Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/341

 knows the absolute Essence only as something finite, not as something true. God is Himself consciousness, He distinguishes Himself from Himself within Himself, and as consciousness He gives Himself as object for what we call the side of consciousness.

Here we have always two elements in consciousness, which are related to each other in a finite and external fashion. When, however, as is the case at this stage, religion comes to have a true comprehension of itself, then it is seen that the content and the object of religion are made up of this very Whole, of the consciousness which brings itself into relation with its Essence, the knowledge of itself as the Essence and of the Essence as itself, i.e., Spirit thus becomes the object in religion. We thus have two things, consciousness and the object; in the religion, however, the fulness of which is the fulness of its own nature, in the revealed religion, the religion which comprehends itself, it is religion, the content itself which is the object, and this object, namely, the Essence which knows itself, is Spirit. Here first is Spirit as such the object, the content of religion, and Spirit is only for Spirit. Since it is content and object, as Spirit it is what knows itself, what distinguishes itself from itself, and itself supplies the other side of subjective consciousness, that which appears as finite. It is the religion which derives its fulness from itself, which is complete in itself. This is the abstract characterisation of the Idea in this form, or, to put it otherwise, religion is, as a matter of fact, Idea. For Idea in the philosophical sense of the term is the Notion which has itself for object, i.e., it is the Notion which has definite existence, reality, objectivity, and which is no longer anything inner or subjective, but gives itself an objective form. Its objectivity, however, is at the same time its return into itself, or, in so far as we describe the Notion as End, it is the realised, developed End, which is consequently objective.

Religion has just that which it itself is, the