel omnia."--Petrus
L. (l. i. dist. 39, c. 3).
[171] "Qui scientem cuncta sciunt, quid nescire nequeunt?"--Liber
Meditat. c. 26 (among the spurious writings of Augustine).
[172] Tauler, l. c. p. 312.
[173] "The closest union which Christ possessed with the Father, it
is possible for me to win.... All that God gave to his only-begotten
Son, he has given to me as perfectly as to him."--Predigten etzlicher
Lehrer vor und zu Tauleri Zeiten. Hamburg, 1621, p. 14. "Between the
only-begotten Son and the soul there is no distinction."--Ib. p. 68.
[174] "God can as little do without us as we without him."--Predigten
etzlicher Lehrer, &c., p. 16. See also on this subject--Strauss,
Christl. Glaubensl. B. i. § 47, and the author's work entitled,
P. Bayle, pp. 104, 107.
[175] "This temporal, transitory life in this world (i.e., natural
life) we have through God, who is the almighty Creator of heaven and
earth. But the eternal untransitory life we have through the Passion
and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.... Jesus Christ a Lord
over that life."--Luther (Th. xvi. s. 459).
[176] It is curious to observe how the speculative religious
philosophy undertakes the defence of the Trinity against the godless
understanding, and yet, by doing away with the personal substances,
and explaining the relation of Father and Son as merely an inadequate
image borrowed from organic life, robs the Trinity of its very heart
and soul. Truly, if the cabalistic artifices which the speculative
religious philosophy applies in the service of the absolute religion
were admissible in favour of finite religions, it would not be
difficult to squeeze the Pandora's box of Christian dogmatics out
of the horns of the Egyptian Apis. Nothing further would be needed
for this purpose than the ominous distinction of the understanding
from the speculative reason,--a distinction which is adapted to the
justification of every absurdity.
[177] The unity has not the significance of genus, not of unum but of
unus. (See Augustine and Petrus Lomb. l. i. dist. 19, c. 7, 8, 9.) "Hi
ergo tres, qui unum sunt propter ineffabilem conjunctionem deitatis qua
ineffabiliter copulantur, unus Deus est." (Petrus L. l. c. c. 6.) "How
can reason bring itself into accord with this, or believe, that three
is one and one is three?"--Luther (Th. x. iv. p. 13).
[178] "Quia ergo pater Deus et filius Deus et spiritus s. Deus cur
non dicuntur tres Dii? Ecce proposuit hanc propositionem (Augustinus)
attende quid respondeat ... Si autem dicerem: tres Deos, contradiceret
scriptura dicens: Audi Israel: Deus tuus unus est. Ecce absolutio
quæstionis: quare potius dicamus tres personas quam tres Deos, quia
scil. illud non contradicit scriptura."--Petrus L. (l. i. dist. 23,
c. 3). How much did even Catholicism repose upon Holy Writ!
[179] A truly masterly presentation of the overwhelming contradictions
in which the mystery of the Trinity involves the genuine religious
sentiment, is to be found in the work already cited--Theanthropos. Eine
Reihe von Aphorismen--which expresses in the form of the religious
sentiment what in the present work is expressed in the form of the
reason; and which is therefore especially to be recommended to women.
[180] "Sacramentum ejus rei similitudinem gerit, cujus signum
est."--Petrus Lomb. (l. iv. dist. 1, c. 1).
[181] In relation to the miracle-worker faith (confidence in God's aid)
is certainly the causa efficiens of the miracle. (See Matt. xvii. 20;
Acts vi. 8.) But in relation to the spectators of the miracle--and
it is they who are in question here--miracle is the causa efficiens
of faith.
[182] "Here we see a miracle surpassing all miracles, that Christ
should have so mercifully converted his greatest enemy."--Luther
(Th. xvi. p. 560).
[183] Hence it is greatly to the honour of Luther's understanding
and sense of truth that, particularly when writing against Erasmus,
he unconditionally denied the free will of man as opposed to divine
grace. "The name Free Will," says Luther, quite correctly from the
standpoint of religion, "is a divine title and name, which none ought
to bear but the Divine Majesty alone." (Th. xix. p. 28).
[184] Experience indeed extorted even from the old theologians,
whose faith was an uncompromising one, the admission that
the effects of baptism are, at least in this life, very
limited. "Baptismus non aufert omnes poenalitates hujus
vitæ."--Mezger. Theol. Schol. Th. iv. p. 251. See also Petrus
L. l. iv. dist. 4, c. 4; l. ii. dist. 32, c. 1.
[185] Even in the absurd fiction of the Lutherans, that "infants
believe in baptism," the action of subjectivity reduces itself
to the faith of others, since the faith of infants is "wrought by
God through the intercession of the god-parents and their bringing
up of the children in the faith of the Christian Church."--Luther
(Th. xiii. pp. 360, 361). "Thus the faith of another helps me to
obtain a faith of my own."--Ib. (T. xiv. p. 347a).
[186] "This," says Luther, "is in summa our opinion, that in and
with the bread, the body of Christ is truly eaten; thus, that all
which the bread undergoes and effects, the body of Christ undergoes
and effects; that it is divided, eaten and chewed with the teeth
propter unionem, sacramentalem." (Plank's Gesch. der Entst. des
protest. Lehrbeg. B. viii. s. 369). Elsewhere, it is true, Luther
denies that the body of Christ, although it is partaken of corporeally,
"is chewed and digested like a piece of beef." (Th. xix. p. 429.) No
wonder; for that which is partaken of is an object without objectivity,
a body without corporeality, flesh without the qualities of flesh;
"spiritual flesh," as Luther says, i.e., imaginary flesh. Be it
observed further, that the Protestants also take the Lord's Supper
fasting, but this is merely a custom with them, not a law. (See Luther,
Th. xviii. p. 200, 201.)
[187] 1 Cor. xi. 29.
[188] "Videtur enim species vini et panis, et substantia panis et
vini non creditur. Creditur autem substantia corporis et sanguinis
Christi et tamen species non cernitur."--Bernardus (ed. Bas. 1552,
pp. 189-191).
[189] It is so in another relation not developed here, but which may
be mentioned in a note: namely, the following. In religion, in faith,
man is an object to himself as the object, i.e., the end or determining
motive, of God. Man is occupied with himself in and through God. God
is the means of human existence and happiness. This religious truth,
embodied in a cultus, in a sensuous form, is the Lord's Supper. In this
sacrament man feeds upon God--the Creator of heaven and earth--as on
material food; by the act of eating and drinking he declares God to
be a mere means of life to man. Here man is virtually supposed to be
the God of God: hence the Lord's Supper is the highest self-enjoyment
of human subjectivity. Even the Protestant--not indeed in words, but
in truth--transforms God into an external thing, since he subjects
Him to himself as an object of sensational enjoyment.
[190] "Nostrates, præsentiam realem consecrationis effectum
esse, adfirmant; idque ita, ut tum se exserat, cum usus legitimus
accedit. Nec est quod regeras, Christum hæc verba: hoc est corpus
meum, protulisse, antequam discipuli ejus comederent, adeoque panem
jam ante usum corpus Christi fuisse."--Buddeus (l. c. l. v. c. l, §§
13, 17). See, on the other hand, Concil. Trident. Sessio 13, cc. 3,
8, Can. 4.
[191] Apologie Melancthon. Strobel. Nürnb. 1783, p. 127.
[192] "The fanatics, however, believe that it is mere bread and wine,
and it is assuredly so as they believe; they have it so, and eat mere
bread and wine."--Luther (Th. xix. p. 432). That is to say, if thou
believest, representest to thyself, conceivest, that the bread is not
bread, but the body of Christ, it is not bread; but if thou dost not
believe so, it is not so. What it is in thy belief that it actually is.
[193] Even the Catholics also. "Hujus sacramenti effectus,
quem in anima operatur digne sumentis, est adunatio hominis ad
Christum."--Concil. Florent. de S. Euchar.
[194] "If the body of Christ is in the bread and is eaten with faith,
it strengthens the soul, in that the soul believes that it is the
body of Christ which the mouth eats."--Luther (Th. xix. p. 433; see
also p. 205). "For what we believe that we receive, that we receive
in truth."--Ib. (Th. xvii. p. 557).
[195] Hence the mere name of Christ has miraculous powers.
[196] "Gott glauben und an Gott glauben."
[197] "If I wish to be a Christian, I must believe and do what other
people do not believe or do."--Luther (Th. xvi. p. 569).
[198] Celsus makes it a reproach to the Christians that
they boast: "Est Deus et post illum nos." (Origenes
adv. Cels. ed. Hoeschelius. Aug. Vind. 1605, p. 182).
[199] "I am proud and exulting on account of my blessedness and the
forgiveness of my sins, but through what? Through the glory and pride
of another, namely, the Lord Christ."--Luther (Th. ii. p. 344). "He
that glorieth let him glory in the Lord."--1 Cor. i. 31.
[200] A military officer who had been adjutant of the Russian general
Münnich said: "When I was his adjutant I felt myself greater than
now that I command."
[201] To faith, so long as it has any vital heat, any character,
the heretic is always on a level with the unbeliever, with the atheist.
[202] Already in the New Testament the idea of disobedience
is associated with unbelief. "The cardinal wickedness is
unbelief."--Luther (xiii. p. 647).
[203] God himself by no means entirely reserves the punishment of
blasphemers, of unbelievers, of heretics, for the future; he often
punishes them in this life also, "for the benefit of Christendom and
the strengthening of faith:" as, for example, the heretics Cerinthus
and Arius. See Luther (Th. xiv. p. 13).
[204] "Si quis spiritum Dei habet, illius versiculi recordetur: Nonne
qui oderunt te, Domine, oderam?" (Psal. cxxxix. 21); Bernhardus,
Epist. (193) ad magist. Yvonem Cardin.
[205] "Qui Christum negat, negatur a Christo."--Cyprian (Epist. E. 73,
§ 18, edit. Gersdorf.).
[206] Thus the apostle Paul cursed "Elymas the sorcerer" with
blindness, because he withstood the faith.--Acts xiii. 8-11.
[207] Historically considered, this saying, as well as the others
cited pp. 384, 385, may be perfectly justified. But the Bible is not
to be regarded as an historical or temporal, but as an eternal book.
[208] "Tenerrimam partem humani corporis nominavit, ut apertissime
intelligeremus, eum (Deum) tam parva Sanctorum suorum contumelia lædi,
quam parvi verberis tactu humani visus acies læditur."--Salvianus,
l. 8, de Gubern. Dei.
[209] 1 Cor. x. 20.
[210] Phil. ii. 10, 11. "When the name of Jesus Christ is heard,
all that is unbelieving and ungodly in heaven or on earth shall be
terrified."--Luther (Th. xvi. p. 322). "In morte pagani Christianus
gloriatur, quia Christus glorificatur."--Divus Bernardus. Sermo
exhort. ad Milites Templi.
[211] Petrus L. 1. iv. dist. 50, c.4. But this passage is by no means
a declaration of Peter Lombard himself. He is far too modest, timid,
and dependent on the authorities of Christianity to have ventured
to advance such a tenet on his own account. No! This position is
a universal declaration, a characteristic expression of Christian,
of believing love. The doctrine of some Fathers of the Church, e.g.,
of Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, that the punishment of the damned
would have an end, sprung not out of Christian or Church doctrine,
but out of Platonism. Hence the doctrine that the punishment of
hell is finite, was rejected not only by the Catholic but also by the
Protestant church. (Augsb. Confess. art. 17). A precious example of the
exclusive, misanthropical narrowness of Christian love, is the passage
cited from Buddeus by Strauss (Christl. Glaubensl. B. ii. s. 547),
according to which not infants in general, but those of Christians
exclusively, would have a share in the divine grace and blessings if
they died unbaptized.
[212] "Fugite, abhorrete hunc doctorem." But why should I flee from
him? because the anger, i.e., the curse of God rests on his head.
[213] There necessarily results from this a sentiment which, e.g.,
Cyprian expresses: "Si vero ubique hæretici nihil aliud quam adversarii
et antichristi nominantur, si vitandi et perversi et a semet ipsis
damnati pronuntiantur; quale est ut videantur damnandi a nobis non
esse, quos constat apostolica contestatione a semet ipsis damnatos
esse." Epistol. 74. (Edit, cit.)
[214] The passage Luke ix. 56, as the parallel of which is cited John
iii. 17, receives its completion and rectification in the immediately
following v. 18: "He that believeth in him is not condemned; but he
that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed
in the name of the only begotten Son of God."
[215] Faith, it is true, is not "without good works," nay, according to
Luther's declaration, it is as impossible to separate faith from works
as to separate heat and light from fire. Nevertheless, and this is the
main point, good works do not belong to the article of justification
before God, i.e., men are justified and "saved without works, through
faith alone." Faith is thus expressly distinguished from good works;
faith alone avails before God, not good works; faith alone is the
cause of salvation, not virtue; thus faith alone has substantial
significance, virtue only accidental; i.e., faith alone has religious
significance, divine authority--and not morality. It is well known that
many have gone so far as to maintain that good works are not necessary,
but are even "injurious, obstructive to salvation." Quite correctly.
[216] "Causa fidei ... exorbitantem et irregularem prorsus favorem
habet et ab omni jure deviare, omnem captivare rationem, nec judiciis
laicorum ratione corrupta utentium subjecta creditur. Etenim
Causa fidei ad multa obligat, quæ alias sunt voluntaria, multa,
imo infinita remittit, quæ alias præcepta; quæ alius valide gesta
annullat, et contra quæ alias nulla et irrita, fiunt valida ... ex
jure canonico."--J. H. Boehmeri (Jus Eccles. lib. v. tit. vii. §
32. See also § 44 et seq.).
[217] "Placetta de Fide, ii. Il ne faut pas chercher dans la nature
des choses mêmes la veritable cause de l'inseparabilité de la foi
et de la pieté. Il faut, si je ne me trompe, la chercher uniquement
dans la volonté de Dieu.... Bene facit et nobiscum sentit, cum illam
conjunctionem (i.e., of sanctity or virtue with faith) a benifica Dei
voluntate et dispositione repetit; nec id novum est ejus inventum, sed
cum antiquioribus Theologis nostris commune."--J. A. Ernesti. (Vindiciæ
arbitrii divini. Opusc. theol. p. 297.) "Si quis dixerit ... qui
fidem sine charitate habet, Christianum non esse, anathema
sit."--Concil. Trid. (Sess. vi. de Justif. can. 28).
[218] See on this subject Luther, e.g., T. xiv. p. 286.
[219] "Therefore good works must follow faith, as an expression of
thankfulness to God."--Apol. der Augs. Conf. art. 3. "How can I make
a return to thee for thy deeds of love in works? yet it is something
acceptable to thee, if I quench and tame the lusts of the flesh, that
they may not anew inflame my heart with fresh sins." "If sin bestirs
itself, I am not overcome; a glance at the cross of Jesus destroys its
charms."--Gesangbuch der Evangel. Brüdergemeinen (Moravian Hymn-book).
[220] The only limitation which is not contradictory to the nature
of love is the self-limitation of love by reason, intelligence. The
love which despises the stringency, the law of the intelligence,
is theoretically false and practically noxious.
[221] The Peripatetics also; who founded love, even that towards all
men, not on a particular, religious, but a natural principle.
[222] Active love is and must of course always be particular and
limited, i.e., directed to one's neighbour. But it is yet in its
nature universal, since it loves man for man's sake, in the name of
the race. Christian love, on the contrary, is in its nature exclusive.
[223] Including external nature; for as man belongs to the essence
of Nature,--in opposition to common materialism; so Nature belongs
to the essence of man,--in opposition to subjective idealism;
which is also the secret of our "absolute" philosophy, at least in
relation to Nature. Only by uniting man with Nature can we conquer
the supranaturalistic egoism of Christianity.
[224] Yes, only as the free bond of love; for a marriage the bond
of which is merely an external restriction, not the voluntary,
contented self-restriction of love, in short, a marriage which is
not spontaneously concluded, spontaneously willed, self-sufficing,
is not a true marriage, and therefore not a truly moral marriage.
[225] "Because God does good through government, great men and
creatures in general, people rush into error, lean on creatures
and not on the Creator;--they do not look from the creature to the
Creator. Hence it came that the heathens made gods of kings.... For
they cannot and will not perceive that the work or the benefit comes
from God, and not merely from the creature, though the latter is a
means, through which God works, helps us, and gives to us."--Luther
(T. iv. p. 237).
[226] "They who honour me, I will honour, and they who despise me
shall be lightly esteemed."--1 Sam. ii. 30. "Jam se, o bone pater,
vermis vilissimus et odio dignissimus sempiterno, tamen confidit
amari, quoniam se sentit amare, imo quia se amari præsentit, non
redamare confunditur.... Nemo itaque se amari diffidat, qui jam
amat."--Bernardus ad Thomam (Epist. 107). A very fine and pregnant
sentence. If I exist not for God, God exists not for me; if I do not
love, I am not loved. The passive is the active certain of itself,
the object is the subject certain of itself. To love is to be man,
to be loved is to be God. I am loved, says God; I love, says man. It
is not until later that this is reversed, that the passive transforms
itself into the active, and conversely.
[227] "The Lord spake to Gideon: The people are too many that are
with thee, that I should give Midian into their hands; Israel
might glorify itself against me and say: My hand has delivered
me,"--i.e., "Ne Israel sibi tribuat, quæ mihi debentur." Judges
vii. 2. "Thus saith the Lord: Cursed is the man that trusteth in
man. But blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord and whose
hope is in the Lord."--Jer. xvii. 5. "God desires not our gold,
body and possessions, but has given these to the emperor (that is,
to the representative of the world, of the state), and to us through
the emperor. But the heart, which is the greatest and best in man,
he has reserved for himself;--this must be our offering to God--that
we believe in him."--Luther (xvi. p. 505).
[228] Christian baptism also is obviously only a relic of the
ancient Nature-worship, in which, as in the Persian, water was a
means of religious purification. (S. Rhode: Die heilige Sage, &c.,
pp. 305, 426.) Here, however, water baptism had a much truer, and
consequently a deeper meaning, than with the Christians, because
it rested on the natural power and value of water. But indeed for
these simple views of Nature which characterised the old religions,
our speculative as well as theological supranaturalism has neither
sense nor understanding. When therefore the Persians, the Hindoos,
the Egyptians, the Hebrews, made physical purity a religious duty,
they were herein far wiser than the Christian saints, who attested
the supranaturalistic principle of their religion by physical
impurity. Supranaturalism in theory becomes anti-naturalism in
practice. Supranaturalism is only a euphemism for anti-naturalism.
[229] "Eating and drinking is the easiest of all work, for men like
nothing better: yea, the most joyful work in the whole world is eating
and drinking, as it is commonly said: Before eating no dancing, and,
On a full stomach stands a merry head. In short, eating and drinking
is a pleasant necessary work;--that is a doctrine soon learned and
made popular. The same pleasant necessary work takes our blessed Lord
Christ and says: 'I have prepared a joyful, sweet and pleasant meal,
I will lay on you no hard heavy work ... I institute a supper,'
&c."--Luther (xvi. 222).
[230] "Manifestum igitur est tantum religionis sanguini et affinitati,
quantum ipsis Diis immortalibus tributum: quia inter ista tam sancta
vincula non magis, quam in aliquo loco sacrato nudare se, nefas esse
credebatur."--Valer. Max. (l. ii. c. i.)
[231] See the author's "Leibnitz."
[232] [Here follows in the original a distinction between Herz,
or feeling directed towards real objects, and therefore practically
sympathetic; and Gemüth, or feeling directed towards imaginary objects,
and therefore practically unsympathetic, self-absorbed. But the verbal
distinction is not adhered to in the ordinary use of the language,
or, indeed, by Feuerbach himself; and the psychological distinction
is sufficiently indicated in other parts of the present work. The
passage is therefore omitted, as likely to confuse the reader.--Tr.]
[233] "Haereticus usu omnium jurium destitutus est, ut
deportatus."--J. H. Boehmer (l. c. l. v. Tit. vii. § 223. See also
Tit. vi.)
[234] Very many Christians rejected the punishment of death,
but other criminal punishments of heretics, such as banishment,
confiscation--punishments which deprive of life indirectly--they did
not find in contradiction with their Christian faith. See on this
subject J. H. Boehmer, Jus. Eccl. Protest. l. v. Tit. vii. e.g. §§
i. 155, 157, 162, 163.
[235] On this subject I refer to Lützelberger's work: "Die Kirchliche
Tradition über den Apostel Johannes und seine Schriften in ihrer
Grundlosigkeit nachgewiesen," and to Bruno Bauer's "Kritik der
Evangelischen Geschichte der Synoptiker und des Johannes" (B. iii.).
[236] In another place Luther praises St. Bernard and Bonaventura
because they laid so much stress on the manhood of Christ.
[237] It is true that in Catholicism also--in Christianity generally,
God exists for man; but it was Protestantism which first drew from
this relativity of God its true result--the absoluteness of man.
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