Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 1.djvu/242

 upon which it is built are of no importance here. Clearly faith is in itself, as far as the content is concerned, still in bondage, and it is Thought which first seeks to be free in respect of the content also.

Here, accordingly, where freedom brings itself into relation with the content as well, is it that the breach between thought and faith makes its appearance, that breach which we already see among the Greeks in the time of Socrates. Thought implies a new relation towards faith; that is to say, the aspect of Form enters into relation with the substantial element of truth. In the Christian religion this principle is present from the beginning. Regarded in one aspect, that religion starts, it is true, from an external history which is made a matter of faith; but this history at the same time professes to be the explication of the nature of God. Christ, in accordance with the distinction which directly enters here, is not merely a man, who experienced a particular fate, but He is also the Son of God. The explication of the history of Christ, the unfolding of its meaning, is thus the deeper lying element. This has been given in thought, and it has produced Dogmatics—the doctrine of the Church. With this there co-exists a demand for “inwardness,” for thought. The breach between thought and faith then develops itself further. Thought knows itself to be free, not only so far as the form is concerned, but in respect of the content also. In thought, however, freedom does not exist altogether apart from authority; it has certain principles, which are really its own, and to which it reduces everything. But these principles themselves belong to development; a given period has certain principles, and so far authority, too, is present in it. It is the ultimate analysis only, where no assumed principles any longer exist, which constitutes the advance to philosophy.

The as yet religious mediation of faith as it appears in worship, is the active process of bringing forward