VIII. Mockery and derision of theology and religion

696 If things had always gone rightly, according to Marheineke's view I should long since have occupied all theological honorary positions. Since he never says a word that my "aberrations" are unchristian, the "hypotheses snatched from the air" by me are untheological, on the contrary, to legitimise the former as Christian, he places them in one line with the aberrations of the most recognised theologians, to prove the latter as theological, with the not less worthless hypotheses of other critics; since he even calls my writing a glorification of Christianity, I would, while my lack of merit, i.e., my web of hypotheses and the sum of my aberrations, should long since have procured me a seat in the theological faculty, be allowed to demand a place in the theological Prytaneum on account of my merits for Christian truth. Nevertheless I am to renounce all these honours. Marheineke himself wills it so and wants me removed from the association with the theological faculty. But why then? Because, as he says, I have voluntarily renounced my theological character. With what, however, have I issued this act of renunciation? With this, answers Marheineke, that I (p. 69) "have here and there adopted a mocking and scornful tone against famous theologians."

[Notes for 696 here]

697 Herr Gruppe is completely of the same opinion, only that he does not give out my conduct towards the theologians as my only transgression, not as the only thing which makes me lose all claim to a theological dignity. From two standpoints rather, from the "logical and ethical standpoint" (p. 3) he has regarded my matter and found me guilty. Since we have now hitherto seen sufficiently how much at home Herr Gruppe is on the "logical" standpoint, it will not be strange to us that he will particularly establish himself on the "ethical" one, in order to bring the stain of an immoral conduct so certainly upon me that everyone will find it comprehensible if the holy and worthy men of the theological faculty want to have nothing more to do with the buck who has pressed himself upon them from the left side to insult them.

[Notes for 697 here]

698 Here, on the ethical standpoint Herr Gruppe will feel alone well, since he himself will well know what trouble it cost him to sail happily around the cliffs which threatened him on the "logical" one. Here he sails with swelling sails upon me to bore me to the bottom, here he has easy work, since he only needs to say that I have violated the laws of custom and moderation when I accused the theologians as hypocrites, but unfortunately I must show him that he has also made it too easy for himself here.

[Notes for 698 here]

699 Herr Gruppe has not even taken the trouble, he has also not understood, to give his readers a coherent picture of my polemic against theological consciousness, to depict its general turns and the more definite directions. He has only collected individual passages from my writing on the synoptic Gospels, placed them side by side, and when he attempts to set up a general judgment, he must again prove that he has understood all those passages as little as those already discussed, where I declare myself in my "baroque manner" for a prophet and say, to the astonishment of Herr Gruppe, that I would need no rope to drive the theologians one and all out of the temple.

[Notes for 699 here]

700 Herr Gruppe says I treat all previous theologians as if it lay in their concept to be in contradiction with truth and in league with untruth, "I have accused them of having acted against their conviction and their conscience" (p. 13), I have presented them as "gross deceivers", as "intentional liars".

[Notes for 700 here]

701 Where then? I do not know; this, however, I know: I would not have written my books if I had been of the opinion and if I had convinced myself that the theologians are intentional liars and conscious hypocrites. Such people meet with public contempt, but science has nothing to do with them. I have only shown that theology is the Jesuitism which is objectively grounded in the whole Christian formation, namely in the distress of a world-condition in which a presupposition, which is contradiction itself, is to count as such, and the understanding, freedom, whose rights can never be completely suppressed, by wanting to assert this presupposition with knowledge and will, yet again mock it, but also in the same moment, since they yet again want to see through the presupposition, the religious statute, scripture, the letter, mock themselves.

[Notes for 701 here]

702 It is already a contradiction that revelation itself, which claims to come only from above and has the pretension of wanting to talk us into believing that it is simply foreign and opposed to this world, which therefore also renounces from the outset all worldly and rational coherence, nevertheless presents itself in human language, in human propositions and in forms, even in the syllogistic forms of human reason. That is the objective hypocrisy, that revelation is indeed nothing but work and product of the human spirit, thus also cannot step out of the forms and ways of the spirit and yet does so and indeed must do so — for otherwise it would not be revelation — as if scorn and mockery had nothing to do with reason and its laws. This illusion which revelation makes for itself is nothing but its concept, that it is the perverted reason, the reason turned into unreason.

[Notes for 702 here]

703 Have the theologians now, as Herr Gruppe p. 22 asserts against me, but unfortunately does not secure through counter-proofs against my book, in fact "had reverence for the holy, respected the faith of the believers, cherished pious awe and piety"?

[Notes for 703 here]

704 No! I have proved in my writing that they have very ruthlessly attacked the holy with worldly understanding, that they have not respected it, that they have rather horribly profaned it.

[Notes for 704 here]

705 Has it now, however, really succeeded for them to make the holy entirely and completely worldly, thoroughly profane it, draw it down into connection with the world, with the human spirit, with world history? Have they discovered in unreason the perverted reason, in incoherence the perverted coherence? i.e., if they did not mean it seriously with the supposed holiness, have they now meant it seriously with reason, freedom, coherence? Not that either! The understanding which they set in motion against the holy world, they rather did not want to bring to recognition really as understanding, but to see in unity with the holy world, they therefore brought it again around itself by making it holy. Just so: by wanting coherence, they rather do not want it, since they seek it in the perverted world and really find it: they pervert it into incoherence and this lack of all coherence goes so far that they finally stand in no coherence and agreement either with themselves or with the holy world. But incoherence triumphs nevertheless and the perverted world, if also the theological perverted world, the truth and improved edition of the religious perverted world, stands finally as the masterpiece of theological consciousness.

[Notes for 705 here]

706 Not that either! The understanding which they set in motion against the holy world, they rather did not want to bring to recognition really as understanding, but to see in unity with the holy world, they therefore brought it again around itself by making it holy. Just so: by wanting coherence, they rather do not want it, since they seek it in the perverted world and really find it: they pervert it into incoherence and this lack of all coherence goes so far that they finally stand in no coherence and agreement either with themselves or with the holy world. But incoherence triumphs nevertheless and the perverted world, if also the theological perverted world, the truth and improved edition of the religious perverted world, stands finally as the masterpiece of theological consciousness.

[Notes for 706 here]

707 See, Herr Gruppe: that is the theological hypocrisy. Before you appeared against me and accused me of the crime of offended theological holiness, you should have examined more closely what I actually have to object to in the theologians, and then it would have been your duty to examine whether I am right or wrong. You have done neither. You do not depict my work, you have only abused it.

[Notes for 707 here]

708 In my conduct towards the theologians you see (p. 13) "immoderation", "frenzy", "absolute lack of all composure." The "tone" of my depictions of the theologians you call (p. 14) "unbridled"; you miss in my conduct "level-headedness" and you, Herr Gruppe, have not even understood what I have said of the theologians. You have not proved that I have missed the mark, you have not held together my depiction of theological consciousness and the original, you have done nothing but only abused.

[Notes for 708 here]

709 You say, Herr Gruppe, (p. 22) "to call this pious mood of the innermost mind — (namely the previously praised 'reverence of the theologians for the holy') — shameless and continually shameless, is truly too glaring and cutting."

[Notes for 709 here]

710 What, Herr Gruppe, what have I called shameless? Theological consciousness? The theological conduct towards scripture and the laws of language and reason? No! That I have called Jesuitical and proved as Jesuitism. When, then, do I say that theological consciousness becomes shameless? Then, when it wants to force upon science with violence that it explains scripture, while it maltreats it.

[Notes for 710 here]

711 See, that is something quite different! See, so you have read my books! So you behave towards science.

[Notes for 711 here]

712 "Not being able to imagine that there are still other convictions and moods than the one in which one finds oneself, you say p. 21, is always a limitation."

[Notes for 712 here]

713 That is supposed to apply to me, Herr Gruppe? To me? I should not be able to form any idea of the possibility of theological consciousness? I have explained it! I have anatomised this espèce of consciousness! My presentation thus lacks measure and level-headedness? Strange reproach, when it is uttered by someone whose language and presentation I must show every moment how indefinite, groundless, objectless it is! Strange reproach against a critic who has characterised theological language as the expression of the most measureless contradiction! Measure and level-headedness would not be found with the critic who works his way through all the contradictions of the Gospels and through all those theological decrees which again stand in contradiction with the biblical text, i.e., brings all those contradictions into that position in which they dissolve themselves and finally dissolve themselves into the correct explanation of the matter? That would not be level-headed, if the critic does not want to come to a conclusion until he has really overcome all the obstacles which oppose him? That no measure, if we abolish the measurelessness of the contradictions in the Gospels by explaining them, and deprive the measurelessness of theological indefiniteness of all significance by analysing and comprehending it?

[Notes for 713 here]

714

[Notes for 714 here]

715 With us critics alone are measure and level-headedness to be found. We unmask the hypocrisy of theological language; if the theologian overreaches himself in words, we let his thoughtless presumption break itself on the power of simple truth; critique has the secret of the inflation and hollowness; the indefiniteness and measurelessness of religion and the theological matter, which is a continual mockery of the true measure of all things, of man, we explain as what it is, as this mockery of the true measure, and we should lack measure and level-headedness?

[Notes for 715 here]

716 If the Greeks possessed measure and level-headedness because they recognised man as the measure of all things, then critique is the rebirth of Hellenism, in that it wins back self-consciousness from a more terrible enemy than that with which the Greeks had to fight. The Greeks had to free man from the power of nature, their gods themselves fought for man — they were themselves the victorious humanity against the monsters and enormities of nature. We, on the other hand, have to win back man from heaven, i.e., from the spiritual monster, the perverted spirit, the spectre, the indefiniteness, the spiritual illusion, the lie. "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places" (Eph. 6:12). We have to fight with the last enemy of man, with the inhuman, with the spiritual irony on humanity, with the inhumanity which man has committed against himself, with the sin whose confession is hardest for man, since it infinitely flatters his selfishness by removing him from his true measure and surrounding him with the glory, i.e., with the boundless vapour of heavenly indefiniteness. Critique brings man back to himself, after he had been in a horrible manner beside himself and had spoken like one who has come from himself. If ever anything has preserved measure and level-headedness, it is critique.

[Notes for 716 here]

717 Herr Gruppe means, however, especially my passionate utterances about the theologians and theology, when he reproaches me that I have not observed "the moral bearing" which would have been proper to me. Passion will therefore necessarily have to be banished from the state as Herr Gruppe imagines it, passion is immoral, it certainly violates public decency, Herr Gruppe has acted without passion against me. His lack of passion goes so far that he does not dare to draw the matter he wants to defend out of its "chiaroscuro" and embrace it, so far that he does not even come to close quarters with me, does not even open his eyes enough to see what I actually assert. Herr Gruppe and all the well-meaning ones in whose name he speaks and who have rewarded him with their applause, want battles without powder smoke, without cannon thunder and bloodshed; music without drumbeat, without the gripping vibration of the air layers; purification and restoration of the equilibrium of the atmosphere without thunderstorm, i.e., they want no battles, no music, no healthy atmosphere.

[Notes for 717 here]

718 The question whether I am in general right in what I say against the theologians, Herr Gruppe, like all those who take offence at my language, has either not raised at all or, if he presupposes its resolution, has presupposed it in such a way that he proves he does not even know what I have said against the theologians.

[Notes for 718 here]

719 Others also, who otherwise do not deny their approval to my critique, can be displeased with my utterances about the theologians or assert that they are disturbing for the whole and detrimental to the impression which critique as such would have to make.

[Notes for 719 here]

720 However, they then prove precisely that they do not give their real approval to critique or do not know what position and significance it has in the present.

[Notes for 720 here]

721 Is it only in individual passages that I depict the folly of the theologians, accuse their lie and hypocrisy? No! against theology and against religion. The whole work is one proof, one accusation of the disgrace which theology has done to the world and to mankind.

[Notes for 721 here]

722 Should I now whisper softly and gently to the theologians that they are wrong, that their whole trade is one wrong? Should I do it, as those clever people do who imagine an astonishing amount when they have told the other in the supposedly most polite turns the so-called truth, which is usually so meagre that it was not even worth these trivial circumlocutions? Oh, there is nothing more base, nothing more flat and coarse in the world than this politeness of the theological reviewer-language.

[Notes for 722 here]

723 Should I, when I have dissolved and made useless the theological artifices, now make my compliment to the theologians and recommend myself to their further goodwill, as those theological reviewers do? Or should I silently go my way?

[Notes for 723 here]

724 No! That was not possible — it would itself have been a wrong, I would thereby have indicated that I did not know what is now to be done with the whole of theology.

[Notes for 724 here]

725 Does it now depend only on correctly explaining this or that passage of scripture? Or even the whole scripture and its origin correctly? As if this explanation were not the break with the whole previous Christian, religious and theological world, as if this break as such were not also to be expressed and carried out.

[Notes for 725 here]

726 The dissolved theology must also be thrust back, removed from contact with the real world. It is important that theology finally be told without reserve what it is worth before the judgment seat of true humanity, it is important that it be told within a work on the same subject which it has now so long maltreated, and it was therefore a moral duty — not a lack of moral bearing — to let the moral indignation, as soon as it had become possible or clear about itself, express itself with the first power of self-knowledge about the falsity of the theological game.

[Notes for 726 here]

727 It was, however, impossible "to stop the mouth" of moral indignation. If passion — and without passion a solid work is impossible — has bored itself into the hostile object, works its way through it and, after the division during the work, after it has completely dissolved the object, comes to itself again as whole, but victorious passion, it will also be allowed and must express itself as this whole passion. The enthusiasm for freedom, which has gone into prison itself, broken the fetters, freed the prisoners and finally destroyed the prison, should it not rejoice on the ruins of the prison and throw the broken fetters to the ground with contempt? The fire which has seized the interior of the building from below to above will finally as a whole blazing flame crash together over the collapsing building.

[Notes for 727 here]

728 My only care in this was only not to let the fire break out too early, not to let passion come to its strongest expression prematurely, not to cry Victoria at the wrong time and to give the hypocritical theology the letter of divorce only when its wrong is proved in detail — I believe I have distributed passion correctly and placed its total expression always in the right place. Never have I expressed my indignation against hypocrisy when I had not unmasked it as such and brought the reader to the point that he had to feel indignation against it himself, and in the manner in which I gradually expose theological consciousness from the first volume of my writing to its conclusion, until it finally stands as the object of the most decided contempt or rather falls to the ground, I believe I have also proceeded correctly and gradually enough from the writing on the fourth Gospel onwards. My opponents, however, could not even think of this aesthetic question, the question of form lay far too remote for them, since they already judged the material, the passion, the fire, the indignation falsely or condemned them outright. I have, however, not only mocked theology and the theologians, but religion itself, both in my writings which are expressly composed by me for this purpose, the "Trumpet" and "Hegel's Doctrine of Art and Religion", as well as in my work on the Gospels through the ruthlessness of critique, through the strict demonstration of contradictions, through the mercilessness with which I took the reports of the evangelists seriously and did not cover their thoughtlessness and contentlessness with the mantle of love, not with the veil of religious consciousness, i.e., did not regard them with the eye of religious limitation.

[Notes for 728 here]

729 When Marheineke wrote his separate opinion, the "Trumpet" had not yet appeared — but also the frivolity with which I regard religion in my writing on the Gospels was for him as good as not there: its openness and consequent carrying through he could not notice, since critique appeared to him only as arbitrariness or as aberration, with which one might not from the outset take seriously. Marheineke does not believe in the seriousness of critique; he could therefore not even imagine how far its opposition against religion could go.

[Notes for 729 here]

730 When I had now blown the "Trumpet", what does he say about its "tone"? Nothing further than that it "is to be wondered at with the present extension of press freedom and certainly to be lamented as a desperate condition, that one so often still takes refuge in irony, satire and persiflage and for this purpose takes up the mask of piety in order to deceive all the more surely, but especially misuses biblical language for such purposes of mockery and derision." (p. 46).

[Notes for 730 here]

731 When I had now blown the "Trumpet", what does he say about its "tone"? Nothing further than that it "is to be wondered at with the present extension of press freedom and certainly to be lamented as a desperate condition, that one so often still takes refuge in irony, satire and persiflage and for this purpose takes up the mask of piety in order to deceive all the more surely, but especially misuses biblical language for such purposes of mockery and derision." (p. 46).

[Notes for 731 here]

732 Of the "present extension of press freedom" we will be silent, although the outrageous thought that in the case when "freedom is extended", freedom is already present or that one can speak of freedom at all, would have to be denounced and accused without cease, daily, hourly as the worst betrayal of freedom. If the gaoler has to ensure that the prisoner cannot leave his dungeon, then he knows where he stands, and he as well as the prisoner are spared a thousand useless torments. If, however, the gaoler receives the order to give the prisoner free movement occasionally, but still remains gaoler and still has to lead the prisoner back into the dungeon at the fixed hour, then his anxiety and concern that he might give the prisoner too much freedom, yes the possibility to escape, must become terrible, inventive when it comes to precautionary measures, and a hellish torment for the prisoner. At every step the prisoner wants to take, the gaoler will waver whether he should let him go here or there, both will become a torment to each other every moment and wish back the time when their relation was connected with fewer circumstances, or the prisoner will think still more of a future where he will have no more worth to the gaoler. He who speaks to the people of freedom when the pressure of the fetters becomes milder, i.e., only more perceptible, betrays the true cause of the people by contributing to the blunting or finally complete suppression of the thought of true, sincere freedom.

[Notes for 732 here]

733 Marheineke says I have "taken up the mask of piety in order to deceive all the more surely." I declare on the contrary, and both my writings will prove to the connoisseur, that I have wanted to deceive no one. Not even the censorship have I wanted to deceive, at most I could only hope to make its responsibility less if it could appeal to the form of the religious accusation in which it let through principles whose proclamation it would in any case have had to suppress "with the present extension of press freedom."

[Notes for 733 here]

734 If I had wanted to deceive, I would either have had to write not at all or like my opponents, i.e., with the same lack of courage, unclarity, indefiniteness, i.e., speak with the appearance of the same total ignorance of the matter, i.e., again have left my writings unwritten, since I would not have been able to bring it over myself to write a meaningless and superfluous book.

[Notes for 734 here]

735 By speaking themselves of the profanation of what counts for them as the highest, at least should count as such and would have to be defended by them with the highest expenditure of force, my opponents prove that they cannot even defend their cause and grasp it sharply. Marheineke only wonders that one "with the present extension of press freedom" still takes refuge in irony, in mockery, he only "laments" it as "a desperate condition", but does not say why this condition is a "desperate" one, and does not ask whether it perhaps did not have to occur.

[Notes for 735 here]

736 Herr Gruppe thinks I have had to "mask myself and appear against myself" — as if the "Trumpet" were directed against me! because to my annoyance no denunciators were found, of which we Hegelians always used to speak and of which I also had spoken a year before (p. 77). How weak, how small and moreover how false is this denunciation! So in the years 1840 and 1841 science lived in rest and peace? The temple of Janus was closed? The lamb grazed with the wolf? The flocks of lambs did not cry when a wolf broke into them? Herr Gruppe must necessarily write us the history of these two wonder-years, the history of years in which faith forgot its first duty, which it has to fulfil towards science, the duty of denunciation. Faith must denounce and it has also denounced in those two years, it has also denounced me — and I am truly furthest from reproaching it for that, that it denounced me, and has not the denunciation finally become so loud that I only did earlier what faith does now? But I did it not only earlier, but also more purely, more strongly, more correctly than faith does it now and than it had done it in the previous years. Faith has become so weak and indefinite that it cannot even accuse its opponent properly and correctly. Science had once to show it what a grande dénonciation is. It did it earlier, before faith itself came to see that the opposition had become desperate, in order to show that it dominates the collision, is already beyond it and has brought it about with free consciousness and intention.

[Notes for 736 here]

737 Herr Gruppe says I have "put limited and short-sighted things — let one hear the language 'short-sighted things'! — into the mouth of the opponent." Herr Gruppe may therefore — he must, he must solve all the tasks which I am forced to set him — furnish the proof that he in his writing lets faith speak more cleverly, that he in general lets it speak as cleverly as I have let it speak. Does Herr Gruppe think I have made faith too limited, then he should have asked whether faith is not limitation itself. His writing is rather a new proof that faith cannot bring forward even one telling word against its opponent, and faith has even become — as the objections and denunciations of my opponents prove — so weak that it can no longer bring forward a single turn which could in the remotest measure itself with those which I have placed in my two writings. My opponents have not even been able to depict my critique — how proud could Herr Gruppe have been if he had written the depiction of my method which I have communicated in the introduction to the writing on Hegel's doctrine of art and religion! Faith has become so decrepit and incapable that it cannot even grasp the opposition in which it stands. Naturally! Only the power to which victory belongs and which is in itself beyond the opposition into which history has placed it, can also comprehend and depict it.

[Notes for 737 here]

738 "A party that resorts to such weapons cannot possibly feel strong," says Herr Gruppe p. 77, i.e., a party that before all powers of the existing, before the government, before the mass of all its opponents pronounces the consequences of its principle, voluntarily presents itself to its opponents, gives its opponents a consciousness of the opposition of which they themselves are incapable, a party that unfurls its banner before all the world and gives weapons to the host of its adversaries which they lacked, still more, that also gives its opponents strength to bear and use these weapons, a party that directs the arm of its opponents upon itself — yes, such a party is weak.

[Notes for 738 here]

739 Such a party, according to the view of Herr Gruppe p. 98, "has in general no consciousness of what it does:" i.e., it helps it nothing that it presents the opposition, which it has itself created, in its sharpness: its opponents cannot understand it anyway.

[Notes for 739 here]

740 Such a party, according to the view of Herr Gruppe p. 98, "has in general no consciousness of what it does:" i.e., it helps it nothing that it presents the opposition, which it has itself created, in its sharpness: its opponents cannot understand it anyway.

[Notes for 740 here]

741 According to the view of Marheineke, I have committed a double misuse: I have misused individual "fancies of Hegel and the biblical language."

[Notes for 741 here]

742 Hegel may thank himself for that the series of thoughts which press forward to the summit of his system and overthrow all powers of the old world are called "witty fancies", which he would certainly (p. 34) have suppressed if he had known that they could be embarrassed or misused. I had, says Marheineke, torn individual sentences and sayings of Hegel out of their context: I have rather placed them in the context in which they first receive their true significance.

[Notes for 742 here]

743 I had not, remarks Marheineke further, furnished the proof that these sentences and sayings "have in the Hegelian system so essential, necessary a place that without them it cannot be and exist." In the "Trumpet" and in the comedy which is introduced by it, I had only to ensure that those sentences were placed through themselves and through their common opposition against religion in their inner coherence: the question what place they have in the whole Hegelian system, how they relate to the more limited moments of this system, how these moments already announce themselves in the Phenomenology and how they partly make the Logic mysterious, this question did not yet belong in that comedy, in which only the summit of the system could become visible, and the common works of the present will furnish its answer in good time.

[Notes for 743 here]

744 As regards (p. 46) "the biblical language", I have not "misused" it for the purposes of mockery and derision, but used it as it wants to be used. I have given it back to its important use or rather only openly shown how it alone can be used and how it has hitherto been used. Its beggar's pride I have set in its true light.

[Notes for 744 here]

745 The theologians, who have hitherto misused the sayings of the Bible as witnesses for their speculative propositions or other enlightened views, and they alone, can complain about how I have let the Bible testify: the Bible itself, however, can and will not complain. It must rejoice that I have let it be what it is: the mockery of all human free interests, the mockery and irony on humanity itself.

[Notes for 745 here]

746 Mocked it thereby, that I introduced it as what it is?

[Notes for 746 here]

747 I have only placed it in its correct opposition; I have really confronted it with its opposite, art and science, the opposite which it has and wants to mock.

[Notes for 747 here]

748 But through this opposition and through the manner in which it judges it, have I mocked it? What can I do for it if it deceives itself by performing a comedy with art and science, if these rather play comedy with it?

[Notes for 748 here]

749 I have only given it back what it has done to mankind and expressly to its earlier opponents. How does scripture mock paganism and the stone idols which have eyes and see not? How do the prophets mock the law, how does, for example, Malachi call the legal feasts dung, which Jehovah will "cast in the face" of the Jews "that it may stick fast." And Paul calls everything outside Christ dung, and dung is to religion everything outside itself!

[Notes for 749 here]

750 Oh, religion can mock splendidly!

[Notes for 750 here]

751 Mockery is in a certain stage of the struggle a necessary weapon. It is the proof that theory has so far finished with the object that its dominion has completely ceased and the spirit has also practically attained to freedom. Mockery occurs in that moment — but only in this moment — when theory completes itself and must also practically deny the previous practical validity of the object. Mockery is still the theoretical liberation from a power which still rules practically — it is the prophecy of the world-condition in which the theoretically overthrown power is also practically overcome.

[Notes for 751 here]

752 Religious mockery, however, is clumsy, crude, violent, because it does not mock the essence of the matter and only holds to the appearance and externals or throws the matter away without looking. The mockery of science attacks the essence, because it presupposes the understanding and the fulfilment of it — it is unavoidable, because it consists in the correct setting up of the opposition.

[Notes for 752 here]

753 The presumption of critique.

[Notes for 753 here]

754 If I have erred according to the view of my opponents, then I could only have not erred if I had not placed religion, art and science in their opposition. Religion, however, wants this opposition, it wants to mock its opposite, i.e., to be mocked by it. The theologian must carry out this will of religion and I have therefore acquired a merit towards it if I carried out this its last will.

[Notes for 754 here]

755 Even the utmost mockery which critique exercises against religion has not been able to tear the opponents of critique from their indolence and open their eyes about the seriousness of the opposition. "The devil the little people never notice, even if he had them by the collar." Only a chance is it — Herr Gruppe will prove it to us immediately — that sometimes a presentiment comes to them of how far the "presumption" of critique goes. We shall see whether they use these favourable moments to finally get behind the seriousness of the opposition.

[Notes for 755 here]