Ludwig Feuerbach

“ Israel’s requirement is the omnipotent law of the world, Israel’s need the fate of the universe. Jehovah is Israel’s consciousness of the sacredness and necessity of his own existence,—necessity before which the existence of Nature, the existence of other nations vanishes into nothing; Jehovah is the salus populi, the salvation of Israel, to which everything that stands in its way must be sacrificed; Jehovah is exclusive, monarchical arrogance, the annihilating flash of anger in the vindictive glance of destroying Israel ”

“ The doctrine of the Creation sprang out of Judaism; indeed, it is the characteristic, the fundamental doctrine of the Jewish religion. The principle which lies at its foundation is, however, not so much the principle of subjectivity as of egoism. The doctrine of the Creation in its characteristic significance arises only on that stand-point where man in practice makes Nature merely the servant of his will and needs, and hence in thought also degrades it to a mere machine, a product of the will. ”

“ On this ground, also, the creation out of nothing is no object of philosophy;—at least in any other way than it is so here;—for it cuts away the root of all true speculation, presents no grappling-point to thought, to theory; theoretically considered, it is a baseless air-built doctrine, which originated solely in the need to give a warrant to utilism, to egoism, which contains and expresses nothing but the command to make Nature—not an object of thought, of contemplation, but—an object of utilization. ”

“ What we despise we do not honour with a glance: that which is observed has importance: contemplation is respect. Whatever is looked at fetters by secret forces of attraction, overpowers, by the spell which it exercises upon the eye, the criminal arrogance of that Will which seeks only to subject all things to itself. Whatever makes an impression on the theoretic sense, on the reason, withdraws itself from the dominion of the egoistic Will: it reacts, it presents resistance. That which devastating egoism devotes to death, benignant theory restores to life. ”

“ To the Jews Nature was a mere means towards achieving the end of egoism, a mere object of will. But the ideal, the idol of the egoistic will is that Will which has unlimited command, which requires no means in order to attain its end, to realize its object, which immediately by itself, i.e., by pure will, calls into existence whatever it pleases. It pains the egoist that the satisfaction of his wishes and need is only to be attained immediately, that for him there is a chasm between the wish and its realization, between the object in the imagination and the object in reality. ”

“ And the power of Jehovah has exhibited itself with the most glory, in the miracles which it has wrought in favour of Israel. Hence, in the celebration of this power, the Israelite has always reference ultimately to himself; he extols the greatness of Nature only for the same reason that the conqueror magnifies the strength of his opponent, in order thereby to heighten his own self-complacency, to make his own fame more illustrious. Great and mighty is Nature, which Jehovah has created, but yet mightier, yet greater, is Israel’s self-estimation. ”

“ In reality, the first is man, the second the nature of man made objective, namely, God. Only in later times, in which religion is already become flesh and blood, can it be said—as God is, so is man: although, indeed, this proposition never amounts to anything more than tautology. But in the origin of religion it is otherwise; and it is only in the origin of a thing that we can discern its true nature. Man first unconsciously and involuntarily creates God in his own image, and after this God consciously and voluntarily creates man in his own image. ”

“ Nature and God are identified in his consciousness, his perception, of the world. Nature, as it impresses his senses, has indeed had an origin, has been produced, but not created in the religious sense, is not an arbitrary product. ”

“ When, on the contrary, man places himself only on the practical stand-point and looks at the world from thence, making the practical stand-point the theoretical one also, he is in disunion with Nature; he makes Nature the abject vassal of his selfish interest, of his practical egoism. The theoretic expression of this egoistical, practical view, according to which Nature is in itself nothing, is this: Nature or the world is made, created, the product of a command. ”

“ Utilism is the essential theory of Judaism. The belief in a special Divine Providence is the characteristic belief of Judaism; belief in Providence is belief in miracle; but belief in miracle exists where Nature is regarded only as an object of arbitrariness, of egoism, which uses Nature only as an instrument of its own will and pleasure. ”

“ What has once existed will not be denied the right to exist for ever; what was once good, claims to be good for all times. At this period of superannuation come the interpreters, the speculatists, and talk of the profound sense, because they no longer know the true one. [8] Thus, religious speculation deals with the dogmas, torn from the connexion in which alone they have any true meaning; instead of tracing them back critically to their true origin, it makes the secondary primitive, and the primitive secondary. To it God is the first; man the second. ”

“ Egoism is essentially monotheistic, for it has only one, only self, as its end. Egoism strengthens cohesion, concentrates man on himself, gives him a consistent principle of life; but it makes him theoretically narrow, because indifferent to all which does not relate to the well-being of self. Hence science, like art, arises only out of polytheism, for polytheism is the frank, open, unenvying sense of all that is beautiful and good without distinction, the sense of the world, of the universe. ”

“ Only where such a theory was the fundamental principle could there be conceived and expressed such a thought as that of Anaxagoras:—Man is born to behold the world. [1] The stand-point of theory is the stand-point of harmony with the world. The subjective activity, that in which man contents himself, allows himself free play, is here the sensuous imagination alone. Satisfied with this, he lets Nature subsist in peace, and constructs his castles in the air, his poetical cosmogonies, only out of natural materials. ”

“ The Hebrews, on the other hand, raised themselves from the worship of idols to the worship of God, from the creature to the Creator; i.e., they raised themselves from the theoretic view of Nature, which fascinated the idolaters, to the purely practical view which subjects Nature only to the ends of egoism. ”

“ The more empty it is, however, for natural philosophy, the more profound is its “speculative” significance; for just because it has no theoretic fulcrum, it allows to the speculatist infinite room for the play of arbitrary, groundless interpretation.
It is in the history of dogma and speculation as in the history of states. World-old usages, laws, and institutions, continue to drag out their existence long after they have lost their true meaning. ”

“ Hence, in order to relieve this pain, to make himself free from the limits of reality, he supposes as the true, the highest being, one who brings forth an object by the mere I will. For this reason, Nature, the world, was to the Hebrews the product of a dictatorial word, of a categorical imperative, of a magic fiat. ”

“ The much-belied doctrine of the heathen philosophers concerning the eternity of matter, or the world, thus implies nothing more than that Nature was to them a theoretic reality. [6] The heathens were idolaters, that is, they contemplated Nature; they did nothing else than what the profoundly Christian nations do at this day, when they make nature an object of their admiration, of their indefatigable investigation. “But the heathens actually worshipped natural objects.” Certainly; for worship is only the childish, the religious form of contemplation. ”

“ The Greeks looked abroad into the wide world that they might extend their sphere of vision; the Jews to this day pray with their faces turned towards Jerusalem. In the Israelites, monotheistic egoism excluded the free theoretic tendency. ”

“ This is especially confirmed by the development of the Israelitish religion. Hence the position of theological one-sidedness, that the revelation of God holds an even pace with the development of the human race. ”