Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/100

 the certainty of the Kingdom of God, a sense of satisfaction not in morality, nor even in anything ethical, nor in the conscience, but a sense of satisfaction beyond which there can be nothing higher, an absolute relation to God Himself.

All other modes of satisfaction imply that in some aspect or other they are of a subordinate sort, and thus the relation of Man to God does not get beyond being a relation to something above, and distant, to something, in fact, which is not actually present at all. The fundamental characteristic of this Kingdom of God is the presence of God, meaning that the members of this Kingdom are not only expected to have love to men, but to have the consciousness that God is Love.

This implies, in fact, that God is present, and that this as personal feeling must be the feeling of the individual Self. This aspect of the truth is represented by the Kingdom of God, or the presence of God, and it is to it that the certainty of the presence of God belongs. Since it is, on the one hand, a need, a feeling, the subject must, on the other hand, distinguish itself from it, must make a distinction between this presence of God and itself, but in such a way that this presence of God will be something certain, and this certainty can actually exist here only in the form of sensuous manifestation.

The eternal Idea itself means that the characteristic of subjectivity as real, as distinguished from what are simply thoughts, is permitted to appear in an immediate form. On the other hand, it is faith begotten by the sorrow of the world, and resting on the testimony of the Spirit, which explains the life of Christ. The teaching of Christ and His miracles are conceived of and understood in connection with this witness of the Spirit. The history of Christ is related, too, by those upon whom the Spirit has been already poured out. The miracles are conceived of and related under the influence of this Spirit, and the death of Christ is truly understood by this Spirit to mean