But if man is the end of creation, he is also the true cause of
creation, for the end is the principle of action. The distinction
between man as the end of creation, and man as its cause, is only
that the cause is the latent, inner man, the essential man, whereas
the end is the self-evident, empirical, individual man,--that man
recognises himself as the end of creation, but not as the cause,
because he distinguishes the cause, the essence from himself as
another personal being. [77] But this other being, this creative
principle, is in fact nothing else than his subjective nature
separated from the limits of individuality and materiality, i.e.,
of objectivity, unlimited will, personality posited out of all
connection with the world,--which by creation, i.e., the positing
of the world, of objectivity, of another, as a dependent, finite,
non-essential existence, gives itself the certainty of its exclusive
reality. The point in question in the Creation is not the truth and
reality of the world, but the truth and reality of personality, of
subjectivity in distinction from the world. The point in question is
the personality of God; but the personality of God is the personality
of man freed from all the conditions and limitations of Nature. Hence
the fervent interest in the Creation, the horror of all pantheistic
cosmogonies. The Creation, like the idea of a personal God in general,
is not a scientific, but a personal matter; not an object of the free
intelligence, but of the feelings; for the point on which it hinges
is only the guarantee, the last conceivable proof and demonstration
of personality or subjectivity as an essence quite apart, having
nothing in common with Nature, a supra- and extra-mundane entity. [78]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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