Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/156

 posited is their self-abrogation, the production of an “Other,” the result, namely, which, however, appears as an “Other” only as opposed to their existence in a scattered form. The content, however, is one; the result is what they implicitly are, only the mode and manner of their appearance are altered. The result is the sum of what is contained in the circumstances, and the manifestation of this in a definite form. It is Life which thus projects its own conditions, means of stimulus, impulses, though in that form they do not look as if they were Life, for the inner element, what is implicit, appears first in the result. Necessity is thus the Process which implies that the result and the preliminary condition are different only as regards their form.

If we now consider this form and how necessity has come to get the definite shape of a Proof of the existence of God, we see that the content is the true Notion. Necessity is the truth of the contingent world. The more detailed development of this thought belongs to Logic. The notion of God is the absolute necessity; this is a necessary and essential standpoint, not indeed the highest or the really true one, but one from which the higher proceeds, and which is a condition of the higher notion which itself presupposes it. Thus the Absolute is necessity. The notion of absolute necessity does not yet correspond to the Idea which we must have of God, but which, however, is to be presupposed in the form of a pictorial or general idea. The higher notion or grasp has to grasp, to comprehend itself. There is here a defect in this Proof of the existence of God. So far as the form of the Proof is concerned in reference to absolute necessity, we find it to be the well-known Cosmological Proof, which is expressed simply thus: contingent things presuppose an absolutely necessary Cause, but contingent things exist, I and the World are such, therefore there is an absolutely necessary Cause.

The defective element in this Proof is easily seen.