which, in the first instance, God exists for us, is the mode of sense-perception, of idea, or ordinary thought, finally, the form of thought as such.
What comes first, therefore, is the consciousness of God in general—the fact that He is an Object to us, that in short we have ideas of Him. But this consciousness does not only mean that we have an object and an idea, but also that this content exists, and is not merely an idea. That is the certainty of God.
The term idea, or the fact that a thing is an object in consciousness, means that this content is in me, is mine. I may have ideas of objects which are wholly fictitious and fanciful; what constitutes the idea here is in such a case my own, but only my own; it exists merely as an idea; I am at the same time aware that the content here has no existence. In dreams, too, I exist as consciousness, I have objects in my mind, but they have no existence.
But we so conceive of the consciousness of God that the content is our idea, and at the same time exists; that is, the content is not merely mine, is not merely in the subject, in myself, in my idea and knowledge, but has an absolute existence of its own, exists in and for itself. This is essentially involved in the content itself in this case. God is this Universality which has an absolute existence of its own, and does not exist merely for me; it is outside of me, independent of me.
There are thus two points bound up together here. This content is at once independent and at the same time inseparable from me; that is, it is mine, and yet it is just as much not mine.
Certainty is this immediate relation between the content and myself. If I desire to express such certainty in a forcible manner, I say “I am as certain of this as of my own existence.” Both (the certainty of this external Being and the certainty of myself) are one certainty, and I would do away with my own Being, I should have no knowledge of myself if I were to do away with that
