Chapter XXXII: Appendix (2)

That is created which once did not exist, which some time will exist no longer, to which, therefore, it is possible not to exist, which we can think of as not existing, in a word, which has not its existence in itself, is not necessary. "Cum enim res producantur ex suo non-esse, possunt ergo absolute non-esse, adeoque implicat, quod non sunt necessariæ."--Duns Scotus (ap. Rixner, B. ii. p. 78). But only necessary existence is existence. If I am not necessary, do not feel myself necessary, I feel that it is all one whether I exist or not, that thus my existence is worthless, nothing. "I am nothing," and "I am not necessary," is fundamentally the same thing. "Creatio non est motus, sed simplicis divinae voluntatis vocatio ad esse eorum, quae antea nihil fuerunt et secundum se ipsa et nihil sunt et ex nihilo sunt."--Albertus M. (de. Mirab. Scient. Dei P. ii. Tr. i. Qu. 4, Art. 5, memb. ii.) But the position that the world is not necessary, has no other bearing than to prove that the extra- and supra-mundane being (i.e., in fact, the human being) is the only necessary, only real being. Since the one is non-essential and temporal, the other is necessarily the essential, existent, eternal. The creation is the proof that God is, that he is exclusively true and real. "Sanctus Dominus Deus omnipotens in principio, quod est in te, in sapientia tua, quae nata est de substantia tua, fecisti aliquid et de nihilo. Fecisti enim coelum et terram non de te, nam esset aequale unigenito tuo, ac per hoc et tibi, et nullo modo justum esset, ut aequale tibi esset, quod in te non esset. Et aliud praeter te non erat, unde faceres ea Deus.... Et ideo de nihilo fecisti coelum et terram."--Augustinus (Confessionum l. xii c. 7). "Vere enim ipse est, quia incommutabilis est. Omnis enim mutatio facit non esse quod erat.... Ei ergo qui summe est, non potest esse contrarium nisi quod non est.--Si solus ipse incommutabilis, omnia quae fecit, quia ex nihilo id est ex eo quod omnino non est--fecit, mutabilia sunt."--Augustin (de nat. boni adv. Manich. cc. 1, 19). "Creatura in nullo debet parificari Deo, si autem non habuisset initium durationis et esse, in hoc parificaretur Deo."--(Albertus M. l. c. Quaest. incidens 1). The positive, the essential in the world is not that which makes it a world, which distinguishes it from God--this is precisely its finiteness and nothingness--but rather that in it which is not itself, which is God. "All creatures are a pure nothing ... they have no essential existence, for their existence hangs on the presence of God. If God turned himself away a moment, they would fall to nothing."--(Predigten vor. u. zu. Tauleri Zeiten, ed. c. p. 29. See also Augustine, e.g. Confess. l. vii. c. 11). This is quite correctly said from the standpoint of religion, for God is the principle of existence, the being of the world, though he is represented as a personal being distinct from the world. The world lasts so long as God wills. The world is transient, but man eternal. "Quamdiu vult, omnia ejus virtute manent atque consistunt, et finis eorum in Dei voluntatem recurrit, et ejus arbitrio resolvuntur."--Ambrosius (Hexaemeron. l. i. c. 5). "Spiritus enim a Deo creati nunquam esse desinunt.... Corpora coelestia tam diu conservantur, quamdiu Deus ea vult permanere."--Buddeus (Comp. l. ii. c. ii. § 47). "The dear God does not alone create, but what he creates he keeps with his own being, until he wills that it shall be no longer. For the time will come when the sun, moon, and stars shall be no more."--Luther (Th. ix. s. 418). "The end will come sooner than we think."--Id. (Th. xi. s. 536). By means of the creation out of nothing man gives himself the certainty that the world is nothing, is powerless against man. "We have a Lord who is greater than the whole world; we have a Lord so powerful, that when he only speaks all things are born.... Wherefore should we fear, since he is favourable to us?"--Id. (Th. vi. p. 293). Identical with the belief in the creation out of nothing is the belief in the eternal life of man, in the victory over death, the last constraint which nature imposes on man--in the resurrection of the dead. "Six thousand years ago the world was nothing; and who has made the world?... The same God and Creator can also awake thee from the dead; he will do it, and can do it."--Id. (Th. xi. p. 426. See also 421, &c.) "We Christians are greater and more than all creatures, not in or by ourselves, but through the gift of God in Christ, against whom the world is nothing, and can do nothing."--Id. (Th. xi. p. 377).

§ 10.

The Creation in the Israelitish religion has only a particular, egoistic aim and purport. The Israelitish religion is the religion of the most narrow-hearted egoism. Even the later Israelites, scattered throughout the world, persecuted and oppressed, adhered with immovable firmness to the egoistic faith of their forefathers. "Every Israelitish soul by itself is, in the eyes of the blessed God, dearer and more precious than all the souls of a whole nation besides." "The Israelites are among the nations what the heart is among the members." "The end in the creation of the world was Israel alone. The world was created for the sake of the Israelites; they are the fruit, other nations are their husks." "All the heathens are nothing for him (God); but for the Israelites God has a use.... They adore and bless the name of the holy and blessed God every day, therefore they are numbered every hour, and made as (numerous as) the grains of corn." "If the Israelites were not, there would fall no rain on the world, and the sun would not rise but for their sakes." "He (God) is our kinsman, and we are his kindred.... No power or angel is akin to us, for the Lord's portion is his people" (Deut. xxxii. 9). "He who rises up against an Israelite (to injure him), does the same thing as if he rose up against God." "If anyone smite an Israelite on the cheek, it is the same as if he smote the cheek of the divine majesty."--Eisenmengers (Entdecktes Judenthum, T. i. Kap. 14). The Christians blamed the Jews for this arrogance, but only because the kingdom of God was taken from them and transferred to the Christians. Accordingly, we find the same thoughts and sentiments in the Christians as in the Israelites. "Know that God so takes thee unto himself that thy enemies are his enemies."--Luther (T. vi. p. 99). "It is the Christians for whose sake God spares the whole world.... The Father makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. Yet this happens only for the sake of the pious and thankful." (T. xvi. p. 506.) "He who despises me despises God." (T. xi. p. 538.) "God suffers, and is despised and persecuted, in us." (T. iv. p. 577.) Such declarations as these are, I should think, argumenta ad hominem for the identity of God and man.

§ 11.

The idea of Providence is the religious consciousness of man's distinction from the brutes, from Nature in general. "Doth God take care for oxen?" (1 Cor. ix. 9.) "Nunquid curae est Deo bobus? inquit Paulus. Ad nos ea cura dirigitur, non ad boves, equos, asinos, qui in usum nostrum sunt conditi."--J. L. Vivis Val. (de Veritate Fidei Chr. Bas. 1544, p. 108). "Providentia Dei in omnibus aliis creaturis respicit ad hominem tanquam ad metam suam. Multis passeribus vos pluris estis. Matth. x. 31. Propter peccatum hominis natura subjecta est vanitati. Rom. viii. 20."--M. Chemnitii (Loci theol. Francof. 1608, P. i. p. 312). "Nunquid enim cura est Deo de bobus? Et sicut non est cura Deo de bobus, ita nec de aliis irrationalibus. Dicit tamen scriptura (Sapient. vi.) quia ipsi cura est de omnibus. Providentiam ergo et curam universaliter de cunctis, quae condidit, habet.... Sed specialem providentiam atque curam habet de rationalibus."--Petrus L. (l. i. dist. 39, c. 3). Here we have again an example how Christian sophistry is a product of Christian faith, especially of faith in the Bible as the word of God. First we read that God cares not for oxen; then that God cares for everything, and therefore for oxen. That is a contradiction; but the word of God must not contradict itself. How does faith escape from this contradiction? By distinguishing between a general and a special providence. But general providence is illusory, is in truth no providence. Only special providence is providence in the sense of religion.

General providence--the providence which extends itself equally to irrational and rational beings, which makes no distinction between man and the lilies of the field or the fowls of the air, is nothing else than the idea of Nature--an idea which man may have without religion. The religious consciousness admits this when it says: he who denies providence abolishes religion, places man on a level with the brutes;--thus declaring that the providence in which the brutes have a share is in truth no providence. Providence partakes of the character of its object; hence the providence which has plants and animals for its object is in accordance with the qualities and relations of plants and animals. Providence is nothing else than the inward nature of a thing; this inward nature is its genius, its guardian spirit--the necessity of its existence. The higher, the more precious a being is,--the more ground of existence it has, the more necessary it is, the less is it open to annihilation. Every being is necessary only through that by which it is distinguished from other beings; its specific difference is the ground of its existence. So man is necessary only through that by which he is distinguished from the brutes; hence providence is nothing else than man's consciousness of the necessity of his existence, of the distinction between his nature and that of other beings; consequently that alone is the true providence in which this specific difference of man becomes an object to him. But this providence is special, i.e., the providence of love, for only love interests itself in what is special to a being. Providence without love is a conception without basis, without reality. The truth of providence is love. God loves men, not brutes, not plants; for only for man's sake does he perform extraordinary deeds, deeds of love--miracles. Where there is no community there is no love. But what bond can be supposed to unite brutes, or natural things in general, with God? God does not recognise himself in them, for they do not recognise him;--where I find nothing of myself, how can I love? "God who thus promises, does not speak with asses and oxen, as Paul says: Doth God take care for oxen? but with rational creatures made in his likeness, that they may live for ever with him." Luther (Th. ii. s. 156). God is first with himself in man; in man first begins religion, providence; for the latter is not something different from the former, on the contrary, religion is itself the providence of man. He who loses religion, i.e., faith in himself, faith in man, in the infinite significance of his being, in the necessity of his existence, loses providence. He alone is forsaken who forsakes himself; he alone is lost who despairs; he alone is without God who is without faith, i.e., without courage. Wherein does religion place the true proof of providence? in the phenomena of Nature, as they are objects to us out of religion,--in astronomy, in physics, in natural history? No! In those appearances which are objects of religion, of faith only, which express only the faith of religion in itself, i.e., in the truth and reality of man,--in the religious events, means, and institutions which God has ordained exclusively for the salvation of man, in a word, in miracles; for the means of grace, the sacraments, belong to the class of providential miracles. "Quamquam autem haec consideratio universae naturae nos admonet de Deo ... tamen nos referamus initio mentem et oculos ad omnia testimonia, in quibus se Deus ecclesiae patefecit ad eductionem ex Aegypto, ad vocem sonantem in Sinai, ad Christum resuscitantem mortuos et resuscitatum, etc.... Ideo semper defixae sint mentes in horum testimoniorum cogitationem et his confirmatae articulum de Creatione meditentur, deinde considerent etiam vestigia Dei impressae naturae."--Melancthon (Loci de Creat. p. 62, ed. cit.). "Mirentur alii creationem, mihi magis libet mirari redemptionem. Mirabile est, quod caro nostra et ossa nostra a Deo nobis sunt formata, mirabilius adhuc est, quod ipse Deus caro de carne nostra et os de ossibus nostris fieri voluit."--J. Gerhard (Med. s. M. 15). "The heathens know God no further than that he is a Creator."--Luther (T. ii. p. 327). That providence has only man for its essential object is evident from this, that to religious faith all things and beings are created for the sake of man. "We are lords not only of birds, but of all living creatures, and all things are given for our service, and are created only for our sake."--Luther (T. ix. p. 281). But if things are created only for the sake of man, they are also preserved only for the sake of man. And if things are mere instruments of man, they stand under the protection of no law, they are, in relation to man, without rights. This outlawing of things explains miracle.

The negation of providence is the negation of God. "Qui ergo providentiam tollit, totum Dei substantiam tollit et quid dicit nisi Deum non esse?... Si non curat humana, sive nesciens, cessat omnis causa pietatis, cum sit spes nulla salutis."--Joa. Trithemius (Tract. de Provid. Dei). "Nam qui nihil aspici a Deo affirmant prope est ut cui adspectum adimunt, etiam substantiam tollant."--Salvianus (l. c. l. iv.). "Aristotle almost falls into the opinion that God--though he does not expressly name him a fool--is such a one that he knows nothing of our affairs, nothing of our designs, understands, sees, regards nothing but himself.... But what is such a God or Lord to us? of what use is he to us?"--Luther (in Walch's Philos. Lexikon, art. Vorsehung). Providence is therefore the most undeniable, striking proof that in religion, in the nature of God himself, man is occupied only with himself, that the mystery of theology is anthropology, that the substance, the content of the infinite being, is the "finite" being. "God sees men," means: in God man sees only himself; "God cares for man," means: a God who is not active is no real God. But there is no activity without an object: it is the object which first converts activity from a mere power into real activity. This object is man. If man did not exist, God would have no cause for activity. Thus man is the motive principle, the soul of God. A God who does not see and hear man, who has not man in himself, is blind and deaf, i.e., inert, empty, unsubstantial. Thus the fulness of the divine nature is the fulness of the human; thus the Godhead of God is humanity. I for myself, is the comfortless mystery of epicureanism, stoicism, pantheism; God for me, this is the consolatory mystery of religion, of Christianity. Is man for God's sake, or God for man's? It is true that in religion man exists for God's sake, but only because God exists for man's sake. I am for God because God is for me.

Providence is identical with miraculous power, supernaturalistic freedom from Nature, the dominion of arbitrariness over law. "Etsi (sc. Deus) sustentat naturam, tamen contra ordinem jussit aliquando Solem regredi, etc.... Ut igitur invocatio vere fieri possit, cogitemus Deum sic adesse suo opificio, non, ut Stoici fingunt, alligatum secundis causis, sed sustentantem naturam et multa suo liberrimo consilio moderantem.... Multa facit prima causa praeter secundas, quia est agens liberum."--Melancthon (Loci de Causâ Peccati, pp. 82, 83, ed. cit.) "Scriptura vero tradit, Deum in actione providentiae esse agens liberum, qui ut plurimum quidem ordinem sui operis servet, illi tamen ordini non sit alligatus, sed 1) quicquid facit per causas secundas, illud possit etiam sine illis per se solum facere 2) quod ex causis secundis possit alium effectum producere, quam ipsarum dispositio et natura ferat 3) quod positis ausis secundis in actu, Deus tamen effectum possit impedire, mutare, mitigare, exasperare.... Non igitur est connexio causarum Stoica in actionibus providentiae Dei."--M. Chemnitius (l. c. pp. 316, 317). "Liberrime Deus imperat naturae--Naturam saluti hominum attemperat propter Ecclesiam.... Omnino tribuendus est Deo hic honos, quod possit et velit opitulari nobis, etiam cum a tota natura destituimur, contra seriem omnium secundarum causarum.... Et multa accidunt plurimis hominibus, in quibus mirandi eventus fateri eos cogunt, se a Deo sine causis secundis servatos esse."--C. Peucerus (de Praecip. Divinat. gen. Servestae, 1591, p. 44). "Ille tamen qui omnium est conditor, nullis instrumentis indiget. Nam si id continuo fit, quicquid ipse vult, velle illius erit author atque instrumentum; nec magis ad haec regenda astris indiget, quam cum luto aperuit oculos coeci, sicut refert historia Evangelica. Lutum enim magis videbatur obturaturum oculos, quam aperturum. Sed ipse ostendere nobis voluit omnem naturam esse sibi instrumentum ad quidvis, quantumcunque alienum."--J. L. Vives (l. c. 102). "How is this to be reconciled? The air gives food and nourishment, and here stones or rocks flow with water; it is a marvellous gift. And it is also strange and marvellous that corn grows out of the earth. Who has this art and this power? God has it, who can do such unnatural things, that we may thence imagine what sort of a God he is and what sort of power he has, that we may not be terrified at him nor despair, but firmly believe and trust him, that he can make the leather in the pocket into gold, and can make dust into corn on the earth, and the air a cellar for me full of wine. He is to be trusted, as having such great power, and we may know that we have a God who can perform these deeds of skill, and that around him it rains and snows with miraculous works."--Luther (T. iii. p. 594).

The omnipotence of Providence is the omnipotence of human feeling releasing itself from all conditions and laws of Nature. This omnipotence is realised by prayer. Prayer is Almighty. "The prayer of faith shall save the sick.... The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain; and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heavens gave rain and the earth brought forth her fruit."--James v. 15-18. "If ye have faith and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig-tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea, it shall be done, and all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive."--Matt. xxi. 21, 22. That under this mountain which the power of faith is to overcome are to be understood not only very difficult things--res difficillimae, as the exegetists say, who explain this passage as a proverbial, hyperbolical mode of speech among the Jews, but rather things which according to Nature and reason are impossible, is proved by the case of the instantaneously withered fig-tree, to which the passage in question refers. Here indubitably is declared the omnipotence of prayer, of faith, before which the power of Nature vanishes into nothing. "Mutanturquoque ad preces ea quae ex naturae causis erant sequutura, quemadmodum in Ezechia contigit, rege Juda, cui, quod naturales causarum progressus mortem minabantur, dictum est a propheta Dei: Morieris et non vives; sed is decursus naturae ad regis preces mutatus est et mutaturum se Deus praeviderat."--J. L. Vives (l. c. p. 132). "Saepe fatorum saevitiam lenit Deus, placatus piorum votis."--Melancthon (Epist. Sim. Grynaeo). "Cedit natura rerum precibus Moysi. Eliae, Elisaei, Jesaiae et omnium piorum, sicut Christus inquit Matt. 21: Omnia quae petetis, credentes accipietis."--Id. (Loci de Creat. p. 64, ed. cit.). Celsus calls on the Christians to aid the Emperor and not to decline military service. Whereupon Origen answers. "Precibus nostris profligantes omnes bellorum excitatores daemonas et perturbatores pacis ac foederum plus conferimus regibus, quam qui arma gestant pro Republica."--Origenes (adv. Celsum. S. Glenio int. l. viii.). Human need is the necessity of the Divine Will. In prayer man is the active, the determining, God the passive, the determined. God does the will of man. "God does the will of those that fear him, and he gives his will up to ours.... For the text says clearly enough, that Lot was not to stay in all the plain, but to escape to the mountain. But this his wish God changes, because Lot fears him and prays to him." "And we have other testimonies in the Scriptures which prove that God allows himself to be turned and subjects his will to our wish." "Thus it was according to the regular order of God's power that the sun should maintain its revolution and wonted course; but when Joshua in his need called on the Lord and commanded the sun that it should stand still, it stood still at Joshua's word. How great a miracle this was, ask the astronomers."--Luther (T. ii. p. 226). "Lord, I am here and there in great need and danger of body and soul, and therefore want thy help and comfort. Item: I must have this and that; therefore I entreat thee that thou give it me." "He who so prays and perseveres unabashed does right, and our Lord God is well pleased with him, for he is not so squeamish as we men."--Id. (T. xvi. p. 150).

§ 12.

Faith is the freedom and blessedness which feeling finds in itself. Feeling objective to itself and active in this freedom, the reaction of feeling against Nature, is the arbitrariness of the imagination. The objects of faith therefore necessarily contradict Nature, necessarily contradict Reason, as that which represents the nature of things. "Quid magis contra fidem, quam credere nolle, quidquid non possit ratione attingere?... Nam illam quae in Deum est fides, beatus papa Gregorius negat plane habere meritum, si ei humana ratio praebeat experimentum."--Bernardus (contr. Abelard. Ep. ad. Dom. Papam Innocentium). "Partus virginis nec ratione colligitur, nec exemplo monstratur. Quodsi ratione colligitur non erit mirabile."--Conc. Toletan. XI. Art. IV. (Summa. Carranza.) "Quid autem incredibile, si contra usum originis naturalis peperit Maria et virgo permanet: quando contra usum naturae mare vidit et fugit atque in fontem suum Jordanis fluenta remearunt? Non ergo excedit fidem, quod virgo peperit, quando legimus, quod petra vomuit aquas et in montis speciem maris unda solidata est. Non ergo excedit fidem, quod homo exivit de virgine, quando petra profluit, scaturivit ferrum supra aquas, ambulavit homo supra aquas."--Ambrosius (Epist. L. x. Ep. 81. edit. Basil. Amerbach. 1492 et 1516). "Mira sunt fratres, quae de isto sacramento dicuntur.... Haec sunt quae fidem necessario exigunt, rationem omnino non admittunt."--Bernardus (de Coena Dom.). "Quid ergo hic quaeris naturae ordinem in Christi corpore, cum praeter naturam sit ipse partus ex virgine."--Petrus Lomb. (l. iv. dist. 10, c. 2). "Laus fidei est credere quod est supra rationem, ubi homo abnegat intellectum et omnes sensus." (Addit. Henrici de Vurimaria. ibid. dist. 12, c. 5.) "All the articles of our faith appear foolish and ridiculous to reason." ... "We Christians seem fools to the world for believing that Mary was the true mother of this child, and was nevertheless a pure virgin. For this is not only against all reason, but also against the creation of God, who said to Adam and Eve, 'Be fruitful and multiply.'" "We ought not to inquire whether a thing be possible, but we should say, God has said it, therefore it will happen, even if it be impossible. For although I cannot see or understand it, yet the Lord can make the impossible possible, and out of nothing can make all things."--Luther (T. xvi. pp. 148, 149, 570). "What is more miraculous than that God and man is one Person? that he is the Son of God and the Son of Mary, and yet only one Son? Who will comprehend this mystery in all eternity, that God is man, that a creature is the Creator, and the Creator a creature?"--Id. (T. vii. p. 128). The essential object of faith, therefore, is miracle; but not common, visible miracle, which is an object even to the bold eye of curiosity and unbelief in general; not the appearance, but the essence of miracle; not the fact, but the miraculous power, the Being who works miracles, who attests and reveals himself in miracle. And this miraculous power is to faith always present; even Protestantism believes in the uninterrupted perpetuation of miraculous power; it only denies the necessity that it should still manifest itself in special visible signs, for the furtherance of dogmatic ends. "Some have said that signs were the revelation of the Spirit in the commencement of Christianity and have now ceased. That is not correct; for there is even now such a power, and though it is not used, that is of no importance. For we have still the power to perform such signs." "Now, however, that Christianity is spread abroad and made known to all the world, there is no need to work miracles, as in the times of the apostles. But if there were need for it, if the Gospel were oppressed and persecuted, we must truly apply ourselves to this, and must also work miracles."--Luther (Th. xiii. pp. 642, 648). Miracle is so essential, so natural to faith, that to it even natural phenomena are miracles, and not in the physical sense, but in the theological, supranaturalistic sense. "God, in the beginning, said: Let the earth bring forth grass and herbs, &c. That same word which the Creator spoke brings the cherry out of the dry bough and the cherry-tree out of the little kernel. It is the omnipotence of God which makes young fowls and geese come out of the eggs. Thus God preaches to us daily of the resurrection of the dead, and has given us as many examples and experiences of this article as there are creatures."--Luther (Th. x. p. 432. See also Th. iii. pp. 586, 592, and Augustine, e.g., Enarr. in Ps. 90, Sermo ii. c. 6). If, therefore, faith desires and needs no special miracle, this is only because to it everything is fundamentally miracle, everything an effect of divine, miraculous power. Religious faith has no sense, no perception for Nature. Nature, as it exists for us, has no existence for faith. To it the will of God is alone the ground, the bond, the necessity of things. "God ... could indeed have made us men, as he did Adam and Eve, by himself, without father and mother, as he could reign without princes, as he could give light without sun and stars, and bread without fields and ploughs and labour. But it is not his will to do thus."--Luther (Th. xvi. p. 614). It is true "God employs certain means, and so conducts his miraculous works as to use the service of Nature and instruments." Therefore we ought--truly on very natural grounds--"not to despise the means and instruments of Nature." "Thus it is allowable to use medicine, nay, it ought to be used, for it is a means created in order to preserve health."--Luther (Th. i. p. 508). But--and that alone is decisive--it is not necessary that I should use natural means in order to be cured; I can be cured immediately by God. What God ordinarily does by means of Nature, he can also do without, nay, in opposition to Nature, and actually does it thus, in extraordinary cases, when he will. "God," says Luther in the same place, "could indeed easily have preserved Noah and the animals through a whole year without food, as he preserved Moses, Elijah, and Christ forty days without any food." Whether he does it often or seldom is indifferent; it is enough if he only does it once; what happens once can happen innumerable times. A single miracle has universal significance--the significance of an example. "This deed, the passage through the Red Sea, happened as a figure and example, to show us that it will be so with us."--Luther (Th. iii. p. 596). "These miracles are written for us, who are chosen."--Ib. (Th. ix. p. 142). The natural means which God employs when he does no miracle, have no more significance than those which he employs when he performs miracles. If the animals, God so willing it, can live as well without food as with it, food is in itself as unnecessary for the preservation of life, as indifferent, as non-essential, as arbitrary, as the clay with which Christ anointed the eyes of the blind man to whom he restored sight, as the staff with which Moses divided the sea ("God could have done it just as well without the staff"). "Faith is stronger than heaven and earth, or all creatures." "Faith turns water into stones; out of fire it can bring water, and out of water fire."--Luther (Th. iii. pp. 564, 565). That is to say, for faith there exists no limit, no law, no necessity, no Nature; there exists only the will of God, against which all things and powers are nothing. If therefore the believer, when in sickness and distress, has recourse notwithstanding to natural means, he only follows the voice of his natural reason. The one means of cure which is congruous with faith, which does not contradict faith, which is not thrust upon it, whether consciously and voluntarily or not, from without,--the one remedy for all evil and misery is prayer; for "prayer is almighty."--Luther (Th. iv. p. 27). Why then use a natural means also? For even in case of its application, the effect which follows is by no means its own, but the effect of the supernatural will of God, or rather the effect of faith, of prayer; for prayer, faith determines the will of God. "Thy faith hath saved thee." Thus the natural means which faith recognises in practice it nullifies in theory, since it makes the effect of such means an effect of God,--i.e., an effect which could have taken place just as well without this means. The natural effect is therefore nothing else than a circumstantial, covert, concealed miracle; a miracle however which has not the appearance of a miracle, but can only be perceived as such by the eyes of faith. Only in expression, not in fact, is there any difference between an immediate and mediate, a miraculous and natural operation of God. When faith makes use of a natural means, it speaks otherwise than it thinks; when it supposes a miracle it speaks as it thinks, but in both cases it thinks the same. In the mediate agency of God faith is in disunion with itself, for the senses here deny what faith affirms; in miracle, on the contrary, it is at one with itself, for there the appearance coincides with the reality, the senses with faith, the expression with the fact. Miracle is the terminus technicus of faith.

§ 13.

The Resurrection of Christ is bodily, i.e., personal immortality, presented as a sensible indubitable fact.

"Resurrexit Christus, absoluta res est.--Ostendit se ipsum discipulis et fidelibus suis, contrectata est soliditas corporis.... Confirmata fides est non solum in cordibus, sed etiam in oculis hominum."--Augustinus (Sermones ad Pop. S. 242, c. I. S. 361, c. S. See also on this subject Melancthon, Loci: de Resurr. Mort.). "The philosophers ... held that by death the soul was released from the body, and that after it was thus set free from the body, as from a prison, it came into the assembly of the gods, and was relieved from all corporeal burthens. Of such an immortality the philosophers allowed men to dream, though they did not hold it to be certain, nor could defend it. But the Holy Scriptures teach of the resurrection and eternal life in another manner, and place the hope of it so certainly before our eyes, that we cannot doubt it."--Luther (Th. i. p. 549).

§ 14.

Christianity made man an extramundane, supernatural being. "We have here no abiding city, but we seek one to come."--Heb. xiii. 14. "Whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord."--2 Cor. v. 6. "If in this body, which is properly our own, we are strangers, and our life in this body is nothing else than a pilgrimage; how much more then are the possessions which we have for the sake of the body, such as fields, houses, gold, &c., nothing else than idle, strange things, to be used as if we were on a pilgrimage?" "Therefore we must in this life live like strangers until we reach the true fatherland, and receive a better life which is eternal."--Luther (Th. ii. pp. 240, 370 a). "Our conversation (politeuma, civitas aut jus civitatis) is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body that it may be like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself."--Phil. iii. 20, 21. "Neque mundus generat hominem, neque mundi homo pars est."--Lactantius (Div. Inst. l. ii. c. 6). "Coelum de mundo: homo supra mundum."--Ambrosius (Epist. l. vi. Ep. 38, ed. cit.). "Agnosce o homo dignitatem tuam, agnosce gloriam conditionis humanae. Est enim tibi cum mundo corpus ... sed est tibi etiam sublimius aliquid, nec omnino comparandus es caeteris creaturis."--Bernardus (Opp. Basil. 1552, p. 79). "At Christianus ... ita supra totum mundum ascendit, nec consistit in coeli convexis, sed transcensis mente locis supercoelestibus ductu divini spiritus velut jam extra mundum raptus offert Deo preces."--Origenes (contra Celspum. ed. Hoeschelio, p. 370). "Totus quidem iste mundus ad unius animae pretium aestimari non potest. Non enim pro toto mundo Deus animam suam dare voluit, quam pro anima humana dedit. Sublimius est ergo animae pretium, quae non nisi sanguine Christi redimi potest."--Medit. devotiss. c. ii. (Among the spurious writings of St. Bernard.) "Sapiens anima ... Deum tantummodo sapiens hominem in homine exuit, Deoque plene et in omnibus affecta, omnem infra Deum creaturam non aliter quam Deus attendit. Relicto ergo corpore et corporeis omnibus curis et impedimentis omnium quae sunt praeter Deum obliviscitur, nihilque praeter Deum attendens quasi se solam, solumque Deum existimans," etc.--De Nat. et Dign. Amoris Divini, cc. 14, 15. (Ib.) "Quid agis frater in saeculo, qui major es mundo?"--Hieronymus (ad Heliod. de Laude Vitae solit.).

§ 15.

The celibate and monachism--of course only in their original, religious significance and form--are sensible manifestations, necessary consequences, of the supranaturalistic, extramundane character of Christianity. It is true that they also contradict Christianity; the reason of this is shown by implication in the present work; but only because Christianity is itself a contradiction. They contradict exoteric, practical, but not esoteric, theoretical Christianity; they contradict Christian love so far as this love relates to man, but not Christian faith, not Christian love so far as it loves man only for God's sake. There is certainly nothing concerning celibacy and monachism in the Bible; and that is very natural. In the beginning of Christianity the great matter was the recognition of Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah--the conversion of the heathens and Jews. And this conversion was the more pressing, the nearer the Christians supposed the day of judgment and the destruction of the world;--periculum in mora. There was not time or opportunity for a life of quietude, for the contemplation of monachism. Hence there necessarily reigned at that time a more practical and even liberal sentiment than at a later period, when Christianity had attained to worldly dominion, and thus the enthusiasm of proselytism was extinguished. "Apostoli (says the Church, quite correctly: Carranza, l. c. p. 256) cum fides inciperet, ad fidelium imbecillitatem se magis demittebant, cum autem evangelii praedicatio sit magis ampliata, oportet et Pontifices ad perfectam continentiam vitam suam dirigere." When once Christianity realised itself in a worldly form, it must also necessarily develop the supranaturalistic, supramundane tendency of Christianity into a literal separation from the world. And this disposition to separation from life, from the body, from the world,--this first hyper-cosmic then anti-cosmic tendency, is a genuinely biblical disposition and spirit. In addition to the passages already cited, and others universally known, the following may stand as examples: "He that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal." "I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing."--Rom. vii. 18. ("Veteres enim omnis vitiositatis in agendo origenes ad corpus referebant."--J. G. Rosenmüller Scholia.) "Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind; for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin."--1 Pet. iv. 1. "I have a desire to depart, and to be with Christ."--Phil. i. 23. "We are confident and willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord."--2 Cor. v. 8. Thus, according to these passages, the partition-wall between God and man is the body (at least the fleshly, actual body); thus the body as a hindrance to union with God is something worthless, to be denied. That by the world, which is denied in Christianity, is by no means to be understood a life of mere sensuality, but the real objective world, is to be inferred in a popular manner from the belief that at the advent of the Lord, i.e., the consummation of the Christian religion, heaven and earth will pass away.

The difference between the belief of the Christians and that of the heathen philosophers as to the destruction of the world is not to be overlooked. The Christian destruction of the world is only a crisis of faith,--the separation of the Christian from all that is anti-christian, the triumph of faith over the world, a judgment of God, an anti-cosmical, supernaturalistic act. "But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men."--2 Pet. iii. 7. The heathen destruction of the world is a crisis of the cosmos itself, a process which takes place according to law, which is founded in the constitution of Nature. "Sic origo mundi, non minus solem et lunam et vices siderum et animalium ortus, quam quibus mutarentur terrena, continuit. In his fuit inundatio, quae non secus quam hiems, quam aestas, lege mundi venit."--Seneca (Nat. Qu. l. iii. c. 29). It is the principle of life immanent in the world, the essence of the world itself, which evolves this crisis out of itself. "Aqua et ignis terrenis dominantur. Ex his ortus et ex his interitus est."--(Ibid. c. 28.) "Quidquid est, non erit; nec peribit, sed resolvetur."--(Idem. Epist. 71.) The Christians excluded themselves from the destruction of the world. "And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet; and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."--Matt. xxiv. 31. "But there shall not a hair of your head perish.... And then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh."--Luke xxi. 18, 27, 28. "Watch ye therefore and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man."--Ib. 36. The heathens, on the contrary, identified their fate with the fate of the world. "Hoc universum, quod omnia divina humanaque complectitur ... dies aliquis dissipabit et in confusionem veterem tenebrasque demerget. Eat nunc aliquis et singulas comploret animas. Quis tam superbae impotentisque arrogantiae est, ut in hac naturae necessitate, omnia ad eundem finem revocantis, se unum ac suos seponi velit."--Seneca (Cons. ad Polyb. cc. 20, 21). "Ergo quandoque erit terminus rebus humanis.... Non muri quenquam, non turres tuebuntur. Non proderunt templa supplicibus."--(Nat. Qu. L. iii. c. 29.) Thus here we have again the characteristic distinction between heathenism and Christianity. The heathen forgot himself in the world, the Christian forgot the world in himself. And as the heathen identified his destruction with the destruction of the world, so he identified his immortality with the immortality of the world. To the heathen, man was a common, to the Christian, a select being; to the latter immortality was a privilege of man, to the former a common good which he vindicated to himself only because, and in so far as, he assigned to other beings a share in it also. The Christians expected the destruction of the world immediately, because the Christian religion has in it no cosmical principle of development:--all which developed itself in Christendom developed itself only in contradiction with the original nature of Christianity;--because by the existence of God in the flesh, i.e., by the immediate identity of the species with the individual, everything was attained, the thread of history was cut short, no other thought of the future remained than the thought of a repetition of the second coming of the Lord. The heathens, on the contrary, placed the destruction of the world in the distant future, because, living in the contemplation of the universe, they did not set heaven and earth in motion on their own account,--because they extended and freed their self-consciousness by the consciousness of the species, placed immortality only in the perpetuation of the species, and thus did not reserve the future to themselves, but left it to the coming generations. "Veniet tempus quo posteri nostri tam aperta nos nescisse mirentur."--Seneca (Nat. Qu. l. vii. c. 25). He who places immortality in himself abolishes the principle of historical development. The Christians did indeed, according to Peter, expect a new heaven and a new earth. But with this Christian, i.e., superterrestrial earth, the theatre of history is for ever closed, the end of the actual world is come. The heathens, on the contrary, set no limits to the development of the cosmos; they supposed the world to be destroyed only to arise again renovated as a real world; they granted it eternal life. The Christian destruction of the world was a matter of feeling, an object of fear and longing; the heathen, a matter of reason, an inference from the contemplation of nature.

Unspotted Virginity is the principle of Salvation, the principle of the regenerate Christian world. "Virgo genuit mundi salutem; virgo peperit vitam universorum.... Virgo portavit, quem mundus iste capere aut sustinere non potest.... Per virum autem et mulierem caro ejecta de paradiso: per virginem juncta est Deo."--Ambrosius (Ep. L. x. Ep. 82). "Jure laudatur bona uxor, sed melius pia virgo praefertur, dicente Apostolo (1 Cor. vii.). Bonum conjugium, per quod est inventa posteritas successionis humanae; sed melius virginitas, per quam regni coelestis haereditas acquisita et coelestium meritorum reperta successio. Per mulierem cura successit: per virginem salus evenit."--(Id. Ep. 81.) "Castitas jungit hominem coelo.... Bona est castitas conjugalis, sed melior est continentia vidualis. Optima vero integritas virginalis."--De modo bene vivendi, Sermo 22. (Among the spurious writings of Bernard.) "Pulchritudinem hominis non concupiscas."--(Ibid. S. 23.) "Fornicatio major est omnibus peccatis.... Audi beati Isidori verba: Fornicatione coinquinari deterius est omni peccato."--(Ibid.) "Virginitas cui gloriae merito non praefertur? Angelicae? Angelus habet virginitatem, sed non carnem, sane felicior, quam fortior in hac parte."--Bernardus (Ep. 113, ad Sophiam Virginem). "Memento semper, quod paradisi colonum de possessione sua mulier ejecerit."--Hieronymus (Ep. Nepotiano). "In paradiso virginitas conversabatur.... Ipse Christus virginitatis gloria non modo ex patre sine initio et sine duorum concursu genitus, sed et homo secundum nos factus, super nos ex virgine sine alieno consortio incarnatus est. Et ipse virginitatem veram et perfectam esse, in se ipso demonstravit. Unde hanc nobis legem non statuit (non enim omnes capiunt verbum hoc, ut ipse dixit) sed opere nos erudivit."--Joan. Damasc. (Orthod. Fidei, l. iv. c. 25).

Now if abstinence from the satisfaction of the sensual impulse, the negation of difference of sex and consequently of sexual love,--for what is this without the other?--is the principle of the Christian heaven and salvation; then necessarily the satisfaction of the sexual impulse, sexual love, on which marriage is founded, is the source of sin and evil. And so it is held. The mystery of original sin is the mystery of sexual desire. All men are conceived in sin because they were conceived with sensual, i.e., natural pleasure. The act of generation, as an act of sensual enjoyment, is sinful. Sin is propagated from Adam down to us, simply because its propagation is the natural act of generation. This is the mystery of Christian original sin. "Atque hic quam alienus a vero sit, etiam hic reprehenditur, quod voluptatem in homine Deo authore creatam asserit principaliter. Sed hoc divinae scriptura redarguit, quae serpentis insidiis atque illecebris infusam Adae atque Evae voluptatem docet, siquidem ipse serpens voluptas sit.... Quomodo igitur voluptas ad paradisum revocare nos potest, quae sola nos paradiso exuit?"--Ambrosius (Ep. L. x. Ep. 82). "Voluptas ipsa sine culpa nullatenus esse potest."--Petrus L. (l. iv. dist. 31, c. 5). "Omnes in peccatis nati sumus, et ex carnis delectatione concepti culpam originalem nobiscum traximus."--Gregorius (Petrus L. l. ii. dist. 30, c. 2). "Firmissime tene et nullatenus dubites, omnem hominem, qui per concubitum viri et mulieris concipitur, cum originali peccato nasci.... Ex his datur intelligi, quid sit originale peccatum, scl. vitium concupiscentiae, quod in omnes concupiscentialiter natos per Adam intravit."--(Ibid. c. 3, see also dist. 31, c. 1.) "Peccati causa ex carne est."--Ambrosius (ibid.) "Christus peccatum non habet, nec originale traxit, nec suum addidit: extra voluptatem carnalis libidinis venit, non ibi fuit complexus maritalis.... Omnis generatus, damnatus."--Augustinus (Serm. ad Pop. S. 294, cc. 10, 16). "Homo natus de muliere et ob hoc cum reatu."--Bernardus (de Consid. l. ii.). "Peccatum quomodo non fuit, ubi libido non defuit?... Quo pacto, inquam, aut sanctus asseretur conceptus, qui de spiritus non est, ne dicam de peccato est?"--Id. (Epist. 174, edit. cit.). "All that is born into the world of man and woman is sinful, under God's anger and curse, condemned to death." "All men born of a father and mother are children of wrath by nature, as St. Paul testifies, Ephes. ii." "We have by nature a tainted, sinful conception and birth."--Luther (Th. xvi. 246, 573). It is clear from these examples, that "carnal intercourse"--even a kiss is carnal intercourse--is the radical sin, the radical evil of mankind; and consequently the basis of marriage, the sexual impulse, honestly outspoken, is a product of the devil. It is true that the creature as the work of God is good, but it has long ceased to exist as it was created. The devil has alienated the creature from God and corrupted it to the very foundation. "Cursed be the ground for thy sake." The fall of the creature, however, is only an hypothesis by which faith drives from its mind the burdensome, disquieting contradiction, that Nature is a product of God, and yet, as it actually is, does not harmonise with God, i.e., with the Christian sentiment.

Christianity certainly did not pronounce the flesh as flesh, matter as matter, to be something sinful, impure; on the contrary, it contended vehemently against the heretics who held this opinion and rejected marriage. (See for example Augustin. contra Faustum, l. 29, c. 4, l. 30, c. 6. Clemens Alex. Stromata, lib. iii. and Bernard. Super Cantica, Sermo 66.) But quite apart from the hatred to heretics which so inspired the holy Christian Church and made it so politic, this protest rested on grounds which by no means involved the recognition of Nature as such, and under limitations, i.e., negations, which make the recognition of Nature merely apparent and illusory. The distinction between the heretics and the orthodox is only this, that the latter said indirectly, covertly, secretly, what the former declared plainly, directly, but for that very reason offensively. Pleasure is not separable from matter. Material pleasure is nothing further, so to speak, than the joy of matter in itself, matter proving itself by activity. Every joy is self-activity, every pleasure a manifestation of force, energy. Every organic function is, in a normal condition, united with enjoyment; even breathing is a pleasurable act, which is not perceived as such only because it is an uninterrupted process. He therefore who declares generation, fleshly intercourse, as such, to be pure, but fleshly intercourse united with sensual pleasure to be a consequence of original sin and consequently itself a sin, acknowledges only the dead, not the living flesh--he raises a mist before us, he condemns, rejects the act of generation, and matter in general, though under the appearance of not rejecting it, of acknowledging it. The unhypocritical, honest acknowledgment of sensual life is the acknowledgment of sensual pleasure. In brief, he who, like the Bible, like the Church, does not acknowledge fleshly pleasure--that, be it understood, which is natural, normal, inseparable from life--does not acknowledge the flesh. That which is not recognised as an end in itself (it by no means follows that it should be the ultimate end) is in truth not recognised at all. Thus he who allows me wine only as medicine forbids me the enjoyment of wine. Let not the liberal supply of wine at the wedding at Cana be urged. For that scene transports us, by the metamorphosis of water into wine, beyond Nature into the region of supernaturalism. Where, as in Christianity, a supernatural, spiritual body is regarded as the true, eternal body, i.e., a body from which all objective, sensual impulses, all flesh, all nature, is removed, there real, i.e., sensual fleshly matter is denied, is regarded as worthless, nothing.