Page 138 - Eclipse of God

God and the Spirit of Man 111

it but to that being itself. To be sure, it brings me only to the
existential meeting with it; it does not somehow put me in a
position to view it objectively in its being. As soon as an ob-
jective viewing is established, we are given only an aspect and
ever again only an aspect. But it is also only the relation I- Thou
in which we can meet God at all, because of Him, in absolute
contrast to all other existing beings, no objective aspect can be
attained. Even a vision yields no objective viewing, and he who
strains to hold fast an after- image after the cessation of the full
I- Thou relation has already lost the vision.
It is not the case, however, that the I in both relations,
I- Thou and I- It, is the same. Rather where and when the be-
ings around one are seen and treated as objects of observation,
reflection, use, perhaps also of solicitude or help, there and
then another I is spoken, another I manifested, another I exists
than where and when one stands with the whole of one’s being
over against another being and steps into an essential relation
with him. Everyone who knows both in himself— and that is
the life of man, that one comes to know both in himself and
ever again both— knows whereof I speak. Both together build
up human existence; it is only a question of which of the two is
at any particular time the architect and which is his assistant.
Rather, it is a question of whether the I- Thou relation remains
the architect, for it is self- evident that it cannot be employed
as assistant. If it does not command, then it is already disap-
pearing.
In our age the I- It relation, gigantically swollen, has usurped,
practically uncontested, the mastery and the rule. The I of this
relation, an I that possesses all, makes all, succeeds with all, this
I that is unable to say Thou, unable to meet a being essentially,
is the lord of the hour. This selfhood that has become omni-
potent, with all the It around it, can naturally acknowledge