self as the complete reality; and we have, beside, its claim upon us. Both elements, and their relation, are given in one and the same consciousness. We are given as this will, which, because this will, is to realize the real ideal: the real ideal is given as the will which is wholly real, and therefore to be realized in us.
Now nothing is easier than for a one-sided reflection to rush in with a cry for clearness and consistency, and to apply its favourite ‘either—or.’ ‘If real, how realize? If realize, then not real.’ We, however, must not allow ourselves to give way to the desire for drawing conclusions, but have to observe the facts; and we see that the religious consciousness refuses the dilemma. It holds to both one and the other, and to one because of the other; and pronounces such reflections irreligious.
In the moral consciousness we found two poles, myself and the ideal self. The latter claimed to be real, and to have all as its reality; but, for the moral consciousness, it was not thus real either in the world or in us, and the evil in us and the world was as real. In religion we find once more two poles, myself and the ideal self. But here the latter not only claims to be, but also is real and all reality; and yet (at this stage[1]) it is not realized either in the world or in me. It is not one pole, however, that in religion is different, but both: for morality the world and the self remained both non-moral and immoral, yet each was real; for religion the world is alienated from God, and the self is sunk in sin; and that means that, against the whole reality, they are felt or known as what is not and is contrary to the all and the only real, and yet as things that exist. In sin the self feels itself in contradiction with all that truly is. It is the unreal, that, knowing itself to be so, contradicts itself as the real; it is the real, which, feeling itself to be so, contradicts itself as the unreal, and in the pain of its intolerable discord can find no word so strong, no image so glaring as to portray its torment.
For it really is itself, against which, in sin, it feels itself. We
- ↑ The thoughtful reader may at once object that here we have an incomplete account of religion. That is quite true, and we purposely delay the consideration of religion as a whole. Here we are insisting on certain elements of the religious consciousness, in order to see that they are no more than elements, which call for comprehension in something higher.
