Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 1.djvu/246

 the subject is essentially conceived of as free, but at first possesses relative freedom only, freedom of the subject in relation to its universal Essence, so that it does not separate itself from that Essence, nor persist in keeping to a form which is antagonistic to this its Universality, but continues to exist only in unbroken continuity with its Object. Or, to express it otherwise, freedom is merely this formal freedom of the subject, in which the consciousness of the subject is adequate to its notion. As hitherto defined, however, true faith presupposes the self-consciousness of the absolute freedom of the spirit—the consciousness that man is free in his own nature, by virtue of his fundamental nature, and knows himself as infinite Personality. Now, if such self-consciousness be still immediate, it is, to begin with, only formally free, and labours under the defect of having a merely natural character, and is not man’s consciousness of his infinite freedom. God Himself does not exist as Spirit in an immediate manner, and the same is the case as to our consciousness regarding Him. Consequently, freedom itself, and reconciliation in worship or devotion, are in the first instance formal reconciliation and freedom: if the subject is to be adequate to its conception or notion, it is necessary that its notion, that absolute Spirit, be for it Object as Spirit, for only by bringing itself into relation with its Essence in that absolute content can the subjective spirit be free in itself. The truth is that it remains absolute for itself, and as infinite subjectivity has the consciousness that it has infinite worth for itself, or on its own account, and is the object of the infinite love of God.

We find that worship also develops in conformity with the idea of God which has just been unfolded. At one time God is thought of as the unity of the natural and spiritual, at another as the absolute unity, which itself is spiritual. The definite aspects of worship correspond with these different ideas of God.

1. God is immediately determined as an abstraction,