Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/138

 of the independence of objectivity, in which accordingly all the moments were set free and released, and reached the state of independence. In the third stage was found the theoretical or self-determining element, which took back into itself these moments thus released, so that the practical element is thus made theoretical, the Good self-determination, and, finally, the blending of substantiality and subjectivity.

If we now ask,—How has the idea of God been defined so far? What is God? What have we learned about Him? The answer is as follows:—

In accordance with the abstract form of the metaphysical Notion we began thus: God is the unity of the Infinite and the Finite, and our sole concern is to find out how particularity and determinateness, i.e., the finite, is incorporated with the infinite. What result have we as regards this point so far reached? God is the infinite in general, what is identical with itself, substantial power. When we start by saying this, it is not implied that finitude is as yet posited as contained in it, and it is, to begin with, the purely immediate existence of the infinite self-consciousness. From the fact that God is just infinitude, substantial power, it follows, and it is consciously implied in it, that the substantial Power alone is the truth of finite things, and that their truth consists only in this, that they return into the substantial unity. God is thus, to begin with, the Power referred to, a definition which, being purely abstract, is extremely imperfect. The second position is that God is the substantial Power in Himself, pure Being-for-self, separate from the manifoldness of the finite. This is substantiality which is reflected into itself, and this is the essential conception of God. With this idea of substantiality which exists within itself and distinguishes itself from the finite, we have reached higher ground, but here the determination of the true relation of the finite to the substantial Power, whereby the latter would itself come