Ludwig Feuerbach

“ But such is the understanding; it has its essence in itself, consequently, it has nothing together with or external to itself which can be ranged beside it; it is incapable of being compared, because it is itself the source of all combinations and comparisons; immeasurable, because it is the measure of all measures,—we measure all things by the understanding alone; it can be circumscribed by no higher generalization, it can be ranged under no species, because it is itself the principle of all generalizing, of all classification, because it circumscribes all things and beings. ”

“ Life therefore involves the contradiction of an existence at once dependent and independent,—the contradiction that its possibility lies both in itself and out of itself. The understanding alone is free from this and other contradictions of life; it is the essence perfectly self-subsistent, perfectly at one with itself, perfectly self-existent. [4] Thinking is existence in self; life, as differenced from thought, existence out of self; life is to give from oneself, thought is to take into oneself. Existence out of self is the world, existence in self is God. ”

“ The understanding is that part of our nature which is neutral, impassible, not to be bribed, not subject to illusions—the pure, passionless light of the intelligence. It is the categorical, impartial consciousness of the fact as fact, because it is itself of an objective nature. ”

“ Out of necessity; not out of a necessity which lies in another being distinct from itself—that is a pure contradiction,—but out of its own inherent necessity; out of the necessity of necessity; because without the world there would be no necessity; without necessity, no reason, no understanding. The nothing, out of which the world came, is nothing without the world. It is true that thus, negativity, as the speculative philosophers express themselves—nothing is the cause of the world;—but a nothing which abolishes itself, i.e. a nothing which could not have existed if there had been no world. ”

“ THE TRUE OR ANTHROPOLOGICAL ESSENCE OF RELIGION.
CHAPTER II.
GOD AS A BEING OF THE UNDERSTANDING.
Religion is the disuniting of man from himself: he sets God before him as the antithesis of himself. God is not what man is—man is not what God is. God is the infinite, man the finite being; God is perfect, man imperfect ”

“ For only in the highest proficiency is art truly art; only in its highest degree is thought truly thought, reason. Only when thy thought is God, dost thou truly think, rigorously speaking; for only God is the realized, consummate, exhausted thinking power. Thus in conceiving God, man first conceives reason as it truly is, though by means of the imagination he conceives this divine nature as distinct from reason, because as a being affected by external things he is accustomed always to distinguish the object from the conception of it. ”

“ The reason can only believe in a God who is accordant with its own nature, in a God who is not beneath its own dignity, who on the contrary is a realization of its own nature: i.e., the reason believes only in itself, in the absolute reality of its own nature. The reason is not dependent on God, but God on the reason. Even in the age of miracles and faith in authority, the understanding constitutes itself, at least formally, the criterion of divinity. God is all and can do all, it was said, by virtue of his omnipotence ”

“ In the absurdity of its non-existence is found the true reason of its existence, in the groundlessness of the supposition that it were not, the reason that it is. Nothing, non-existence, is aimless, nonsensical, irrational. Existence alone has an aim, a foundation, rationality; existence is, because only existence is reason and truth; existence is the absolute necessity. What is the cause of conscious existence, of life? ”

“ Only by and in the understanding has man the power of abstraction from himself, from his subjective being,—of exalting himself to general ideas and relations, of distinguishing the object from the impressions which it produces on his feelings, of regarding it in and by itself without reference to human personality. Philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, physics, in short, science in general, is the practical proof, because it is the product, of this truly infinite and divine activity. Religious anthropomorphisms, therefore, are in contradiction with the understanding ”

“ Because with the conception of this being it first completes itself, because only in the idea of the highest nature is the highest nature of reason existent, the highest step of the thinking power attained; and it is a general truth, that we feel a blank, a void, a want in ourselves, and are consequently unhappy and unsatisfied, so long as we have not come to the last degree of a power, to that quo nihil majus cogitari potest,—so long as we cannot bring our inborn capacity for this or that art, this or that science, to the utmost proficiency. ”

“ The being that works with design, towards certain ends, i.e. with understanding, is alone the being that to the understanding has immediate certitude, self-evidence. Hence that which of itself has no designs, no purpose, must have the cause of its existence in the design of another, and that an intelligent being. ”

“ The definitions which the speculative philosophers and theologians give of God, as the being in whom existence and essence are not separable, who himself is all the attributes which he has, so that predicate and subject are with him identical,—all these definitions are thus ideas drawn solely from the nature of the understanding. ”

“ And here he applies the same process to the conception of the reason, thus, for an existence in reason, in thought, substituting an existence in space and time, from which he had, nevertheless, previously abstracted it. God, as a metaphysical being, is the intelligence satisfied in itself, or rather, conversely, the intelligence satisfied in itself, thinking itself as the absolute being, is God as a metaphysical being. Hence all metaphysical predicates of God are real predicates only when they are recognised as belonging to thought, to intelligence, to the understanding. ”

“ Disunion exists only between beings who are at variance, but who ought to be one, who can be one, and who consequently in nature, in truth, are one. On this general ground, then, the nature with which man feels himself in disunion, must be inborn, immanent in himself, but at the same time it must be of a different character from that nature or power which gives him the feeling, the consciousness of reconciliation, of union with God, or, what is the same thing, with himself. ”

“ But that which is the object of another being is dependent. Thus the plant is dependent on air and light, that is, it is an object for air and light, not for itself. It is true that air and light are reciprocally an object for the plant. Physical life, in general, is nothing else than this perpetual interchange of the objective and subjective relation. We consume the air, and are consumed by it; we enjoy, and are enjoyed. ”

“ It is true, we, as physical beings, depend on the beings external to us, even as to the modifications of thought; but in so far as we think, in the activity of the understanding as such, we are dependent on no other being. Activity of thought is spontaneous activity. ”

“ No! only the being who saw not needed the eye. We are all come into the world without the operation of knowledge and will; but we are come that knowledge and will may exist. Whence, then, came the world? ”

“ I conclude, therefore, that this thinking in me does not inhere in another thing outside of me, but in myself, consequently that I am a substance, i.e. that I exist by myself, without being a predicate of another being.” [3] Although we always need the air, yet as natural philosophers we convert the air from an object of our physical need into an object of the self-sufficing activity of thought, i.e., into a mere thing for us. In breathing I am the object of the air, the air the subject ”