§ 57. The universality of the feeling of absolute dependence includes in itself the belief in an original perfection of the World. 1. By the perfection of the world nothing is to be understood here except what we must name so in the interests of the religious self-consciousness, namely, that the totality of finite existence, as it influences us (including also those human influences upon the rest of existence resulting from our place in the same), works together in such a way as to make possible the continuity of the religious self-consciousness. For since the religious self-consciousness can only fill a moment when combined with an excitation of the sensuous self-consciousness, and every such excitation is an impression of the world, the demand that the God-consciousness should be able to unite itself1 with every sensuous determination of the self-consciousness would be in vain unless all the world-impressions (and this is only another way of saying the relation of all other finite being to the being of men) concurred in making the direction of the spirit to God-consciousness compossible with them. The same also holds good from the other side of the relationship, namely, from the determinability of the given through our spontaneity, because this also is always accompanied by a self-consciousness capable of such excitation. Inasmuch, however, as we have laid down that the feeling of absolute dependence does not diminish, still less cease, if we extend our self-consciousness to a consciousness of the whole world2 (that is, so far as we represent in it finite existence in general), this implies that all different gradations of existence are comprehended in this feeling, and consequently no closer definition of it could destroy that co-existence of the God-consciousness with the consciousness of the world, nor the fact of the former being excited by the latter. It must be premised, however, that the term original does not refer to any definite condition of the world or of men nor of the God-consciousness in men, all of which are a developed perfection admitting of a more and less; the question is rather of self-identical perfection prior to all temporal development and based on the inner relations of the relevant finite existence. Such perfection is affirmed in the above sense, i.e. it is laid down that all finite being, so far as it co-determines our self-consciousness, is traceable back to the eternal omnipotent causality, and all the impressions of the world we receive, as well as the particular way (consequent on human nature) in which the predisposition towards God-consciousness becomes realized, include the possibility that the God-consciousness should combine with each impression of the world in the unity of a moment. This is implied in the certainty which is directly bound up with the God-consciousness. For were the God-consciousness not grounded thus inwardly, it would be something accidental, and so uncertain and arbitrary. From this it also follows that this belief naturally and necessarily belongs together with belief in the eternal omnipresent and living omnipotence, since both are related in exactly the same way to our basic assumption. For, as the former belief expresses the fact that in all excitations of the religious consciousness, the consciousness of God, as united with consciousness of the world, is related to One, so the latter belief asserts that in every such excitation the world-consciousness as united with the God-consciousness is related to All. And just as in belief in the eternal omnipotence it is implied that the world is the complete revelation of it, so in belief in the original perfection of the world it is implied that through the feeling of absolute dependence the divine omnipotence in all its livingness reveals itself everywhere in the world, as eternal omnipresent and omniscient, without any distinction of more or less, without even a contrast in respect of dependence between one part and another.
- Inasmuch as the selected terms are to be taken in this sense, it at once follows that here any content of an actual life-moment mediated through a definite world-impression must be disregarded, since we have to do only with the original, ever-identical and enduring, inner demands of the lower and higher self-consciousness, and with the constitution of all given existence, as the perpetually effective cause of the world-impressions co-determining the predisposition to God-consciousness. And so we shall not directly deal at all here with any temporal condition of the world and of mankind in particular, whether past, present, or yet to come; but only with those relationships which uniformly underlie the whole temporal development and throughout it remain the same. As to what in the sphere of experience we call perfection or imperfection, the former is simply that which by means of the original perfection has already come to pass, the latter that which has not yet come to pass by the same means; both taken together, however, are the perfection which is coming to pass. Hence we can say that for each given moment the original perfection is in that which underlies it as pure finite causality; but the definitive perfection is in the totality of all the effects thereof, the development being thought of as included in the moment. But now what underlies each moment as finite causality is nothing but the totality of all enduring forms of existence and all contrasted functions of the same; and consequently the original perfection is the coherence of all these in virtue of which they are equal in compass to the divine causality, and on account of the contrast evoke the consciousness of it.
The original expression of this belief, though in another form, is the divine approval of the world3 which, in relation to the act of creation as such, has for its object no temporal condition arising out of an earlier one, but only the origin of finite existence, but this, of course, as the source of the whole temporal development. Hence, just as this divine approval cannot be abrogated by anything temporal, so no more can the truth of our proposition be prejudiced by the differing content of the temporal moments, though they appear now as accomplished perfection, and now as lessening imperfection. On the other hand, what is usually dealt with in Dogmatics under this phrase is historical moments—for instance, a paradisical condition of the world and a condition of moral perfection of man, both of which lasted for a period of time; but it is clear that such a doctrine could not be given the same place as that advanced here. For an actual condition, one therefore in any case subject to change, cannot be related in the same way to the divine omnipotence, as that in finite existence which lies at the base of all succeeding conditions, and least of all one which has altogether disappeared; for then the divine omnipotence itself could not have remained the same. Whereas if we on our part were to take up into the idea of original perfection something which, on closer scrutiny, revealed itself as changeable, it would be only an oversight resting on an incorrect subsumption which could be corrected as soon as discovered without making any change in the doctrine. But even if the course of our presentation had not led us to it, this idea of a historically given real perfection, posited as original, is at all events to be found in Dogmatics; and we must therefore inquire whether, in fact, there is any place at all for such a doctrine, or whether it always rests simply on a misunderstanding.
§ 58. The belief described is to be set forth in two doctrines, of which one deals with the perfection of the rest of the world in relation to man, the other with the perfection of man himself.
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The belief described is nothing but a statement of the common factor in the religious excitations, only related to the finite co-determining them (although this too is taken in its generality), i.e. to the world-impressions which we receive; hence this division follows naturally. For the God-consciousness could not be excited by these world-impressions if they were of a nature discordant with it, or if man were not so constituted that these impressions reached, as it were, the region of his higher self-consciousness, or again, unless there existed in him that relation of the lower and the higher self-consciousness to each other which occasions the whole process of the excitation of the God-consciousness. Accordingly, these two conditions come to be considered each in itself. It could of course be said that man himself, with his constitution, is an integral part of the world, and that it is only in virtue of this constitution that he is precisely the part he is; and hence that the original perfection of man is already included in the original perfection of the world. This is quite correct; and in a purely scientific inquiry, where what was in question was a view of finite existence in itself, such a division would only be permissible in so far as other divisions were made, and the idea of the perfection of the world analysed into the perfection of all its different parts, and their relations to one another. It is different in the dogmatic sphere, where the original object is not the objective consciousness at all but self-consciousness, especially in so far as in self-consciousness man contrasts himself with the world, and stands in the relationship of interaction to the rest of existence.
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For the same reason there can even here be no question of the original perfection of the world in itself and in relation to the idea of finite existence, but only in relation to man. But if in addition it were maintained that there is no other perfection of the world—this being regarded purely teleologically, in the usual sense of that word—such a position would call for a more precise explanation, in order to avoid the appearance of representing man as the central-point of all finite existence, in relation to which alone everything had a perfection. This explanation would not be hard to give, for, assuming an organic construction of the whole, all is just as much for each as each for all; hence it is true even of the most remote thing (since, after all, its condition corresponds to the totality of its mediate and immediate relationships) not only that it stands in relationship with man, but also, on a complete view, that precisely this relationship might be an expression of the peculiarity of its nature. But we need not go into such explanations, for we have not to advance any exhaustive doctrine of the perfection of the world (which would be a task for cosmology); the belief to be set forth here will not go beyond the sphere of religious excitations, which is only touched by the relationships of the world to man, but, in going back to the common ground of these relationships, we at the same time lay it down that no still future development of them can ever involve what would abrogate this belief. As regards the perfection of man, it would not be in keeping to add that it also is only to be interpreted in relation to the world. Man’s original perfection is primarily meant rather in relation to God, i.e. to the presence in him of the God-consciousness, and his endowments relatively to the world belong here only in so far as they awaken the God-consciousness. The whole tone of the proposition, however, certainly does imply that all those endowments, in virtue of which man is this specific part of the world, belong here—a proposition which, in the sphere of Christian morals, has regulative importance averting a crowd of misunderstandings.
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This of itself makes clear how natural it is that the doctrine of the peculiar original perfection of man should have been much more fully elaborated in Dogmatic than that of the perfection of the world in relation to man. If, however, the latter be entirely lacking, this certainly is no advantage to the former; and not only so, but the treatment of developed perfection, whether under the heading of Divine Providence or otherwise, often takes a wrong line, because a right idea of original perfection has not been taken as basis. But the less urgent and therefore also the less elaborate inquiry ought reasonably to precede the more important and more complex as an introduction.
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