Page:The World as Will and Idea - Schopenhauer, tr. Haldane and Kemp - Volume 3.djvu/442

426 Now, however objectionable this view may be to many, to whom a reward in heaven or a punishment in hell is a much more satisfactory explanation of the ethical significance of human action, just as the good Windischmann rejects that doctrine, while he expounds it, yet whoever is able to go to the bottom of the matter will find that in the end it agrees with that Christian doctrine especially urged by Luther, that it is not works but only the faith which enters through the work of grace, that saves us, and that therefore we can never be justified by our deeds, but can only obtain the forgiveness of our sins through the merits of the Mediator. It is indeed easy to see that without such assumptions Christianity would have to teach infinite punishment for all, and Brahmanism endless re-births for all, thus no salvation would be reached by either. The sinful works and their consequences must be annulled and annihilated, whether by extraneous pardon or by the entrance of a better knowledge; otherwise the world could hope for no salvation; afterwards, however, they become a matter of indifference. This is also the, the announcement of which the risen Christ exclusively imposes upon His Apostles as the sum of their mission (Luke xxiv. 47). The moral virtues are really not the ultimate end, but only a step towards it. This step is signified in the Christian myth by the eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, with which moral responsibility enters, together with original sin. The latter itself is in truth the assertion of the will to live: the denial of the will to live, in consequence of the appearance of a better knowledge, is, on the other hand, salvation. Between these two, then, lies the sphere of morality; it accompanies man as a light upon his path from the assertion to the denial of the will, or, mythically, from original sin to salvation through faith in the mediation of the incarnate God (Avatar); or, according to the teaching of the Vedas, through all re-births, which are the consequence of the works in each case, until right