An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy by W. Tudor (William Tudor) Jones
page 108 of 186 (58%)
page 108 of 186 (58%)
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become his own life and nature, as well as his self-subsistence over
against the order of the world. Here Love is raised up into an image of the Godhead--Love as a self-communication and as an essential elevation of the nature, and as an expression of inmost fellowship.[55] "There originates a mutual intercourse of the soul and God as between an I and a Thou." It has already been stated that Eucken insists that no close determination, in an intellectual form, should be given to this conception and experience of God. The idea of a personality of God is not an intellectual idea presented in any doctrinal form; it is an idea [p.160] born _within_ the _Life-process_ on its highest levels. On such levels it becomes obvious and indispensable. Man may be clearly conscious of the symbolism of the idea, and yet, at the same time, grasp in it an incontestable intrinsic truth which he knows to be far above all mere anthropomorphism. Eucken shows that it is not merely a human greatness that has been transferred to the Divine, but that the whole meaning here is a return to the source of a Divine Life and its mutual communication with man; and therefore the whole process is not an argument of man concerning the Divine, because the Divine has to be apprehended through the Divine within us. "All opposition to the idea of the Divine personality is ultimately explained by the fact that an energetic Life-process is wanting--a Life-process which entertains the question not so much from without as from within. Whenever such a Life-process is found, there is simultaneously found, often in overt contradiction to the formal doctrinal statement, an element of such a personal character of God."[56] But this _immanent_ aspect of the idea of God is accompanied by a _transcendent_ aspect. We have noticed already that the very nature of the _Ought_ included a transcendent and objective aspect.[57] The same fact becomes evident in [p.161] religious experience. The two poles--immanence and transcendence--are complementary. The former shows that something of the Divine nature has |
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