Chapter 70 Book IV The World as Will Revisited §70

We have now concluded the whole account of what I have called the negation of the will, which, it may be thought, does not correspond to the previous analysis of necessity. [There it says] motives are just as necessary as every other form of the principle of sufficient reason, so that motives, like all causes, are mere accidental causes.On these accidental causes, human character exhibits its [self] essence, and reveals this essence with the necessity of natural law, so we have simply denied freedom as "absolute freedom not subject to internal and external motives".It is not at all an attempt to undo this here, but I am asking people to recall it.In fact, only as a thing in itself can the will have real freedom, and freedom is independent of the principle of sufficient reason. [As for] the phenomenon of the will, its basic form is everywhere the principle of sufficient reason, something in the hand of necessity, which has no such freedom.But there is only one case in which this freedom can be seen directly in the appearance, and that is when it brings to an end what appears, because then the mere appearance is It is a link in the chain of causes, that is to say, it is an animate body, which still continues in time filled only with phenomena, so that the will which manifests itself by this phenomenon, by denying it What is revealed is in a position of contradiction with this phenomenon.For example, the sexual organs, as the concrete and visible manifestation of the sexual impulse, are still there and sound, but they are no longer there, and there is no desire for sexual satisfaction in the heart. This is the kind of "contradictory" situation just mentioned. [Similarly,] the whole body is but a concrete expression of the will to live, yet the motives that cater to this will no longer work; yes, the disintegration of the body, the termination of the individual, is now welcome and longed for, and thus for nature The biggest obstacle to the will is welcome too.This real contradiction arises from the free direct intrusion of the will itself into the necessity of the phenomenon of will, which knows no necessity whatsoever.The contradiction between the two propositions, then, is only a contradiction of this reality, when we maintain, on the one hand, the necessity of the will being determined by motives, as far as character allows, and on the other hand, the possibility of its complete abolition, whereby all motives are rendered useless. Contradiction repeats itself in philosophical reflective thinking.But here lies the key to unify these contradictions, that is, the situation in which character is freed from the dominance of motivation does not proceed directly from the will, but from a changed way of knowing.That is to say, if [people's] "knowledge" is still limited to the principle of individuation, and simply follow the cognition of the law of sufficient reason instead of other cognitions, then the enormous power of motivation is still irresistible. However, if the principle of individuation Seen through, the Ideas, the essence of the thing-in-itself, are immediately known again as the same will in all things, and from this knowledge arises the universal [available] tranquilizer of desire, then the particular motive is lost. It is effective, because the way of knowing that corresponds to the motivation has been overshadowed by another way of knowing that is completely different and has retreated.Therefore, although the character can never have partial changes, but must carry out the will [what you want] individually with the conservation of a natural law, and the character as a whole is the manifestation of this will.But it is this "whole," the character itself, that can be completely abolished by the above-mentioned change of knowledge.This annulment of character, as already cited, is what Asmus, astonished by, calls the Transcendent Transformation of Roman Orthodoxy.This is what is rightly called regeneration in the Christian Church, and the resulting knowledge is what is called "the work of grace." —Just as it is not a change of character that is in question here, but a complete annulment, so though those characters were so different before their abolition—[now,] the abolition of character has come into force—they are still in After being cancelled, they showed great similarities in behavior. Although they differed in their concepts and creeds, they spoke very different words.

In this sense, the old, often refuted and often upheld philosophy of freedom of the will is not without foundation, nor are the church creeds of divine grace and rebirth interesting. and meaningful.We now see only unexpectedly that [this philosophy and teaching] agree with each other, and henceforth we shall be able to understand in what sense the excellent Malebranch [was] able to say that "freedom is A mystery", [actually] he is also right.It turns out that what the Christian mystics called divine grace and regeneration appear to us as the only direct manifestations of the freedom of the will.

Freedom of the will arises only when the will acquires the knowledge of its own nature, and from this knowledge a tranquilizer, and thus is freed from the effects of motives. [As for] motives lie in the realm of another mode of knowing whose objects are nothing but phenomena. —The possibility of expressing one's own freedom is therefore the greatest virtue of man, which animals can never possess; for the power of rational thought, which is not limited by the impressions before it, can see the whole of life as a whole is the condition of this possibility .Animals are not free, without every possibility of freedom, nor even a real, considered choice, [because] real choice ends beforehand the conflict between motives, which here must be abstract appearance.So the hungry wolf will bite into the pheasant and hare with the same inevitability that a stone will fall to the ground, without being able to realize that it is both [object] being killed and [being] being killed [ main body].Necessity is the kingdom of nature; liberty is the kingdom of grace.

Since the self-cancellation of the will, as we have seen, proceeds from cognition, and all cognition and understanding are in their original meaning independent of human will, so the negation of desire, that is, the entry into freedom, cannot be done as intended. Obtained by force, but from the innermost relationship between the knowledge and desire in the human [heart], so it suddenly seems to come from outside.It is for this reason that the church calls it the work of heavenly blessing.However, the church believes that this still depends on Tianhui's acceptance, so the effect of the tranquilizer is still a free activity of the will.Because after this kind of natural blessing, the whole nature of a person has fundamentally changed, reversed, so that he no longer wants everything he has pursued so fiercely before, that is, it is as if a new person has really replaced the old person. ; and this consequence of divine grace the Church calls regeneration.It turns out that the so-called natural person in the church is that they do not have any ability to do good, and this is the will to life.If we want to get rid of our kind of life, we must deny this will to life.That is to say, there is something else hidden behind our existence, which can only be accessed by getting rid of this world.

Not according to the law of sufficient reason, not looking at the individual, but looking at the idea of ​​man. Looking at the unity of ideas, the Christian doctrine finds in Adam the symbol of nature, that is, the symbol of the affirmation of the will to life.The [original] sin passed on to us by Adam condemns us all to suffering and eternal death.Original sin is our unity with Adam in the idea expressed in time by the chain of endless life.On the other hand, the doctrine finds in the human God the symbol of grace, of negation of the will, of liberation.This human God is without sin, that is, without any will to life, nor can it be born of a determined will as we are, cannot have a body like us,-the body is completely only a concrete will, only The manifestation of the will——, but was born of a pure virgin, and there is only one phantom.This last statement is based on the priest [priest], that is, the elder of the church who insists on it.Arborus especially advocated this theory, and Del Dulian rose up against Arborus and his followers.But Augustine also commented on the third paragraph of the eighth act of "Letter to the Romans". He said: "God sent his Son in the form of sinful flesh", that is to say: "It is not a sinful flesh, For it was not born of carnality; yet the sinful form of the flesh was still in him, for it was after all a mortal flesh" (Question 66 of Part Eighty-Third Questions).In another of his works called "Unfinished" (Part I, Section 47) he also taught that original sin is both sin and punishment.Original sin is already carried in the newborn baby, but it is not revealed until it grows.However, the source of this crime is still traced to the will of the offender.The perpetrator is said to be Adam, and we all exist in Adam.Adam was wretched, and all of us are wretched in Adam. —In fact, original sin (the affirmation of the will) and emancipation (the denial of the will) are the great truths that constitute the core of Christianity, and everything else is mostly only the foreskin and shell or appendage [of this core].Accordingly, one should always understand Jesus Christ in the universal, as the symbol or personification of the negation of the will to life; , the so-called true history in the imagination understands him as an individual.Because understanding from stories or historical facts, no matter which one is not easy to completely satisfy people.This is all just a raft for the general masses to [transition to] the above-mentioned understanding, because the masses always want something elusive. ——As for the optimism that Christianity has forgotten its true meaning in modern times and has degenerated into vulgarity, it has nothing to do with us here [and there is no need to repeat it]. .

Furthermore, Christianity has an original, evangelical doctrine, which Augustine, with the consent of the Church heads, defended against the vulgar [theory] of Palachius, which [Martin] Luther wrote in his On Observing the Supreme Resolution specifically states that he takes eliminating errors and protecting the purity of this doctrine as the main goal of his efforts. —This is the doctrine that the will is not free, but is originally subject to the inclination to do evil, so that the deeds of the will are always somewhat sinful, always defective, and never equal to justice; It is not deeds that [people] do, but only faith that is blessed.This faith itself does not spring from preordained intention and free will, but comes to us as if from without, by the grace of Providence, without our intervention. —Not only the above-mentioned creeds, but this last doctrine of the Gospel also comes within the sphere of rejection or denial as absurd by the crude and vulgar views of modern times; Like Luther, still convinced of the homely reason of the Pelagians - which is the rationalism of today - just abolished those significant, essential doctrines that are characteristic of Christianity in the narrow sense, On the contrary, Pauley reformed those creeds left over from Judaism, which were only entangled with Christianity in the course of history, and made these creeds the main issue. —But we see in the above-mentioned teachings a truth which corresponds exactly to the results of our investigations, that is to say, we see that the true virtue and holiness in the mind has its original source beyond the afterthought of will (work) And in cognition (belief); this happens to be the same [truth] as we have elucidated from our subject thought.If it is merit that springs from motives and considered intentions that lead to blessedness, then, however much one may argue, virtue is always but a tactful, methodical, far-sighted egoism. —But the faith of the Protestant Church is such a belief: since all of us have fallen into sin through the first ancestor of man, and are partly guilty of it, we cannot escape death and disaster; Salvation can only be achieved by the grace and divine mediation of our immeasurable sins; and this does not require our (personal) merit at all, for all human willful (motive-determined) actions can result things, people's work.It can never, absolutely not in human nature, justify our deliverance, precisely because it is a deliberate, motivated act, a superficial effort.So in this belief there is first [saying] that our human condition is, in essence, unfortunate and we need to be freed from it, and second [saying] that we ourselves are essentially evil [this side ], are so closely intertwined with evil, that what we do by law and law, that is, by motive, can never satisfy what justice requires.Nor can it save us.Salvation can only be obtained through belief, that is, through a changed way of knowing, and this belief can only come from Tianhui, so it seems to come from outside.That is to say: Salvation is a foreign thing to ourselves and implies that our very personality must be denied and abolished in order to be saved. [Man's] deeds, that is, obeying the law as the law, because they are always actions following motives, they can never be a basis for salvation from [sin].Luther demanded (in Liberty Concerning Christianity) that, after faith has been acquired, good manners [should] be entirely spontaneous from it, a symptom and fruit of it, but by no means The basis for asking for credit is not the amount due or the basis for asking for remuneration, but it is completely voluntary, and there is no expectation of repayment. —So we also think that when the principle of individuation is seen more and more clearly, first only voluntary justice, then benevolence, then the complete abolition of egoism, and finally asceticism or the negation of the will.

The dogmas of Christianity, which have nothing to do with philosophy in themselves, I bring them here only in order to point out the kind of ethics which arose out of our whole investigation, and which are perfectly consistent and coherent with all its parts, Although the wording is new and unheard of; but in essence it is not like this, but is completely consistent with the tenets of true Christianity; Just as this ethics and the teachings and ethical norms set forth in an entirely different form by the sacred scriptures of India are also in full agreement.At the same time recalling the creeds of the Christian Church also helps to explain and clarify an apparent contradiction between the necessity of various manifestations of character before the present motive (the kingdom of nature) and the negation of the will itself to itself. freedom, the freedom to abolish character and all the "necessity of motivation" based on character (Tianhui's kingdom).