Page 51 - Eclipse of God

24 Chapter 3

nature of imagination or play. To the man who is no longer
able to meet yet is as able: as ever to think, the only possible
religious question is whether man can ascertain the existence
of the gods. This question, in the absence of any experience,
must be answered in the negative. With the complete separa-
tion, however, of philosophy from religion, which latter is now,
at most, of interest to philosophy only from the standpoint of
the history of the human spirit, the possibility and the task of
a radical distinction between the two spheres come into exist-
ence for the first time. This possibility and this task encompass,
certainly, not only the epochs of separation but also those early
periods in which each philosophy is still connected with a reli-
gion yet cogitative truth and reality of faith are already sharply
distinguished. Indeed, it is just when we examine those early
periods that many important distinguishing marks come most
clearly to light.

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All great religiousness shows us that reality of faith means
living in relationship to Being “believed in,” that is, uncon-
ditionally affirmed, absolute Being. All great philosophy, on
the other hand, shows us that cogitative truth means making
the absolute into an object from which all other objects must
be derived. Even if the believer has in mind an unlimited and
nameless absolute which cannot be conceived in a personal
form, if he really thinks of it as existing Being which stands
over against him, his belief has existential reality. Conversely,
even if he thinks of the absolute as limited within personal
form, if he reflects on it as on an object, he is philosophizing.
Even when the “Unoriginated” is not addressed with voice or
soul, religion is still founded on the duality of I and Thou. Even
when the philosophical act culminates in a vision of unity, phi-