Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/148

 God, has an infinite value by the very character which is essentially his, and which is further developed in the Spiritual Community. In accordance with this its essential character, the subject is accordingly recognised as being the infinite certainty of Spirit itself, as the eternity of Spirit.

So far as this subject which is thus inherently infinite is concerned, the fact of its being determined or destined to infinitude is its freedom, and just means that it is a free person, and thus is also related to this world, to reality as subjectivity which is at home with itself, reconciled within itself, and is absolutely fixed and infinite subjectivity. This is the substantial element; this specific character which thus belongs to it must form the basis in so far as it brings itself into relation with this world.

The rationality, the freedom of the subject means that the subject is this something which has been freed and has attained to this condition of freedom through religion, that it is essentially free in virtue of its religious character. What we are concerned with is to see how this reconciliation takes place within the worldly sphere itself.

(1.) The first form of reconciliation is the immediate one, and just because of its being immediate it is not yet the true mode of reconciliation. This reconciliation shows itself as follows. At first the Spiritual Community, as representing the fact of reconciliation, the Spiritual, the fact of reconciliation with God in itself, stands aloof from the worldly sphere in an abstract way; the Spiritual renounces the worldly sphere by its own act, takes up a negative relation to the world, and consequently to itself; for the world in the subject shows itself as the impulse to Nature, to social life, to art and science.

The concrete element in the self, namely, the passions, is not able to justify itself in reference to the religious element by the fact of its being natural; while ascetic withdrawal from the world implies that the heart does