Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 1.djvu/235

from miracles, that is in a finite content. Christ Himself, however, spoke against miracles, He reproached the Jews for demanding them of Him, and said to His disciples, “The Spirit will guide you into all truth.” Faith which begins in such an external manner is as yet formal, and the true faith must come in its place. It is essential to mark this distinction between the two kinds of faith, for if this is not done, men are required to believe things which at a certain level of culture they can no longer believe. Miracles, it is said, are to be believed in this way, and this belief is to be a means of faith in Christ; it may indeed be a means, but yet it is always required on its own account as well. The faith thus demanded is faith in a content which is finite and contingent, that is to say which is not the true content. For true faith has no accidental content. This requires especially to be pointed out in view of the “Aufklärung.” It has gained the mastery over this formal faith, and if orthodoxy demand faith of this kind, it becomes impossible for it, in presence of certain ways of looking at things common among men, to maintain it, because it is faith in a content which is not divine, which is not the witness of God to Himself as Spirit in the Spirit. The following is to be specially noted in regard to miracles. Whether at the marriage at Cana the guests got a little more wine or a little less is a matter of absolutely no importance; nor is it any more essential to determine whether or not the man who had the withered hand was healed; for millions of men go about with withered and crippled limbs, whose limbs no man heals. In like manner it is related in the Old Testament, that at the time of the flight out of Egypt red marks were made at the doors of the Jewish houses in order that the angel of the Lord might recognise those dwellings. Would this angel not have known them without those marks? This faith has no real interest for Spirit. Voltaire’s bitterest attacks are directed against the demands of a faith of this kind. Among other things