Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 173

§ 47.

CiiAP. II]

to construe this central

RELIGION

149

power ethically from the

subject, or

naturalistically from the object, fall short of religion

and

such efforts the words of the " In thy light shall we see light," in force Psalmist are ever and also the words of Christ: "Neither doth any know the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth Presently j'^our demonstration may have a to reveal Am."

virtually deny

it.

Against

all

:

place in your theological studies of the

knowledge that

revealed, and in your inferences derived from ject

and the cosmos

;

it

is

for the sub-

but observation or demonstration can

never produce one single milligramme of religious gold.

The

entire gold-mine of religion lies in the self-revelation

of this central

power

to the subject,

and the subject has no

other means than faith by which to appropriate to itself the

He wdio has no certainty in himself on the ground of this faith, about some point or other in religion, can never be made certain by demonstration or argument. In this way you may produce outward religiousness, but never religion in the heart. It may even be asserted that faith obtains its absolute In the cosmos you are supsignificance only in religion. gold from this mine.

ported by observation, in the knowledge of other persons by

your own human consciousness and in the self-knowledge of your own person by the self-consciousness of your ego. But nothing supports you here. Especially not as the cosmos now is, and as your subject now exists. In that cosmos, as well as in your subject, all manner of things oppose your

and between you and the object of your worship there is always the fathomless abyss of the "transference into another genus " (/tieTa/3acri? et? aX\6 7eVo9), the This transmutation of that which is not God into God. cannot be explained more fully now, because we must not anticipate the character of Theology. But enough has been said to show convincingly that without faith no forward step can be taken here, and that therefore there can be no

religious sense;

science of religion unless, by faith, the inquiring subject

holds

communion with

that

in the nature of all religion.

which

is

the supreme element

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