Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/224

 outer covering which does not truly separate the two sides of what constitutes the religious relation, and is therefore only an unessential separation of the two, only a superficial distinction. The present standpoint, on the contrary, is based in the first instance on absolute reflection into self as abstract Being-for-self, and it is here accordingly that the mediation of the relation between self-consciousness and its absolute Essence comes in. The self-consciousness does not, however, represent man as man in the sense of universality. The religious relation is something special, which, regarded from the point of view of man, may be called contingent, for all that is finite is external to Absolute Power, and contains in it no positive character. This particularity of the religious relation is not, however, a particularity amongst others, but is rather a separate, infinite preference. Because of the character which thus attaches to the relation, the latter finds expression in the thought that this people has been adopted on the condition of its having the fundamental feeling of its dependence, i.e., of its servitude. This relation between the infinite Power and what has independent Being is accordingly not one which is posited essentially and originally, or has come into existence only through the love of God to man, but rather this unity has been established in an external way through a contract. And, in fact, this adoption of the People is something which has taken place once for all, and occupies the place of what in revealed religion in its completed form is known as redemption and reconciliation.

Closely connected with the representation of God as the Lord is the fact that the Jewish people gave themselves wholly up to His service. It is this which explains, too, that marvellous steadfastness which was not a fanaticism of conversion like Mohammedanism, which is already purified from the idea of nationality and recognises believers only, but a fanaticism of