Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/143

, is, viewed in one aspect, the act of the subject, and, viewed in another aspect, it is the act of the Divine Spirit: faith is itself the Divine Spirit which works in the individual; but this latter is not in this case a passive receptacle, but, on the contrary, the Holy Spirit is equally the Spirit of the subject, since it has faith; in the exercise of this faith it acts against its natural life, discards it, puts it away. The difference between the three ways of representing this truth which have been employed may also serve to throw light on the antinomy which is involved in the course thus pursued by the soul.

(a.) There is first the moral view which finds its antithesis in the absolutely external relation of self-consciousness, in a relation which, taken by itself, might appear either as first or as fourth, namely, in the oriental despotic relation which involves the annihilation of individual thought and will; this moral view places the absolute end, the essence of Spirit, in an end connected with volition, and with volition, in fact, simply as its volition, so that this subjective aspect is the main point. Law, the Universal, the Rational is my rationality in me, and so, too, the willing of the end and its realisation which make it my own, my subjective end, are also mine; and inasmuch as the idea of something higher or highest, of God and the Divine, enters into this view, this is itself merely a postulate of my reason, something posited by me. It ought, it is true, to be something which has not been posited, something which is a purely independent power; still, although it is thus something not posited, I do not forget that this very fact of its not being posited is something which has been posited by me. It comes to the same thing whether this be stated in the form of a postulate, or whether we say, my feeling of dependence or of the need of salvation is what comes first, for in both cases the peculiar objectivity of truth has been abolished.

(b.) In reference to the good resolve, and still more in