Rudolph Eucken by Abel J. Jones
page 58 of 101 (57%)
page 58 of 101 (57%)
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our life and action that this is the real state of affairs, and in this
case the reality proves the possibility. "This primal phenomenon," he says, "overflows all explanation. It has, as the fundamental condition of all spiritual life, a universal axiomatic character." Again he says, "The wonder of wonders is the human made divine, through God's superior power." "The problem surpasses the capacity of the human reason." For taking up this position, Eucken is sharply criticised by some writers. When we approach the problem of the nature of the Absolute in itself, the main difficulty that arises is whether God is a personal being. God, says Eucken, is "an Absolute Spiritual Life in all its grandeur, above all the limitations of man and the world of experience--a Spiritual Life that has attained to a complete subsistence in itself, and at the same time to an encompassing of all reality." The divine is for Eucken the ultimate spirituality that inspires the work of all spiritual personalities. When in our life of fight and action we need inspiration, we find "in the very depths of our own nature a reawakening, which is not a mere product of our activity, but a salvation straight from God." God, then, is the ultimate spirituality which inspires the struggling personality, and gives to it a sense of unity and confidence. Eucken does not admit that God is a personality in the sense that we are, and deprecates all anthropomorphic conceptions of God as a personal being. Indeed, to avoid the tendency to such conceptions he would prefer the term "Godhead" to "God." Further considerations of the nature of God can only lead to intellectual speculations. For an activistic philosophy, such as Eucken's philosophy is, it would seem sufficient for life and action to know that all attempts at the ideal in life, originate in, and are inspired by, the Absolute Spiritual Life, that is by God. We cannot discuss fully the relation of human and divine without, too, |
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