CHAPTER III.
God as God—the infinite, universal, non-anthropomorphic being of the understanding, has no more significance for religion than a fundamental general principle has for a special science; it is merely the ultimate point of support,—as it were, the mathematical point, of religion. The consciousness of human limitation or nothingness which is united with the idea of this being, is by no means a religious consciousness; on the contrary, it characterizes sceptics, materialists, and pantheists. The belief in God—at least in the God of religion—is only lost where, as in scepticism, pantheism, and materialism, the belief in man is lost, at least in man such as he is presupposed in religion. As little then as religion has any influential belief in the nothingness of man,[1] so little has it any influential belief in that abstract being with which the consciousness of this nothingness is united. The vital elements of religion are those only which make man an object to man. To deny man, is to deny religion.
It certainly is the interest of religion that its object should be distinct from man; but it is also, nay, yet more its interest, that this object should have human attributes. That he should be a distinct being concerns his existence only; but that he should be human concerns his essence. If he be of a different nature, how can his existence or non-existence be of any importance to man? How can he take so profound an interest in an existence in which his own nature has no participation?
To give an example. “When I believe that the human
- ↑ In religion, the representation or expression of the nothingness of man before God, is the anger of God; for as the love of God is the affirmation, his anger is the negation of man. But even this anger is not taken in earnest. “God . . . is not really angry. He is not thoroughly in earnest even when we think that he is angry, and punishes.”—Luther (T. viii. p. 208).
