THE MYSTERY OF PROVIDENCE, AND CREATION OUT OF NOTHING.
Creation is the spoken word of God; the creative, cosmogonic fiat is
the tacit word, identical with the thought. To speak is an act of the
will; thus, creation is a product of the Will: as in the Word of God
man affirms the divinity of the human word, so in creation he affirms
the divinity of the Will: not, however, the will of the reason, but the
will of the imagination--the absolutely subjective, unlimited will. The
culminating point of the principle of subjectivity is creation out of
nothing. [71] As the eternity of the world or of matter imports nothing
further than the essentiality of matter, so the creation of the world
out of nothing imports simply the non-essentiality, the nothingness
of the world. The commencement of a thing is immediately connected,
in idea if not in time, with its end. "Lightly come, lightly go." The
will has called it into existence--the will calls it back again into
nothing. When? The time is indifferent: its existence or non-existence
depends only on the will. But this will is not its own will:--not only
because a thing cannot will its non-existence, but for the prior reason
that the world is itself destitute of will. Thus the nothingness of the
world expresses the power of the will. The will that it should exist
is, at the same time, the will--at least the possible will--that it
should not exist. The existence of the world is therefore a momentary,
arbitrary, unreliable, i.e., unreal existence.
Creation out of nothing is the highest expression of omnipotence:
but omnipotence is nothing else than subjectivity exempting itself
from all objective conditions and limitations, and consecrating this
exemption as the highest power and reality: nothing else than the
ability to posit everything real as unreal--everything conceivable as
possible: nothing else than the power of the imagination, or of the
will as identical with the imagination, the power of self-will. [72]
The strongest and most characteristic expression of subjective
arbitrariness is, "it has pleased;"--the phrase, "it has pleased
God to call the world of bodies and spirits into existence," is
the most undeniable proof that individual subjectivity, individual
arbitrariness, is regarded as the highest essence--the omnipotent
world-principle. On this ground, creation out of nothing as a work
of the Almighty Will falls into the same category with miracle, or
rather it is the first miracle, not only in time but in rank also;--the
principle of which all further miracles are the spontaneous result. The
proof of this is history itself; all miracles have been vindicated,
explained, and illustrated by appeal to the omnipotence which created
the world out of nothing. Why should not He who made the world out of
nothing, make wine out of water, bring human speech from the mouth of
an ass, and charm water out of a rock? But miracle is, as we shall see
further on, only a product and object of the imagination, and hence
creation out of nothing, as the primitive miracle, is of the same
character. For this reason the doctrine of creation out of nothing has
been pronounced a supernatural one, to which reason of itself could
not have attained; and in proof of this, appeal has been made to the
fact that the pagan philosophers represented the world to have been
formed by the Divine Reason out of already existing matter. But this
supernatural principle is no other than the principle of subjectivity,
which in Christianity exalted itself to an unlimited, universal
monarchy; whereas the ancient philosophers were not subjective enough
to regard the absolutely subjective being as the exclusively absolute
being, because they limited subjectivity by the contemplation of the
world or reality--because to them the world was a truth.
Creation out of nothing, as identical with miracle, is one with
Providence; for the idea of Providence--originally, in its true
religious significance, in which it is not yet infringed upon and
limited by the unbelieving understanding--is one with the idea of
miracle. The proof of Providence is miracle. [73] Belief in Providence
is belief in a power to which all things stand at command to be used
according to its pleasure, in opposition to which all the power
of reality is nothing. Providence cancels the laws of Nature; it
interrupts the course of necessity, the iron bond which inevitably
binds effects to causes; in short, it is the same unlimited,
all-powerful will, that called the world into existence out of
nothing. Miracle is a creatio ex nihilo. He who turns water into
wine, makes wine out of nothing, for the constituents of wine are
not found in water; otherwise, the production of wine would not be a
miraculous, but a natural act. The only attestation, the only proof of
Providence is miracle. Thus Providence is an expression of the same
idea as creation out of nothing. Creation out of nothing can only be
understood and explained in connection with Providence; for miracle
properly implies nothing more than that the miracle worker is the same
as he who brought forth all things by his mere will--God the Creator.
But Providence has relation essentially to man. It is for man's sake
that Providence makes of things whatever it pleases: it is for man's
sake that it supersedes the authority and reality of a law otherwise
omnipotent. The admiration of Providence in Nature, especially in
the animal kingdom, is nothing else than an admiration of Nature,
and therefore belongs merely to naturalism, though to a religious
naturalism; [74] for in Nature is revealed only natural, not divine
Providence--not Providence as it is an object to religion. Religious
Providence reveals itself only in miracles--especially in the miracle
of the Incarnation, the central point of religion. But we nowhere
read that God, for the sake of brutes, became a brute--the very idea
of this is, in the eyes of religion, impious and ungodly; or that
God ever performed a miracle for the sake of animals or plants. On
the contrary, we read that a poor fig-tree, because it bore no fruit
at a time when it could not bear it, was cursed, purely in order to
give men an example of the power of faith over Nature;--and again,
that when the tormenting devils were driven out of men, they were
driven into brutes. It is true we also read: "No sparrow falls to the
ground without your Father;" but these sparrows have no more worth and
importance than the hairs on the head of a man, which are all numbered.
Apart from instinct, the brute has no other guardian spirit, no other
Providence, than its senses or its organs in general. A bird which
loses its eyes has lost its guardian angel; it necessarily goes to
destruction if no miracle happens. We read indeed that a raven brought
food to the prophet Elijah, but not (at least to my knowledge) that an
animal was supported by other than natural means. But if a man believes
that he also has no other Providence than the powers of his race--his
senses and understanding,--he is in the eyes of religion, and of all
those who speak the language of religion, an irreligious man; because
he believes only in a natural Providence, and a natural Providence is
in the eyes of religion as good as none. Hence Providence has relation
essentially to men, and even among men only to the religious. "God
is the Saviour of all men, but especially of them that believe." It
belongs, like religion, only to man; it is intended to express the
essential distinction of man from the brute, to rescue man from the
tyranny of the forces of Nature. Jonah in the whale, Daniel in the den
of lions, are examples of the manner in which Providence distinguishes
(religious) men from brutes. If therefore the Providence which
manifests itself in the organs with which animals catch and devour
their prey, and which is so greatly admired by Christian naturalists,
is a truth, the Providence of the Bible, the Providence of religion,
is a falsehood; and vice versâ. What pitiable and at the same time
ludicrous hypocrisy is the attempt to do homage to both, to Nature,
and the Bible at once! How does Nature contradict the Bible! How
does the Bible contradict Nature! The God of Nature reveals himself
by giving to the lion strength and appropriate organs in order that,
for the preservation of his life, he may in case of necessity kill
and devour even a human being; the God of the Bible reveals himself
by interposing his own aid to rescue the human being from the jaws
of the lion! [75]
Providence is a privilege of man. It expresses the value of man,
in distinction from other natural beings and things; it exempts him
from the connection of the universe. Providence is the conviction of
man of the infinite value of his existence,--a conviction in which he
renounces faith in the reality of external things; it is the idealism
of religion. Faith in Providence is therefore identical with faith in
personal immortality; save only, that in the latter the infinite value
of existence is expressed in relation to time, as infinite duration. He
who prefers no special claims, who is indifferent about himself, who
identifies himself with the world, who sees himself as a part merged in
the whole,--such a one believes in no Providence, i.e., in no special
Providence; but only special Providence is Providence in the sense of
religion. Faith in Providence is faith in one's own worth, the faith
of man in himself; hence the beneficent consequences of this faith,
but hence also false humility, religious arrogance, which, it is true,
does not rely on itself, but only because it commits the care of itself
to the blessed God. God concerns himself about me; he has in view my
happiness, my salvation; he wills that I shall be blest; but that is my
will also: thus, my interest is God's interest, my own will is God's
will, my own aim is God's aim,--God's love for me nothing else than
my self-love deified. Thus when I believe in Providence, in what do
I believe but in the divine reality and significance of my own being?
But where Providence is believed in, belief in God is made dependent on
belief in Providence. He who denies that there is a Providence, denies
that there is a God, or--what is the same thing--that God is God; for a
God who is not the Providence of man, is a contemptible God, a God who
is wanting in the divinest, most adorable attribute. Consequently,
the belief in God is nothing but the belief in human dignity,
[76] the belief in the absolute reality and significance of the
human nature. But belief in a (religious) Providence is belief in
creation out of nothing, and vice versâ; the latter, therefore, can
have no other significance than that of Providence as just developed,
and it has actually no other. Religion sufficiently expresses this
by making man the end of creation. All things exist, not for their
own sake, but for the sake of man. He who, like the pious Christian
naturalists, pronounces this to be pride, declares Christianity itself
to be pride; for to say that the material world exists for the sake of
man, implies infinitely less than to say that God--or at least, if we
follow Paul, a being who is almost God, scarcely to be distinguished
from God--becomes man for the sake of men.
But if man is the end of creation, he is also the true cause of
creation, for the end is the principle of action. The distinction
between man as the end of creation, and man as its cause, is only
that the cause is the latent, inner man, the essential man, whereas
the end is the self-evident, empirical, individual man,--that man
recognises himself as the end of creation, but not as the cause,
because he distinguishes the cause, the essence from himself as
another personal being. [77] But this other being, this creative
principle, is in fact nothing else than his subjective nature
separated from the limits of individuality and materiality, i.e.,
of objectivity, unlimited will, personality posited out of all
connection with the world,--which by creation, i.e., the positing
of the world, of objectivity, of another, as a dependent, finite,
non-essential existence, gives itself the certainty of its exclusive
reality. The point in question in the Creation is not the truth and
reality of the world, but the truth and reality of personality, of
subjectivity in distinction from the world. The point in question is
the personality of God; but the personality of God is the personality
of man freed from all the conditions and limitations of Nature. Hence
the fervent interest in the Creation, the horror of all pantheistic
cosmogonies. The Creation, like the idea of a personal God in general,
is not a scientific, but a personal matter; not an object of the free
intelligence, but of the feelings; for the point on which it hinges
is only the guarantee, the last conceivable proof and demonstration
of personality or subjectivity as an essence quite apart, having
nothing in common with Nature, a supra- and extra-mundane entity. [78]
Man distinguishes himself from Nature. This distinction of his
is his God: the distinguishing of God from Nature is nothing
else than the distinguishing of man from Nature. The antithesis
of pantheism and personalism resolves itself into the question:
Is the nature of man transcendental or immanent, supranaturalistic
or naturalistic? The speculations and controversies concerning the
personality or impersonality of God are therefore fruitless, idle,
uncritical, and odious; for the speculatists, especially those who
maintain the personality, do not call the thing by the right name;
they put the light under a bushel. While they in truth speculate only
concerning themselves, only in the interest of their own instinct of
self-preservation; they yet will not allow that they are splitting
their brains only about themselves; they speculate under the delusion
that they are searching out the mysteries of another being. Pantheism
identifies man with Nature, whether with its visible appearance, or its
abstract essence. Personalism isolates, separates, him from Nature;
converts him from a part into the whole, into an absolute essence by
himself. This is the distinction. If, therefore, you would be clear
on these subjects, exchange your mystical, perverted anthropology,
which you call theology, for real anthropology, and speculate in
the light of consciousness and Nature concerning the difference
or identity of the human essence with the essence of Nature. You
yourselves admit that the essence of the pantheistical God is nothing
but the essence of Nature. Why, then, will you only see the mote in
the eyes of your opponents, and not observe the very obvious beam
in your own eyes? why make yourselves an exception to a universally
valid law? Admit that your personal God is nothing else than your own
personal nature, that while you believe in and construct your supra-
and extra-natural God, you believe in and construct nothing else than
the supra- and extra-naturalism of your own self.
In the Creation, as everywhere else, the true principle is concealed
by the intermingling of universal, metaphysical, and even pantheistic
definitions. But one need only be attentive to the closer definitions
to convince oneself that the true principle of creation is the
self-affirmation of subjectivity in distinction from Nature. God
produces the world outside himself; at first it is only an idea, a
plan, a resolve; now it becomes an act, and therewith it steps forth
out of God as a distinct and, relatively at least, a self-subsistent
object. But just so subjectivity in general, which distinguishes
itself from the world, which takes itself for an essence distinct from
the world, posits the world out of itself as a separate existence,
indeed, this positing out of self, and the distinguishing of self,
is one act. When therefore the world is posited outside of God, God
is posited by himself, is distinguished from the world. What else
then is God but your subjective nature, when the world is separated
from it? [79] It is true that when astute reflection intervenes,
the distinction between extra and intra is disavowed as a finite and
human (?) distinction. But to the disavowal by the understanding,
which in relation to religion is pure misunderstanding, no credit
is due. If it is meant seriously, it destroys the foundation of
the religious consciousness; it does away with the possibility,
the very principle of the creation, for this rests solely on the
reality of the above-mentioned distinction. Moreover, the effect of
the creation, all its majesty for the feelings and the imagination,
is quite lost, if the production of the world out of God is not taken
in the real sense. What is it to make, to create, to produce, but
to make that which in the first instance is only subjective, and so
far invisible, non-existent, into something objective, perceptible,
so that other beings besides me may know and enjoy it, and thus to
put something out of myself, to make it distinct from myself? Where
there is no reality or possibility of an existence external to me,
there can be no question of making or creating. God is eternal, but
the world had a commencement; God was, when as yet the world was not;
God is invisible, not cognisable by the senses, but the world is
visible, palpable, material, and therefore outside of God; for how
can the material as such, body, matter, be in God? The world exists
outside of God, in the same sense in which a tree, an animal, the
world in general, exists outside of my conception, outside of myself,
is an existence distinct from subjectivity. Hence, only when such an
external existence is admitted, as it was by the older philosophers
and theologians, have we the genuine, unmixed doctrine of the religious
consciousness. The speculative theologians and philosophers of modern
times, on the contrary, foist in all sorts of pantheistic definitions,
although they deny the principle of pantheism; and the result of this
process is simply an absolutely self-contradictory, insupportable
fabrication of their own.
Thus the creation of the world expresses nothing else than
subjectivity, assuring itself of its own reality and infinity
through the consciousness that the world is created, is a product
of will, i.e., a dependent, powerless, unsubstantial existence. The
"nothing" out of which the world was produced, is a still inherent
nothingness. When thou sayest the world was made out of nothing, thou
conceivest the world itself as nothing, thou clearest away from thy
head all the limits to thy imagination, to thy feelings, to thy will,
for the world is the limitation of thy will, of thy desire; the world
alone obstructs thy soul; it alone is the wall of separation between
thee and God,--thy beatified, perfected nature. Thus, subjectively,
thou annihilatest the world; thou thinkest God by himself, i.e.,
absolutely unlimited subjectivity, the subjectivity or soul which
enjoys itself alone, which needs not the world, which knows nothing
of the painful bonds of matter. In the inmost depths of thy soul
thou wouldest rather there were no world, for where the world is,
there is matter, and where there is matter there is weight and
resistance, space and time, limitation and necessity. Nevertheless,
there is a world, there is matter. How dost thou escape from the
dilemma of this contradiction? How dost thou expel the world from thy
consciousness, that it may not disturb thee in the beatitude of the
unlimited soul? Only by making the world itself a product of will, by
giving it an arbitrary existence always hovering between existence
and non-existence, always awaiting its annihilation. Certainly
the act of creation does not suffice to explain the existence of
the world or matter (the two are not separable), but it is a total
misconception to demand this of it, for the fundamental idea of the
creation is this: there is to be no world, no matter; and hence its
end is daily looked forward to with longing. The world in its truth
does not here exist at all, it is regarded only as the obstruction,
the limitation of subjectivity; how could the world in its truth and
reality be deduced from a principle which denies the world?
In order to recognise the above developed significance of the creation
as the true one, it is only necessary seriously to consider the fact,
that the chief point in the creation is not the production of earth
and water, plants and animals, for which indeed there is no God,
but the production of personal beings--of spirits, according to the
ordinary phrase. God is the idea of personality as itself a person,
subjectivity existing in itself apart from the world, existing for self
alone, without wants, posited as absolute existence, the me without
a thee. But as absolute existence for self alone contradicts the idea
of true life, the idea of love; as self-consciousness is essentially
united with the consciousness of a thee, as solitude cannot, at least
in perpetuity, preserve itself from tedium and uniformity; thought
immediately proceeds from the divine Being to other conscious beings,
and expands the idea of personality which was at first condensed in
one being to a plurality of persons. [80] If the person is conceived
physically, as a real man, in which form he is a being with wants, he
appears first at the end of the physical world, when the conditions
of his existence are present,--as the goal of creation. If, on the
other hand, man is conceived abstractly as a person, as is the case in
religious speculation, this circuit is dispensed with, and the task
is the direct deduction of the person, i.e., the self-demonstration,
the ultimate self-verification of the human personality. It is true
that the divine personality is distinguished in every possible way
from the human in order to veil their identity; but these distinctions
are either purely fantastic, or they are mere assertions, devices
which exhibit the invalidity of the attempted deduction. All positive
grounds of the creation reduce themselves only to the conditions,
to the grounds, which urge upon the me the consciousness of the
necessity of another personal being. Speculate as much as you will,
you will never derive your personality from God, if you have not
beforehand introduced it, if God himself be not already the idea of
your personality, your own subjective nature.