Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/342

 of the Essence, for its object; it gets an objective form in it, it actually is, just as, to begin with, it existed as Notion and only as the Notion, or just as at first it was our Notion. The absolute religion is the revealed religion, the religion which has itself for its content, its fulness.

It is the Christian religion which is the perfect religion, the religion which represents the Being of Spirit in a realised form, or for itself, the religion in which religion has itself become objective in relation to itself. In it the universal Spirit and the particular spirit, the infinite Spirit and the finite spirit, are inseparably connected; it is their absolute identity which constitutes this religion and is its substance or content. The universal Power is the substance which, since it is potentially quite as much subject as substance, now posits this potential being which belongs to it, and in consequence distinguishes itself from itself, communicates itself to knowledge, to the finite spirit; but in so doing, just because it is a moment in its own development, it remains with itself, and in the act of dividing itself up returns undivided to itself.

The object of theology as generally understood is to get to know God as the merely objective God, who is absolutely separated from the subjective consciousness, and is thus an outward object, just as the sun, the sky, &c., are objects of consciousness, and here the object is permanently characterised as an Other, as something external. In contrast to this the Notion of the absolute religion can be so presented as to suggest that what we have got to do with is not anything of this external sort, but religion itself, i.e., the unity of this idea which we call God with the conscious subject.

We may regard this as representing also the standpoint of the present day, inasmuch as people are now concerned with religion, religiousness, and piety, and thus do not occupy themselves with the object in religion. Men have various religions, and the main