Page 45 - Eclipse of God

18 Chapter 2

and self- deception. And who would dare, in this hour when
all speech must have a deadly seriousness, to juxtapose God
and the gods on the plane of the real encounter? Indeed, there
was once a time when a man invoking a god in true dedica-
tion to him, really meant God Himself, the divinity of God,
manifesting itself to him as a force or a form, at that moment
and in that place. But this time is no longer. And even Höl-
derlin, when, associating singular and plural, said, der Goetter
Gott, “the God of the gods,” meaning not merely the most high
of the gods, but Him whom the “gods” themselves worship as
their god.

6

Eclipse of the light of heaven, eclipse of God— such indeed
is the character of the historic hour through which the world
is passing. But it is not a process which can be adequately ac-
counted for by instancing the changes that have taken place
in man’s spirit. An eclipse of the sun is something that occurs
between the sun and our eyes, not in the sun itself. Nor does
philosophy consider us blind to God. Philosophy holds that
we lack to- day only the spiritual orientation which can make
possible a reappearance “of God and the gods,” a new proces-
sion of sublime images. But when, as in this instance, some-
thing is taking place between heaven and earth, one misses
everything when one insists on discovering within earthly
thought the power that unveils the mystery. He who refuses to
submit himself to the effective reality of the transcendence as
such— our vis- à- vis— contributes to the human responsibility
for the eclipse.
Assume that man has now fully brought about “the elimi-
nation of the self- subsisting suprasensual world,” and that the
principles and the ideals which have characterized man in any