Adolf Wuttke · 58 of 107

Section LXXVIII. The Inner Revelation and the Conscience. (Concl'd) · SECTION CIV.

(b) The difference of spiritual appropriation in respect to how it takes place, appears, on the one hand, in this, that the appropriating person is active as a rational spirit in general,—as at one with all other rational spirits, and hence in such a manner as that the appropriation might be made in like manner by any other spirit,—general appropriation; and, on the other, in this, that the person is active as a single personality for himself,—appropriates the object to himself as an individual, makes it his exclusive possession,—particular appropriation.—(1) General (universal) appropriation is cognizing or learning. The object is indeed received by the individual spirit and into it, not, however, as its exclusive possession; on the contrary, in this receiving, the person divests himself at the same time of his isolated character,—has the appropriated not as a mere particular possession for himself, but as a possession of the rational spirit in general,—as universally-valid. The so appropriated spiritual possession is truth; now truth has the destination and tendency to become a common possession. Learning or cognizing is therefore moral: (a) in that it seeks to appropriate to itself the real spiritual contents of existence, that is, seeks after truth; (b) in that it makes of truth, not a personal isolated enjoyment, but strives to communicate it to others.

All learning is spiritual appropriating, but not all spiritual appropriating is general; we here consider spiritual appropriation under another phase than in the preceding section. Where the love of sensuous enjoyment prevails to a sinful extent, there the love of truth declines. The desire of knowledge is a characteristic of the moral spirit. Man, as called to dominion over nature, is also called to the spiritual appropriating of the same, and of all existence. The striving after truth is a seal of man’s God-likeness. Even as to God every thing is open, and all truth is known, so also is man only then truly a spirit when he strives after truth and seeks cognoscitively to appropriate to himself all things. This is a legitimate striving after possession,—after the possession of an inner world, a true copy of the real one; and it is among the most essential sources of the bliss of the perfected, that they know the truth and constantly appropriate to themselves cognoscitively more of it. The acquiring of the truth is a becoming free from the limits of a merely individual existence,—a divesting ourselves of the mere state of nature, an assuming of a more general character, an entering into the life and essence of the self-concordant All, an appropriating of the objective outgoings of spirit in general. “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free,” says Christ to such as shall continue in his word [John viii, 32]. Even as light breaks down the isolation of individual being, and throws up a bridge to that which is outwardly separated from it, thus causing all separate objects to exist in some sort for each other, so the knowledge of truth frees man from the bonds of a merely isolated being, opens for him the totality of existence as his life-sphere,—throws a unifying bond around deity and the totality of his creatures. As no life of the earth is without light, so also is there no life of the spirit without the knowledge of truth; and it is not this or that truth that makes man free, rational, and blessed, but the truth; and the Spirit of the Lord strives to lead his disciples into all truth. Whoever seeks to set limits to the moral thirst for truth, whoever declares any truth as indifferent or unworthy of effort, he resists the outgoings of the spirit of truth. Moreover, there is no particular truth which stands isolated and for itself, and does not first receive its validity from the truth which springs from the eternal Spirit of God; and he who thinks to satisfy the thirst of the soul for truth with certain separate morsels of truths from the sphere of the finite and transitory, knows not the truth but only falsehood.

All true knowing is of such a nature that every other rational spirit can and must know in precisely the same manner, and hence has a significance beyond the possession of the individual,—is general appropriation. Hence, as moral, it is also directly connected with a tendency to make that which is appropriated by the individual person a general possession of all rational beings. The moral man cannot wish to retain the truth for himself alone, but the truth which has become his possession impels him, by virtue of its general character, freely to communicate it to others [Luke ii, 17; 1 John i, 1 sqq.]. The duty of secret-keeping has a validity and significancy only on the supposition of predominant sinfulness,—is inconceivable save on the presupposition of sin; and the weakness of being unable to keep a secret springs, in some sort at least, from a correct feeling of that which ought to be. Goodhearted persons are usually poor secret-keepers; and for innocence there is no secret. The truth, like light, cannot hide itself; it is only with designing effort that either can be concealed. Truth, morally considered, belongs not to the mere understanding but to the heart; and with that of which the heart is full, the mouth overflows [Luke vi, 45]. He to whom the truth belongs, belongs also himself to the truth,—must also bear witness of the truth. “We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard,” said Peter and John in the presence of the chief council [Acts iv, 20], and they only express the inner moral necessity of such a witnessing of obtained truth. Whoever feels nothing of such an inner impulsion to witnessing either possesses not the truth, or the truth possesses not him. With the witnessing of the truth it is in some sense as it is with the first ante-moral love; the person may indeed resist the inner impulse, but if he does not do so then his immediate love of the truth will spontaneously induce him to witness for it without any need of a special effort of the will. “Ye also will bear witness (as well as the Holy Ghost), because ye have been with me from the beginning,” says the Lord to his disciples [John xv, 27]; this is not an injunction but a promise; they will not be able to do otherwise; the truth is stronger than the command. Hence he who is of the truth needs no longer the law; for the truth impels him to bear witness of itself through his life.