G. W. F. Hegel

“ If, in fact, we are to understand by religion nothing more than a relation between ourselves and God, then God is left without any independent existence. God would, on this theory, exist in religion only, He would be something posited, something produced by us. The expression that God exists in religion only, an expression which is both frequently employed and found fault with, has, however, the true and important meaning that it belongs to the nature of God in His condition of complete and perfect independence that He should exist for the spirit of Man, and should communicate Himself to Man. ”

“ This everlasting explanation of religion, of its necessity, its usefulness, and so on, together with the insignificant attempts to explain God, or the prohibition even of any attempt at explaining His nature, is a peculiar phenomenon of the culture of our time. ”

“ This connection, which is thus present to consciousness, must not be a subjective movement of thought outside of reality, but must follow this latter, and must simply unfold its meaning and necessity. Knowledge is just this unfolding of the objective movement of the content, of the inner necessity which essentially belongs to it, and it is true knowledge since it is in unity with the object. ”

“ We get off most easily when we rest contented with this standpoint, so that we have nothing before us but the barren characterisation of a relation in which our consciousness stands to God. As thus understood, religion means at least that our spirit comes into contact with this content, and our consciousness with this object, and is not merely, so to speak, a drawing out of the lines of longing into empty space, an act of perception which perceives nothing and finds nothing actually confronting it. ”

“ He can reveal Himself to Man only, who thinks and is Spirit. If there is no hindrance on God’s side to the knowledge of Him, then it is owing to human caprice, to an affectation of humility, or whatever you like to call it, that the finitude of knowledge, the human reason is put in contrast to the divine knowledge and the divine reason, and that the limits of human reason are asserted to be immovable and absolutely fixed. ”

“ With this presupposition of a knowledge and cognition which are merely finite, we contrasted the knowledge which does not remain outside of the Thing or true reality, but which, without introducing any of its own qualities, simply follows the course of true reality, and we have directed attention to the substantial element in feeling and the heart, and have shown that, speaking generally, it exists essentially for consciousness and for conscious thought, in so far as its truth has to be worked out in what constitutes its most inner nature. ”

“ God is, and gives Himself to men by coming into a relation with them. If this word is is limited to the expression of the truth that we do indeed know or recognise the fact that God is, but do not know what He is, and is thus used with a constantly recurring reflection on knowledge, then this would imply that no substantial qualities can be attributed to Him. ”

“ For what is here suggested is just that God is not jealous, but, on the contrary, has revealed and is revealing Himself; and we have here the more definite thought that it is not the so-called human reason with its limits which knows God, but the Spirit of God in Man, it is, to use the speculative expression previously employed, the self-consciousness of God which knows itself in the knowledge of Man. ”

“ What is there advanced regarding the self-consciousness of God, His knowledge of Himself in men, and Man’s knowledge of himself in God, has direct reference to the point of view just indicated, and it is marked by speculative thoroughness while casting light on the false opinions which have been attributed alike to philosophy and to Christianity in connection with these subjects. ”

“ It throws light on all the points of view from which the Understanding directs its attack on the Christianity of knowledge, and answers the objections and counter-arguments which the theory of agnosticism (Nichtwissen) has brought against philosophy. It shows in particular the misunderstanding and the want of understanding of which the pious consciousness is guilty when it ranges itself on the side of the explaining Understanding in connection with the principle of agnosticism, and thus makes common cause with it in its opposition to speculative philosophy. ”

“ The heart ought not to have any dread of knowledge; the determinateness of feeling, the content of the heart, ought to have a substantial form. Feeling or the heart must be filled by the Thing or true object by what actually exists, and consequently be broad and true in character. But this Thing, this substantial element, is simply the truth of the Divine Spirit, the Universal in-and-for-itself, though just because of this it is not the abstract Universal, but the Universal in the development which belongs essentially to itself. ”

“ But even in connection with the purely general ideas to which we here confine ourselves, in order that, taking God as the starting-point, we may discuss the relation in which He stands to the human spirit, we are met more than anywhere else by an assumption which is in contradiction with any such design—namely, that we do not know God ”

“ Thus we should not have to say we know that God is, but could merely speak of is; for the word God introduces an idea, and consequently a substantial element, a content with definite characteristics, and apart from these God is an empty word. ”

“ Without appealing to this part of the teaching of Christianity, we may take our stand on the fact that God is not jealous, and ask, Why should He not communicate Himself to Man? It is recorded that in Athens there was a law according to which any man who had a lighted candle and refused to allow another to light his at it, was to be punished with death. This kind of communication is illustrated even in connection with physical light, since it spreads and imparts itself to some other thing without itself diminishing or losing anything ”

“ The Greeks of purely ancient times attributed jealousy to God when they represented Him as putting down all that was generally regarded as great and lofty, and as wishing to have and actually placing everything on a level. ”

“ Such a relation implies, at all events, this much, that we not only stand in a certain connection with God, but that God stands also in a certain connection with us. This zeal for religion expresses, hypothetically at least, something regarding our relation to God, if it does not express exclusively what would be the really logical outcome of the principle of the impossibility of knowing God. A one-sided relation, however, is not a relation at all. ”

“ Plato and Aristotle were opposed to the idea of divine jealousy, and the Christian religion is still more opposed to it since it teaches that God humbled Himself even to taking on the form of a servant amongst men, that He revealed Himself to them ”