Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/372



the sphere of revealed religion what we have first to consider is the abstract Notion or conception of God. This free, pure revealed Notion is what forms the basis. The manifestation of the Notion, its Being for an Other, is its existence, and the region in which this existence shows itself is the finite spirit. This is the second point—finite Spirit and finite consciousness are concrete. The chief thing in this religion is to attain to a knowledge of the process whereby God manifests Himself in the finite spirit, and is identical with Himself in it. The third point is the identity of the Notion and existence. Identity here is, strictly speaking, an awkward expression, for what we have in God is essentially life.

In the forms hitherto treated of we advanced from what was lower to what was higher, and took as the starting-point one definite form of existence regarded in its different aspects. Being was first taken in its most comprehensive aspect as contingent Being, in the Cosmological Proof. The truth of contingent Being is Being necessary in-and-for-itself. Existence was then further conceived of as involving relations of ends, and this supplied us with the Teleological Proof. Here there is an advance, a beginning from existence as actually given and present. These proofs consequently form part of the finite determination of God. The Notion of God is that of something boundless, not boundless in the bad sense, but rather as representing what has at the same