Hermann Cohen Quotes on God
Hermann Cohen’s Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism (Religion der Vernunft aus den Quellen des Judentums, 1919, posthumous) gave neo-Kantian Jewish philosophy its most influential systematic theology. The central thesis is that the divine reality disclosed in the prophetic and rabbinic sources of Judaism is the unique God whose ethical correlate is the unique human person responsible for the realization of justice in the historical world — and the corresponding philosophical theology articulates Cohen’s broader Marburg neo-Kantianism (the Logic of Pure Cognition, the Ethics of Pure Will, the Aesthetics of Pure Feeling) into the religious dimension proper to Judaism. The framework, developed during Cohen’s late career at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin, shaped the modern liberal Jewish theological tradition through Rosenzweig, Buber, and the broader twentieth-century philosophical engagement with Jewish religious sources.
Quotes
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Attributed to Hermann Cohen:
“Religion is reason in the form of feeling.”
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“If I love God, I don't in this way pantheistically love the universe, or the animals, trees and shrubs as my fellow created beings, but rather I love in God precisely the Father of Humanity. And this higher meaning, this social significance, always has its terminus in God the Father. He is not so much the creator and author, but much more the protector and comforter of the poor. p. 81”
Wenn ich Gott liebe, so liebe ich nicht pantheistisch das Universum, nicht die Tiere, die Bäume und die Kräuter, als meine Mitgeschöpfe, sondern aber ich liebe in Gott einseitig den Vater der Menschen, und diese höhere Bedeutung und diese soziale Prägnanz hat nunmehr der religiöse Terminus von Gott alsVater: er ist nicht sowohl der Schöpfer und Urheber, sondern vielmehr der Schutz und Beistand der -
“In this light the God who appears to me is the comforter of the poor and their avenger in world history. This avenger of the poor is the God I love. p. 81”
Unter dieser Beleuchtung entsteht mir der Gott, der der Beistand des Armen ist und sein Rächer in der Weltgeschichte. Diesen Rächer der Armen liebe ich. -
“In the poor man I see humanity. I can't think of humanity without feeling sympathy for him, without feeling love for him. It is not the physical universe, but rather the moral universe, the social existence of mankind, that I must think and love, if my thought of God is to be called love. p. 81”
An dem Armen geht mir der Mensch auf. Daher kann ich den Menschen nicht denken ohne das Mitleid mit ihm, ohne die Liebe zu ihm. Nicht das Universum, aber das sittliche Universum, das soziale Dasein der Menschen muß ich denken und lieben, wenn mein Denken Gottes: Liebe heißen darf. -
“Worm that I am, consumed by passion, cast as bait for selfishness, I must nonetheless love humanity. If I can do this, and insofar as I can do this, I can also love God. p. 82”
Wurm, der ich bin, von Leidenschaften zerfressen, der Selbstsucht zum Köder hingeworfen, soll ich dennoch den Menschen lieben. Wenn ich dies kann, und sofern ich dies kann, kann ich auch Gott lieben. -
“Only the idea of God gives me the confidence that morality will become reality on earth. And because I cannot live without this confidence, I cannot live without God.”
p. 5 -
“Love of God implies love of religion. And religion exemplifies that creative spirit of God which is at work in history as well as in the mind of man. Thus, one ought to love any religion, that is, religion as such, and in any form—as a manifestation of the moral spirit, the divine spirit of mankind.”
p. 52