Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/102

 When such predicates are given to God, we do not by the help of these determinations get a knowledge of Him in His true nature. They are even predicates of finite Nature; for it, too, is powerful, is wise. Taken as representing a knowledge of God, they would be extended over finite matter through the All. In this way, however, the predicates lose their definite meaning and are transient, like the Trimurti in Brahma. What is essential is contained in the One, in what is substantial, immanent; it is essential determination, which is conceived and known as such. These are not the predicates of reflection, not external form, but Idea (Idee).

Thus we have already had the determination of subjectivity, of self-determination, but merely in a superficial form, and not yet as constructing the nature of God. In the Religion of Light, this determination was abstract universal personification, because in the Person the absolute moments are not contained as developed or unfolded. Subjectivity is just abstract identity with self, is Being-within-itself, which differentiates itself, but which is likewise the negativity of this difference, which latter maintains itself in the difference, does not let it escape out of itself, retains its sway over it, is in it, but in it independently, has the difference within it momentarily.

1. If we consider this in relation to the next form, subjectivity is this negativity which relates itself to itself, and the negative is no longer outside of the Good, but rather it must be contained, posited in the affirmative relation to self, and thus is, in fact, no longer the Evil. Therefore the negative, Evil, must now no longer exist outside of the Good. It is just the essential nature of Good to be Evil, whereby of course Evil no longer remains Evil, but as Evil relating itself to itself, annuls its evil character and constitutes itself into Good. Good is that negative relation to itself as its other by which it posits Evil, just as the latter is the movement which