Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/31

 the abstract unity of thought; the “I,” the pure contemplation of it is perfect emptiness. Thus it is in the Brahmans that Brahma exists; by the reading of the Vedas Brahma is, and human self-consciousness in the state of abstraction is Brahma itself.

The characteristics of Brahma which have been indicated seem to have so many points of correspondence with the God of other religions—with the true God Himself—that it appears to be of some importance to point out, on the one hand, the difference which exists, and on the other, to indicate for what reason the logical determination of subjective existence in self-consciousness which marks the Indian pure Essence has no place among these other ideas. The Jewish God is, for example, the same One, immaterial Substantiality and Power which exists for thought only; He is Himself objective thought, and is also not as yet that inherently concrete One which He is as Spirit. But the Indian supreme God is merely the One in a neuter sense, rather than the One Person; He has merely potential being, and is not self-conscious; He is Brahma the Neutrum, or the Universal determination. Brahma as subject, on the other hand, is at once one among the three Persons, if we may so designate them, which in truth is not possible since spiritual subjectivity as an essential fundamental determination is wanting to them. It is not enough that the Trimurti proceeds out of that primal One, and also returns back again into that One; all that is implied in this is that it is represented merely as Substance, not as Subject. The Jewish God, on the contrary, is the One exclusively, who has no other gods beside Him. It is because of this that He is determined not only as Potentiality, but also as what alone has Actual Being, as the absolutely consuming or absorbing element, as a Subject having infinitude within itself, which is indeed still abstract and posited in an undeveloped manner, but which is nevertheless true infinitude. His goodness and His