Page 68 - Eclipse of God

The Love of God and the Idea of Deity 41

dissolving at the point where the Absolute is loved; because
at that point the Absolute is no longer the “Absolute” about
which one may philosophize, but God.

2

Those who wish clearly to grasp the nature of the endless and
hopeless struggle which lay in wait for the philosopher of the
critical period should read the very long notes in Kant’s unfin-
ished posthumous work, written over a period of seven years
during his old age. They reveal a scene of incomparable exis-
tential tragedy. Kant calls the principle constituting the tran-
sition to the completion of the transcendental philosophy by
the name of the “Principle of Transcendental Theology”; here
his concern is with the questions, “What is God?” and “Is there
a God?”
Kant explains: “The function of transcendental philosophy
is still unresolved: Is there a God?” As long as there was no
reply to that question, the task of his philosophy was still un-
fulfilled; at the end of his days, when his spiritual powers were
waning, it was “still unresolved.” He toiled on at this problem,
constantly increasing his efforts, from time to time weaving the
answer, yet time and again unraveling the woof. He reached an
extreme formulation: “To think Him and to believe in Him is
an identical act.” Furthermore, “the thought of Him is at one
and the same time the belief in Him and his personality.” But
this faith does not result in God’s becoming existent for the
philosophy of the philosopher. “God is not an entity outside
of me, but merely a thought within me.” Or, as Kant says on
another occasion, “merely a moral relation within me.”
Nevertheless, He possesses a certain kind of “reality.” “God is
only an idea of reason, but one possessing the greatest practical