Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/376

 words, God as Notion cannot be conceived of without Being. What is unsatisfactory in this view is that we have here a presupposition, and this means that the Notion measured by this standard of hypothetical necessity must be something subjective.

The finite and subjective, however, is not finite only as measured by the standard supplied by that presupposition. It is finite in itself, and is consequently the antithesis of itself. It is the unsolved contradiction. Being is supposed to be distinct from the Notion. We may imagine we can regard this latter as strictly subjective, as finite; but the essential characteristic of Being is in the Notion itself. This finitude of subjectivity is done away with in the Notion itself, and the unity of Being and the Notion is not a presupposition relatively to the latter, and by which it is measured. Being in its immediacy is contingent, and we have seen that its truth is necessity. The Notion necessarily involves Being, and this is simple reference to self, the absence of mediation. If we consider the Notion, we find it to be that in which all difference is absorbed, and in which all determinations are merely ideal. This ideality is mediation or difference, which has been absorbed and removed, perfect clearness, pure transparency, being at home with self. The freedom of the Notion is just absolute reference to self, identity which is also immediacy, unity without mediation. The Notion thus has Being in itself potentially. Its very meaning is that it does away with its one-sidedness. The idea that Being can be separated from the Notion is a mere fancy. When Kant says that it is impossible to extract reality from the Notion, he is thinking of the Notion as something finite. But the finite is just what annuls itself; and if we were to think of the Notion in this way as divorced from Being, we should just have that very reference to self which Being essentially is.

The Notion, however, has not Being in itself potentially