Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 1.djvu/87

 immediate existence in stars or animals. Further, too, it must be observed here that it is only momentarily that God assumes a human or other form of existence, that He becomes externally manifest, or inwardly reveals Himself in a dream, or as an inward voice.

This is the moment of presupposed or hypothetical unity, which is essentially involved in the conception of God, and in such a way that the object of consciousness (God) exhibits the entire conception of religion in its content, and is itself totality. The moments of the conception of religion thus present themselves here in the character of unification. Each of the aspects or sides of the true Idea is itself the same totality which the whole is. The specific characteristics of content in the two sides are consequently not different in themselves, but only in their form. The absolute object therefore determines itself for consciousness as totality which is in unity with itself.

b. This totality now presents itself in the form of separation and of finiteness, which, as representing the other side, stands over against that totality which is in unity with itself. The moments of the content of the entire conception are here posited as separating themselves from one another, as differentiated, and consequently as abstract. The first moment on this side of differentiation is that of potentiality, the moment of Being which is in identity with itself, of formlessness, of objectivity, in fact. This is matter as representing what is indifferent or undifferentiated, as existence of which all parts are of equal value. Form may be introduced into it, but it remains still in a condition of abstract being for self. We then call it the World, which in relation to God appears partly as His garment, vesture, form, or as something in contrast with Himself.

Over against this moment of undifferentiated potential Being there now stands Being-for-self, the Negative in