Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (912 page)

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE CONTRADICTION IN THE TRINITY.

Religion
gives reality or objectivity not only to the human or divine nature in general as a personal being; it further gives reality to the fundamental determinations or fundamental distinctions of that nature as persons. The Trinity is therefore originally nothing else than the sum of the essential fundamental distinctions which man perceives in the human nature. According as the mode of conceiving this nature varies, so also the fundamental determinations on which the Trinity is founded vary. But these distinctions, perceived in one and the same human nature, are hypostasized as substances, as divine persons. And herein, namely, that these different determinations are in God hypostases, subjects, is supposed to lie the distinction between these determinations as they are in God, and as they exist in man, — in accordance with the law already enunciated, that only in the idea of personality does the human personality transfer and make objective its own qualities. But the personality exists only in the imagination; the fundamental determinations are therefore only for the imagination hypostases, persons; for reason, for thought, they are mere relations or determinations. The idea of the Trinity contains in itself the contradiction of polytheism and monotheism, of imagination and reason, of fiction and reality. Imagination gives the Trinity, reason the Unity of the persons. According to reason, the things distinguished are only distinctions; according to imagination, the distinctions are things distinguished, which therefore do away with the unity of the divine being. To the reason, the divine persons are phantoms, to the imagination realities. The idea of the Trinity demands that man should think the opposite of what he imagines, and imagine the opposite of what he thinks, — that he should think phantoms realities.

There are three Persons, but they are not essentially distinguished.
Tres personæ
, but
una essentia
. So far the conception is a natural one. We can conceive three and even more persons, identical in essence. Thus we men are distinguished from one another by personal differences, but in the main, in essence, in humanity, we are one. And this identification is made not only by the speculative understanding, but even by feeling. A given individual is a man as we are;
punctum satis
; in this feeling all distinctions vanish, — whether he be rich or poor, clever or stupid, culpable or innocent. The feeling of compassion, sympathy, is therefore a substantial, essential, speculative feeling. But the three or more human persons exist apart from each other, have a separate existence, even when they verify and confirm the unity of their nature by fervent love. They together constitute, through love, a single moral personality, but each has a physical existence for himself. Though they may be reciprocally absorbed in each other, may be unable to dispense with each other, they have yet always a formally independent existence. Independent existence, existence apart from others, is the essential characteristic of a person, of a substance. It is otherwise in God, and necessarily so; for while his personality is the same as that of man, it is held to be the same with a difference, on the ground simply of this postulate: there
must
be a difference. The three Persons in God have no existence out of each other; else there would meet us in the heaven of Christian dogmatics, not indeed many gods, as in Olympus, but at least three divine Persons in an individual form, three Gods. The gods of Olympus were real persons, for they existed apart from each other, they had the criterion of real personality in their individuality, though they were one in essence, in divinity; they had different personal attributes, but were each singly a god, alike in divinity, different as existing subjects or persons; they were genuine divine personalities. The three Persons of the Christian Godhead, on the contrary, are only imaginary, pretended persons, assuredly different from real persons, just because they are only phantasms, shadows of personalities, while, notwithstanding, they are assumed to be real persons. The essential characteristic of personal reality, the polytheistic element, is excluded, denied as non-divine. But by this negation their personality becomes a mere phantasm. Only in the truth of the plural lies the truth of the Persons. The three persons of the Christian Godhead are not
tres Dii
, three Gods; — at least they are not meant to be such; — but
unus Deus
, one God. The three Persons end, not, as might have been expected, in a plural, but in a singular; they are not only
Unum
— the gods of Olympus are that — but
Unus
. Unity has here the significance not of essence only, but also of existence; unity is the existential form of God. Three are one: the plural is a singular. God is a personal being consisting of three persons.

The three persons are thus only phantoms in the eyes of reason, for the conditions or modes under which alone their personality could be realized, are done away with by the command of monotheism. The unity gives the lie to the personality; the self-subsistence of the persons is annihilated in the self-subsistence of the unity, — they are mere relations. The Son is not without the Father, the Father not without the Son; the Holy Spirit, who indeed spoils the symmetry, expresses nothing but the relation of the two to each other. But the divine persons are distinguished from each other only by that which constitutes their relation to each other. The essential in the Father as a person is that he is a Father, of the Son that he is a Son. What the Father is over and above his fatherhood, does not belong to his personality; therein he is God, and as God identical with the Son as God. Therefore it is said: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost: — God is in all three alike. “There is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one;”
i.e
., they are distinct persons, but without distinction of substance. The personality, therefore, arises purely in the relation of the Fatherhood;
i.e
., the idea of the person is here only a relative idea, the idea of a relation. Man as a father is dependent, he is essentially the correlative of the son; he is not a father without the son; by fatherhood man reduces himself to a relative, dependent, impersonal being. It is before all things necessary not to allow oneself to be deceived by these relations as they exist in reality, in men. The human father is, over and above his paternity, an independent personal being; he has at least a formal existence for himself, an existence apart from his son; he is not merely a father, with the exclusion of all the other predicates of a real personal being. Fatherhood is a relation which the bad man can make quite an external one, not touching his personal being. But in God the Father, there is no distinction between God the Father and God the Son
as God;
the abstract fatherhood alone constitutes his personality, his distinction from the Son, whose personality likewise is founded only on the abstract sonship.

But at the same time these relations, as has been said, are maintained to be not mere relations, but real persons, beings, substances. Thus the truth of the plural, the truth of polytheism is again affirmed,
and the truth of monotheism is denied. To require the reality of the persons is to require the unreality of the unity, and conversely, to require the reality of the unity is to require the unreality of the persons. Thus in the holy mystery of the Trinity, — that is to say, so far as it is supposed to represent a truth distinct from human nature, — all resolves itself into delusions, phantasms, contradictions, and sophisms.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE CONTRADICTION IN THE SACRAMENTS.

As
the objective essence of religion, the idea of God, resolves itself into mere contradictions, so also, on grounds easily understood, does its subjective essence.

The subjective elements of religion are on the one hand Faith and Love; on the other hand, so far as it presents itself externally in a cultus, the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The sacrament of Faith is Baptism, the sacrament of Love is the Lord’s Supper. In strictness there are only two sacraments, as there are two subjective elements in religion, Faith and Love: for Hope is only faith in relation to the future; so that there is the same logical impropriety in making it a distinct mental act as in making the Holy Ghost a distinct being.

The identity of the sacraments with the specific essence of religion as hitherto developed is at once made evident, apart from other relations, by the fact that they have for their basis natural materials or things, to which, however, is attributed a significance and effect in contradiction with their nature. Thus the material of baptism is water, common, natural water, just as the material of religion in general is common, natural humanity. But as religion alienates our own nature from us, and represents it as not ours, so the water of baptism is regarded as quite other than common water; for it has not a physical but a hyperphysical power and significance; it is the
Lavacrum regenerationis
, it purifies man from the stains of original sin, expels the inborn devil, and reconciles with God. Thus it is natural water only in appearance; in
truth
it is supernatural. In other words: the baptismal water has supernatural effects (and that which operates supernaturally is itself supernatural) only in idea, only in the imagination.

And yet the material of Baptism is said to be natural water. Baptism has no validity and efficacy if it is not performed with water. Thus the natural quality of water has in itself value and significance, since the supernatural effect of baptism is associated in a supernatural manner with water only, and not with any other material. God, by means of his omnipotence, could have united the same effect to anything whatever. But he does not; he accommodates himself to natural qualities; he chooses an element corresponding, analogous to his operation. Thus the natural is not altogether set aside; on the contrary, there always remains a certain analogy with the natural, an appearance of naturalness. In like manner wine represents blood; bread, flesh.
Even miracle is guided by analogies; water is changed into wine or blood, one species into another, with the retention of the indeterminate generic idea of liquidity. So it is here. Water is the purest, clearest of liquids; in virtue of this its natural character it is the image of the spotless nature of the Divine Spirit. In short, water has a significance in itself, as water; it is on account of its natural quality that it is consecrated and selected as the vehicle of the Holy Spirit. So far there lies at the foundation of Baptism a beautiful, profound natural significance. But, at the very same time, this beautiful meaning is lost again because water has a transcendental effect, — an effect which it has only through the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit, and not through itself. The natural quality becomes indifferent: he who makes wine out of water, can at will unite the effects of baptismal water with any material whatsoever.

Baptism cannot be understood without the idea of miracle. Baptism is itself a miracle. The same power which works miracles, and by means of them, as a proof of the divinity of Christ, turns Jews and Pagans into Christians, — this same power has instituted baptism and operates in it. Christianity began with miracles, and it carries itself forward with miracles. If the miraculous power of baptism is denied, miracles in general must be denied. The miracle-working water of baptism springs from the same source as the water which at the wedding at Cana in Galilee was turned into wine.

The faith which is produced by miracle is not dependent on me, on my spontaneity, on freedom of judgment and conviction. A miracle which happens before my eyes I must believe, if I am not utterly obdurate. Miracle compels me to believe in the divinity of the miracle-worker.
It is true that in some cases it presupposes faith, namely, where it appears in the light of a reward; but with that exception it presupposes not so much actual faith as a believing disposition, willingness, submission, in opposition to an unbelieving, obdurate, and malignant disposition, like that of the Pharisees. The end of miracle is to prove that the miracle-worker is really that which he assumes to be. Faith based on miracle is the only thoroughly warranted, well-grounded, objective faith. The faith which is presupposed by miracle is only faith in a Messiah, a Christ in general; but the faith that this very man is Christ — and this is the main point — is first wrought by miracle as its consequence. This presupposition even of an indeterminate faith is, however, by no means necessary. Multitudes first became believers through miracles; thus miracle was the cause of their faith. If then miracles do not contradict Christianity, — and how should they contradict it? — neither does the miraculous efficacy of baptism contradict it. On the contrary, if baptism is to have a Christian significance it must of necessity have a supernaturalistic one. Paul was converted by a sudden miraculous appearance, when he was still full of hatred to the Christians. Christianity took him by violence. It is in vain to allege that with another than Paul this appearance would not have had the same consequences, and that therefore the effect of it must still be attributed to Paul. For if the same appearance had been vouchsafed to others, they would assuredly have become as thoroughly Christian as Paul. Is not divine grace omnipotent? The unbelief and non-convertibility of the Pharisees is no counter-argument; for from them grace was expressly withdrawn. The Messiah must necessarily, according to a divine decree, be betrayed, maltreated and crucified. For this purpose there must be individuals who should maltreat and crucify him: and hence it was a prior necessity that the divine grace should be withdrawn from those individuals. It was not indeed totally withdrawn from them, but this was only in order to aggravate their guilt, and by no means with the earnest will to convert them. How would it be possible to resist the will of God, supposing of course that it was his real will, not a mere
velleity
? Paul himself represents his conversion as a work of divine grace thoroughly unmerited on his part;
and quite correctly. Not to resist divine grace,
i.e
., to accept divine grace, to allow it to work upon one, is already something good, and consequently is an effect of the Holy Spirit. Nothing is more perverse than the attempt to reconcile miracle with freedom of inquiry and thought, or grace with freedom of will. In religion the nature of man is regarded as separate from man. The activity, the grace of God is the projected spontaneity of man, Free Will made objective.

It is the most flagrant inconsequence to adduce the experience that men are not sanctified, not converted by baptism, as an argument against its miraculous efficacy, as is done by rationalistic orthodox theologians;
for all kinds of miracles, the objective power of prayer, and in general all the supernatural truths of religion, also contradict experience. He who appeals to experience renounces faith. Where experience is a datum, there religious faith and feeling have already vanished. The unbeliever denies the objective efficacy of prayer only because it contradicts experience; the atheist goes yet farther, — he denies even the existence of God, because he does not find it in experience. Inward experience creates no difficulty to him; for what thou experiencest in thyself of another existence, proves only that there is something in thee which thou thyself art not, which works upon thee independently of thy personal will and consciousness, without thy knowing what this mysterious something is. But faith is stronger than experience. The facts which contradict faith do not disturb it; it is happy in itself; it has eyes only for itself, to all else it is blind.

It is true that religion, even on the stand-point of its mystical materialism, always requires the co-operation of subjectivity, and therefore requires it in the sacraments; but herein is exhibited its contradiction with itself. And this contradiction is particularly glaring in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper; for baptism is given to infants, — though even in them, as a condition of its efficacy, the co-operation of subjectivity is insisted on, but, singularly enough, is supplied in the faith of others, in the faith of the parents, or of their representatives, or of the church in general.

The object in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is the body of Christ, — a real body; but the necessary predicates of reality are wanting to it. Here we have again, in an example presented to the senses, what we have found in the nature of religion in general. The object or subject in the religious syntax is always a real human or natural subject or predicate; but the closer definition, the essential predicate of this predicate is denied. The subject is sensuous, but the predicate is not sensuous,
i.e
., is contradictory to the subject. I distinguish a real body from an imaginary one only by this, that the former produces corporeal effects, involuntary effects, upon me. If therefore the bread be the real body of God, the partaking of it must produce in me immediate, involuntarily sanctifying effects; I need to make no special preparation, to bring with me no holy disposition. If I eat an apple, the apple of itself gives rise to the taste of apple. At the utmost I need nothing more than a healthy stomach to perceive that the apple is an apple. The Catholics require a state of fasting as a condition of partaking the Lord’s Supper. This is enough. I take hold of the body with my lips, I crush it with my teeth, by my œsophagus it is carried into my stomach; I assimilate it corporeally, not spiritually.
Why are its effects not held to be corporeal? Why should not this body, which is a corporeal, but at the same time heavenly, supernatural substance, also bring forth in me corporeal and yet at the same time holy, supernatural effects? If it is my disposition, my faith, which alone makes the divine body a means of sanctification to me, which transubstantiates the dry bread into pneumatic animal substance, why do I still need an external object? It is I myself who give rise to the effect of the body on me, and therefore to the reality of the body; I am acted on by myself. Where is the objective truth and power? He who partakes the Lord’s Supper unworthily has nothing further than the physical enjoyment of bread and wine. He who brings nothing, takes nothing away. The specific difference of this bread from common natural bread rests therefore only on the difference between the state of mind at the table of the Lord, and the state of mind at any other table. “He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.”
But this mental state itself is dependent only on the significance which I give to this bread. If it has for me the significance not of bread, but of the body of Christ, then it has not the effect of common bread. In the significance attached to it lies its effect. I do not eat to satisfy hunger; hence I consume only a small quantity. Thus to go no further than the quantity taken, which in every other act of taking food plays an essential part, the significance of common bread is externally set aside.

But this supernatural significance exists only in the imagination; to the senses, the wine remains wine, the bread, bread. The Schoolmen therefore had recourse to the precious distinction of substance and accidents. All the accidents which constitute the nature of wine and bread are still there; only that which is made up by these accidents, the subject, the substance, is wanting, is changed into flesh and blood. But all the properties together, whose combination forms this unity, are the substance itself. What are wine and bread if I take from them the properties which make them what they are? Nothing. Flesh and blood have therefore no objective existence; otherwise they must be an object to the unbelieving senses. On the contrary: the only valid witnesses of an objective existence — taste, smell, touch, sight — testify unanimously to the reality of the wine and bread, and nothing else. The wine and bread are in reality natural, but in imagination divine substances.

Faith is the power of the imagination, which makes the real unreal, and the unreal real: in direct contradiction with the truth of the senses, with the truth of reason. Faith denies what objective reason affirms, and affirms what it denies.
The mystery of the Lord’s Supper is the mystery of faith:
— hence the partaking of it is the highest, the most rapturous, blissful act of the believing soul. The negation of objective truth which is not gratifying to feeling, the truth of reality, of the objective world and reason, — a negation which constitutes the essence of faith, — reaches its highest point in the Lord’s Supper; for faith here denies an immediately present, evident, indubitable object, maintaining that it is not what the reason and senses declare it to be, that it is only in appearance bread, but in reality flesh. The position of the Schoolmen, that according to the accidents it is bread, and according to the substance flesh, is merely the abstract, explanatory, intellectual expression of what faith accepts and declares, and has therefore no other meaning than this: to the senses or to common perception it is bread, but in truth, flesh. Where therefore the imaginative tendency of faith has assumed such power over the senses and reason as to deny the most evident sensible truths, it is no wonder if believers can raise themselves to such a degree of exaltation as actually to see blood instead of wine. Such examples Catholicism has to show. Little is wanting in order to perceive externally what faith and imagination hold to be real.