Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/191

 other. God, on the other hand, creates absolutely out of nothing, since there is nothing which was before Him.

The mode of production, therefore, in connection with which He is Subject, is intuitive, is infinite activity. In the case of human production, I am consciousness, I have an end, and know what it is, and I have, too, accordingly the material, and know that my relation to it is a relation to an “Other.” Intuitive production, on the contrary, the production of Nature, belongs to the conception of Life. It is an inward act, inner activity, which has no reference to something actually existing. It is life-force, the eternal production of Nature, and Nature, speaking generally, is something posited, something created.

God is in reference to the world the totality of His determinateness, of His negation, and in reference to the totality of immediate Being, He is what is pre-supposed, the subject which remains absolutely first. Here the fundamental characteristic of God is subjectivity, which relates itself to itself, and as inherently existing permanent subjectivity it is what is first.

The derivative character of the Greek gods, who represent the spiritual element, is something which belongs to their finitude. It is this which gives them their conditional character, in accordance with which their own nature is considered as dependent on something previously existing, as is the case with the finite spirit of Nature.

This subjectivity, however, is the absolutely First, the Beginner of things, its conditional character being done away with; but it is only something which begins, and this does not mean that the subjectivity is characterised as result and as concrete Spirit.

If what was created by the absolute Subject were itself, then the difference would in that case be done away with and absorbed in this difference. The first Subject would be the last, something which resulted from itself. But this is a characteristic we have not yet got, and all we