PART I.

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.