III. The collision

82 The decided critic alone and the ruthless defender of the government declare that a collision has occurred, but both will conceive it in very different ways, therefore also not find the solution on the same path.

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83 Let us see how the defender of the government conceives the collision in general and in particular relation to my personal position.

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84 First, Herr Gruppe thinks, the sacred interests of faith and a special "maxim of the state" — he means of the Prussian State — stand opposed to each other. "It is a question on the one hand of the most sacred interests, of goods which have cost Germany so much — 'so much'! what an empty, indefinite phrase! — and which it has nevertheless not — how precarious! nevertheless not! — acquired too dearly (!), it is a question of the preservation of the Evangelical faith in its dignity, yes of the power and holiness of Christianity itself, which has been assailed. On the other hand, however, it is a question of a maxim of the state, which, given the importance of the matter, must by no means be subject to any misinterpretation. Prussia has recently again given the most unambiguous proofs that it identifies its prosperity with intelligence and spiritual freedom, with openness and truth ... (the 'visibly extended boundaries of the press' are adduced as one of the newest and most significant proofs) should it now, when it withdrew the teaching capacity from B. Bauer, have taken a step which stands in contradiction with this?"

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85 The collision has suddenly become an apparent one for Herr Gruppe.

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86 Perhaps because the freedom with which Prussia identifies its prosperity is itself only an apparent freedom?

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87 Herr Gruppe has not thought so far, but in fact only this circumstance could make it possible for him to call the collision into question at all.

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88 He does not know at all what he is saying. To "extend the boundaries of press freedom" means to make the censor uncertain, to make the arbitrariness of the censor more lawless, i.e., more arbitrary, and this censorship, this censorship become more arbitrary, censorship in general, Herr Gruppe calls a proof that a state identifies its prosperity with intelligence and spiritual freedom, with truth and openness.

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89 The Prussian State thus identifies "its prosperity with intelligence, freedom and truth", just as the Jesus of the fourth Gospel says: "I am the truth"?

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90 What language! And how must Herr Gruppe refute himself through his own language!

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91 These panegyrists cannot think coherently, cannot speak purely; in their theological language the false, lying and hollow of their cause expresses itself; their inner hypocrisy also makes their language crooked, squinting and intolerable for every sincere man. It is clear: Herr Gruppe had approximately the combination in mind that the Prussian State identifies its prosperity with the prosperity of intelligence and spiritual freedom, with the progressive development of the forms which make openness a right, truth a common good: this approximately floated before his imagination: but he believed he said nothing if he only said that, and therefore raised himself to that thoughtless hyperbole that a state says: "my prosperity is intelligence and spiritual freedom, openness and truth itself", and that the Prussian State says this, Herr Gruppe very modestly calls "the maxim of the state", "the maxim" which one forms according to bon plaisir, "the maxim" which one can arbitrarily change on a fine morning, "the maxim" which as such is a work of arbitrariness — but he does not call it the "principle" of the Prussian State, "the principle" which lies in the essence of the state, the principle of freedom and the free development of truth, without which a state is not yet really a state.

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92 One will now see why Herr Gruppe had to make the collision into a merely apparent one: with an essential principle another principle can enter into collision, but not with a "maxim", for a maxim can be arbitrarily withdrawn as soon as another interest demands it, while a principle stands firm and fights its case boldly and resolutely with the opponent.

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93 The maxim we let go, just as it can also disavow us at its pleasure: but we stand by the principle, a principle is a strong shot and the principle of the state is freedom.

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94 Let us now see how Herr Gruppe conceives the other side of the collision! He has also not grasped it in its full sharpness, he has grasped it as little as the "maxim" of the state correctly.

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95 "It is a question, he says therefore, of the most sacred interests, of goods which have cost Germany so much." So much! If only he had said, considered it or — since he does not yet seem to know it — reflected on how much these interests have cost Germany. They have hitherto cost it nothing more and nothing less than its political freedom and significance. German Protestantism has raised religion to the sole and exclusive power of man and in political relation has had only the consequence that the sovereignty of the territorial princes became absolute through the increase of their power which they received as supreme bishops of their territorial church.

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96 Instead of inserting the phrase that Germany has "nevertheless not acquired those most sacred interests too dearly", Herr Gruppe should again have asked how dear the price was, whether the loss of political freedom and all state rights was not too high a price, and to be fair, he should on the other hand have asked whether political freedom could perhaps be acquired too dearly.

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97 That is namely in general the collision, that the ecclesiastical and religious interest wants to assert itself at the cost of the concept of the state and the state must finally free itself from ecclesiastical and religious tutelage and constitute itself as a real state. Critique is this presupposition for this striving of the state, since it explains the ecclesiastical and religious power and completely dissolves its pretension to be a superterrestrial, superhuman power, thus also bringing about that political crisis which assigns to the ecclesiastical and religious power, as a purely human one, its proper position in the circle of the other human powers. The collision is therefore at this moment only that of whether the state government is to judge critique according to the principle of the real, free state or of the state which is tutored by the church.

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98 After the apologist of the government has missed the point where the collision is to be found — as an apologist, whether he wanted it or not, he had to miss the critical point, since it is apologetic to keep the matter in indefiniteness where the necessity of an all-deciding crisis is not even felt, he endeavoured to represent the collision as only an insignificant one.

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99 "Academic freedom in the theological faculty, he says p. 4, only this is what has been withdrawn from Bauer."

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100 So? Really? Only this then? In truth, that is pitifully little! -

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101 This withdrawal of freedom of teaching is — is it not? — very little and does not contradict "the truth and openness" with which Prussia "identifies its prosperity."

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102 If only in general "truth and openness" is proclaimed as a right, it is nothing, absolutely nothing, if in particular practice truth is indeed admitted, openness forbidden. That is very little: it is enough if in general that exists which in particular and in reality is punished.

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103 Another means of covering up the collision consists in the apologist giving us to consider that we could be content that not even more is withdrawn from us.

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104 "It is no inquisition against private thoughts which persecutes Bauer." As if it could still be a question that the state could persecute private thoughts! As if freedom of conscience still needed the special guarantee and declaration of a government that it would protect it. If in our days there is talk of freedom of conviction, it is no longer a question whether conviction can be tolerated, but whether it contains the truth and how far it must change the existing order. Convictions are today no longer private thoughts with which a poor, lonely sage consoles himself privately, but public powers which measure themselves with the power of the existing.

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105 In the end, however, I must give the government my most obedient thanks for having removed me from my position, which — let one hear! — because no salary, namely no stipend, is connected with it, must have been unbearable to me myself. My thanks end the collision. Let one hear! —

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106 "It is here, however, also not at all a question of any persecution of the person, of any punishment which Bauer would have incurred through any guilt (!). He was a Privatdozent at a university; whoever knows the institution of the Privatdozentur, i.e., whoever knows according to what one has to judge the advantageousness of a public position, also knows that it is no appointment in the state service, that it involves no salary and that it includes on the whole more burdens than advantages. 'Bauer has been curtailed and injured in no claims' (p. 4, 5)."

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107 The advantage of a position in public life is therefore not to be determined according to whether it gives more or less opportunity to spread truth, in general to serve truth, but whether and how much salary it brings with it. The only claims which Herr Gruppe concedes to diligence, activity and work are claims to money and again money and an appointment.

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108 The only claims which Herr Gruppe concedes to diligence, activity and work are claims to money and again money and an appointment.

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109 As a Licentiate of Theology, however, I have the right to the claim to be allowed to teach publicly, the right to teach, develop theology freely and publicly and from the chair and to draw the consequences of theology, and this my right must remain unimpaired until it is scientifically proven to me that I do not understand scripture, that I do not correctly develop theology, that I do not understand the true consequences of theology, i.e., until it is proven to me that the degree of a Licentiate of Theology has been conferred upon me unjustly.

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110 The right to teach publicly is an advantage so extraordinarily great that I will never voluntarily renounce it. I would still estimate the right which the degree of a Licentiate of Theology gives me according to its due, but would no longer regard it as the highest I have to preserve, if constitutional forms of publicity existed in which the question of theology, the question whether the state must be tutored by the church, could be treated and decided, and if real press freedom prevailed. But if neither press freedom exists nor a constitution which releases the question of the fate of theology to public debate, then the right to develop the essence of theology from the theological chair is invaluable and an advantage which I may not renounce so easily as Herr Gruppe thinks, because it is no money advantage.

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111 And is the right to dissolve theology itself from the theological chair through the pure presentation of its essence not a great right — a right of history itself?

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112 After Herr Gruppe has endeavoured in his way to represent the collision as an insignificant or as a merely apparent one, he suddenly comes to present the collision from another side — but no! he cannot even now represent the collision as such, he cannot even speak in such a way that he could evoke even the appearance that he has reflected on the matter. On this standpoint, on which science is proscribed from the outset, even the coherence of language is not possible.

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113 "The state acts here, says Herr Gruppe p. 9, not immediately in its own interest, but initially only in that of the church, which it has to protect, whose existence and prosperity it has to look after. With the existence of the church its own is connected and according to this its duty and task in the supervision of theological instruction is determined."

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114 So the state must set limits to scientific research at the universities, so that the church can survive the collision with science? Is that a true protection, if the state sets external limits to science? Is the collision thus solved when limits are simply and briefly and well set to science? As if the collision were not that scientific knowledge of the church, of its articles of faith and of holy scripture would abolish these limits! Does the critic then storm from outside with crowbars against holy scripture? Is it not rather he who works from within and overturns the false supports with which theology wanted to secure the letter, through the free development of the same? What help is an external limit when development from within mocks every external hindrance?

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115 So the state must set limits to scientific research at the universities, so that the church can survive the collision with science? Is that a true protection, if the state sets external limits to science? Is the collision thus solved when limits are simply and briefly and well set to science? As if the collision were not that scientific knowledge of the church, of its articles of faith and of holy scripture would abolish these limits! Does the critic then storm from outside with crowbars against holy scripture? Is it not rather he who works from within and overturns the false supports with which theology wanted to secure the letter, through the free development of the same? What help is an external limit when development from within mocks every external hindrance?

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116 The question is therefore whether in theological science the given is to be known from within or knowledge is to be hindered from without, or rather, since every external hindrance against inner development is not only powerless, but has already proved itself powerless, whether powerlessness is to rule and inner power is to succumb. It requires a great trust in powerlessness if one wants to promise it victory. No! one admits powerlessness if one wants to come to its aid consciously by means of a blockade against science, and only deceives oneself in thinking that it can really be preserved. The enemy, however, is an internal one and has its seat in the essence of the letter, of scripture, of religion, of the church itself.

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117 In the same breath Herr Gruppe says that the state is impartial in this question and at the same time itself a party; the state does not act immediately in its own interest and again — now, perhaps after long detours which lead it there? No, from the outset — in its own interest. If "with the existence of the church its own is connected", if it is therefore compelled, for its own sake, to preserve the church, does it then not act in its interest, and indeed immediately in its interest? Is it not the drive of self-preservation which makes it its duty to preserve the church? Is it not the end for the sake of which it preserves the church?

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118 Now, however, if the church cannot protect itself, if it does not have in itself the guarantee of its existence, if, in order to exist, it must have science externally restricted, and if with its existence that of the state is connected, therefore also with it the state falls, then the latter has no strong guarantee for its existence — then it is all up with it.

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119 It can, however, be secure. The church will not draw it into its fall.

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120 Only the state which has bound its fate with the church goes under: over its ruins arises the true, the free state.

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121 Long enough have children been frightened with the saying "that the existence of the state is connected with the church" — the time is now past when we believed that the state, whose essence is freedom, must, for its own sake, if it did not want to collapse instantly, be connected with church and religion, whose essence is servitude. When we have got behind the essence of the church and the state, then no one will be able to talk us into believing that the state, since no duty is without right and duties extend only as far as rights, must rely on church and religion, in whose domain we are without rights, null and void, supposed to be powerless, minor children: that the state, in which man has to develop according to his true, human essence, should be connected with a church which always calls to us that we have fallen from our destiny, are at variance with a being outside us; that the state, in which we are only what we make of ourselves, should be connected with a church in which we are only to be what it pleases the grace of another to make of us. In short, the state which has its affairs here on this earth, which has to accomplish everything only through its own power — that transcendent powers have ever intervened in the state, of that we would know nothing and no one will be able to bring forward a credible credential which would contain the proof that heaven has intervened through emissaries in world history — the state, if it does not want to stand on its head and support itself with its feet on the air, i.e., not to deprive its members of the state, cannot rely on the church, which commands its members to conduct their conversation in heaven and to regard everything earthly only as a disgusting hindrance which disturbs their blessed conduct, or as a mere appearance.

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122 In the state man is finally to become one with himself, the church disunites man with himself — is this split, wretched ecclesiastical essence to be the protection of the state, in which man is finally to recover from the discord into which the church had thrown him and finally to gain peace, rest and harmony with himself?

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123 Impossible! The state has only to rely on itself. The church has hitherto only ever prevented it from really being a state.

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124 We must, however, rather express it thus: so long as the state was not yet really a state, not yet the expression and appearance of freedom, so long was the church necessary to it. No! not necessary, as if the state in this state of imperfection had found the church, as it were, as a gift which a heavenly power had given it so that its weakness might be helped. But rather the church is nothing but the imperfection of the not yet finished state come to appearance, the appearance of its weakness posited by itself, the necessary expression of the fact that it is not yet really a state, has not yet made man into man.

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125 All oppositions with which the earlier time tormented itself and had to torment itself in vain, because it presupposed the essential reality and the separation of both sides, now collapse and are thereby solved. Just as religion was only the objectified expression of the immaturity of man, the proof that he had not yet found his essence in himself and therefore had to regard it as an alien one, so the church is the independently represented imperfection of the imperfect state, the alienated essence of the state, the proof therefore that the state has not yet grasped its true essence, had not yet had the courage to see its essence in itself and to express it in its laws.

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126 The collision is therefore whether the state, when the church is recognised as its own essence, but as its essence alienated from it, therefore become unrecognisable, is to insist that its freedom be turned into unfreedom, its and its members' right into wrong, or whether it is to give back to itself and its own what is right.

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127 He who wants to solve a collision must above all grasp it correctly; he who does not know what it consists in will also not be able to solve it.

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