Page 79 - Eclipse of God

52 Chapter 4

But the man who says, “I love in God the father of man”
has essentially already renounced the God of the philosophers
in his innermost heart, even though he may not confess it to
himself. Cohen did not consciously choose between the God
of the philosophers and the God of Abraham, rather believing
to the last that he could succeed in identifying the two. Yet his
inmost heart, that force from which thought too derives its vi-
tality, had chosen and decided for him. The identification had
failed, and of necessity had to fail. For the idea of God, that
masterpiece of man’s construction, is only the image of images,
the most lofty of all the images by which man imagines the im-
ageless God. It is essentially repugnant to man to recognize this
fact, and remain satisfied. For when man learns to love God,
he senses an actuality which rises above the idea. Even if he
makes the philosopher’s great effort to sustain the object of
his love as an object of his philosophic thought, the love itself
bears witness to the existence of the Beloved.