Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/112

 moment of God Himself—as immanent in Essence. To self-determination belongs the moment of inner, not outward negativity, as is already implied in the expression “self-determination.” The death which here comes into prominence is not like the death of the Lama, of Buddha, of Indra, and other Indian deities, whose negativity is an external one, and approaches them as a power that is external to them. It is a sign that there has been an advance toward conscious spirituality, to knowledge of freedom, to the knowledge of God. This moment of negation is an absolutely true moment of God. Death, then, is a peculiar special form, in which negation makes its appearance in an outward shape. By reason of the divine totality the moment of immediate form must become recognised in the divine Idea, for to it there must be nothing wanting.

Thus the moment of negation is immanent in the divine Notion, because it essentially belongs to it in its outward manifestation. In the other religions we have seen that the essential nature of God is merely determined as abstract Being-within-itself, absolute substantiality of Himself. There death is not thought of as belonging to substance, but is regarded merely as external form, in which the god shows himself. It is quite otherwise when it is an event which happens to the god himself, and not merely to the individual in whom he presents himself. It is thus the essential nature of God which comes into prominence here in this determination.

3. But now, further, we have in close connection with this the idea that God restores himself, rises from the dead. The immediate god is not God. Spirit is alone what, as being free in itself, exists by its own act, what posits itself. This contains the moment of negation. The negation of the negation is the return into self, and Spirit is the eternal return into self. Here then at this stage we come upon Reconciliation. Evil, death, is represented as vanquished, God is consequently