§ 73: For example, the doctrine of the Trinity. – What if this doctrine, after endless wanderings to and fro, should only lead human understanding to finally recognize that God cannot possibly be one in the sense in which finite things are one; that his unity must be a kind of transcendental unity which does not exclude a kind of plurality. – Must not God at least have the most perfect conception of himself, i.e., a conception which includes everything which is in him? But would it include everything which is in him if it contained only a conception, a mere possibility of his essential reality, as well as of His other qualities? This possibility exhausts the essence of his other qualities. But does it also exhaust that of his essential reality? I think not. – Consequently God can either have no perfect conception of himself at all, or this perfect conception is just as essentially real as he himself is and so forth. – Certainly, my image in the mirror is nothing but an empty representation of me because it has of me only that from which rays of light fall upon its surface. But if this picture had everything, everything without exception, which I myself have, would it then be still an empty representation, or rather a true duplicate of myself? – If I believe I recognize a similar duplication in God, I may not be wrong insofar as language is subject to my concepts; and this as much remains forever indisputable, that those who wished to make this idea popular could hardly have expressed themselves more comprehensibly and appropriately than by choosing the appellation of a Son whom God created from eternity.
§ 74: And the doctrine of Original Sin. What if everything finally convinced us that man, at the first and lowest stage of his humanity, is not master enough of his actions to be able to obey moral laws?
§ 75: And the doctrine of the Son's satisfaction. What if everything finally compelled us to assume that God, despite that original incapacity of man, nevertheless chose to give him moral laws and to forgive him all transgressions in consideration of his Son (i.e., in consideration of the independently existing sum of all his perfections, compared with which, and in which, every imperfection of the individual disappears), rather than not to give him those laws, and thus to exclude him from all moral happiness, which is inconceivable without moral laws.
§ 76: Let it not be objected that such rational speculations on the mysteries of religion are forbidden. The word mystery signified, in the early days of Christianity, something quite different from what it means now; and the development of revealed truths into rational truths is absolutely necessary if the human race is to be helped at all by them. When they were revealed, they were certainly not yet rational truths; but were revealed in order to become such. They were like the result that the arithmetic teacher gives his pupils in advance so that they may direct themselves somewhat in calculation. If the pupils were satisfied with the result, they would never learn to calculate, and the intention with which the good master gave them the clue for their work would be frustrated.
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