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PARTISAN REVIEW
living God
for
whom he can act ; but in this case God is no longer the
absolute, the universal ; he is this false infinity of which Hegel speaks,
which allows the finite to exist in his presence, separate from himself. He
is for man a neighbor.
This definite, individual God might satisfy the aspirations of human
transcendence, he would be a concrete being in fact, complete and self
contained, since he would exist; and at the same time indefinitely open,
since his existence would be an endless transcending; he could not be
surpassed, since he would be himself a continual surpassing, and man
would only be able to bear company to his transcending, without ever
transcending him. When I have accomplished the will of God a new will
will seize me and there will never be any "after."
Only the will of this God is no longer implicit in things, because it
is no longer the will of what is, but of what has to become. It
is
no
longer the will of all, and man: must discover its individual aspect. To
desire the will of God, this quite formal decision does not dictate a single
action to man. Does God will that the believer should massacre the
infidel and burn the heretic, or that he should tolerate their faith?
That he should make war, or conclude peace? Does he will capitalism,
or socialism? What is the temporal, human face of the eternal will?
Man aspires to transcend himself in God, but he never transcends himself
save in the midst of existence; it is on earth that man must achieve his
redemption. Which, among earthly enterprises, will lift him to heaven?
"Let us listen to the voice of
God"
says the believer, "he will himself
tell us what he expects from us." But such a hope is naive. Only through
an earthly voice can God manifest himself, because our ears hear no
other; but then how are we to recognize its divine nature? They asked a
woman suffering from hallucinations to identify the interlocutor who
spoke to her over mysterious waves. "He says he is .God" she answered
primly, "but I don't know him." Moses might have met the voice that
came from the burning bush with the same mistrust, or that which chid
him at the summit of Sinai. Whether the voice emanates from a cloud,
from a church, from the mouth of a confessor, it is always through an
actual presence in the world that the transcendental has to manifest; its
transcendancy will always escape us. Even iri. my heart, this command
which I hear is ambiguous, it is the source of Abraham's anguish which
Kierkegaard describes in
Fear and Trembling;
who is to know whether
it is a demoniac temptation or my pride? Is it indeed God who is speak–
ing? Who will distinguish between saint and heretic? It is, too, that
uncertainty described for us by Kafka in
The Castle;
man can receive
messages, even see the messenger; but is he not an impostor? And does
he himself know who sends him? Has he not forgotten half his message
on the way? This letter which he hands me, is it genuine and what is
its meaning? The Messiah says that he is the Messiah, the counterfeit
