The Essence of Christianity

The negation of providence is the negation of God. “Qui ergo providentiam tollit, totum Dei substantiam tollit et quid dicit nisi Deum non esse?.. Si non curat humana, sive nesciens, cessat omnis causa pietatis, cum sit spes nulla salutis.” – Joa. Trithemius (Tract. de Provid. Dei). “Nam qui nihil aspici a Deo affirmant prope est ut cui adspectum adimunt, etiam substantiam tollant.” – Salvianus (l. c. l. iv.). “Aristotle almost falls into the opinion that God – though he does not expressly name him a fool – is such a one that he knows nothing of our affairs, nothing of our designs, understands, sees, regards nothing but himself… But what is such a God or Lord to us? of what use is he to us?” – Luther (in Walch’s Philos. Lexikon, art. Vorsehung). Providence is therefore the most undeniable, striking proof that in religion, in the nature of God himself, man is occupied only with himself, that the mystery of theology is anthropology, that the substance, the content of the infinite being, is the “finite” being. “God sees men,” means: in God man sees only himself; “God cares for man,” means: a God who is not active is no real God. But there is no activity without an object: it is the object which first converts activity from a mere power into real activity. This object is man. If man did not exist, God would have no cause for activity. Thus man is the motive principle, the soul of God. A God who does not see and hear man, who has not man in himself, is blind and deaf, i.e., inert, empty, unsubstantial. Thus the fulness of the divine nature is the fulness of the human; thus the Godhead of God is humanity. I for myself, is the comfortless mystery of epicureanism, stoicism, pantheism; God for me, this is the consolatory mystery of religion, of Christianity. Is man for God’s sake, or God for man’s? It is true that in religion man exists for God’s sake, but only because God exists for man’s sake. I am for God because God is for me.

Providence is identical with miraculous power, supernaturalistic freedom from Nature, the dominion of arbitrariness over law. “Etsi (sc. Deus) sustentat naturam, tamen contra ordinem jussit aliquando Solem regredi, etc… Ut igitur invocatio vere fieri possit, cogitemus Deum sic adesse suo opificio, non, ut Stoici fingunt, alligatum secundis causis, sed sustentantem naturam et multa suo liberrimo consilio moderantem… Multa facit prima causa praeter secundas, quia est agens liberum.” – Melancthon (Loci de Causâ Peccati, pp. 82, 83, ed. cit.) “Scriptura vero tradit, Deum in actione providentiae esse agens liberum, qui ut plurimum quidem ordinem sui operis servet, illi tamen ordini non sit alligatus, sed 1) quicquid facit per causas secundas, illud possit etiam sine illis per se solum facere 2) quod ex causis secundis possit alium effectum producere, quam ipsarum dispositio et natura ferat 3) quod positis ausis secundis in actu, Deus tamen effectum possit impedire, mutare, mitigare, exasperare… Non igitur est connexio causarum Stoica in actionibus providentiae Dei.” – M. Chemnitius (l. c. pp. 316, 317). “Liberrime Deus imperat naturae– Naturam saluti hominum attemperat propter Ecclesiam… Omnino tribuendus est Deo hic honos, quod possit et velit opitulari nobis, etiam cum a tota natura destituimur, contra seriem omnium secundarum causarum… Et multa accidunt plurimis hominibus, in quibus mirandi eventus fateri eos cogunt, se a Deo sine causis secundis servatos esse.” – C. Peucerus (de Praecip. Divinat. gen. Servestae, 1591, p. 44). “Ille tamen qui omnium est conditor, nullis instrumentis indiget. Nam si id continuo fit, quicquid ipse vult, velle illius erit author atque instrumentum; nec magis ad haec regenda astris indiget, quam cum luto aperuit oculos coeci, sicut refert historia Evangelica. Lutum enim magis videbatur obturaturum oculos, quam aperturum. Sed ipse ostendere nobis voluit omnem naturam esse sibi instrumentum ad quidvis, quantumcunque alienum.” – J. L. Vives (l. c. 102). “How is this to be reconciled? The air gives food and nourishment, and here stones or rocks flow with water; it is a marvellous gift. And it is also strange and marvellous that corn grows out of the earth. Who has this art and this power? God has it, who can do such unnatural things, that we may thence imagine what sort of a God he is and what sort of power he has, that we may not be terrified at him nor despair, but firmly believe and trust him, that he can make the leather in the pocket into gold, and can make dust into corn on the earth, and the air a cellar for me full of wine. He is to be trusted, as having such great power, and we may know that we have a God who can perform these deeds of skill, and that around him it rains and snows with miraculous works.” – Luther (T. iii. p. 594).

The omnipotence of Providence is the omnipotence of human feeling releasing itself from all conditions and laws of Nature. This omnipotence is realised by prayer. Prayer is Almighty. “The prayer of faith shall save the sick… The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain; and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heavens gave rain and the earth brought forth her fruit.” – James v. 15–18. “If ye have faith and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig-tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea, it shall be done, and all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” – Matt. xxi. 21, 22. That under this mountain which the power of faith is to overcome are to be understood not only very difficult things —res difficillimae, as the exegetists say, who explain this passage as a proverbial, hyperbolical mode of speech among the Jews, but rather things which according to Nature and reason are impossible, is proved by the case of the instantaneously withered fig-tree, to which the passage in question refers. Here indubitably is declared the omnipotence of prayer, of faith, before which the power of Nature vanishes into nothing. “Mutanturquoque ad preces ea quae ex naturae causis erant sequutura, quemadmodum in Ezechia contigit, rege Juda, cui, quod naturales causarum progressus mortem minabantur, dictum est a propheta Dei: Morieris et non vives; sed is decursus naturae ad regis preces mutatus est et mutaturum se Deus praeviderat.” – J. L. Vives (l. c. p. 132). “Saepe fatorum saevitiam lenit Deus, placatus piorum votis.” – Melancthon (Epist. Sim. Grynaeo). “Cedit natura rerum precibus Moysi. Eliae, Elisaei, Jesaiae et omnium piorum, sicut Christus inquit Matt. 21: Omnia quae petetis, credentes accipietis.” – Id. (Loci de Creat. p. 64, ed. cit.). Celsus calls on the Christians to aid the Emperor and not to decline military service. Whereupon Origen answers. “Precibus nostris profligantes omnes bellorum excitatores daemonas et perturbatores pacis ac foederum plus conferimus regibus, quam qui arma gestant pro Republica.” – Origenes (adv. Celsum. S. Glenio int. l. viii.). Human need is the necessity of the Divine Will. In prayer man is the active, the determining, God the passive, the determined. God does the will of man. “God does the will of those that fear him, and he gives his will up to ours… For the text says clearly enough, that Lot was not to stay in all the plain, but to escape to the mountain. But this his wish God changes, because Lot fears him and prays to him.” “And we have other testimonies in the Scriptures which prove that God allows himself to be turned and subjects his will to our wish.” “Thus it was according to the regular order of God’s power that the sun should maintain its revolution and wonted course; but when Joshua in his need called on the Lord and commanded the sun that it should stand still, it stood still at Joshua’s word. How great a miracle this was, ask the astronomers.” – Luther (T. ii. p. 226). “Lord, I am here and there in great need and danger of body and soul, and therefore want thy help and comfort. Item: I must have this and that; therefore I entreat thee that thou give it me.” “He who so prays and perseveres unabashed does right, and our Lord God is well pleased with him, for he is not so squeamish as we men.” – Id. (T. xvi. p. 150).

§ 12

Faith is the freedom and blessedness which feeling finds in itself. Feeling objective to itself and active in this freedom, the reaction of feeling against Nature, is the arbitrariness of the imagination. The objects of faith therefore necessarily contradict Nature, necessarily contradict Reason, as that which represents the nature of things. “Quid magis contra fidem, quam credere nolle, quidquid non possit ratione attingere?.. Nam illam quae in Deum est fides, beatus papa Gregorius negat plane habere meritum, si ei humana ratio praebeat experimentum.” – Bernardus (contr. Abelard. Ep. ad. Dom. Papam Innocentium). “Partus virginis nec ratione colligitur, nec exemplo monstratur. Quodsi ratione colligitur non erit mirabile.” – Conc. Toletan. XI. Art. IV. (Summa. Carranza.) “Quid autem incredibile, si contra usum originis naturalis peperit Maria et virgo permanet: quando contra usum naturae mare vidit et fugit atque in fontem suum Jordanis fluenta remearunt? Non ergo excedit fidem, quod virgo peperit, quando legimus, quod petra vomuit aquas et in montis speciem maris unda solidata est. Non ergo excedit fidem, quod homo exivit de virgine, quando petra profluit, scaturivit ferrum supra aquas, ambulavit homo supra aquas.” – Ambrosius (Epist. L. x. Ep. 81. edit. Basil. Amerbach. 1492 et 1516). “Mira sunt fratres, quae de isto sacramento dicuntur… Haec sunt quae fidem necessario exigunt, rationem omnino non admittunt.” – Bernardus (de Coena Dom.). “Quid ergo hic quaeris naturae ordinem in Christi corpore, cum praeter naturam sit ipse partus ex virgine.” – Petrus Lomb. (l. iv. dist. 10, c. 2). “Laus fidei est credere quod est supra rationem, ubi homo abnegat intellectum et omnes sensus.” (Addit. Henrici de Vurimaria. ibid. dist. 12, c. 5.) “All the articles of our faith appear foolish and ridiculous to reason.” … “We Christians seem fools to the world for believing that Mary was the true mother of this child, and was nevertheless a pure virgin. For this is not only against all reason, but also against the creation of God, who said to Adam and Eve, ‘Be fruitful and multiply.’” “We ought not to inquire whether a thing be possible, but we should say, God has said it, therefore it will happen, even if it be impossible. For although I cannot see or understand it, yet the Lord can make the impossible possible, and out of nothing can make all things.” – Luther (T. xvi. pp. 148, 149, 570). “What is more miraculous than that God and man is one Person? that he is the Son of God and the Son of Mary, and yet only one Son? Who will comprehend this mystery in all eternity, that God is man, that a creature is the Creator, and the Creator a creature?” – Id. (T. vii. p. 128). The essential object of faith, therefore, is miracle; but not common, visible miracle, which is an object even to the bold eye of curiosity and unbelief in general; not the appearance, but the essence of miracle; not the fact, but the miraculous power, the Being who works miracles, who attests and reveals himself in miracle. And this miraculous power is to faith always present; even Protestantism believes in the uninterrupted perpetuation of miraculous power; it only denies the necessity that it should still manifest itself in special visible signs, for the furtherance of dogmatic ends. “Some have said that signs were the revelation of the Spirit in the commencement of Christianity and have now ceased. That is not correct; for there is even now such a power, and though it is not used, that is of no importance. For we have still the power to perform such signs.” “Now, however, that Christianity is spread abroad and made known to all the world, there is no need to work miracles, as in the times of the apostles. But if there were need for it, if the Gospel were oppressed and persecuted, we must truly apply ourselves to this, and must also work miracles.” – Luther (Th. xiii. pp. 642, 648). Miracle is so essential, so natural to faith, that to it even natural phenomena are miracles, and not in the physical sense, but in the theological, supranaturalistic sense. “God, in the beginning, said: Let the earth bring forth grass and herbs, &c. That same word which the Creator spoke brings the cherry out of the dry bough and the cherry-tree out of the little kernel. It is the omnipotence of God which makes young fowls and geese come out of the eggs. Thus God preaches to us daily of the resurrection of the dead, and has given us as many examples and experiences of this article as there are creatures.” – Luther (Th. x. p. 432. See also Th. iii. pp. 586, 592, and Augustine, e. g., Enarr. in Ps. 90, Sermo ii. c. 6). If, therefore, faith desires and needs no special miracle, this is only because to it everything is fundamentally miracle, everything an effect of divine, miraculous power. Religious faith has no sense, no perception for Nature. Nature, as it exists for us, has no existence for faith. To it the will of God is alone the ground, the bond, the necessity of things. “God … could indeed have made us men, as he did Adam and Eve, by himself, without father and mother, as he could reign without princes, as he could give light without sun and stars, and bread without fields and ploughs and labour. But it is not his will to do thus.” – Luther (Th. xvi. p. 614). It is true “God employs certain means, and so conducts his miraculous works as to use the service of Nature and instruments.” Therefore we ought – truly on very natural grounds – “not to despise the means and instruments of Nature.” “Thus it is allowable to use medicine, nay, it ought to be used, for it is a means created in order to preserve health.” – Luther (Th. i. p. 508). But – and that alone is decisive – it is not necessary that I should use natural means in order to be cured; I can be cured immediately by God. What God ordinarily does by means of Nature, he can also do without, nay, in opposition to Nature, and actually does it thus, in extraordinary cases, when he will. “God,” says Luther in the same place, “could indeed easily have preserved Noah and the animals through a whole year without food, as he preserved Moses, Elijah, and Christ forty days without any food.” Whether he does it often or seldom is indifferent; it is enough if he only does it once; what happens once can happen innumerable times. A single miracle has universal significance – the significance of an example. “This deed, the passage through the Red Sea, happened as a figure and example, to show us that it will be so with us.” – Luther (Th. iii. p. 596). “These miracles are written for us, who are chosen.” – Ib. (Th. ix. p. 142). The natural means which God employs when he does no miracle, have no more significance than those which he employs when he performs miracles. If the animals, God so willing it, can live as well without food as with it, food is in itself as unnecessary for the preservation of life, as indifferent, as non-essential, as arbitrary, as the clay with which Christ anointed the eyes of the blind man to whom he restored sight, as the staff with which Moses divided the sea (“God could have done it just as well without the staff”). “Faith is stronger than heaven and earth, or all creatures.” “Faith turns water into stones; out of fire it can bring water, and out of water fire.” – Luther (Th. iii. pp. 564, 565). That is to say, for faith there exists no limit, no law, no necessity, no Nature; there exists only the will of God, against which all things and powers are nothing. If therefore the believer, when in sickness and distress, has recourse notwithstanding to natural means, he only follows the voice of his natural reason. The one means of cure which is congruous with faith, which does not contradict faith, which is not thrust upon it, whether consciously and voluntarily or not, from without, – the one remedy for all evil and misery is prayer; for “prayer is almighty.” – Luther (Th. iv. p. 27). Why then use a natural means also? For even in case of its application, the effect which follows is by no means its own, but the effect of the supernatural will of God, or rather the effect of faith, of prayer; for prayer, faith determines the will of God. “Thy faith hath saved thee.” Thus the natural means which faith recognises in practice it nullifies in theory, since it makes the effect of such means an effect of God, —i. e., an effect which could have taken place just as well without this means. The natural effect is therefore nothing else than a circumstantial, covert, concealed miracle; a miracle however which has not the appearance of a miracle, but can only be perceived as such by the eyes of faith. Only in expression, not in fact, is there any difference between an immediate and mediate, a miraculous and natural operation of God. When faith makes use of a natural means, it speaks otherwise than it thinks; when it supposes a miracle it speaks as it thinks, but in both cases it thinks the same. In the mediate agency of God faith is in disunion with itself, for the senses here deny what faith affirms; in miracle, on the contrary, it is at one with itself, for there the appearance coincides with the reality, the senses with faith, the expression with the fact. Miracle is the terminus technicus of faith.

§ 13

The Resurrection of Christ is bodily, i.e., personal immortality, presented as a sensible indubitable fact.

“Resurrexit Christus, absoluta res est. – Ostendit se ipsum discipulis et fidelibus suis, contrectata est soliditas corporis… Confirmata fides est non solum in cordibus, sed etiam in oculis hominum.” – Augustinus (Sermones ad Pop. S. 242, c. I. S. 361, c. S. See also on this subject Melancthon, Loci: de Resurr. Mort.). “The philosophers … held that by death the soul was released from the body, and that after it was thus set free from the body, as from a prison, it came into the assembly of the gods, and was relieved from all corporeal burthens. Of such an immortality the philosophers allowed men to dream, though they did not hold it to be certain, nor could defend it. But the Holy Scriptures teach of the resurrection and eternal life in another manner, and place the hope of it so certainly before our eyes, that we cannot doubt it.” – Luther (Th. i. p. 549).

§ 14

Christianity made man an extramundane, supernatural being. “We have here no abiding city, but we seek one to come.” – Heb. xiii. 14. “Whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord.” – 2 Cor. v. 6. “If in this body, which is properly our own, we are strangers, and our life in this body is nothing else than a pilgrimage; how much more then are the possessions which we have for the sake of the body, such as fields, houses, gold, &c., nothing else than idle, strange things, to be used as if we were on a pilgrimage?” “Therefore we must in this life live like strangers until we reach the true fatherland, and receive a better life which is eternal.” – Luther (Th. ii. pp. 240, 370 a). “Our conversation (πολίτευμα, civitas aut jus civitatis) is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body that it may be like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.” – Phil. iii. 20, 21. “Neque mundus generat hominem, neque mundi homo pars est.” – Lactantius (Div. Inst. l. ii. c. 6). “Coelum de mundo: homo supra mundum.” – Ambrosius (Epist. l. vi. Ep. 38, ed. cit.). “Agnosce o homo dignitatem tuam, agnosce gloriam conditionis humanae. Est enim tibi cum mundo corpus … sed est tibi etiam sublimius aliquid, nec omnino comparandus es caeteris creaturis.” – Bernardus (Opp. Basil. 1552, p. 79). “At Christianus … ita supra totum mundum ascendit, nec consistit in coeli convexis, sed transcensis mente locis supercoelestibus ductu divini spiritus velut jam extra mundum raptus offert Deo preces.” – Origenes (contra Celspum. ed. Hoeschelio, p. 370). “Totus quidem iste mundus ad unius animae pretium aestimari non potest. Non enim pro toto mundo Deus animam suam dare voluit, quam pro anima humana dedit. Sublimius est ergo animae pretium, quae non nisi sanguine Christi redimi potest.” – Medit. devotiss. c. ii. (Among the spurious writings of St. Bernard.) “Sapiens anima … Deum tantummodo sapiens hominem in homine exuit, Deoque plene et in omnibus affecta, omnem infra Deum creaturam non aliter quam Deus attendit. Relicto ergo corpore et corporeis omnibus curis et impedimentis omnium quae sunt praeter Deum obliviscitur, nihilque praeter Deum attendens quasi se solam, solumque Deum existimans,” etc. – De Nat. et Dign. Amoris Divini, cc. 14, 15. (Ib.) “Quid agis frater in saeculo, qui major es mundo?” – Hieronymus (ad Heliod. de Laude Vitae solit.).

§ 15

The celibate and monachism – of course only in their original, religious significance and form – are sensible manifestations, necessary consequences, of the supranaturalistic, extramundane character of Christianity. It is true that they also contradict Christianity; the reason of this is shown by implication in the present work; but only because Christianity is itself a contradiction. They contradict exoteric, practical, but not esoteric, theoretical Christianity; they contradict Christian love so far as this love relates to man, but not Christian faith, not Christian love so far as it loves man only for God’s sake. There is certainly nothing concerning celibacy and monachism in the Bible; and that is very natural. In the beginning of Christianity the great matter was the recognition of Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah – the conversion of the heathens and Jews. And this conversion was the more pressing, the nearer the Christians supposed the day of judgment and the destruction of the world; —periculum in mora. There was not time or opportunity for a life of quietude, for the contemplation of monachism. Hence there necessarily reigned at that time a more practical and even liberal sentiment than at a later period, when Christianity had attained to worldly dominion, and thus the enthusiasm of proselytism was extinguished. “Apostoli (says the Church, quite correctly: Carranza, l. c. p. 256) cum fides inciperet, ad fidelium imbecillitatem se magis demittebant, cum autem evangelii praedicatio sit magis ampliata, oportet et Pontifices ad perfectam continentiam vitam suam dirigere.” When once Christianity realised itself in a worldly form, it must also necessarily develop the supranaturalistic, supramundane tendency of Christianity into a literal separation from the world. And this disposition to separation from life, from the body, from the world, – this first hyper-cosmic then anti-cosmic tendency, is a genuinely biblical disposition and spirit. In addition to the passages already cited, and others universally known, the following may stand as examples: “He that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.” “I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.” – Rom. vii. 18. (“Veteres enim omnis vitiositatis in agendo origenes ad corpus referebant.” – J. G. Rosenmüller Scholia.) “Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind; for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin.” – 1 Pet. iv. 1. “I have a desire to depart, and to be with Christ.” – Phil. i. 23. “We are confident and willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord.” – 2 Cor. v. 8. Thus, according to these passages, the partition-wall between God and man is the body (at least the fleshly, actual body); thus the body as a hindrance to union with God is something worthless, to be denied. That by the world, which is denied in Christianity, is by no means to be understood a life of mere sensuality, but the real objective world, is to be inferred in a popular manner from the belief that at the advent of the Lord, i. e., the consummation of the Christian religion, heaven and earth will pass away.