Page 53 - Eclipse of God

26 Chapter 3

genuinely reciprocal meeting in the fullness of life between
one active existence and another. Similarly, it understands faith
as the entrance into this reciprocity, as binding oneself in re-
lationship with an undemonstrable and unprovable, yet even
so, in relationship, knowable Being, from whom all meaning
comes.

4

Another attempt at demarcation, the mature attempt of mod-
ern philosophy, distinguishes between the intention of each.
According to this conception, philosophy is directed toward
the investigation of essence, religion toward inquiry about
salvation. Now salvation is, to be sure, a genuine and proper
religious category, but the inquiry into salvation differs from
the investigation of essence only in the way in which it is con-
sidered. The principal tendency of religion is rather to show
the essential unity of the two. This is illustrated by the Old
Testament phrase, the “way of God,” also preserved in the lan-
guage of the Gospels. The “way of God” is by no means to be
understood as a sum of prescriptions for human conduct, but
rather primarily as the way of God in and through the world.
It is the true sphere of the knowledge of God since it means
God’s becoming visible in His action. But it is at the same time
the way of salvation of men since it is the prototype for the im-
itation of God. Similarly, the Chinese Tao, the “path” in which
the world moves, is the cosmic primal meaning. But because
man conforms this his life to it and practises “imitation of the
Tao,” it is at the same time the perfection of the soul.
Something further, however, is to be noted in that regard,
namely, that as high as religion may place the inquiry into sal-
vation it does not regard it as the highest and the essential
intention. What is really intended in the search for salvation