Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/218

 is accordingly devoid of expansion and extension, devoid of all concrete specification, and God as infinite power is also without determinate character in Himself, and there is no third thing, no definite form of existence in which they might meet. So far it is a condition of unmediated relation, and the two contrasted elements—the relation to the One in pure thought and intuition, and abstract return into self, Being for self,—are immediately united. Since, then, self-consciousness, as distinguished from its object, which is pure thought and can only be grasped in thought, is empty, formal self-consciousness, naked and devoid of specific character in itself, and since, further, all real concrete specification belongs to power only, in this absolute contrast the pure freedom of self-consciousness is turned into absolute absence of freedom, or, in other words, self-consciousness is the self-consciousness of a servant in relation to a master. The fear of the Lord is the fundamental characteristic of the relation which here exists.

I have a general feeling of fear produced by the idea of a Power above me, which negates my value as a person, whether that value appears in an outward or in an inward way as something belonging to me. I am without fear when, on the one hand, in virtue of possessing an invulnerable independence, I disregard the force above me, and know myself to be power as against it in such a way that it has no influence over me; and, on the other hand, I am without fear too when I disregard those interests which this Power is in a position to destroy, and in this way remain uninjured even when I am injured. Fear has commonly a bad meaning attached to it, as if it implied that the person who experiences fear did not wish to represent himself as power, and was not capable of doing so. But the fear here spoken of is not the fear of what is finite or of finite force. The finite is contingent power, which, apart from any fear felt, can seize and injure me; but, on the other hand, the fear