The Essence of Christianity. Feuerbach Ludwig
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Название: The Essence of Christianity

Автор: Feuerbach Ludwig

Издательство: Public Domain

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СКАЧАТЬ ipsa non norit.” – Gassendi (Opp. Omn. Phys.).

      4

      The obtuse Materialist says: “Man is distinguished from the brute only by consciousness – he is an animal with consciousness superadded;” not reflecting, that in a being which awakes to consciousness, there takes place a qualitative change, a differentiation of the entire nature. For the rest, our words are by no means intended to depreciate the nature of the lower animals. This is not the place to enter further into that question.

      5

      “Toute opinion est assez forte pour se

1

The opening paragraphs of this Preface are omitted, as having too specific a reference to transient German polemics to interest the English reader.

2

For example, in considering the sacraments, I limit myself to two; for in the strictest sense (see Luther, T. xvii. p. 558), there are no more.

3

“Objectum intellectus esse illimitatum sive omne verum ac, ut loquuntur, omne ens ut ens, ex eo constat, quod ad nullum non genus rerum extenditur, nullumque est, cujus cognoscendi capax non sit, licet ob varia obstacula multa sint, quæ re ipsa non norit.” – Gassendi (Opp. Omn. Phys.).

4

The obtuse Materialist says: “Man is distinguished from the brute only by consciousness – he is an animal with consciousness superadded;” not reflecting, that in a being which awakes to consciousness, there takes place a qualitative change, a differentiation of the entire nature. For the rest, our words are by no means intended to depreciate the nature of the lower animals. This is not the place to enter further into that question.

5

“Toute opinion est assez forte pour se faire exposer au prix de la vie.” – Montaigne.

6

Homini homine nihil pulchrius. (Cic. de Nat. D. l. i.) And this is no sign of limitation, for he regards other beings as beautiful besides himself; he delights in the beautiful forms of animals, in the beautiful forms of plants, in the beauty of nature in general. But only the absolute, the perfect form, can delight without envy in the forms of other beings.

7

“The understanding is percipient only of understanding, and what proceeds thence.” – Reimarus (Wahrh. der Natürl. Religion, iv. Abth. § 8).

8

“Verisimile est, non minus quam geometriæ, etiam musicæ oblectationem ad plures quam ad nos pertinere. Positis enim aliis terris atque animalibus ratione et auditu pollentibus, cur tantum his nostris contigisset ea voluptas, quæ sola ex sono percipi potest?” – Christ. Hugenius (Cosmotheor., l. i.).

9

De Genesi ad litteram, l. v. c. 16.

10

“Unusquisque vestrum non cogitat, prius se debere Deum nosse, quam colere.” – M. Minucii Felicis Octavianus, c. 24.

11

The meaning of this parenthetic limitation will be clear in the sequel.

12

“Les perfections de Dieu sont celles de nos âmes, mais il les possede sans bornes – il y a en nous quelque puissance, quelque connaissance quelque bonté, mais elles sont toutes entières en Dieu.” – Leibnitz (Théod. 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, СКАЧАТЬ