Christian Thought=
In Christianity, Life is reduced to its internal reality, which is absolutely subjective and radically immanent. Considered in its phenomenological reality, Life is quite simply the faculty and the subjective ability to feel sensations, small pleasures or great hurts, to experience desires and feelings, to move our bodies from within by exerting subjective effort, or even to think. All such faculties possess the fundamental characteristic of appearing and manifesting themselves in themselves, with no gap or distance; we do not perceive them from outside our being or as present to our gaze, but only in us: we coincide with each of these abilities. Life is in itself the power of manifestation and revelation, and what it manifests is itself, in its feeling self-revelation — it is a power of revelation which is perpetually at work within us and which we continually forget.
The Truth of Life is absolutely subjective — that is, it is independent of our subjective beliefs and tastes. The perception of a coloured sensation or a pain, for example, is not a matter of personal preference but a fact and an incontestable inner experience which pertains to the absolute subjectivity of Life. The Truth of Life does not therefore differ in any way from that which it makes true, it is not distinct from that which manifests itself in it. Truth is manifestation itself in its pure inner revelation, and Life is what Christianity calls God.
The Truth of Life is not a relative truth which varies from one individual to another, but absolute Truth which is the inner foundation of each of our faculties and abilities, and which illuminates the least of our impressions. The Truth of Life is not an abstract and indifferent truth; on the contrary, it is that which is most essential for man, as it is this alone that can lead him to salvation in his inner identification with it and in becoming the Son of God, rather than losing himself in the world.
Read more about this topic: Phenomenological Life
Famous quotes containing the word christian:
“He says a man may perhaps answer, that the necessity of things held by him, is not a stoical necessity, but a Christian necessity, &c. But this distinction I have not used, nor indeed have ever heard before, nor could I think any man could make stoical and Christian two kinds of necessity, though they may be two kinds of doctrine”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)