Lev Shestov - Potestas Clavium - Preface: a thousand and one nights 3

In other words, we must again turn to the ontological argument for the existence of God, an argument which Descartes developed so brilliantly in modern times and which Hegel believed possible to re-establish despite its "refutation" by Kant.

We must observe that already Descartes, as the preface to his Meditations shows, not only assumed that it was possible to prove the existence of God by means of the lumen naturale but also that he was convinced, like Hegel, that only what is confirmed by the natural reason is true and that everything else is false. How strange it is to read these lines from Descartes, who had such complete confidence in reason:

"Everything that the atheists generally bring forward in objection to the existence of God rests either on the fact that human emotions are ascribed to God or that our minds pretend to such power and wisdom that they undertake to understand and determine what God can and must do; thus, as soon as we are aware that our minds are to be considered finite but God incomprehensible and infinite, all these difficulties disappear of themselves."

I think one can say without fear of error that every time a rationalist appeals to the incomprehensibility of God he is concealing behind this his conviction that the questions that have been put to him demand no answer or, rather, are not worthy of an answer. As far as Descartes is concerned, this supposition is all the more admissible inasmuch as he still remembered very well the trial of Galileo. Descartes could not answer with his real thought the customary arguments of the "atheists" who say that God allows evil to rule on earth, that he is indifferent to the sufferings of the righteous and the triumph of the wicked, etc. Even Spinoza could not speak with complete freedom, though he was more audacious and resolute than Descartes. Yet Spinoza was not afraid to write:

"Though daily experience shows us by countless examples that the useful and the harmful fall without distinction on the pious and the impious, men can not for all this renounce the deeply rooted prejudice (that God is good and just). They have found it easier to explain such phenomena by reference to similar phenomena of whose meaning they are ignorant, and thus to remain in their actual and native state of ignorance, than to overthrow all this scaffolding and build another. Therefore they proclaim as indubitable truth that the decrees of God far surpass the understanding of men. This alone would have been able to bring it about that the human species should forever remain ignorant of the truth if mathematics, which is concerned not with ends but solely with the essences and properties of figures, had not brought before men another norm of truth."

It is clear that Spinoza says what Descartes thought. Only he who wishes forever to hide the truth from men can say that the decrees of the gods are incomprehensible to human reason. But did not Descartes try to attain the truth? And did not Spinoza follow in Descartes' footsteps? Can it be assumed that Descartes did not see quite as clearly as Spinoza that recourse to the incommensurability of human and divine reason is only a dangerous and harmful method of hiding the truth? Descartes' method already contained in germ what Spinoza said. Or, to speak in more general fashion, the scientific method admits nothing in common between God and man and simply eliminates God from the field of human vision. For God's reason and will differ absolutely from our reason and will, even though we use the same terms to designate them. So we use the same word to designate the dog, the domestic quadruped that barks, and the constellation in which Sirius shines. And the most honest and truthful testimony on this matter is once again furnished us by Spinoza:

Nam intellectus et voluntas, qui Dei essentiam constituerent, a nostro intellectu et voluntate toto coelo differre deberent, nec in ulla re, praeterquam in nomine convenire possent; non aliter scilicet, quam inter se conveniunt canis, signum coeleste, et canis, animal latrans (Eth. I, XVII, Scholium).
[Now the intellect and will which constitute the essence of God must differ from our intellect and will as does heaven from earth. Nor can they be the same in any way except that a common term denotes them both. Clearly they agree in no other way, just as the single term canis signifies the heavenly constellation of the Dog and the animal that barks.]

With the magnificent power of expression that his simple language possesses, Spinoza here reveals the final, hidden thought of every scientific method and knowledge. Descartes did not dare to proclaim it openly for he feared, as I have said, Galileo's fate. Hegel also did not say everything for certain reasons which, even if they are not commonplace, are in any case alien to science. Among modern philosophers only Schopenhauer and Feuerbach declared openly and loudly that God is not. Indeed, if God's will and reason resemble man's will and reason only as the constellation of the Dog resembles the dog that barks, anything whatsoever can be called God. Then the matter of the materialists may also be God. In other words, between God and man there is nothing in common.

     Spinoza, it is true, assumes that even though God is completely indifferent to man, man must nevertheless love God. Furthermore, Spinoza also assumes that the God whom he presents is worthy of love and is an absolutely perfect being. However, this is no longer an "objective" judgment but a value judgment, that is, the particular opinion, to be sure, of an extremely remarkable man but still an opinion that it is impossible to demonstrate either more geometrico or by any other means. Here ends, in short, the domain of "strict knowledge," so that we can confidently pass over the ethical and religious ideals of Spinoza. What alone is important for us is that, according to Spinoza, God does not exist and that not only is this no great misfortune but, on the contrary, a great good. And what is still more important is that such was the thought of all the philosophers without exception from the most ancient times to our own day.

     Basically the doctrine of the Cynics and the Stoics had for its chief object to show men that they could obtain everything they need solely through the power of their own creative will. Virtue, as the supreme goal which gives life its value and meaning, is precisely the substitute that must, according to the doctrine of these schools, replace God. And, if the philosophers are to be believed, it is a perfectly acceptable substitute. In this respect the Cynics and especially the Stoics have played a very important role in the history of philosophy. It is generally assumed that "theoretical" problems interested them only very slightly and that scientific philosophy passed them by. This is a great mistake. Through his moral preaching Socrates already determined the fate of the philosophic endeavors that followed him. The Cynics and especially the Stoics expressed with the boldest relief and clarity, though "narrowly," as the manuals say, the fundamental principles on which philosophy had to build itself up. Philosophy is possible only on the condition that man be prepared to renounce and destroy himself. In other words, the "moral" perfection of man is the beginning of all philosophy. He who cannot rise above his particular, personal existence, his "accidental" individuality, is not a philosopher. Hegel proclaims this openly in his Logic. The virtue of the theoretical thinker consists in renouncing himself, in ceasing to be a man who has needs and becoming a being who is only a knowing subject, Bewusstsein überhaupt, denkender Geist [consciousness in general, thinking spirit]. This condition was perhaps not formulated so nakedly and not with the words that I use here. But words are of no importance; the essential thing is that all the philosophical systems without exception are permeated with the Stoic spirit.

     It will perhaps not seem paradoxical now if I say that Stoicism is the brother of skepticism. Stoicism is the fruit of despair. In the place of the living, real being was set the idea, since men had lost all hope of preserving the rights of the living being. All that is born - and all that lives, as experience shows, is born - must perish. Hegel frankly admits that "natural death is only an absolute right that nature exercises over man." And this philosopher is so entirely convinced of death's rights that one does not feel even the least tension in the tone of his declaration. Completely in the spirit of Spinoza, he speaks of life and death, of nature and man, as if it were a question of perpendiculars and triangles. And, just as he feels neither joy nor sorrow at the thought that the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles, he hands man over to the absolute power of nature with complete indifference. Man, for him, is only a moment in the history of the Spirit, but, in the Spirit, man is already overcome. I repeat and emphasize: all the philosophers have thought and still think thus. They sacrifice the living man and the living God with the same indifference, persuaded that once science exists there is no need of anything else whatsoever - obviously without even suspecting that science is still not in possession of the truth.

     The only exception to this general rule in modern times is Nietzsche. When he became convinced that God did not exist, he was seized with so mad a despair that, despite his extraordinary literary talents, he could never succeed in adequately expressing what men had done in killing God. But Nietzsche was not heard. Everyone believes, as in the past, that the existence of God - whether he is or is not - is of no importance whatsoever. It suffices that one continue to name Him such, but one could also do without the name and replace it with words such as natura, substantia, etc.

     It is perhaps not important in the end that men either admit or deny God. This neither adds nor takes away anything from His existence. Even if one admitted that among the hundreds of millions of men who have confessed God in words only a few have truly felt His presence, there would be nothing terrible in this: the consensus omnium plays no role here. That God exists is the chief thing, even if no one had ever heard anything of Him. And, conversely, if all men on earth believed in God but He did not exist, it would be necessary to curse this faith, no matter how sweet and consoling it may be.