will and power, but requires first of all His own feeling of pity to be
roused, is an outrage on God and a darkening of the foundation of
religion." So Eucken objects to the attempt to formulate the mystery
into dogma. "All dogmatic formulation of such fundamental truths of
religion becomes inevitably a rationalism and a treatment of the problem
by means of human relationships, and according to human standards." "It
is sufficient for the religious conviction to experience the nearness of
God in human suffering, and His help in the raising of life out of
suffering into a new life beyond all the insufficiency of reason.
Indeed, the more intuitively this necessary truth is grasped, the less
does it combine into a dogmatic speculation and the purer and more
energetically is it able to work."

The conception of the _Trinity_ is again an attempt to express the union
of Divine and human, "the inauguration of the Divine Nature within human
life." The dogma, however, involves ideas of a particular generation,
and so threatens to become, and has indeed become, burdensome to a later
age which no longer holds these ideas. Further, the doctrine of the
Trinity has mixed up a fundamental truth of religion with abstruse
philosophical speculations, and this has provided a stumbling-block
rather than a help.

At the same time, Eucken lays the greatest stress on the _personality of
Jesus_. He considers the personality of Jesus to be of more importance
to Christianity than is the personality of its founder to any other
religion. "Such a personality as Jesus is not the mere bearer of
doctrines, or of a special frame of mind, but is a convincing fact, and
proof of the Divine life, a proof at which new life can be kindled over
anew." And again: "It is from this source that a great yearning has been
implanted within the human breast ... a longing for a new life of love