Lectures on the Proofs of the Existence of God/Lecture 14
This dogmatic view of the absolute separation between the finite and the Infinite has to do with Logic. It involves an opinion regarding the nature of the conceptions of the finite and the Infinite which is treated of in Logic. Here we shall confine ourselves chiefly to those characteristics which we have partly dealt with in the preceding Lectures, but which are also found in our own consciousness. The characteristics which belong to the nature of the conceptions themselves, and which have been exhibited in the Logic in their own pure determinateness and in that of their connection, must show themselves and be present in our ordinary consciousness as well.
When, therefore, it is said that the Being of the finite is only its own Being, and is in no sense the Being of an Other, it is thereby declared that there is no possible way of passing from the finite to the Infinite, and therefore no mediation between them, neither in themselves nor in and for knowledge, so that, although the finite is mediated through the Infinite, still the converse is not true, which is just the real point of interest. Appeal is thus already made to the fact that the Spirit of Man rises out of the contingent, the temporal, the finite, to God as representing the Absolutely-necessary, the Eternal, the Infinite, to the fact that the so-called gulf does not exist for Spirit, and that it really accomplishes the transition, and that the heart of Man, spite of the Understanding which asserts the existence of this absolute separation, will not admit that there is any such gulf, but, on the contrary, actually makes the transition from the finite to the Infinite in the act of rising to God.
The ready reply to this, however, is that if you grant the fact of this rising to God, there is certainly an act of transition on the part of Spirit, but not of Spirit in itself, not a transition in the conceptions, or indeed in any sense of the conceptions themselves; and the reason of this just is that in the conception as here understood, the Being of the finite is its own Being and not the Being of an Other. When we thus regard finite Being as standing in relation to itself only, it is merely for itself, and is not Being for an Other. It is consequently taken out of the region of change, is unchangeable and absolute. This is how the matter stands with these so-called conceptions. Those, however, who assert the impossibility of any such transition will not admit that the finite is absolute, unchangeable, imperishable, and eternal. If the error involved in taking the finite as absolute were merely an error of the Schools, an illogical result the blame of which is to be put on the Understanding; if it were to be regarded, in fact, as belonging to those abstractions of an extreme kind with which we have got to do here, then we might very well ask if an error of this sort really mattered much since we might certainly regard these abstractions as of no account compared with the fulness of spiritual life found in religion, which, moreover, constitutes the great and really living interest of Spirit. But that it is exclusively the finite which constitutes the true interest amongst these so-called great and living interests, is only too evident from the attention paid to religion itself, in connection with which, and as a consequence of the fundamental principle referred to an amount of study has been bestowed on the history of the finite materials of the subject, on the history of external events and opinions far beyond that given to the infinite element, which has been confessedly reduced to a minimum. It is by the employment of thoughts and of these abstract categories of finite and Infinite that the renunciation of the knowledge of truth is supposed to be justified, and as a matter of fact it is in the region of pure thought that all these interests of Spirit have free play, in order that they may there have their real nature decided, for thoughts constitute the really inner substantiality of the concrete reality of Spirit.
But suppose we leave this conception of the Understanding, and its assertion that the Being of the finite is only its own Being, and not the Being of an Other, not transition itself, and take up the further idea which emphasises the element of knowledge. If it is agreed that Spirit does actually make this transition, then the fact of this transition is not a fact of knowledge, but of Spirit in general, and in a definite sense of faith. It has been sufficiently proved that this act of elevation to God, whether seen in feeling or in faith, or however you choose to define the mode of its spiritual existence, takes place in the inmost part of Spirit, in the region of thought. Religion as representing what concerns the innermost part of Man’s nature has its centre and the root of its movement in thought. God in His Essence is thought, the act of thought itself, just as the ordinary representation of Him and the shape given to Him in the mind, as well as the form and mode in which religion appears, are defined as feeling, intuition, faith, and so on. Knowledge, however, does nothing beyond bringing this inward element into consciousness on its own account, beyond forming a conception of that pulsation of thought in terms of thought. In this, knowledge may appear one-sided, and it may appear all the more as if feeling, intuition, and faith essentially belonged to religion, and were more closely connected with God than His thinking notion and His notion as expressed in thought; but this inner element is present here, and thought just consists in getting a knowledge of it, and rational knowledge in general just means that we know a thing in its essential determinateness.
To have rational knowledge or cognition, to comprehend or grasp in thought, are terms which, like “immediate” and “faith,” belong to present-day culture. They have the authority of a preconceived idea which has a twofold character. On the one hand, there is the fact that they are absolutely familiar, and are consequently final categories regarding whose signification and verification there is no need to inquire further. On the other hand, there is the fact that the inability of reason to comprehend and know the True and the Infinite is something settled quite as much as their general meaning is. The words, to know or cognise, to comprehend or grasp in thought, have the value of a magical formula. It never occurs to those under the influence of this preconceived idea to ask what the expressions to know, to grasp in thought, mean, or to get a clear idea of them, and yet that would be the sole and only point of importance if we were to say something that was really pertinent regarding the main question. In any such investigation it would be evident of itself that knowledge merely expresses the fact of the transition which Spirit itself makes, and in so far as knowledge is true knowledge or comprehension it is a consciousness of the necessity which is contained in the transition itself, and is nothing save the act of forming a conception of this characteristic which is immanent and present in it.
But if, so far as the fact of the transition from the finite to the Infinite is concerned, it is replied that this transition takes place in the spirit, or in faith, feeling, and the like, such an answer would not be the whole answer, which rather essentially takes the following form. Religious belief, or feeling, inner revelation, means that we have an immediate knowledge of God which is not reached by mediation. It means that the transition does not consist of an essential connection between the two sides, but is made in the form of a leap from one to the other. What we would call a transition is broken up in this way into two separate acts which are outwardly opposed, and follow each other in succession of time only, and are related to each other by being compared or recalled. The finite and the Infinite simply keep in this condition of separation, and this being presupposed, Spirit occupies itself with the finite in a particular way; and in occupying itself with the Infinite in the way of feeling, faith, knowledge, it performs a separate, immediate and simple action—not an act of transition. Just as the finite and the Infinite are without relation to each other, so, too, the acts of Spirit by which it fills itself with these characteristics, and fills itself either with the one or the other, have no relation to each other. Even if they happen to exist contemporaneously, so that the finite is found in consciousness along with the Infinite, they are merely mixed together. They are two independent forms of activity which do not enter into any relation of mediation with each other.
The repetition which is involved in this conception of the ordinary division of the finite and the Infinite has already been referred to—that separation by which the finite is put on one side in an independent form, and the Infinite on the other in contrast with it, while the former is not the less asserted in this way to be absolute. This is the dualism which, put in a more definite form, is Manicheism. But even those who maintain the existence of such a relation will not admit that the finite is absolute, and yet they cannot escape the conclusion which does not merely flow from the statement referred to, but is just this very statement itself, that the finite has no connection with the Infinite, that there is no possible way of passing from the one to the other, but that the one is absolutely distinct from the other. But even if a relation is conceived of as actually existing, it is, owing to the admitted incompatibility between them, a relation of a merely negative kind. The Infinite is thought of as the True and the only Affirmative, that is, the abstract Affirmative, so that its relation to the finite is that of a force in which the finite is annihilated. The finite, in order to be, must keep out of the way of the Infinite, must flee from it. If it comes into contact with it, it can only perish. As regards the subjective existence of these characteristics with which we are dealing, as represented, namely, by finite and infinite knowledge, we find that the one side, that of infinitude, is the immediate knowledge of Man by God. The entire other side, again, is Man in general; it is he who is the finite about which we are chiefly concerned, and it is just this knowledge of God on his part, whether it is called immediate or not, which is his Being, his finite knowledge, and the transition from it to the Infinite. If, accordingly, the manner in which Spirit deals with the finite, and that in which it deals with the Infinite, are supposed to represent two different forms of activity, then the latter form of activity as representing the elevation of Spirit to God would not be the immanent transition referred to; and when Spirit occupied itself with the finite it would in turn do this in an absolute way, and be entirely confined to the finite as such. This point would allow of being dealt with at great length, but it may be sufficient here to remember that, although the finite is the object and the end dealt with by this side, it can occupy itself with it in a true way, whether in the form of cognition, knowledge, opinion, or in a practical and moral fashion, only in so far as the finite is not taken for itself, but is known, recognised, and its existence affirmed in connection with the relation in which it stands to the Infinite, to the Infinite in it, in so far, in fact, as it is an object and an end in connection with this latter category. It is well enough known what place is given to the religious element both in the case of individuals and even in religions themselves, and how this religious element in the form of devotion, contrition of heart and spirit, and the giving of offerings, comes to be regarded as a matter apart with which we can occupy ourselves and then have done with; while the secular life, the sphere of finitude, exists alongside of it, and gives itself up to the pursuit of its own ends, and is left to its own interests without any influence being exercised upon it by the Infinite, the Eternal, and the True—that is, without there being any passing over into the Infinite within the sphere of the finite, without the finite coming to truth and morality by the mediation of the Infinite, and so, too, without the Infinite being brought into the region of present reality through the mediation of the finite. We do not require here to enter upon the consideration of the lame conclusion that the one who has knowledge, namely, Man, must be absolute in order to comprehend the Absolute, because the same thing applies to faith or immediate knowledge as being also an inner act of comprehension, if not of the absolute Spirit of God, at all events of the Infinite. If this knowledge is so afraid of the concrete element in its object, then this object must at least have some meaning for it. It is really the non-concrete which has few characteristics or none at all, that is the abstract, the negative, what is least of all, the Infinite in short.
But then it is just by means of this miserable abstraction of the Infinite that ordinary thought repels the attempt to comprehend the Infinite, and for the simple reason that the present and actual Man, the human spirit, human reason, is definitely opposed to the Infinite in the form of a fixed abstraction of the finite. Ordinary thought would more readily allow that the human spirit, thought, or reason, can comprehend the Absolutely-necessary, for this latter is thus directly declared and stated to be the negative as opposed to its Other, namely, the contingent, which has on its part a necessity too, external necessity that is. What accordingly can be clearer than that Man, who moreover is, that is to say, is something positive or affirmative, cannot comprehend his negative? And conversely, is it not still more clear that since his Being, his affirmation, is finitude, and therefore negation. it cannot comprehend infinitude, which, as opposed to finitude, is equally negation but in the reverse way, since it is Being, affirmation in contrast with the characteristic attached to finitude? What then can be clearer than that finitude comes to Man from both sides? He can comprehend a few feet of space, yet outside of this volume there lies the infinitude of space. He possesses a span of infinite time, which in the same way shrinks up into a moment as compared with this infinite time, just as his volume of space shrinks up into a point. But considered apart from this outward finitude which characterises him in contrast with those infinite externalities, he is intelligence, is able to perceive, to form ideas, to know, to have cognition of things. The object on which he exercises his intelligence is the world, this aggregate of infinite particular things. How small is the number of these known by individual men—it is not Man who knows but the individual—as compared with the infinite mass which actually exists. In order clearly to realise the paltry nature of human knowledge, we have only to remember a fact which cannot be denied, and which we are accustomed to describe as divine Omniscience, and to put it in the fashion in which it is expressed by the organist in L , in a funeral sermon reported in “The Courses of Life on Ascending Lines” (Part II., Supplement B.)—to mention once more a work marked by humour of the highest kind: “Neighbour Brise was speaking to me yesterday about the greatness of the good God, and the idea came into my head that the good God knew how to name every sparrow, every goldfinch, every wren, every mite, every midge, just as you call the people in the village, Schmied’s Gregory, Briefen’s Peter, Heifried’s Hans. Just think how the good God can call to every one of these midges which are so like each other that you would swear they were all sisters and brothers—just think of it!” But as compared with practical finitude the theoretical element at least appears great and wide; and yet how thoroughly we realise what human limitation is, when these aims, and plans, and wishes, and all that so long as it is in the mind has no limits, are brought into contact with the reality for which they are intended. All that wide extent of practical imagination, all that endeavour, that aspiration, reveals its narrowness by the very fact that it is only endeavour, only aspiration. It is this finitude with which the attempt to form a conception of the Infinite, to comprehend it, is confronted. The critical Understanding which holds by this principle, supposed to be so convincing, has really not got beyond the stage of culture occupied by that organist in L , has in fact not even attained to it. The organist used the pictorial idea referred to in the simplicity of his heart, in order to bring the idea of the greatness of God’s love before a peasant community. The critical Understanding, on the other hand, employs finite things in order to bring objection against God’s love and God’s greatness, that is to say, against God’s presence in the human spirit. This Understanding keeps firmly in its mind the midge of finitude, that proposition already considered—the finite is, a proposition the falseness of which is directly evident, for the finite is something the essential character and nature of which consist just in this that it passes away, that it is not, so that it is impossible to think of the finite or form an idea of it apart from the determination of Not-Being, which is involved in the thought of what is transient. Who has got the length of saying, the finite passes away? If the idea of Now is inserted between the finite and its passing away, and if in this way a kind of permanence is supposed to be given to Being—“the finite passes away, but it is now”—then this Now itself is something which not only passes away, but has itself actually passed away, since it is. The very fact that I have this consciousness of the Now, and have put it into words, shows that it is no longer Now, but something different. It lasts, it is true, but not as this particular Now, and Now can only mean this actual Now, in this particular moment, something without length, a mere point. It continues, in fact, only as being the negation of this particular Now, as the negation of the finite, and consequently as the Infinite, the Universal. The Universal is already infinite. That respect for the Infinite which keeps the Understanding from finding the Infinite in every Universal ought to be called a silly respect. The Infinite is lofty and majestic, but to place its grandeur and majesty in that countless swarm of midges, and to find the infinitude of knowledge in the knowledge of those countless midges, that is, of the individual midges, is a proof of the impotence, not of faith, of Spirit, or of reason, but of the Understanding to conceive of the finite as a nullity, and of its Being as something which has equally the value and signification which belong to Not-Being.
Spirit is immortal; it is eternal; and it is immortal and eternal in virtue of the fact that it is infinite, that it has no such spatial finitude as we associate with the body when we speak of it being five feet in height, two feet in breadth and thickness, that it is not the Now of time, that the content of its knowledge does not consist of these countless midges, that its volition and freedom have not to do with the infinite mass of existing obstacles, nor of the aims and activities which such resisting obstacles and hindrances have to encounter. The infinitude of Spirit is its inwardness, in an abstract sense its pure inwardness, and this is its thought, and this abstract thought is a real, present infinitude, while its concrete inwardness consists in the fact that this thought is Spirit.
Thus, after starting with the absolute separation of the two sides, we have come back to their connection, and it makes no difference whether this connection is represented as existing in the subjective or objective sphere. The only question is as to whether it has been correctly conceived of. In so far as it is represented as merely subjective, as a proof only for us, it is of course granted that it is not objective and has not been correctly conceived of in-and-for-itself. But, then, what is incorrect in it is not to be looked for in the fact that there is no such connection at all, that is to say, that there is no such thing as the elevation of Spirit to God.
The real point, therefore, would be the consideration of this connection in its determinateness. The consideration of it in this way is a matter at once of the deepest and most elevated kind, and just because of this it is the most difficult of tasks. You cannot carry it on by means of finite categories; that is, the modes of thought which we employ in ordinary life and in dealing with contingent things, as well as those we are accustomed to in the sciences, don’t suffice for it. The latter have their foundation, their logic, in connections which belong to what is finite, such as cause and effect; their laws, their descriptive terms, their modes of arguing, are purely relations belonging to what is conditioned, and which lose their significance in the heights where the Infinite is. They must indeed be employed, but at the same time they have always to be referred back to their proper sphere and have their meaning rectified. The fact of the fellowship of God and Man with each other involves a fellowship of Spirit with Spirit. It involves the most important questions. It is a fellowship, and this very circumstance involves the difficulty of at once maintaining the fact of difference and of defining it in such a way as to preserve the fact of fellowship. That Man knows God implies, in accordance with the essential idea of communion or fellowship, that there is a community of knowledge; that is to say, Man knows God only in so far as God Himself knows Himself in Man. This knowledge is God’s self-consciousness, but it is at the same time a knowledge of God on the part of Man, and this knowledge of God by Man is a knowledge of Man by God. The Spirit of Man, whereby he knows God, is simply the Spirit of God Himself. It is at this stage that the questions regarding the freedom of Man, the union of his individual consciousness and knowledge with the knowledge which brings him into fellowship with God, and the knowledge of God in him, come to be discussed. This wealth of relationship which exists between the human spirit and God is not, however, our subject. We have to take up this relationship only in its most abstract aspect, that is to say, in the form of the connection of the finite with the Infinite. However strong the contrast between the poverty of this connection and the wealth of the content referred to may seem, still the logical relation is at the same time also the basis of the movement of that fulness of content.