Page 136 - Eclipse of God

God and the Spirit of Man 109

religion. In it the “I” of this relation steps ever more into the
foreground as “subject” of “religious feeling,” as profiter from a
pragmatist decision to believe, and the like.
Much more important than all this, however, is an event
penetrating to the innermost depth of the religious life, an
event which may be described as the subjectivizing of the act
of faith itself. Its essence can be grasped most clearly through
the example of prayer.
We call prayer in the pregnant sense of the term that speech
of man to God which, whatever else is asked, ultimately asks
for the manifestation of the divine Presence, for this Presence’s
becoming dialogically perceivable. The single presupposition of
a genuine state of prayer is thus the readiness of the whole man
for this Presence, simple turned- towardness, unreserved spon-
taneity. This spontaneity, ascending from the roots, succeeds
time and again in overcoming all that disturbs and diverts. But
in this our stage of subjectivized reflection not only the con-
centration of the one who prays, but also his spontaneity is
assailed. The assailant is consciousness, the over- consciousness
of this man here that he is praying, that he is praying, that he
is praying. And the assailant appears to be invincible. The
subjective knowledge of the one turning- towards about his
turning- towards, this holding back of an I which does not
enter into the action with the rest of the person, an I to which
the action is an object— all this depossesses the moment, takes
away its spontaneity. The specifically modern man who has not
yet let go of God knows what that means: he who is not pres-
ent perceives no Presence.
One must understand this correctly: this is not a question
of a special case of the known sickness of modern man, who
must attend his own actions as spectator. It is the confession
of the Absolute into which he brings his unfaithfulness to the
Absolute, and it is the relation between the Absolute and him