The Essence of Christianity. Feuerbach Ludwig

Preface). “Nihil in anima esse putemus eximium, quod non etiam divinæ naturæ proprium sit – Quidquid a Deo alienum extra definitionem animæ” – St. Gregorius Nyss. “Est ergo, ut videtur, disciplinarum omnium pulcherrima et maxima se ipsum nosse; si quis enim se ipsum norit, Deum cognoscet.” – Clemens Alex. (Pæd. 1. iii. c. 1).

13

For religious faith there is no other distinction between the present and future God than that the former is an object of faith, of conception, of imagination, while the latter is to be an object of immediate, that is, personal, sensible perception. In this life and in the next he is the same God; but in the one he is incomprehensible, in the other comprehensible.

14

Inter creatorem et creaturam non potest tanta similitudo notari, quin inter eos major sit dissimilitudo notanda. – Later. Conc. can. 2. (Summa Omn. Conc. Carranza. Antw. 1559. p. 326.) The last distinction between man and God, between the finite and infinite nature, to which the religious speculative imagination soars, is the distinction between Something and Nothing, Ens and Non-Ens; for only in Nothing is all community with other beings abolished.

15

Gloriam suam plus amat Deus quam omnes creaturas. “God can only love himself, can only think of himself, can only work for himself. In creating man, God seeks his own ends, his own glory,” &c. – Vide P. Bayle, Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Philos. u. Menschh., pp. 104–107.

16

Pelagianism denies God, religion – isti tantam tribuunt potestatem voluntati, ut pietati auferant orationem. (Augustin de Nat. et Grat. cont. Pelagium, c. 58.) It has only the Creator, i. e., Nature, as a basis, not the Saviour, the true God of the religious sentiment – in a word, it denies God; but, as a consequence of this, it elevates man into a God, since it makes him a being not needing God, self-sufficing, independent. (See on this subject Luther against Erasmus and Augustine, l. c. c. 33.) Augustinianism denies man; but, as a consequence of this, it reduces God to the level of man, even to the ignominy of the cross, for the sake of man. The former puts man in the place of God, the latter puts God in the place of man; both lead to the same result – the distinction is only apparent, a pious illusion. Augustinianism is only an inverted Pelagianism; what to the latter is a subject, is to the former an object.

17

The religious, the original mode in which man becomes objective to himself, is (as is clearly enough, explained in this work) to be distinguished from the mode in which this occurs in reflection and speculation; the latter is voluntary, the former involuntary, necessary – as necessary as art, as speech. With the progress of time, it is true; theology coincides with religion.

18

Deut. xxiii. 12, 13.

19

See, for example, Gen. xxxv. 2; Levit. xi. 44; xx. 26; and the Commentary of Le Clerc on these passages.

20

Augustine, in his work Contra Academicos, which he wrote when he was still in some measure a heathen, says (l. iii. c. 12) that the highest good of man consists in the mind or in the reason. On the other hand, in his Libr. Retractationum, which he wrote as a distinguished Christian and theologian, he revises (l. i. c. 1) this declaration as follows: – Verius dixissem in Deo. Ipso enim mens fruitur, ut beata sit, tanquam summo bono suo. But is there any distinction here? Where my highest good is, is not there my nature also?

21

Kant, Vorles. über d. philos. Religionsl., Leipzig, 1817, p. 39.

22

Kant, l. c., p. 80.

23

To guard against mistake, I observe that I do not apply to the understanding the expression self-subsistent essence, and other terms of a like character, in my own sense, but that I am here placing myself on the standpoint of onto-theology, of metaphysical theology in general, in order to show that metaphysics is resolvable into psychology, that the onto-theological predicates are merely predicates of the understanding.

24

Malebranche. (See the author’s Geschichte der Philos., 1 Bd. p. 322.) “Exstaretne alibi diversa ab hac ratio? censereturque injustum aut scelestum in Jove aut Marte, quod apud nos justum ac præclarum habetur? Certe nec verisimile nec omnino possibile.” – Chr. Hugenii (Cosmotheoros, lib. i.).

25

In religion, the representation or expression of the nothingness of man before God is the anger of God; for as the love of God is the affirmation, his anger is the negation of man. But even this anger is not taken in earnest. “God … is not really angry. He is not thoroughly in earnest even when we think that he is angry, and punishes.” – Luther (Th. viii. p. 208).

26

Luther, Concordienbuch, Art. 8, Erklär.

27

Luther, Sämmtliche Schriften und Werke, Leipzig, 1729, fol. Th. iii. p. 589. It is according to this edition that references are given throughout the present work.

28

Predigten etzlicher Lehrer vor und zu Tauleri Zeiten, Hamburg, 1621, p. 81.

29

“That which, in our own judgment, derogates from our self-conceit, humiliates us. Thus the moral law inevitably humiliates every man when he compares with it the sensual tendency of his nature.” – Kant, Kritik der prakt. Vernunft, 4th edition, p. 132.

30

“Omnes peccavimus… Parricide cum lega cæperunt et illis facinus pœna monstravit.” – Seneca. “The law destroys us.” – Luther (Th. xvi. s. 320).

31

“Das Rechtsgefühl der Sinnlichkeit.”

32

“This, my God and Lord, has taken upon him my nature, flesh and blood such as I have, and has been tempted and has suffered in all things like me, but without sin; therefore he can have pity on my weakness. —Hebrews v. Luther (Th. xvi. s. 533). “The deeper we can bring Christ into the flesh the better.” – (Ibid. s. 565.) “God himself, when he is dealt with out of Christ, is a terrible God, for no consolation is found in him, but pure anger and disfavour.” – (Th. xv. s. 298.)

33

“Such descriptions as those in which the Scriptures speak of God as of a man, and ascribe to him all that is human, are very sweet and comforting – namely, that he talks with us as a friend, and of such things as men are wont to talk of with each other; that he rejoices, sorrows, and suffers, like a man, for the sake of the mystery of the future humanity of Christ.” – Luther (Th. ii. p. 334).

34

“Deus homo factus est, ut homo Deus fieret.” – Augustinus (Serm. ad Pop. p. 371, c. 1). In Luther, however (Th. i. p. 334), there is a passage which indicates the true relation. When Moses called man “the image of God, the likeness of God,” he meant, says Luther, obscurely to intimate that “God was to become man.” Thus here the incarnation of God is clearly enough represented as a consequence of the deification of man.

35

It was in this sense that the old uncompromising enthusiastic faith celebrated the Incarnation. “Amor triumphat de Deo,” says St. Bernard. And only in the sense of a real self-renunciation, self-negation of the Godhead, lies the reality, the vis of the Incarnation; although this self-negation is in itself merely a conception of the imagination, for, looked at in broad daylight, God does not negative himself in the Incarnation, but he shows himself as that which he is, as a human being. The fabrications which modern rationalistic orthodoxy and pietistic rationalism have advanced concerning the Incarnation, in opposition to the rapturous conceptions and expressions of ancient faith, do not deserve to be mentioned, still less controverted.

36

“Nos scimus affici Deum misericordia nostri et non solum respicere lacrymas nostras, sed etiam numerare stillulas, sicut scriptum in Psalmo LVI. Filius Dei vere afficitur sensu miseriarum nostrarum.” – Melancthonis et aliorum (Declam. Th. iii. p. 286, p. 450).

37

St. Bernard resorts to a charmingly sophistical play of words: – ”Impassibilis est Deus, sed non incompassibilis, cui proprium est misereri semper et parcere.” – (Sup. Cant. Sermo 26.) As if compassion were not suffering – the