Religion is a transcendental economy and hedonistic. That which
man seeks in religion, in religious faith, is to save his own
individuality, to eternalize it, which he achieves neither by science,
nor by art, nor by ethics. God is a necessity neither for science, nor
art, nor ethics; what necessitates God is religion. And with an insight
that amounts to genius our Jesuits speak of the grand business of our
salvation. Business--yes, business; something belonging to the economic,
hedonistic order, although transcendental. We do not need God in order
that He may teach us the truth of things, or the beauty of them, or in
order that He may safeguard morality by means of a system of penalties
and punishments, but in order that He may save us, in order that He may
not let us die utterly. And because this unique longing is the longing
of each and every normal man--those who are abnormal by reason of their
barbarism or their hyperculture may be left out of the reckoning--it is
universal and normative.
Religion, therefore, is a transcendental economy, or, if you like,
metaphysic. Together with its logical, esthetic, and ethical values, the
Universe has for man an economic value also, which, when thus made
universal and normative, is the religious value. We are not concerned
only with truth, beauty, and goodness: we are concerned also and above
all with the salvation of the individual, with perpetuation, which those
norms do not secure for us.
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