On the Foundation of Our Belief in a Divine Government of the Universe

Johann Gottlieb Fichte

The author of the present essay has for some time recognized it as his duty to set before a larger public the results of his philosophical work on the above subject. Hitherto this has been made available only to the auditors of his academic lectures. He had intended to present his ideas on this subject with the definiteness and precision that is appropriate to the sanctity which it possesses for so many honorable persons. Unfortunately the authors time was occupied with other tasks and the execution of his plan had to be repeatedly postponed.

As coeditor of the present journal, the author is obliged to put before the public the following essay of an excellent philosopher and this has facilitated the execution of the plan just mentioned. The [ForbergsI essay* coincides on many points with the present authors own convictions and hence he can on several matters simply refer the reader to it as an exposition of his own position as well. In other respects, however, the [ForbergsI essay, although not exactly opposed to the present authors views, has not quite reached the latters position; and this makes it imperative to make the present writers position publicly known, especially since he believes that his special intellectual approach involves more basic issues than those usually raised by philosophers. However, for the time being nothing more is attempted than a sketch of this approach. A more elaborate treatment will have to wait for another occasion.

The tendency to treat the so-called moral proof or any of the other arguments for the existence of God as genuine proofs has been a source of almost universal confusion and is likely to remain so for a long time. The assumption is apparently made that belief in God was for the first time given to the human race by means of such argumentation. Poor philosophy! I should like to know how your representatives who, after all, are also only human beings obtain what they wish to give us by means of their proofs; or if these representatives are in fact beings of a higher nature, one wonders how they can count on obtaining acceptance and understanding in us others without presupposing something analogous to their belief. No, this is not how things stand. Philosophy can explain factsit cannot bring them into existence except for the one fact of philosophy itself. As little as it will occur to the philosopher to persuade mankind to believe from now on in the existence of material objects in space or to treat the changes of these objects as successive events in time, so little should he be inclined to persuade mankind to believe in a divine government of the world. All of this happens without any persuasion on the philosophers part and he accepts these facts without question. It is the business of the philosopher to deduce these facts as necessarily implied in the essence of rational beings as such. Hence our procedure must not be regarded as a conversion of the unbeliever but as a deduction of the believers conviction. Our only task is to deal with the causal question. How does man arrive at his belief?

In dealing with this question it is essential to realize that this belief must not be represented as an arbitrary assumption which a human being may make or not make as he sees fitas a freely chosen decision to take as true what the heart desires and because the heart desires it and as a supplement or substitute for the insufficiency of the available logical arguments. What is founded in reason is absolutely necessary; and what is not necessary is therefore a violation of reason. A person who regards the latter as fact is a deluded dreamer, however pious his attitude may be.

Where now will the philosopher, who presupposes belief in God, search for the necessary ground which he is supposed to furnish? Should he base himself on the alleged necessity with which the existence or the nature of the world of the senses implies a rational author? The answer must be an emphatic no. For he knows only too well that such an inference is totally unwarranted, although misguided thinkers have made such a claim in their embarrassment to explain something whose existence they cannot deny but whose true ground is hidden from them. The original understanding, which is placed under the guardianship of reason and the direction of its mechanism, is incapable of such a step. One may regard the world of the senses either from the point of view of common sense which is also that of the natural sciences or else from the transcendental standpoint. In the former case reason is required to stop at the existence of the world as something absolute: the world exists simply because it does and it is the way it is simply because it is that way. From this point of view something absolute is accepted and this absolute being simply is the universe: the two are identical. The universe is regarded as a whole which is grounded in itself and complete by itself. From this point of view, the world is an organized and organizing whole containing the ground of all phenomena within itself and its immanent laws. If, while occupying the standpoint of the pure natural sciences, we demand an explanation of the existence and nature of the universe in terms of an intelligent cause, our demand is total nonsense.

Moreover, the assertion that an intelligent being is the author of the world of the senses does not help us in the leastit is not really an intelligible pronouncement and what we get are a few empty words instead of a genuine answer to a question that should not have been raised in the first place. An intelligent being is unquestionably constituted by thoughts; and the first intelligible word has yet to be spoken on the subject of how, in the monstrous system of a creation out of nothing, thoughts can be transmuted into matter, or how, in a system that is hardly more rational, the world can become what it is as the result of the action of thoughts upon self-sufficient eternal matter.

It may be admitted that these difficulties vanish if we adopt the transcendental standpoint. There is then no longer an independent world: everything is now simply a reflection of our inner activity. However, one cannot inquire into the ground of something that does not exist and we cannot thus assume something outside of it in terms of which it is to be explained.

We cannot start from the world of the senses in order to climb to the notion of a moral world order so long, that is, as we really start with the sense-world and do not surreptitiously introduce a moral order into it.

Our belief in a moral world order must be based on the concept of a supersensible world.

There is such a concept. I find myself free from any influence of the sense-world, absolutely active in and through myself, and hence I am a power transcending all that is sensuous. This freedom is not, however, indefinite: it has its purpose, and this is not a purpose received from the outside but rather one posited by the free self from its inner nature. My own self and my necessary goal are the supersensible reality.

I cannot doubt this freedom or its nature without giving up my own self.

I cannot doubt this, I sayI cannot even think of the possibility that things are not this way, that this inner voice might deceive me and that it requires to be authorized and justified by reference to something external. Concerning this insight I cannot engage in any further rationalizations, interpretations, or explanations. It is what is absolutely positive and categorical.

I cannot transcend this insight unless I decide to destroy my inner natureI cannot question it because I cannot will to question it. Here is the limit to the otherwise untamed flight of reasonhere we find the voice that constrains the intellect because it also constrains the heart. Here is the point where thinking and willing are united and where harmony is brought into my being. I could indeed question the insight concerning my freedom if I wanted to fall into contradiction with my own self, for there is no immanent limitation confining the reasoning faculty: it freely advances into the infinite and must be able to do this since I am free in all my utterances and only I myself can set a limit to myself through my own will. Our moral vocation is therefore itself the outcome of a moral attitude and it is identical with our faith. One is thus quite right in maintaining that faith is the basis of all certainty. This is how it must be; since morality, if it is really morality, can be constructed only out of itself and not out of any logically coercive argumentation.

I could question the insight of my moral freedom if I were ready to plunge into a bottomless abyss (if only in a theoretical fashion); if I were ready to forego absolutely any firm point of reference; if I were prepared to do without that certainty that accompanies all my thinking and without which I could not even set out on speculative inquiries. For there is no firm point of reference except the one indicated here: it is founded in the moral sentiment and not in logic; if our rational faculty does not get to it or else proceeds beyond it, the result is that we find ourselves in an unbounded ocean in which each wave is pushed along by some other wave.

By adopting the goal set before me by my own nature, and by making it the purpose of my real activity, I ipso Jiicto posit the possibility of achieving this purpose through my actions. The two statements are identicalto adopt something as my purpose means that I posit it as something real at some future time; if something is posited as real, its possibility is thereby necessarily implied. I must, if I am not to deny my own nature, first set myself the execution of this goal: and I must, secondly assume that it can be realized. These are in fact absolutely identical: they are not two acts but the one indivisible act dictated by the moral sentiment.

One should note the absolute necessity of what has here been shown. (The reader is requested to grant me for the moment that the possibility of realizing the ultimate moral goal has been demonstrated.) We are not dealing with a wish, a hope, a piece of reflection and consideration, of grounds pro and con, a free decision to assume something whose opposite one also regards as possible. Given the decision to obey the laws of ones inner nature, the assumption is strictly necessary: it is immediately contained in the decision; it is in fact that decision.

One should also observe the logical sequence of the ideas here presented. The inference is not from possibility to reality, but the other way around. Our contention is not: I ought since I can; it is rather: I can since I ought. That I ought and what I ought to do comes first and is most immediately evident. It requires no further explanation, justification, or authorization. It is intrinsically true and evident. It is not based on or conditioned by any other truth, but on the contrary all other truths are conditioned by it.This logical order has frequently been overlooked. A person who maintains that I must first know whether I can do something before I can judge that I ought to do it, is thereby, if he is making a practical judgment, negating the primacy of the moral law and hence the moral law itself, while, if he is making a theoretical judgment, he thereby totally misconstrues the original sequence of our rational processes.

To say that I must simply adopt the goal of morality, that its realization is possible and possible through me, means that every action which I ought to perform and the circumstances that condition such an action are means to my adopted goal. It is in the light of this that my existence, the existence of other moral beings and of the world of the senses as our common stage receive their relation to morality. A wholly new order is thus brought into being and the sense-world with all its immanent laws is no more than the support underlying this order. The world of the senses proceeds in its course according to its eternal laws in order to provide freedom with a sphere of operation, but it does not have the slightest influence on morality or immorality, it does not in any way control a free being. The latter soars above all nature in self-sufficiency and independence. The realization of the purpose of reason can be accomplished only through the efforts of free beings, but because of a higher law this purpose will unquestionably be attained. It is possible to do what is right and every situation is geared to this through the higher law just mentioned: because of this law the moral deed succeeds infallibly and the immoral deed fails just as certainly. The entire universe now exhibits a totally different appearance to us.

This change in appearance will be further illuminated if we raise ourselves to the transcendental viewpoint. Transcendental theory teaches that the world is nothing but the sensuous appearance, given according to intelligible rational laws, of our own inner activity, our own intelligence operating within boundaries that must remain incomprehensible; and a human being cannot be blamed if he has an uncanny feeling when faced with the total disappearance of the ground underneath him. The boundaries just mentioned are admittedly beyond our understanding as far as their origin is concerned. However, practical philosophy teaches that this does not significantly affect anything of practical importance. The boundaries are the clearest and most certain of all thingsthey determine our fixed position in the moral arrangement of things. What you perceive as a consequence of your position in this moral order has reality and, moreover, the only reality that concerns you: it is the permanent interpretation of the injunction of your duty, the living expression of what you ought to do simply because you ought to do it. Our world is the sensualized material of our duty; the latter is the truly real in things, the genuine primal stuff of all appearances. The compulsion with which our belief in things is forced upon us is a moral compulsionthe only one that can be exerted upon a free being. Nobody can, without destruction of his nature, surrender his moral calling to such a degree that it cannot preserve him, within the limits previously mentioned, for a higher and nobler future state. Considered as the result of a moral world order, this belief in the reality of the sense-world can even be regarded as a kind of revelation. It is our duty that is revealed in the world of the senses.

This is the true faith: this moral order is the Divine which we accept. It is constituted by acting rightly. This is the only possible confession of faith: to do what duty prescribes and to do this gaily and naturally, without doubt or calculation of consequences. As a result, this Divine becomes alive and real in us; every one of our deeds is performed in the light of this presupposition and all their consequences will be preserved in the Divine.

True atheism, unbelief and godlessness in the real sense, consists in calculation of consequences, in refusing to obey the voice of ones conscience until one thinks one can foresee the success of ones actions and in thus elevating ones own judgment above that of God and in making oneself into God. He who wills to do evil in order to produce good is a godless person. Under a moral government of the world good cannot come out of evil; and as certainly as one believes in the former, so one cannot believe the latter. You must not lie even, as a result, the world were to collapse and become a heap of ruins. But this last is only a manner of speaking: if you were permitted to believe seriously that the world would collapse, then at the very least your own nature would be self-contradictory and self-destroying. In fact you do not believe this, you cannot believe it, and you are not even permitted to believe it: you know that the plan of the worlds preservation does not contain a lie.

The faith just stated is the whole and complete faith. This living and effective moral order is identical with God. We do not and cannot grasp any other God. There is no rational justification for going beyond this moral world order and for inferring the existence of a separate entity as its cause. Our original reason certainly does not make any such inference and it does not know any such separate entityonly a philosophy that misunderstands its own nature draws such an inference. Is this moral world order no more than a contingent entity, something that might not be, that might be as it is or otherwise so that its existence and nature requires to be explained in terms of a cause, so that belief in it requires to be legitimized by showing its ground? If you will stop listening to the demands of a worthless system and if instead you will consult your own inner nature, then you will find that the moral world order is the absolute beginning of all objective knowledge (just as your freedom and your moral vocation are the absolute beginning of all subjective knowledge) and all other objective knowledge must be founded and conditioned by it, while the moral world order itself cannot be conditioned by anything else, since outside of it there is nothing else. You cannot even attempt the explanation [of the moral order] without falsifying and endangering the nature of the original assumption. The assumption of a moral world order is such that it is absolutely self-evident and it does not tolerate any supporting arguments. Yet you wish to make the assumption dependent on such argumentation.

And this ratiocination, how can you succeed with it? After you have undermined the immediate conviction, how do you then proceed to fortify it? Indeed, it does not stand well with your faith if you can embrace it only on condition that it has an external source and if it collapses in the absence of such a support.

Even if one were to permit you to draw this inference and, as a consequence, to conclude that an author of the moral world order exists, what would that conclusion amount to? This entity is supposed to be distinct from you and from the world, it is supposed to engage in activities in the world in accordance with its plans and must therefore be capable of having ideas, of having personality and consciousness. But what do you mean by personality and consciousness? It is plain that when you use these words, you refer to what you have found and come to know in yourself under these labels. The least attention to these notions will teach you that they can be properly employed only if what they refer to is limited and finite. You therefore make the entity to which you apply these predicates into something finite. You have not, as you intended to, succeeded in thinking about Godyou have merely multiplied yourself in your thoughts. You can no more explain the moral world order by reference to this entity than by reference to yourself: the moral world order remains unexplained and absolute as before. Indeed, in talking the way you do, you have not engaged in any genuine thinking at all, but you have merely disturbed the air with empty sounds. You could have predicted this outcome without difficulty. You are a finite being and how can that which is finite grasp and understand the infinite?

If faith keeps to what is immediately given, it remains firm and unshakable; if it is made dependent on the concept [of the personal God just discussed] then it becomes shaky, for the concept is impossible and full of contradictions.

It is therefore a misunderstanding to maintain that it is doubtful whether or not there is a God. On the contrary, that there is a moral world order, that in this order a definite position has been assigned to every rational individual and that his work counts, that the destiny of every person (unless it is the consequence of his own conduct) is derived from this plan, that without this plan no hair drops from a head, nor a sparrow from a roof, that every good deed succeeds while every evil one fails and that everything must go well for those who love only the goodall this is not doubtful at all but the most certain thing in the world and the basis of all other certainty, in fact the only truth that is objectively absolutely valid. On the other side, anybody who reflects just a moment and who is candid about the outcome of this reflection cannot doubt that the concept of God as a separate substance is impossible and contradictory. It is permissible to say this openly and put down the idle chatter of the schools in order to elevate the true religion of joyful morality.