1. § 20. The Incomprehensibility of God.
§ 20. The Incomprehensibility of God.
. Mystery is the element of life of dogmatics. To be sure, Scripture by μυστηριον does not understand an abstract-supernatural truth in the Roman sense; but it is just as far removed from the thought that the believer would understand and comprehend the revealed mysteries in a scientific sense, cf. deel I 532. Rather, the knowledge which God has revealed of himself in nature and Scripture far surpasses the representation and the concept of man. Insofar, it is all mystery with which dogmatics deals. For it has not to do with finite creatures, but from the beginning to the end it raises itself above all creature to the Eternal and the Infinite himself.
Already immediately when it makes a beginning, it stands before the Incomprehensible. From Him it takes its beginning, for out of Him are all things. But also in the further loci, when it descends to the creatures, it considers these no otherwise than in their relation to God, as they are out of and through and unto Him. Thus then the knowledge of God is the only dogma, the exclusive content of the whole dogmatics. All doctrines that are treated in it, about the world, about man, about Christ etc., are but the
explication of the one, central dogma of the cognitio Dei. From Him everything is considered. Under Him everything is subsumed. To Him everything is led back. It is always God and God alone, whose glory in creation and [2] re-creation, in nature and grace, in world and church it has to ponder and to describe. It is his knowledge alone, which it must display and spread out for view. Thereby dogmatics does not become a dry, scholastic science, without fruit for life. The more it ponders Him, whose knowledge is its only content, the more it will pass over into admiration and adoration. If only it never forgets, to think and to speak about the things instead of about the words; if only it remains a Theologie der Thatsachen and does not degenerate into a Theologie der Rhetorik, it is, as scientific description of the knowledge of God, also in the highest degree fruitful for life. The knowledge of God in Christ is, after all, life itself, Ps. 89:16; Jes.
11:9; Jer. 31:34; Joh. 17:3. Therefore Augustine desired to know nothing else and nothing more than God and himself: Deum et animam scire cupio.
Nihilne plus? Nihil omnino. Therefore Calvin began his Institutie with the knowledge of God and of ourselves. And therefore the Catechism of Geneva gave, to the first question: quis humanae vitae praecipuus est finis? the answer: ut Deum, a quo conditi sunt homines, ipsi noverint, cf. also den
Catech. van Westminster.
But as soon as we undertake to speak about God, the question arises how we shall be able to do that. We are human beings and He is the Lord our
God. There seems to exist between Him and us no kinship and no communion, such that we could name Him in truth. Between Him and us there is a distance as between the infinite and the finite, between eternity and time, between being and becoming, between the all and the not.
However little we know of God, even the weakest notion implies that He is
a being infinitely far exalted above every creature. And Scripture confirms that not only; it sets that majesty and exaltation of the Lord of lords before us first in the full light. Already the first chapter of Genesis depicts His incomprehensible exaltation; He speaks and it is there. And although
Scripture then subsequently describes God to us in His condescending love, and says that He dwells with him who is of a contrite and humble spirit, nevertheless He is the High and the Exalted One, who dwells in eternity,
Jes. 57:15. God is great and we do not comprehend it, Job 26:14, 36:26, 37:5. He is incomparable, Jes. 40:18, 25, 46:5, dwelling in the [3] darkness,
1 Kon. 8:12; Jes. 45:15, in an inaccessible light, 1 Tim. 6:16. No one has seen Him or can see Him, Ex. 33:20; Joh. 1:18, 6:46; 1 Tim. 6:16. The hidden ground, the depth of God, ֵחֶקר, and the boundary, the extremity, the essence of the Almighty, ַּתְכִלית, is not to be reached, Job 11:7; Eccl. Sir.
43:34, 35. He is spirit, without form, Deut. 4:12, 15; Joh. 4:24, 5:37, above all that is creaturely, above need, Job 22:2, 3; Hd. 17:25; change, Jak. 1:17; time, Jes. 41:4, 44:6, 48:12; Op. 1:8, 22:13; space, Hd. 17:27, 28 etc., infinitely far exalted. He is not to be described and to be named with no name. He is without name, His name is wonderful, Gen. 32:29; Richt.
13:18; Spr. 30:4.
2. Even outside the domain of special revelation this majesty of God has been acknowledged. Among the Brahmins God is the Unknowable, without names and attributes, known only by him who does not know, Hoekstra,
Wijsg. Godsd. II 2. Hartmann, Religionsphilos. I 278 f. The Koran describes Allah many times in a very anthropomorphic way, but among the followers of Mohammed there arose many who interpreted this description spiritually and even denied all attributes to God, Dozy, Het Islamisme bl.
131 v. Houtsma, De strijd over het dogma in den Islam tot op El-Ash'ari
1875 bl. 120 v. Saussaye, Lehrb. der Rel. II 385. Greek philosophy too has many times clearly acknowledged and expressed this unknowability of God. According to the well-known story the philosopher Simonides repeatedly requested a longer postponement for the answer to the question of the tyrant Hiero, who God was, Cic. de nat. deor. I 22. According to Diogenes Protagoras began his book on the gods thus: περι μεν θεων οὐκ ἐχω εἰδεναι οὐδ' ὡς εἰσιν οὐδ' ὡς οὐκ εἰσιν πολλα γαρ τα κωλυοντα εἰδεναι, ἡ τ' ἀδηλοτης και βραχυς ὠν ὁ βιος των ἀνθρωπων, Ritter et
Preller, Hist. phil. gr. 183. Cic. de nat. deor. I 63. Carneades of Cyrene subjected belief in the gods not only to a sharp critique, but also contested the possibility of forming a conception of God. Plato rejected every anthropomorphic and anthropopathic representation of the Deity and declared in the Timaeus § 34: τον μεν οὐν ποιητην και πατερα τονδε του παντος εὑρειν τε ἐργον και εὑροντα εἰς παντας ἀδυνατον λεγειν, Zeller,
Philos. der Gr. II 4 928 f. And in a similar [4] sense he says in the Republic VI 19, that the Deity or the idea of the good is elevated not only above all that exists, but also above being itself, ἐπεκεινα πασες οὐσιας. Philo connected this Platonic philosophy with the doctrine of the O. Test. and found the same thought expressed in the name Ihvh. Not only is God free from every imperfection that is present in finite, changeable, dependent creatures; no, God also far surpasses all perfection of creatures. He is better than virtue, knowledge, beauty, purer than unity, more blessed than blessedness. He is properly without attributes, ἀποιος, and without names, and therefore also cannot be comprehended and described. According to his essence God is unknowable. We can know that He is, but not what He is.
Only being can in the proper sense be ascribed to Him; the name Ihvh is the only one that indicates his essence, Zeller, Philos. d. Gr. V3 353 f. Dähne,
Gesch. Darstellung der jüdisch-alex. Religionsphilos. 1834 I 114 f. Schürer, Neutest. Zeitgesch. 1874 S. 655 f. Plotinus went the farthest. Plato still ascribed many attributes to God. Philo supplemented his negative theology with a positive one, in which he describes God as a personal, almighty, perfect being. But with Plotinus there is nothing to be said of God except only negatively. God is absolutely one, elevated above all multiplicity and therefore also not to be defined by thought, the good, not even by being, for all these determinations still include a multiplicity. God as pure unity is indeed the cause of thought, being, the good, but He is himself distinct from them and stands transcendent above them. He is unbounded, infinite, without form, and so much distinguished from every creature that even activity, life, thought, consciousness, being, cannot be ascribed to Him. He is inaccessible to our thought and to our language. We cannot say what He is, but only what He is not. Even the designations of το ἑν and το ἀγαθον, of which Plotinus generally makes use, are no description of God's essence, but only of his relation to the creatures, and indicate nothing other than his absolute causality, Zeller, ib. 476-496. Still greater did the distance between God and his creature become in Gnosticism. It made an absolute separation between the highest God and the world. In nature, in Israel, in Christianity there was [5] no essential revelation of God but only of the aeons. There was therefore no theologia naturalis, neither insita nor acquisita, and likewise no theologia revelata. The highest God was absolutely unknowable and unapproachable for the creature; He was βυθος ἀγνωστος, ἀρρητος, eternal σιγη, Iren., adv. haer. I 11. 24.
3. But this doctrine of the incomprehensibility of God and of the unknowability of his essence has also been the point of departure and the fundamental idea of Christian theology. God is not exhausted in his
revelation, neither in creation nor in re-creation. He cannot communicate himself fully to creatures, because then these themselves would have to be
God. Therefore there is no adequate knowledge of God. There is no name that makes his essence known to us. There is no concept that fully comprehends Him. There is no description that completely determines Him.
What lies behind the revelation is utterly unknowable. We can approach it neither with our thought or imagination, nor with our language. Already the epistle of Barnabas c. 5 asks: if the Son of God had not come in the flesh, how then would men have seen Him and remained preserved? Justin Martyr calls God inexpressible, immovable, nameless, Apol. I 61; also words such as Father, God, Lord are not proper names ἀλλ' ἐκ των εὐποιϊων και των ἐργων προσρησεις, Apol. II 6. God cannot appear, not go, not be seen, etc.; if there is mention of this in the O. Test., this refers to the Son, who is his envoy, Dial. 127. Also in Irenaeus, adv. haer. IV 20, there occurs the in his time very common but nevertheless incorrect and partly gnostic antithesis between the Father, who is hidden, invisible, unknowable, and the Son, who has revealed Him. In Clemens Alex. God is pure μονας, Strom. V 11. If we think away all that is creaturely, we do not reach what God is, but what He is not. Form, movement, place, number, property, name, etc. cannot be ascribed to Him. If we nevertheless call Him one, good, Father, Creator,
Lord, etc., then we do not thereby express his proper essence but only indicate his power, Strom. V 12. He is even exalted above the one, ὑπερ αὐτην την μοναδα, Paedag. I 8. In one word, God is, as Athanasius, c. gent.
2 says, ἐπεκεινα πασης οὐσιας και ἀνθρωπινης ἐννοιας. And likewise speak Orig., de princ. I [6] 1, 5. sq. c. Cels. VI 65. Eusebius, Praep. Evang.
V 1. Theophilus, ad Autol. I 3. Tatianus. c. Gr. 5. Minucius Felix. Octav. c.
18. Novatianus, de trin. 2. Cyprianus, de idol. vanit. 5. Lactantius, Instit.
div. I 6. Cf. Münscherv. Coelln, Dogmengesch. I 132 f. Hagenbach, Dogm. § 37. Schwane, Dogmengesch. I2 72 f. We also encounter the same conception in Augustine and Joh. Damascenus. Augustine, in the description of God, proceeds from the concept of being. He is the one who is, as his name Ihvh also makes known; this is his proper name, his nomen in se; all other names are ad nos, Serm. 6 n. 4. Serm. 7 n. 7. Therefore, if we want to say what He is, we say only what He, in distinction from all finite substances, is not. He is ineffabilis. Facilius dicemus quid non sit quam quid sit. He is not earth, sea, heaven, angel, etc., nothing of all that the creature is; hoc solum potui dicere quid non sit, Enarr. in Ps. 85 n. 12. de doctr. chr. I 6, de ord. II 47. He is thus thought, ut aliquid quo nihil melius sit atque sublimius illa cogitatio conetur attingere, de doctr. chr. I 7. But He cannot be thought as He is. For He is exalted above all that is bodily, changeable, become, tract. 23 in Ev. Joh. n. 9. Quis est autem, qui sic cogitat Deum, quemadmodum ille est? quaest. in Jos. VI 29. He is incomprehensible and must be so, si enim comprehendis, non est Deus,
Serm. 117 n. 5. And if we then finally want to say what we think of Him, then we struggle with language. Verius enim cogitatur Deus quam dicitur, et verius est quam cogitatur, de trin. VII 4, de doctr. chr. I 6. If we nevertheless express something concerning Him, then that is not adequate, but it serves only to make us say something and to make us think of a being that surpasses everything, de doctr. chr. I 6. Sicut Deus a nullo intellectu valet proprie cogitari, ita nulla definitione potest proprie definiri aut determinari, de cogn. verae vitae 7. Deus scitur melius nesciendo, de ord. II 44.
Likewise Damascenus says that God το θειον, ἀρρητον και ἀκαταληπτον is, de fide orth. I c. 1. We speak of God in our way and know what God has revealed of himself; but what God's essence is and how He is in all, we do
not know, ib. c. 2. That God is, is clear; but τι ἐστιν κατ' οὐσιαν και φυσιν, ἀκαταληπτον τουτο παντελως και ἀγνωστον. That God is unbegotten, unchangeable, without beginning, etc., says [7] only what He is not. To say what He is, is impossible. He is nothing of all that is, not because He is not, but because He is ὑπερ παντα τα ὀντα και ὑπερ αὐτο το εἰναι. What we say positively of God does not indicate his nature, but the relations of his nature, τα περι την φυσιν, ib. c. 4 cf. c. 9.
4. This unknowability of God's essence was taught even more strongly by Pseudo-Dionysius, to whom Damascenus already appeals, and by Scotus
Erigena. According to the Areopagite there is no concept, no expression, no word, which utters God's essence, de div. nom. c. 1 § 1. With unusual, figurative names God is therefore designated. He is ὑπερουσιος ἀοριστια, suprasubstantialis infinitas, ἡ ὑπερ νῶν ἑνοτης, supra mentem unitas, το ὑπερ διανοιαν ἑν, illud supra ratiocinationem unum, ὑπερουσιος οὐσια και νους ἀνοητος και λογος ἀρρητος, ἀλογια και ἀνοησια και ἀνωνυμια, κατα μηδεν των ὀντων οὐσα, ib. We can neither utter nor think that one, unknown, above being, above the good, above every name and word and understanding, above all the finite exalted essence, ib. c. 1 § 5. Only because He is the cause and the principle of everything, can we, like
Scripture, name Him according to his workings, ib. c. 1 § 4. He is thus on the one hand ἀνωνυμος and on the other hand πολυωνυμος, ib. 1 § 6. But also the positive names, which we ascribe to God on the ground of his works, do not make us know Him in his essence, for they belong to Him in a wholly different and infinitely more perfect manner than to the creatures, de myst. theol. c. 1 § 2. Therefore negative theology is more excellent than positive, for it makes us know God as exalted above every creature. Yet it, too, provides us with no knowledge of God's essence. For in the end God
surpasses both every negation and every affirmation, every θεσις and every ἀφαιρεσις, de myst. theol. c. 5. In entirely the same spirit Erigena reasons.
God is exalted above all that is creaturely, also above being and knowing, de div. nat. I 7 sq. II 23. We know only that He is, not what He is, ib. I 13, II 28, V 26. What we predicate of Him, He is only in an improper manner, and thus He again is it not, I 36. The affirmative theology is improper, metaphorical I 14 sq. 37. It is surpassed by the negative. Verius enim negatur Deus quid eorum, quod de eo praedicatur, quam affirmatur esse, [8]
I 76, II 30, III 20. Melius nesciendo scitur, cujus ignorantia vera est sapientia I 66. Therefore his predicates are best supplemented by super or plusquam. He is superessentialis, plusquam veritas, plusquam sapientia etc.
I 14. Yes, so greatly does He surpass everything that is creature, that He can not unjustly be designated with the name of the nothing, nihilum, III 19. Cf.
Stöckl, Philos. des M. A. I 45 f. Baur, Die christl. Lehre von der Dreiein. und Menschw. Gottes II 274 f. Doedes, Inl. tot de leer van God 133 v.
5. Although Scholasticism now expressed itself more cautiously on various points and, in particular, assigned a higher value to positive theology than Pseudo-Dionysius and Erigena; yet it too entirely agreed with the doctrine that the being of God an sich was unknowable for man. Anselm says that the names of God's being only indicate it per similitudinem,
Monol. c. 63, that the relative properties of his being cannot be predicated, and the absolute only in a quidditative, not in a qualitative sense, Monol. c.
15-17. According to Albertus Magnus, God is exalted above all being and thinking. He cannot be attained by human thought, attingitur sed non capitur per comprehensionem. No name expresses his being. He is incomprehensible and unnameable, cf. Stöckl, Philos. des M. A. II 370.
Thomas distinguishes a threefold knowledge of God, visio Dei per
essentiam, cognitio per fidem and cognitio per rationem naturalem. The first far surpasses man's natural knowledge and can be obtained only by supernatural grace. It is reserved for heaven, is granted here on earth only a single time, and yet also never makes a comprehending of God possible, S.
Theol. I qu. 12 art. 1-11. Here on earth the knowledge of God is mediate.
We cannot know God as He is in Himself, but only secundum quod omnium prima et eminentissima causa is. From the workings we can ascend to the cause, ib. art. 12. And likewise it is the case with the knowledge that we obtain of God from his special revelation through faith. We know Him thereby better, in quantum plures et excellentiores effectus ejus nobis demonstrantur, ib. art. 13. But it gives no knowledge of God per essentiam.
There is no knowledge of [9] God's being, of his quidditas, per speciem propriam; but we know only habitudinem ipsius ad creaturas, ib. art. 12.
There is no name that expresses his being adaequate. His essentia stands high supra id, quod de Deo intelligimus et voce significamus, ib. qu. 13 art.
1. The positive names may indicate God's being, yet they do so in a very imperfect manner, just as the creatures from which they are derived represent Him imperfectly. God is knowable only, secundum quod repraesentatur in perfectionibus creaturarum, ib. art. 2. But with the further development of scholasticism this truth of the incomprehensibility of God was pushed into the background. The doctrine of God was unfolded more and more broadly. Existence, names, being, persons, properties were developed so finely and precisely that no place remained for the incomprehensibility of God. It became an ordinary property alongside the others, treated just as prolixly and dialectically. Duns Scotus asserted against Thomas that there was indeed a quidditative, albeit also imperfect, knowledge of God, Sent. I dist. 3 qu. 2. Against that nominalism already
raised objection and became more or less skeptical. Durandus said that there was no cognitio abstractiva of the divine being. And Occam declared: nec divina essentia, nec divina quidditas nec aliquid intrinsecum Deus, nec aliquid, quod est realiter Deus, potest hic cognosci a nobis, ita quod nihil aliud a Deo occurrat in ratione objecti, Stöckl, Philos. des M. A. II 1009.
Mysticism sought to obtain yet another knowledge of God than along the path of dialectic. And toward the end of the Middle Ages Nic. Cusanus argued in his writing de docta ignorantia, that no truth could be obtained by reason, but only by faith, which was mystically conceived as a new organ in man. After the Reformation Roman theology returned to scholasticism and also adopted the doctrine of the unknowability of God's being in the sense of Thomas, e.g. Sylvius, Comm. in Thomam, ed. 4 Antv. 1693 I p. 96 sq.
Billuart, Cursus theol. I 1747 p. 228 sq. Petavius, Theol. dogm. I c. 5 VIII c.
6. Theol. Wirceb. ed. Paris. 1880 III 73 sq. Jansen, Praelect. Theol. II 78 sq.
C. Pesch, Praelect. dogm. 1895 II p. 46 sq. etc. At the Lateran council under Innocentius III this doctrine was even ecclesiastically established and pronounced by Rome: Deus ineffabilis est. [10]
6. Reformation theology has brought no change in this. Luther, in his work de servo arbitrio, made the distinction between Deus absconditus and revelatus, between Deus ipse and verbum Dei. And later he came more and more to hold only to the latter, i.e. to God as He has revealed Himself in Christ; quod supra nos, nihil ad nos. But yet the full being of God did not, for him, come to expression in that. And there remained in God a dark, hidden background, viz. Deus ut est in sua natura et majestate, Deus absolutus. And this, according to Luther, was plane incognoscibilis, incomprehensibilis, inaccessibilis, Köstlin, Luthers Theol. I 47. 76 f. 314 f.
Later Lutheran theologians did not speak of such a sharp distinction
between God's being and His revelation, but all nevertheless teach that no adaequate name and no proper definition of God can be given, Gerhard,
Loci theol. II c. 5. cf. Schmid, Dogm. der ev. luth. K. § 17. Bretschneider, Dogm. I4 443. The Reformed thought in agreement with this. Their deep aversion to all creature-idolatry led them everywhere sharply to distinguish between what is God's and what is of the creature. More than any other theology they took seriously the proposition that finitum non est capax infiniti. Zwingli said: quid Deus sit, tam ex nobis ipsis (these words may not be omitted, as Hoekstra does, Wijsg. Godsd. II 14) ignoramus, quam ignorat scarabeus, quid sit homo, Opera III 157. Calvin considered it a vain speculation to investigate quid sit Deus; for us it is enough to know, qualis sit et quid ejus naturae conveniat, Inst. I 2, 2. I 5,-9. Comm. in Rom. 1:19.
Later theologians expressed the unknowability of the divine being still much more strongly. Because the finite cannot grasp the infinite, all names of God serve, not to make His being known to us, but to indicate, in some measure according to our capacity, that of God which we need to know. The propositions: Deus definiri nequit, Deo nomen non est, finitum non est capax infiniti, recur with all theologians. They all teach unanimously that God infinitely far surpasses our concept, our representation, our language.
Thus, e.g., Polanus says, the attributes which are ascribed to God in Holy Scripture do not explain His nature and being. Much more they make known to us quis et [11] quomodo non sit, quam quis et quomodo sit.
Quidquid de Deo dicitur, non est Deus, quia est ineffabilis. Nulla attributa divina essentiam naturamque Dei sufficienter explicant, quia illa est infinita. Infinitum autem per id quod finitum est digne satis pleneque explicari non potest, Synt Theol. II c. 6 p. 137, cf. also Zanchius, de natura
Dei seu de attributis, Op. II col. 9-10. Hyperius, Methodus theol. 1574 p.
83-84. Ursinus, Tract. theol. 1584. p. 35, 36, 49. Synopis par. theol. VI 2.
Maresius, Syst. theol. p. 48. Alsted, Theol. schol. did. p. 56 sq. Moor, Comm. in Marckii Comp. I 505 sq.
7. But also in Reformation theology the significance of this incomprehensibility of God was perceived less and less as time went on. It was indeed still taught, but stood entirely by itself and exercised no influence. The schema in which the doctrine of God was treated soon stood almost unalterably fixed. Much worse was it with other directions.
Socinianism did not enter at all into the question of the knowability of God.
It did not take the least interest in the knowledge of God's essence. To know God stood approximately equal to knowing that He is absolute Lord, Fock,
Der Socin. S. 414-416. Crell wrote a work de Deo ejusque attributis, and in it indeed proved God's existence with all kinds of arguments, but refrained from all questions concerning God's essence, knowability, etc. Conr.
Vorstius wrote a Tractatus de Deo s. de natura et attributis Dei 1610, which fell into the same Socinian errors, cf. Acta Syn. Dord. sess. 149 sq. The Remonstrants also felt no need to enter into metaphysical questions; they rather warned against idle speculation and urged simplicity. That which was strictly necessary to know was only the will of God. The cultus Dei is much more necessary than the cognitio Dei, Episc., Instit. theol. Lib. 4 sect. 2 cap.
1. Limborch, Theol. Chr. Lib. II c. 1. Rationalism thought itself certain of God's existence and attached little value to the knowledge of his essence. It is as if the majesty and the greatness of God is no longer perceived at all.
Leaving aside all so-called metaphysical questions, one hastens to the will of God, in order to know and to do it. Not in knowing God, but in doing his will lies eternal life. Bretschneider calls [12] the question entirely superfluous, whether God can be defined, Dogm. I4 443. Syst. Entw. 341.
But when this truth of the unknowability of the divine being had been almost entirely forgotten by theology, it was brought back to remembrance by philosophy. Rationalism supposed that, with its proofs for God's existence and with its doctrine of God's attributes, it stood on firm, scientific ground. But Kant, although with his doctrine of God, virtue, and immortality still wholly caught up in rationalism and moralism, nevertheless brought about a great change in the foundation on which this doctrine rested. Just as sensibility brings with it a priori the forms of space and time, and the understanding the categories, so reason also contains a priori, synthetic Grundsätze und Regeln, especially this Grundsatz, that it ascends from the conditioned to the unconditioned, Kr. d. r. Vern. ed.
Kirchmann S. 300. Thereby it forms three transcendent ideas, soul, world, God, S. 308-318. But these three ideas cannot be demonstrated objectively, but can only be derived subjectively from the nature of reason, S. 319. We cannot perceive the object of those ideas; we therefore also cannot obtain any scientific knowledge of them, S. 321, 322. Scientifically judged, they are paralogisms, antinomies, ideals, S. 322. Our knowledge does not reach further than the domain of experience, S. 469, 475, 508. These ideas therefore do not increase our knowledge, but only regulate it; they bring unity into our concepts and cause us to consider everything as if there were
God, the soul, the world, S. 512, 530, 537, 541. Science can neither prove nor deny the reality of those ideas, S. 532. Psychology, cosmology
(teleology), and theology are therefore not science, S. 547. The critique of pure reason ends with a negative result. Now practical Vernunft does indeed cause us to assume the reality of those ideas, Kr. der prakt. Vern. ed.
Kirchmann S. 149 f. And indeed Kant ascribes to God understanding and will and other attributes, S. 150, 157, but nevertheless the being of God
remains hidden. Practical reason does indeed know that those three ideas have objective reality, but nothing more. It does not increase the content of our scientific knowledge. Speculative reason can do nothing with those ideas except regulate and purify our knowledge, and makes use of the idea of God in order to counteract and ward off anthropomorphism as a source of superstition and [13] fanaticism, S. 162 f. If understanding and will are ascribed to God, then that is only a knowledge of God in praktischer
Beziehung, but in no respect a speculative knowledge, S. 165. Whoever abstracts from the anthropomorphistic element of it retains nothing but the word, S. 166. The idea of God does not belong in metaphysics, which does not exist, but in morality, S. 166 f. Fichte at first stood wholly on the same standpoint as Kant. In his Versuch einer Kritik aller Offenbarung,
Königsberg 1792, he lets faith in God rest on the postulates of reason, also ascribes to God definite attributes such as holiness, blessedness, omnipotence, righteousness, omniscience, eternity, S. 3 f. 104. But with that we still have no definite concept of God, and do not know his being as it is an sich; that would also not promote but harm pure morality, S. 105.
Religion always represents God in human fashion, in time and space, and even bodily, and does no harm by that, provided only that it does not come into conflict with morality and provided that this sensible representation is not held to be objectively valid, S. 124 f. Everything must be understood as Herablassung zu unserm subjectiven Bedürfniss, S. 127. Nur eine solche
Offenbarung also kann göttlichen Ursprungs seyn, die einen anthropomorphisirten Gott, nicht als objectiv sondern blos für subjectiv gültig giebt, S. 129. And Schleiermacher too, although in many respects deviating from Kant and Fichte and attaching himself more closely to Spinoza, nevertheless agreed with them in the doctrine of the unknowability
of God. The idea of the unity of being and thinking, of the real and the ideal, i.e. the idea of God, is the presupposition of all our knowing,
Dialektik herausg. von Jonas 1839 S. 397, the ground of our thinking, S. 60, 163; but is not to be grasped in thought and remains hinter dem Vorhang, S.
78, 79. As soon as we want to bring the Absolute nearer to us, it is made finite in our thinking, S. 69 and we speak in image. S. 78. It is in one word unattainable for knowing, S. 87. In his Glaubenslehre Schleiermacher presented the same thoughts, be it also in a more religious and less elaborated form. God is the Woher of our Daseyn; and as such an absolute causality He is no object of our knowing but only content of the feeling of absolute dependence, § 4, 4. [14] 8. Since then the doctrine of the unknowability of God has penetrated more and more into the consciousness of the modern age. Hegel indeed stood on another standpoint. Acknowledging that the religious representation was inadequate and suitable only for the people, he nevertheless considered philosophy capable of stripping this representation of its sensuous form, and thus of elevating it to an adequate concept.
Reason, in his opinion, gradually raised itself through various stages to the absolute being, then sees the truth face to face, and knows as its essence reason, thinking, the concept itself. Philosophy, pure science, or more specifically logic, is the description of God in his essence, an sich. It comprehends the Absolute in its fitting, adequate form, as thinking, in the form of the concept, Werke III, S. 33 f. In his spirit many, such as Strauss,
Gl. I 523 f. 547 f. 609 f., Biedermann, Chr. Dogm. II2 S. 516 f. Hartmann, Philos. des Unbew. II9 155 f. 175 f. Religionsphilos. 608 f., Scholten, Initia p. 109 sq. L. H. K. II 199, 200, attempted, by purification and deepening of the concepts, to come ever nearer to the transcendent reality. But with
others Hegel's philosophy led to a wholly different outcome; they asserted that in the idea of God the representation could never be overcome, and therefore came to atheism. Feuerbach said that the personal God was nothing other than the essence of man himself, and theology nothing but anthropology. All that is predicated of God is derived from man, not only personality but all attributes and names. Religion is a deification of man himself. Man cannot rise above his own essence and therefore God is and remains always a sensuous, human being, not only in Christ. dogmatics but also in philosophy, Wesen des Christ. 1841. And many spoke likewise and, together with the anthropomorphic representation, threw away the whole idea of God, e.g. Büchner, Kraft u. Stoff16 S. 392 f. Id. Der Gottesbegriff und dessen Bedeutung in der Gegenwart2 1874. Haeckel, Nat.
Schöpfungsgesch.5 S. 30 f. Strauss, Der alte u. d. neue Glaube2 S. 122. 144 f. Friedrich Nietzsche, Zur Genealogie der Moral S. 179. But this atheism went too far for others. Taking note of the limitation of human cognitive capacity, which always remains moving within the finite, these thought that man must confine himself to what is given under [15] observation
(positivism), refrain from every statement about existence and nature of the supersensuous (abstentionism), and thus in this respect must only confess his absolute ignorance (agnosticism). In France the task of science was limited to the establishing and explaining of phenomena by Auguste Comte, who therefore also excluded theology from the circle of the sciences, cf. deel I 151v. In England it was especially Herbert Spencer who, with all kinds of arguments, contested the knowability of God, First Principles, 5th ed. 1887 p. 68-97. And in Germany, after being satiated with Hegel's panlogism, one returned to the critical philosophy of Kant. Thus agnosticism in the last half of this century has become almost universally
dominant. All metaphysics is distrusted; one has an aversion to speculation; only what is positive and belongs to the domain of the sciences exactes stands firm. Theology has come so much under the fear of this agnosticism that it scarcely dares any longer to speak of knowledge of God; it tries as much as possible to exclude all metaphysics and to confine itself to the religious; it is ashamed of its own name and has allowed itself to be rechristened into a science of religion. For, although agnosticism is in fact death for theology, this has nevertheless still been maintained by many under another form. Kant regained by practical reason what he had lost by theoretical reason. Spencer leaves room for a religious veneration of the Unknowable. Already before him Sir William Hamilton, in his writing On the philosophy of the unconditioned, Edinb. Rev. Oct. 1829, and Dr. Henry
Longueville Mansel in his work The limits of religious thought examined in eight lectures, preached before the university of Oxford 1858, had asserted that our thinking, because always bound to space, time, distinction, opposition, etc., can never penetrate to the absolute, even though on religious grounds the representation of God as a personal being must be maintained, cf. Dorner, Jahrb. f. deutsche Theol. VI 1861 S. 320 f. 347 f. To a similar dualism the Neo-Kantians in Germany also came. Thinking may at its best bring us to the concept of the Absolute, yet in religion we do not have enough with that. Here we have need of a God who is like us, whom we represent as a person, and who, as a Father, cares for [16] his children.
Such a religious representation is indeed always subject to criticism from the side of science; it is not the highest and the true, but there is no more to be attained, Lipsius, Dogm. § 229 f. 243 f. Ritschl, Metaph. u. Rel. 8 f.
Rechtf. u. Vers. III2 211 f. Rauwenhoff, Wijsb. v. d. godsd. 611 v. Hoekstra, Wijsg. godsd. II 11 v. And likewise others have sought in humanity, moral
idealism, ideal-formation, spiritism, theosophy, buddhism, etc. a compensation for what science in Christian theology had taken from them, cf. deel I 156. 202.
9. The grounds on which this agnosticism can rely are of very great weight. In the first place it can avail itself of the argument that was from ancient times advanced by the sophists and sceptics against the possibility of all knowledge, namely, that all human knowledge is subjective and relative. Nothing in the world stands by itself independently; object and subject are dependent on one another. Things and their properties exist only then and so, as they stand in relation to someone's perception; something first becomes something through the relation to the senses of the subject.
We therefore can never say what a thing is in its essence, independently of our perception; we can only pronounce that something at a given moment thus appears to us; ἀνθρωπος μετρον παντων. This argument is indeed of great significance; but it proves too much; if it were valid, it would make impossible not only the knowledge of God but all knowledge of man and world; moreover this idealism has already been discussed in part I 145-151 and can therefore here further remain out of consideration. But agnosticism has various grounds that are advanced specifically against the knowability of God. Philosophy and theology were indeed, as appeared above, at all times convinced of the inadequacy of our knowledge of God. Negative predicates say only what God is not, and positive ones belong to Him in an entirely different way than they are found in creatures. The limitation, the finitude, the anthropomorphism of our knowledge of God was acknowledged by all. But in more recent times the unreachability of the knowledge of God has been argued in still other and more drastic fashion.
Subjectively, namely, attention has been drawn to the limited nature of the
human faculty of knowledge; and [17] objectively to the inner contradiction from which every concept of God suffers. The first was done by Kant, the second by Fichte. Kant investigated the human faculty of knowledge and came to the conclusion that the forms of intuition and the categories of the understanding were brought along by the subject itself, had validity in the world of phenomena, but also made all true knowledge of the noumena impossible for us. The transcendent ideas of God, world, soul are indeed rules for our acting, and a moral human being cannot act otherwise than as if an objective reality corresponds to those three ideas; but to prove this is not possible. Fichte added to that still the objection that the concepts of absolute and personality can never be united with one another. Spinoza already said that all determination was a negation, Epist. 50, that a thing therefore, in proportion as it became more determined and concrete, was also all the more finite and limited. Thereby it nevertheless ceases to be that which other things are: if something is white, it can no longer be red or black. God therefore cannot be something determinate alongside and in distinction from the creatures, but He is the substance of all creatures, the one, infinite being, so that all that is, is in Him, Eth. I prop. 14. 15. This philosophical premise was applied by Fichte to the concept of personality; personality and self-consciousness were things that we had found in ourselves and that cannot be thought without limitation and finitude. If we transfer them to God, we make Him into a finite, limited, human being. The moral world-order is therefore also the one essentially necessary thing in religion; more we do not need; a special, personal existence of God is unnecessary for religion, and it is also unprovable, indeed impossible and in conflict with itself; whoever desires such a God is still caught in eudaemonism, Ueber den Grund unseres Glaubens an eine göttliche
Weltregierung 1798, Werke V 184 f. cf. Kuno Fischer, Gesch. der neuern Philos. V2 628 f. This reasoning has then been disseminated in wide circles, and returns at every moment, cf. Schelling in his first period, Werke I 1 S.
200, Hegel, Werke V 18, Schleiermacher, Reden über die Religion3 S. 167 f. Schopenhauer, Parerga und Paral. I5 123 f. Hartmann, Philos. des Unbew.
II9 175 f. Id. Religionsphil. II 145-163, Id. Lotzes Philos. 1888 S. 168 f.
Strauss, Christl. Gl. I 502 f. Biedermann, Dogm. II2 457-472, 537-547 etc.
In the essence [18] of the matter this opposition between absolute and personal is no other than that which in Christian theology was always felt and was expressed in the negative and positive, the apophatic and the cataphatic theology. However much the proofs against the knowability of God are each time presented in another form, in fact they are always the same and always come down to this. Man is bound to sensible perception and always derives the material of his thought from the visible world; he does not intuit the spiritual and cannot raise himself to the world of the invisible things, because he always remains bound to space and time. Also his thinking is material and finite and limited; just as the eagle remains enclosed within the atmosphere (Hamilton) and the fish within the pond
(Lange), so our thinking always moves within the circle of the finite. More still, thinking is of such a nature that it of itself presupposes a separation between subject and object, which, standing over against one another and limiting one another, can neither of them be absolute. To think is to condition, therefore Hamilton said; and Mansel expressed the same thus: distinction is necessarily limitation; knowledge of the absolute is therefore a contradiction, for it indicates that one has knowledge concerning something that is absolute, thus stands in no relation, and precisely as known by a subject nevertheless again does stand in relation. If now the nature of
thinking is so constituted, and if we then nevertheless still want to think and know God, then we always do one of two things: either we draw the absolute down within the circle of the finite and we make God into a personal, limited, human being; or we attempt in our thinking to raise ourselves above all bounds of space and time, strip our thought concerning
God of all conformity to the finite creature, but then also retain nothing in our thinking except an empty, abstract, contentless concept, which has not the least value for religion. Yes, even that concept escapes us; under our thinking the absolute becomes nothing. Absoluteness and personality, infinity and causality, immutability and communicability, absolute exaltation above and conformity to the creature seem in the concept of God to be irreconcilable. We find ourselves in an insoluble antinomy. It is as if only the choice is left to us between a coarse realism and a tenuous idealism, between a God who is nothing but a man on a grand scale, or a [19] cold abstraction that causes the religion of the heart to freeze and die.
10. To a considerable extent this doctrine of the unknowability of God can be assented to and wholeheartedly affirmed. Scripture and church both emphatically maintain the unsearchable majesty and the sovereign exaltedness of God. There is no knowledge of God as He is in Himself. We are human beings and He is the Lord our God. There is no name that fully expresses his being; no definition that circumscribes Him. He is infinitely far exalted above our imagination, above our thought, above our language.
He cannot be compared with any creature; all nations are esteemed by Him as less than nothing and vanity. Deo nomen non est. Deus definiri nequit.
He can be apprehendi, not comprehendi. There is some γνωσις but no καταληψις of God. Thus it is said throughout the whole of Scripture and throughout the entire Christian theology. And when a superficial rationalism
deemed an adaequate knowledge of God possible, Christian theology has always most strongly contested this. According to Socrates, Hist. Eccl. IV 7,
Eunomius, a follower of Arius, would have taught that he knew God just as well as himself. God's essence consisted according to him solely in the ἀγεννησια, and in that he had a clear, distinct, adaequate concept of the divine essence; God was no more and man no less known than was expressed in this praedicaat. Later Spinoza said that he had as clear a concept of God as of a triangle, although he did not thereby wish to assert
Deum omnino cognoscere, Epist. 60. And in this century Hegel taught that the absolute in the philosophy of concepts came to complete selfconsciousness and thus was known completely and adaequately by the philosopher; the consciousness of God in us is nothing but the consciousness of God of Himself. God is, insofar as He is known by us, i.e. insofar as He knows Himself in us. This rationalism has been opposed and rejected in the Christian church with all force, Basilius, Hexaem. hom. 1.
Gregor. Naz. Orat. 28 etc. cf. Schwane, D. G. II 27 f. Indeed, a deep religious interest is involved here. Augustine once expressed it in this way: de Deo loquimur, quid mirum si non comprehendis? Si enim comprehendis, non est Deus. Sit pia confessio ignorantiae magis, quam temeraria professio scientiae. Attingere aliquantum mente Deum, magna beatitudo est; comprehendere autem, omnino impossibile, Serm. 38 in Ev. Joan. Therefore
[20] God is precisely the sole object of all our love, because He is the Infinite and Incomprehensible. Although, however, Scripture and church thus as it were accept the praemisses of agnosticism and are even more deeply than Kant or Spencer penetrated by the limitation of man and the incomparable greatness of God, yet they draw from this another conclusion, a conclusion that was expressed by Hilarius de trin. II 7 as follows: perfecta
scientia est, sic Deum scire, ut licet non ignorabilem, tamen inenarrabilem scias. The knowledge that we have of God is a wholly peculiar one. It can be called positive, insofar as by it we acknowledge a being that is infinite and essentially distinct from all finite creatures. On the other side it is negative, because we cannot ascribe a single praedicaat to God as we think it in creatures. And it is therefore an analogical one, because it is the knowledge of a being that in itself is unknowable, nevertheless can make something of Himself known in creatures.
Herein indeed lies something of an antinomy; or rather, agnosticism suffers from a confusion of concepts and therefore sees here an irreconcilable contradiction, but Christian theology beholds here an adorable mystery. It is completely incomprehensible to us, that and how
God in the creature, eternity in time, immeasurability in space, infinity in the finite, immutability in change, being in becoming, the all as it were in the nothing can reveal itself and make itself known in some measure. This mystery is not to be understood, it can only be acknowledged with thanksgiving. But mystery is something other than contradiction.
Pantheistic philosophy has made it into that. If it identifies the absolute with the indeterminate and calls every determination a limitation and negation, then it makes itself guilty of a confusion of concepts. There is a world-wide difference between infinite and endless, between almighty and the sum of all power, between absolute being and the sum of all being, between eternity and the totality of all moments of time etc., and so also between the absolute and the indeterminate, unbounded, boundless. Pantheism first inserts its own concept of God into these words and can then easily accuse theism of being in conflict with it. That God is the Infinite and nevertheless can [21] reveal himself in finite creatures and has also actually revealed
himself, is indeed the recognition of an incomprehensible mystery, namely of the wonder of creation, but by no means the admission of a palpable absurdity. Finite being cannot detract from the infinity of God, if only it has its absolute subsistence in the being of God. And so also our knowledge is no limitation of God, because it is grounded in Him himself, is sustainable only through Him, and has Him himself precisely as Infinite for its object and content. Moreover, if the absolute excludes all limitation and every determination is a negation, then it is not only impermissible to speak of God as personality, but then it is equally wrong still to call Him the absolute, the one, the good, the being, the substance etc. Pantheism labors under the delusion that it is finished with the concept of God when it has removed personality and self-consciousness from it as contradictory elements. And the theistic philosophers from the first half of this century, such as J. H. Fichte, Carus, Steffens, Weisse, Ulrici e. a. have, in reaction, all too much clung to this concept of personality, and thought that in the concept of absolute personality they possessed an adequate description of the essence of God. Certainly many good remarks have been made over against pantheism as proof that personality is not in conflict with the absolute essence of God. If absolute is not conceived as boundless, as endlessly extended on all sides, then it is not to be seen how personality would be in conflict with it. Then there is only enclosed in it, that the selfconsciousness of God is as rich and deep, as infinite, as his being.
Personality may then also in us human beings awaken over against a not-I, in God it is the eternal synthesis of himself with himself, the infinite selfknowledge and self-determination and therefore not dependent on a not-I, J.
H. Fichte, Die Idee der Persönlichkeit u. der indiv. Fortdauer, 1855 S. 52 f.
J. W. Hanne, Die Idee der absol. Persönl. 2e Aufl. 1865. Weisse, Philos.
Dogm. I 552 f. Lotze, Mikrok. III3 549-580. Rothe, Theol. Ethik § 39.
Ritschl, Rechtf. u. Vers. III2 213-223. Kaftan, das Wesen der Chr. Religion 378 f. Lipsius, Dogm. § 229. Martensen, Dogm. 75. Thomasius, Christi
Person u. Werk I3 11 f. Lange, Dogm. I 167 II 53. Bruch, Lehre v. d. göttl.
Eigensch. 122 f. Philippi, Kirchl. Gl. II 53 f. Hodge, Syst. Theol. I 391.
Bovon, [22] Dogm. Chrét. I 229 s. Doedes, Inl. tot de Leer van God 74 v.
But yet it is true, what the older Fichte said, that personality is a concept borrowed from ourselves and therefore, transferred to God, always contains something imperfect. The concept of personality, used of God, is inadequate and in principle nothing better than all other anthropomorphisms, in which we speak of God. The Christian church and theology has also never used this word for the essence of God and has, with the three modi subsistendi in that essence, spoken of persons only hesitantly and for lack of something better. But at the same time it is thereby clear that pantheism has still gained nothing when it points to the incongruity of this concept. The opposition between absoluteness and personality is essentially the same as that between negative and positive theology. Even if the word personality is wrong, thereby in fact nothing has yet been decided. The same question therefore returns again and again. If every determination is a negation, then
God also may not be called the one, the being, the absolute. Then all thinking and speaking about God is forbidden. If we, who are human beings, may not speak of God in an analogous, human way, then nothing else remains for us than to be silent. For in a divine way to think and speak about God, we cannot. But then all religion also falls. If God cannot be known, He also cannot be felt and enjoyed in feeling. Feeling is as finite as the understanding, and finitizes and humanizes God in the same way. There is then no possibility that God reveals himself objectively in his creatures or
that we subjectively perceive Him through any organ. All religion is then sacrilege, and all theology is then blasphemy of God.
11. The question concerning the knowability of God is thereby reduced to this other one, whether God has willed and been able to reveal himself in the world of creatures. For it is perfectly true, what Kant says, that our knowledge does not extend further than our experience, Kr. der r. Vern. ed.
Kirchmann 508. If God has not revealed himself, then there is also no knowledge of Him. But if He has revealed himself, then there is something, however little it may be, that falls under our observation and thus can lead to knowledge. Then, however, it speaks for itself, that the denial of the [23] knowability of God entirely coincides with the denial that God has revealed himself in the works of his hands. Agnosticism falls back into the error of the old gnosticism. God is ὁ Βυθος ἀρρητος, eternal σιγη; there is no communion and no kinship between Him and his creatures. The whole world is in an absolute sense ἀθεος; there is no trace of God to be noticed in the world; the world is the product of a lower God, of a demiurge, of a chance; man is not created after God's image but is simply a product of nature without God in the world; no religio, no theologia is possible, neither from creation nor from re-creation. God and world are absolutely separated.
Yes, worse still, agnosticism cannot escape the consequence that God cannot reveal himself. It shuts Him up in himself, it makes Him into an unknown, invisible power, which has no consciousness and no will, which cannot communicate itself in any way, which is eternal σιγη. And the world, as likewise in Manichaeism, is elevated to a power alongside and over against God, which cannot in any way take Him up into itself, and is completely unfit to radiate anything of his glory. Agnosticism thus ends in fact in atheism, of which it is only the nineteenth-century form and name.
Yet agnosticism usually does not go so far, and still maintains the existence of The Unknowable. But then it also immediately suffers from an inner inconsistency, which is untenable: Augustine already observed, that the proposition that we know nothing of God already presupposes a great degree of knowledge concerning God, and that there was thus a pugna verborum. For if we call God ineffabilis, then at that same moment we say something and much of Him, so that He again is not ineffabilis, de doctr. chr. I 6. Non enim parvae notitiae pars est.... si antequam scire possimus quid sit Deus, possumus jam scire quid non sit, de trin. VIII 2. Not-knowing is itself a positive, an all-embracing knowing, it is non parva inchoatio cognitionis Dei, Ep. ad Consent. It says already so much, namely, that He is nothing of all that which is creature. And so it is also with the agnostics.
Spencer e.g. says, that we are driven by our thinking to assume the existence of an absolute being as ground of the universe, although on account of our finitude and limitation we can form no concept of it. But if we are so finite and [24] limited, how do we then come to form the thought of such an absolute being and to assume its existence. And if we really must assume the existence of such an absolute being, why would any knowledge of that being be wholly impossible? No single agnostic therefore confines himself to the non liquet. Spencer e.g. says at every moment, that we do not know the absolute, and yet he has an idea of it, proves its existence and also ascribes all sorts of properties to it. He says, that it is not a negative but a positive concept, that it is the cause of everything, that it is a power, most analogous to our will, that it is infinite, eternal, omnipresent etc. This truly is no longer agnosticism but a very definite knowledge and a fairly welldefined concept of God. Agnosticism, in itself untenable and afraid of atheism, in the end serves to justify a pantheistic concept of God. Cf. on and
against agnosticism: Flint, Antitheistic theories 3 ed. 1885 p. 14. James Orr, The christ. view of God and the world 1893 p. 96. A. B. Bruce, Apologetics,
Edinb. Clark 1892 p. 146. John Caird, An introduction to the philos. of religion, Glasgow 1880 p. 8-38. G. J. Lucas, Agnosticism and religion, being an examination of Spencers religion of the unknowable preceded by a history of agnosticism. Baltimore, Murphy and Co. 1895. Art. Sekularismus in Herzog2.