Dr. J. Glenn Friesen

Studies relating to Franz von Baader

Elementary concepts concerning Time
As Introduction to the Philosophy of Society and History

[Elementarbegriffe über die Zeit:
als Einleitung zur Philosophie der Sozietät und Geschichte]

by Franz von Baader

(1831)

Translation and Notes by J. Glenn Friesen ©2004

The original can be found in Baader's Werke 14, 29-54.

Quia tempus et mare non erit amplius
Apok. X.6 [1]
[That time and the sea should be no longer]
Rev. 10:6

Translator’s Introduction

Baader’s style of German is notoriously difficult. I have broken up his very long sentences into many shorter sentences. Words in round brackets are Baader’s own parenthetical remarks. Those portions of the text in square brackets are either the original untranslated text, or additional words that I have inserted to make sense of the text. All endnotes to this text are my own. These endnotes also make comparisons to the neo-Calvinism of Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) and to the Christian philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977). Baader influenced both Kuyper and Dooyeweerd. Dooyeweerd also had access to In my endnotes I have also made comparisons to the philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd, who was evidently influenced by Baader’s works, and who had access to Die Herdflamme Sammlung der gesellschaftswissenschaftlichen Grundwerke aller Zeiten und Völker. It included a volume on Baader edited by Johan Sauter. The volume included this work, "Elementarbegriffe über die Zeit.”

Foreword by Baader

If complaints are made that the vital truths or doctrines of religion are still so obscure, the fault is not so much the mysterious nature of these truths. Rather, the fault is due more to the mystification–partly intentional–by certain philosophers. Although they put themselves forward as being concerned with the Enlightenment, they in fact seek only to spread obscurity with respect to these religious doctrines. These so-called [soi-disants] philosophers deal with us as we deal with children, when we hide something and then behave towards them as if we are looking for it with them. That is to say, they begin by clearing away our root convictions (idées causes or mères)[2] as much as they can, [on the grounds that they cannot be explained]. But in fact we can only explain something from that which is itself inexplicable, just as all that moves only moves from out of an immovable and is only moveable within it. In other words, they mix up and confuse the inexplicable, which is the ground of all explanation, with the explained, which does not itself explain. By doing this, they make it no longer easy for us to be able to obtain a knowledge of either one.

The current philosophical propositions concerning Eternity and time provide a most significant example of this confusion. Here more than anywhere else, the philosophical pronouncements stand in the most glaring opposition and conflict to those of religion. It occurs to almost no one to try to seek a reconciliation or solution to this scandalous conflict. The following work should be regarded as one such attempt. As with all of my works, my purpose is that by keeping our philosophical contemplation [Spekulation] [3] completely free, I will be able to bring about its free union with religion. For Truth, which is itself free, disdains ruling over others, who are also free beings. And the priest of Truth should be neither a slave nor a eunuch. For there is in our hearts, as Tauler says, a Center, in which no creature can enter by force [eindringen]. So therefore no other human spirit should want to force its entry into any other person’s Spirit. Because of this, what people say to each other should have no other goal except that of mutual help, in order to become aware within oneself of what has not been said, and what for humans is unutterable. For true thoughts are only those that think themselves in and through us, just as true prayer is that which itself speaks in and through us.

Schwabing by Munich, November 16, 1831

1

Our present philosophical propositions about the Absolute generally mix up the concept of perfected being with that of infinite being. A creature as such is imperfect. His concepts are inadequate and non-corresponding, but are rather unfinished, defective and bad, as long as he is himself unable to come to God. This may be because God has invalidated him as an enemy separated from Him, or because, please God, he has thrown himself into the divine abyss, or groundlessness. The concept of immanence or of the inexistence [Inexistenz] [4] of all things in God (as omnimpotent, because omnitenens)[5] has been pantheistically mixed up by these philosophers with the idea of identity with God.

2

The concept of perfected (absolute or integral) being, understood in and of itself, is that of coming together [Zusammenseins] (or of simultaneity). It is the inseparability of enduring (of immovability and unchangeability) and the continual-change-of oneself as renewal. In this way, there is rest and motion, determinateness (being placed by law) [6] and freedom, as reciprocals moving within and then again proceeding outwards. But in the usual abstraction of these reciprocals, motion is made to appear incomprehensible and unstable, and rest is regarded as rigid and lifeless.

Bossuet acknowledges the identity [of these reciprocals] when in his Elevations sur les mysteres (I, 6) he speaks of the ‘prodige’ [extraordinary “supernatural” event, Ereignis]:

…que le mouvement et le repos, choses si distinctes ne sont elans le fond que la même substance, laquelle se meut et qui se repose.

[…that movement and rest, things so different, are at their basis (an event of) the same substance, by which it moves itself and rests itself.]

Nevertheless, in his exposition of the Ternar [7], Bossuet confuses the being [Wesen] (être) with the act. He identifies being with the Father, knowledge with the Son and love with the Spirit, although knowing (Schauen or beholding), willing (loving) and acting constitute this Ternar, which like ourselves is just one and the same being.[8] Bossuet consequently confuses the individuality (or nature) of God with the Persons of God. For God exists in these Persons as both indivisibile as well as unmixed. This helps us to distinguish even the concept of the Divine [Personality] from the creaturely personality, in that the creaturely personality only exists as the simultaneous multiplication or distinguishing of nature or individuality. But this gifted theologian [Bossuet] partly corrects himself. In a following paragraph he distinguishes the generating [zeugende] Wisdom (Father) from the generated (Son), just like the distinction made by Thomas Aquinas or Jakob Boehme. By this investigation one finds the distinction between these two [Father and Son], as well as of the active (operative) Wisdom. This is similar to the way that the Hebrew philosophy [Kabbalah] already designates the third Sefiroth (Binah) as Intelligence (Verstand), whose function it is to differentiatingly obtain Wisdom (Hochmah), which in part corresponds to the Vernunft of modern [philosophy]).[9]

For the same reason, Bossuet’s concept of happiness or bliss is incomplete (because not fully Ternar-like). He speaks of its idea and of love for it, but he forgets the active co-working of blessed beings, without which there can be no bliss. For the sake of completeness I mention here that St. Martin sets out a Ternar of [1] Wonder, [2] of Worship (Adoration) and [3] of Obedience, Effecting, Exercising or Procreation. The third part of this Ternar, taken both immanently as well as emanently, is in fact an act of obedience. And each act of worship (whether true or false) is enclosed within this circle of wonder, of loving adoration and of action.

Now only a free intelligence can wonder, since wonder is itself a free giving of oneself (devouement). Because of this, an irrational, unfree animal does not have the ability to wonder. And the devil does not want to wonder. In this way one sees that the freeing and holding free of intelligence is the first condition of worship.

3

There is therefore a coincidence of change as renewal with that of permanent enduring. One can easily see that this coincidence does not and cannot take place in our temporal life. The coincidence has the appearance of a circling or continual return (as a falling together of progress and regress). But for beings that are carried in time, it there produces a genuine progress or regress. Because of this we also, although usually unclearly, connect our concepts of time–such as origination (becoming) or of passing away (perishing)–with another concept, the nontemporal.

It is in this latter sense [the nontemporal] that we must understand the expression, “everything has its time.” Everything (which proceeds from out of Eternity) must make its way through time, in order to thereafter again re-enter Eternity. Only from this standpoint can one properly understand the concepts of old age and rejuvenation, as they have occurred up to that time. The old alchemists called the reduction or reintegration of a thing into its principle its rejuvenation [making-young], for whatever stands close to its Origin is young, and whatever is distant from its Origin is old. This rejuvenation of a being is also to be understood as the bursting out from (freeing from) its bonds of time (materiality).[10] Because its aging began with its entrance into time. For as Meister Eckhart says, the fetus begins to age, or ceases to be young, when it begins to live temporally, and therefore it is already old enough to die. The concepts of youth, immortality and integrity of being coincide.

4

From the foregoing one can already see the radical error of most philosophers, who mix up time and Eternity, and who speak of an eternal time and of a temporal Eternity, just as Spinoza confuses the Creator and creation; he wants to affirm their identity, but in fact he denies both. What is false in this confusion, by which one understands Eternity as only an infinitely protracted time, becomes apparent when we consider that each time [as duration], whether you take a large or a small [segment], always has both a beginning and an end. And if one attempts to conceptualize this as nontemporality, so that there is a continual severing of [discrete] durations, that will still not show to us an eternal time.

5

Each defined now or here is intuited [geschaut] as a concept only in the always and everywhere. We can therefore regard time (duration) as a suspension of Eternity (the always). Or we can say that time is related to Eternity as a part is related to a whole, a whole that although divisible, is nevertheless not in actuality already divided (as long as the whole has not been sublated [aufgehoben]). [11]

In the second half of my Lectures concerning Speculative Dogmatics I have already shown that the concept of that-which is-put-together [Zusammengesetztheit] coincides with the concept of the being-fitted-into [Versetztheit][12] of the elements of a being. For everything in time and space is as such put-together, as well as displaced (dislocated), both inwardly and outwardly.

6

If time is a suspension of Eternity, or insofar as it is a being-displaced [Versetzheit], this is a suspension of the normal subjectedness to law [Gesetztheit]. The being-displaced is a being-put-together [Zusammengesetztheit]; it is therefore a non-unity [Nichteinheit]. Therefore the character of everything temporal is that which is not whole and not integral, and it must have within it the dialectical progression towards the opposite [Jenseits]–that is, towards Integrity, Fullness or towards the Sufficiency of Being. This restlessness is the necessary imperative of such a [temporal] being.[13]

7

A second, no less common error concerning time lies in the lack of insight that Being that is Eternal, Absolute and For-Itself can bring forth in immediacy as its likeness and image only that which is in the same way Eternal. It does not bring forth the temporal (that which is being-placed and put-together). Therefore the primal state [Urstand] of time, or of the temporal (material) universe cannot be affirmed to be the original or unmediated production of God.

Obscurely or clearly, this conviction rests at the basis of all legends, myths, and poems about the primal state of time. They all speak of an Event [Ereignis] that immediately precedes this state and which in fact caused it [time]. If I here take the concept of “time” as meaning the same as that of “matter,” I presuppose that both (time and space) are only fitted-into [gesetzt] by means of a material substance, without which they are abstractions.

8

In passing let us notice an ignorance of modern philosophy, that it only affirms one mode [Weise] of production from the Absolute, from which they can acknowledge only one mode of Inexistenz within the Absolute of that which has been produced. As against this, the oldest Hebrew philosophy [Kabbalah] affirms four worlds or four productions from the Absolute (En Soph), namely:

1. the mundum archetypum [archetypal world] as an emanation (Aziloth)
2. the mundum angelicum [angelic world] as created (Briah)
3. the mundum sidereum [sidereal world] as formed (Pezirah) and
4. the mundum elementarem [elementary world] as made (Asiah)

In support they refer to the verse from Isaiah 43:7:

…in gloriam meam creavi eum, formavi eum et feci eum

[…for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him, yea I have made him] [KJV] [14]

Now the emanated production really first begins with the mundus angelicus [angelic world], although the unfolding of the mundus archetypus [archetypal world] constitutes the Ideals of Perfection. From this also follows:

Finis coronat opus
[The end crowns the work] [15]

Because of this, humanity [16], who appears last, is more closely related to the mundum acrchetypus (the Sophia) than are the created angels. The mundus archetypus has here the meaning of “gloria (doxa) dei” [the Glory of God], or His Shekina. Therefore, Isaiah’s words cover all four worlds, within the meaning of the Kabbalah.

Already included in this teaching is the affirmation that all created, formed and made beings have their spiritual Root in the mundus archetypus, so that without doubt Plato created his teaching of the Ideas based on this philosophy [Kabbalah].

9

However most of our philosophers are very far from this insight, that no temporal can immediately proceed from the Eternal. From a Whole and from One can come no brokenness, no breach. From the Giver of Law [Gesetzgeber] can come no being-displaced [Versetztes]. From the One can come no being-put-together. These philosophers, like our nature philosophers, instead turn this around so that temporality or transience, and the materiality of such a product are regarded as primitive and constitutive. And this error hangs together with other errors, especially the following: they do not see that from out of the Perfect there can only come directly that which is perfect; but from this it does not follow that this innate directly obtained perfection was already firmly fixed. For as the Scriptures show, God made all things good, but they thereafter became not good. [17] With some reflection, one can easily understand, that an intelligent and free creature, brought into integral Dasein [existence] without its own doing (or its own will), cannot be established or confirmed in this integral Being without its free cooperation. For what is truly one and unified can only occur when there has been a fundamental or radical redemption of that which is disunity, disintegration [Zersetzbarkeit] and being displaced [Versetzbarkeit]. And what is truly light is only what has been redeemed from darkness; what is truly living is only that which has been redeemed from death (the posse mori [18] according to Augustine).

The intelligent and free creature is still unstable [labile] in the first stage of its being. And so, too are the non-intelligent creatures who belong to him in the solidarity of Existenz.[19] They are perishable, and they maintain their imperishability only insofar as the intelligent creature [humanity] can win their stability [Illabilität], or confirm them in God. From this one can understand the possibility of a fourfold relationship of intelligence with non-intelligent nature:

1. In the first, unmediated state, in which both [intelligent beings and non-intelligent nature] are certainly united, but they have not been established in this Unity. This state is one of innocence, both for the intelligent beings and for nature, which has no selfhood [20], or
2. Both are bound to each other by an inner repulsion, or
3. Both are bound together outwardly, but inwardly they are indifferent with respect to each other, and their repulsion is at least suspended, or finally
4. Both are truly and inseparably united.

10

A satisfying explanation about these two stages [unstable and stable] for each created being is found only in the writings of the cobbler from Görlitz, Jakob Boehme. Without this explanation we can understand neither the proving temptation [21], nor the rebirth (as second birth).[22] This also completely opens our understanding concerning that mystery written about by Paul, which consists of the fact that the Father has certainly immediately created all beings, in order to send them His Son, a sending that in relation to humanity is called a being begotten in the Only-Begotten.[23] As the Scriptures say, we are not created as children of God, but rather with the power to become children.[24] This power was lost in the Fall and has now again been gained for us by the Saviour. Moreover, Jakob Boehme has shown that we can only pass through this twofold stage of creaturely being (unmediated and mediated) when we have achieved the insight that God Himself eternally, through his unmediated Being, enters into His mediated and thereby perfected Being.

11

Boehme demonstrated how in God, the eternal ascent is mediated by His eternal descent. But many German philosophers have misunderstood the philosophical propositions of this researcher, in that they attribute to God Himself what Jakob Boehme only wanted to make known of the creature (or the creaturely). These critics have taken the two moments of God’s entrance into integrated Being [Dasein] as if they were separable moments, as they are in the situation of the yet unproved creature. They did not view these two moments as being one in their Ground (not indifferent). In this [wrong] interpretation, Schelling spoke of a dark or obscure Ground in God, and of a History, i.e. a Time for Him, namely as one that is perfecting itself in and through creation. In the same sense, Hegel spoke of creation as a falling away of the divine Idea from itself. Daumer penetrated more deeply than his predecessors into the mystery, in that he acknowledged a pre-worldly Event [Ereignis] as an explanation of the primal state of the temporal world. But Daumer also had this wrong interpretation [of the two moments] when he spoke of a first product or issuance from the Absolute, which because of its rebellious selfhood elevated itself to Ahriman, whose precipitation or rather residue [caput mortuum [25] gave the primal matter [prima materia] to Ormuzd (Adam Kadmon [26]). But admittedly this does not explain how the defeated Ahriman could give the inferior first-born Ormuzd so much to do. In the Persian teaching at least, both are twin brothers, and the great drama ends with the death, or at least the complete weakening, of Ahriman, but does not begin with that event.

I cannot help using this opportunity to censure another error of modern German philosophy, which however is of an older date.

Non-intelligent nature, which has been separated from Intelligence, and which is now only outwardly bound to it, becomes materialized or de-spiritualized. In the same way, Intelligence, in the same relationship, becomes de-naturalized [disembodied]. In this situation both are not unified. They are only a composite, as one correctly defines temporally living humans as being put together out of body and soul.[27] The macrokosmos itself is put together out of Spirit and nature. Now since Descartes, it has been the radical error of German philosophers (e.g. Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, etc.) that they regard this composition of intelligent and non-intelligent nature, this dualism, as original, constitutive, and therefore as inexplicable. So long as these philosophers cannot free themselves from this fixed idea, they will make of religion itself something that is a composite. In fact religion does not accept this dualism as original and therefore sees it as redeemable. But these philosophers will make of religion a timid and meek appendage that gives thanks to philosophy for allowing it to succeed at least half way in speaking of the religious doctrines of Spirit and nature, or they may even give the impression that philosophy is there to protect religion, somewhat in the way that one speaks of the protection of religion by the government.

12

As already remarked, it is only by its free co-operation that the intelligent creature passes from its directly obtained mode of being into its mediated one. One can therefore readily understand the possibility of a twofold use of this freedom, and thereby a twofold mediation–either for or against God.[28] If it is against God, such a creature no longer wants to be the image of God, but rather wants to make himself the image, having chosen to effectively deny his creaturely elation to God, without however being able to get rid of his constitutive imperative, of actually being the image of God.

In relation to the twofold mediation [for or against God], I am reminded that the error in Schelling’s teaching of a dark Ground in the Absolute consists in the fact that in this teaching the darkness is regarded as unmediated. But the darkness, just like light, originates only through mediation. Therefore Boehme says that a creature created in the light, once he has reverted to the darkness, the negative mediation of his being, without being identified with it, cannot directly return to the light or to the positive mediation. Rather, it is only by the deeper cause of both [light and darkness] that he either falls through the darkness or that he can be again delivered from it. This assertion is also made by religion, when it says that we can travel the path to rebirth only holding the hand of the dreadful brother (Death).

Per crucem (ignem) ad lucem.
[By means of the cross (fire) to the light]

13

All legends and myths of all people speak of such a primal state of the material world before the beginning of time, of an unmediated preceding Event [Ereignis]. In this Event, some of the intelligences created by God in Eternity turns towards him, having been tested by him, and others turn against God, having made the decision to make their selfhood absolute through wanting-to-make-themselves-image. They thereby became demons, whose corruption understandably was not limited to themselves, but was rather shared, more or less, with all beings found in their regions.

14

This twofold division of intelligences makes understandable the appearance of a heaven and of a hell for them. But it does not explain the origin of a temporal world. The direct–Central or Total–opposition of a creature against God must also have as its consequence a corresponding direct rejection from the side of God. But this [rejection] is not the indirect, as it were crooked or half-rejection, which undeniably makes itself noticeable in the movement of time.[29] And this is only explainable by the hypothesis that a creature, who enters time, or for whom time was created, being neither directly for nor directly against God, but rather being only without God, wants to follow the diagonal between these two directions. The usual distinction between a centripetal and a centrifugal direction must then be rectified, so that the latter [centrifugal] can be a fleeing from the Center in two senses: one can either fly over the middle (Center), or one can sink into it.

15

Temporal life is characterized by this incompleteness, ambiguity, indecisiveness or duality. And this [temporal life] ceases, just like the incompleteness ceases and the creature makes either one or the other direction exclusively his own, having made himself thereby free or having escaped from these opposites. For the creature has it in his power, in its progression through his time, through his continued good choice, to make his incomplete but good direction–which is not yet a direct return to God–into one that is whole and direct, and to wholly redeem the opposite direction.. Or he can choose to do the reverse. In both of these cases they [the opposites] will cease to be equally balanced in time (their previous medium). If the ultimate determination is against God, then such a creature will at the same time become specifically heavier, and further, sink under time. One sees from this how the free creature is himself building his heaven or his hell during his action in time.

I have shown elsewhere how this freedom of choice of which we are speaking, was originally given to the creature, and that he lost it by its misuse, and that when he entered time it was again given to him only in tenure [loan]. We may not, however, as most of our moralists do, mix up this given freedom of choice with that which is obtained by such decision. For just because this final or true freedom, as de Lamennais says, only takes itself, and does not give, God says, “Choose!” Lacordaire (cujus nomen leo) [whose name is Leo] expresses wonderfully the respect that God shows to human freedom, when he says:

…rien dans le dessein de Dieu n’a été accompli var voie de censure (préventive) et tout par voie repressive, et l’enfer n’existe, que parceque la censure (préventive) est impossible a Dieu même, ou parcequ’il a préferé du moins le regime de l’enfer au regime de la censure (préventive). (Melange catholiques 1, 250 in a section on censorship).

[…nothing in God’s design was accomplished by means of censorship (preventive) and everything was done by the repressive way, and hell only exits because censorship (preventive) is impossible for God himself, or because he has preferred the regime of hell to that of censorship (preventive).]

16

The construction of time given here certainly agrees with the teachings of religion. For one sees in this way why temporal life has a continual conflict of two tendencies or strivings, as well as the continual preponderance of the one standing over the other, as a result of the choosing and distinguishing acts of the creature (which therefore in this act must be free or independent as against both), as well as in a continuing separation between light and darkness (which reciprocally develop each other in this formative struggle [Formationsstreit]. Just as we can also the already given above definition of time as a suspension of Eternity obtains its corroboration , that this suspension (in relation to the creature) holds good both for the Eternity that is above as well as that which is under time. The integral manifestation of both of these remained occult [hidden] in time itself.

Religion calls the appearance of both in their integral manifestation the partial or general judgment, as the separation of both. Moreover, each act of free choice is, as one can see, either that of Light or of Hell, an act that frees either Christ or Barrabas. The one who chooses enters either into free service or into servitude, and each liberation is at the same time a binding, each manifestation is at the same time an occultation. On this also rests the distinction between good and bad liberalism. For here, too we can distinguish the constitutive freedom of election of sovereigns from the freedom or non-freedom that is extended to the governed themselves.

17

The division of intelligent beings into beings of light and beings of darkness does not explain the original–and continuing–state of time. It does not need to be proved that a Fall of humanity within time would explain the origin of time even less. The mission [of humanity] in time already presupposes time, and it is clear that the purpose of humanity in time was to be both above and within time, to lead it in its movement and to protect it.

18

We know, or should know, that humanity was entrusted with the Power of the Keys, in order to keep the supratemporal [überzeitlichen] region open for the region of time, and to keep the infratemporal–the region below time–locked. We also know that humanity did it the other way round, as it were turning the key, locking the supratemporal region and opening the entrance to the region below time. The region below time elevated itself to the region of time. This [infernal] elevation was in the same ratios as the fall of humanity into time. It was then humanity’s own fault for setting the attacks of these dark powers within the temporal region. One should therefore also know that neither the Fall of Lucifer, nor the Fall of humanity into time, nor the usurping elevation of the beings below time into the realm of time can explain the primal state of time, although they do explain its successive alterations, disruptions and revolutions.

19

The sought for explanation [of the primal state of time] is possible only by the hypothesis that all of the intelligences did not just go in two directions in relation to God, but rather were divided into three. That part of the intelligences that did not turn either towards God or away from God, but wanted only to be without God, gave the occasion for the primal state of the temporal region. I would refer the reader to Section 8 and to the mundus archetypus of the Hebrews as the Central production of En Soph. And for further reflection I would suggest that this temporal region now become the abode of the higher and highest manifestations of God–first in humans, and then in God-men. In the book of Revelation we do not read of a twofold eternal region (the new Heavens and the new earth) but of a threefold (the quaternary City of God, or the Heavenly Jerusalem counts as the third region).

It is not here the place to develop these ideas further. We could spend our time looking at stories of totally evil pre-human intelligent beings, such as are related in the oldest legends, and I am reminded of the Abbadonna in Klopstock’s Messiah.[30]

20

This theory of the origin and the meaning of time does not exclude any other theory of time, nor does it contradict it, provided that one proceeds from the presupposition of the solidarity and coherence of all the intelligences among themselves as well as with the self-less nature that belongs to them (as their heritage), and the separation and the casting out of nature (which separation is performed by time).[31] The intelligences having fallen from their first estate, they tried to again obtain this estate (nature). But this is of course not possible without and through humanity, since the stewardship of this domain which of which they had been dispossessed had been transferred to humanity.[32] This truth relates to the relation of solidarity of humanity’s good or evil conditions with the good or evil state of many beings. Humanity’s responsibility for this gives a dimension within time that must not be overlooked. To make this further understandable, let me say a few words here, especially about the high dignity and the virtuality [33]of humanity and of the earth in the universe, in order to vindicate the relation of both against their degradation by long-standing philosophical propositions.

21

For we must know that the position of the earth in the material order corresponds to the position of humanity in the higher order. And just as there is only one Human [Mensch] in the universe, so also there is only one earth. Both, the Human and the earth, are what the womb is for the woman–that mysterious place of work, formation and transformation of the central being (êtres principes) and its becoming sensible [Sensibilisation]. Both fulfill the function of the base in the universe, and one can say that just as the earth effects (operates) on the physical stars, so humanity itself has this function for the higher heavenly bodies. We therefore see both in a relation of solidarity with their destiny, as in their functions. Just as the fetus in the womb longs for its integration and the mother is responsible for this, so one can say the same thing about humanity and the earth in relation to all beings. They can seek their integrity only from humanity and from the earth. Humanity and the earth are also given those powers of separation by which those beings are reintegrated and re-ascend. These beings must win their reintegration in their passage through time, separating themselves from the opposing powers. We also see that the coming into being of humanity and the world has to do with all the non-integral beings who were still capable of being integrated. This applies to those beings who lost their integrity, as well as those whose integrity was merely suspended. We also see here how the fallen [gefallen] or fallen-back and withdrawn [gewichene] world, just as fallen humanity, remain supratemporal [34] in order to win or obtain their own regeneration by performing the service of reintegration for these beings.

But when humanity itself became earthly through the Fall, it became glebae adscriptus [bound to the soil] in relation to the earth. This changed the mode of Humanity’s relation to the earth. This relation shows itself in the history of their reciprocal culture, as is shown by worship itself, where the earth is always the sacrificial altar. On this rests the mysterious love of homeland, the honouring of graves, etc., just as all social institutions only maintain their existence when they are founded in a possession of land and when the earth is taken into account. As against this we see the mobilization of modern times, which expresses the curse and the flight [35] of Cain.

22

If we say that we give someone time and space, or take it way, then we are referring to time as a means by which a specific goal may be realized. We mean that by means of this realization, space and time are fulfilled or completed [zurückgelegt]. That is, each being that fulfills them, thereby succeeds in completing them, or has made himself free from them. We can therefore regard time and space as levels of evolution, or as laws of evolution [36] (that which has been fitted [37] or positioned), from which these beings must free themselves by their obtaining of power. Therefore, if a being observes and fulfills these laws, these laws are shown to be means to promote his evolution. But if they are not observed or if he opposes them, these laws will turn against him and become hindrances to his evolution.

Moreover, a being who finds himself within these locations [38] or laws [can only complete them] insofar as these laws enter within him [inne wird], by seeing them as opposite [Jenseits] and also being aware in himself of the motive power [Trieb] and imperative to complete them. An animal, which like humanity is within time, and therefore is and lives in time, is therefore not aware of time in the same way as humanity. An animal does not get bored. [39]

23

In order to obtain a theory of time (in its normality as well as in the abnormality of its evolution), it is most important to notice that each being, who enters a stage of evolution in the sense of a definite law, receives the light and the ability that he needs in order to fulfill this law, and through that fulfillment, obtains that power or that moment of his existence [Existenz] that he needs in order to progress and ascend from that law. Now if this necessary function is not done, then the law remains, but the ability to fulfill it, as well as the necessary light, both disappear. And for such a careless being there then enters a darkness and a heaviness, which continues to press down on him under the first [unfulfilled] law, even when he enters the following higher laws. For time advances, even if the human remains behind; time flies through and over him, if not with him. For example, when Jesus appeared among the Jews, they were already sunk low under their law, and they were less than Jews.[40]

This darkening and heaviness makes understandable the need for an outer light and an external carrier and guide [Führer]. [41]

24

When time advances in this [dark] way, admittedly through the fault of the being who has been fitted within it, instead of promoting evolution, it reacts upon him in a depressing way. And so the question near to our hearts is, how and why this depression or limitation [Hemmung] can be transformed again into a furthering help. And we are shown immediately three principal conditions for such a possible freeing again and salvation of someone who has been directed backwards in his evolution, and who has in his retrogression or even opposition become an extracted [42] or rigid being.

25

The first of these conditions is the solidarity [43] (Unity or Covenant) of the natures of both beings–namely the freeing helping being and the being that needs help in order to integrate, between the Integrating and the integrable. Without this covenant, the reversibility or derivation of their modes of being would not be possible. This is required by the organic rapport, the solidarity or the communio vitae [communion of life].

In Old German this Covenant was called ‘Marriage.’ Hence the old and the new Covenant, the old and the new marriage. We know that plants enter into this community by the flowing in and out of their sap, animals by their blood, etc. We know also that without this so-called chemical or essential (natural) community, there can be no rapport, no solidarity or sympathy. Such sympathy is also observable where there is either a primitive continuity or where through contact a secondary essential continuity is achieved.

26

The second of these conditions is that the helping being, the one who furthers evolution and who frees, is not only himself free in his evolution (for just as only the sick need a doctor, so must this doctor be healthy), but the helping being must also stand in a higher level of evolution than the stage to which the being needing help has sunk or been pressed down. For example, a being entering evolutionary stage “b” finds himself still in “a” and sunk back in “a” to “a1,” the saving being cannot come from region “b”, but must come from an even higher region “b1.” For each step backwards, each banishment to the past, requires a corresponding anticipation of the future, if the standstill [Stöckung] is to be sublated [aufgehoben].

For even an animal anticipates or shortens the time, when it gathers together its muscle power, in order to make its spring (to flee from an enemy). This helps us to understand what humans can achieve by the anticipation and drawing inwards of the future. It is in this context that we must understand the meaning of Hamlet’s cry, “My fate cries out, unhand me Gentlemen!” It is in this same meaning that God agrees with necessity [44].

27

The third condition of such a freeing mediation is that the freeing mediator must hold onto (or suspend) his own full evolution to the same extent and degree to which the being needing help finds himself, so that he may be in a position to grasp him, to bear him and to be able to work with him. Such a helping being must therefore, for the good of the needy one, himself make a retrograde motion, and empty himself from the full manifestation of his own glory.[45]

Glorify me Father, with the clarity that I had with you, before you sent me into the world. [46]

This retrogression is therefore grace, and all help comes from above. Amor descendit, ut elevet [Love descends, in order to raise up].

This help presupposes the cooperation of the one who is being helped. Each true kind of attraction (whether of a good or evil kind) therefore takes place in this reciprocity of action. It also presupposes the comprehensible Presence (assistance [47]) of a guide, that is, a leading or pointing atmosphere [Luft]. Physicists since Newton have therefore incorrectly referred to “weight” as an attraction, for in a fall there is no cooperation of the heavy body. Furthermore, in these cases, the mover only lives through [durchwohnen] the moved; the moved is subordinate to the mover and completely uncomprehended by it. There is then only a one-sided dwelling-through of the mover in the moved, and no reciprocal dwelling within [Inwohnung] or dwelling beside [Beiwohnen]. Therefore the motion of a weight is unfree, and the motion of that which is drawn up [des Zuges] is free.

28

This free suspension by the helping being of the manifestation of its integrity is for the good of the one needing help. It is an offering up of oneself for the other. And in this we have seen the concept of sacrifice in its greatest generality, and we have especially understood it as connected with the concept of time. We have seen this in the explanation given above that the origin or beginning of time coincides with the cessation or the suspension of full or integral Existenz.

29

In order to make clear this concept of Sacrifice and also of time, I want to give two examples: (1) the process of enlightenment and (2) Sacrificial Death. The first concerns instruction. There is no doubt that, if I teach a student, who needs light and is worthy or capable, and if I give him the light that he needs, then from my side this is only accomplished if I keep my knowledge or my intuition [Schauen] within me, but then let myself descend to the level of his non-knowing. I offer myself to his dark obscurity, and let it come towards me, taking its pain and its humiliation upon myself, to go within him, so that he can be freed from them and enter into my light.

30

The same process of “derivation” can also be shown in sacrificial death. Through this alone the central Idea of Christianity may receive that light that it yet lacks. For Origen and more recently also Maistre has compared the death of the Saviour with the being broken of a Vessel, through which a powerful spirit of Life became free and then spread itself out. One should have noticed that in itself, this freeing has no retroactive freeing action on those beings who still remain bound in these same vessels. For such a freeing it is not enough to have a lingering and remaining of the fleeting Spirit. What is required is an entering into and a making-Himself-intelligible, an embodiment and a sowing of Himself in the beings that are still bound. That is a voluntary suspension of His free Existenz, for the benefit of a freeing of the needy beings from their bound Existenz. Because of this we must say that when through death the freeing Agent has Himself become free, and has obtained the full power of His work, this work of freeing and salvation has only just begun, and will only cease at the end of time. Therefore the Eucharist shows forth the continuation of this suspension or self-sacrifice, as I have set out in my Schrift über die Eucharistie, as well as in my 40 Sätzen über einer religiösen Erotik, as well as in my Schrift über Segen und Fluch. I would also want to show the relation of feeding (alimentation) to sacrifice. [48]

By my participation, I can free a feeling, a belief, a conviction, a science, etc., from the bonds of its individuality. Through this freeing it can win an objectivity that is independent of me or others, i.e. a higher objectivity. It can then itself act (as freeing or restraining) even without my actions. Sometimes it may act against me and come back to me, like the word that I speak is no longer my word. It is as if an all-present agency in the air took the word within itself and made it its own, outside of me and without me, and it then continues to exist for or against me. And the person speaking can say that “the words were taken out of his mouth.”

Now just as in that way something that is within me strives towards the outside, so does that which stands outside of me work back on myself. One sees how these inner and outer testimonies continually try to mutually complete themselves.[49] Here we can note what was said by the alchemists, that the child is incomparably greater than his mother and that she really lives from it, although the child has obtained its existence [Dasein] only through the mother.

A being freed from these bonds has not lost his ability either to limit or to expand himself (his manifestation) at will. It is rather the reverse; this being has thereby won this ability for the first time, the ability to limit his manifestation or appearance. For the freeing of his essence from the bonds or limitations of time and space (i.e. materiality) now allows his freedom of manifestation in each time and in each place. Now, that which has become central in his substance [Wesenheit] can change its action in the periphery, or move in the periphery without having to move from “a” to “e” by going through “b.”

Instead, it sublates its action “a” in an unmediated way from its resting center “c” and then sets it out in an equally unmediated way directly to “e.” [50]

To use a familiar example, a person is not free to begin to decide–that is, to make himself free from the chain of causality in time and to make a new temporal row [of causation]–unless in this act he is able to dematerialize or to elevate to Centrality his physical being, or to spiritualize it (however foreign this assertion may sound to many of our spiritualistic moral philosophers). From this it follows that a person in each free (moral or immoral) act dematerializes or spiritualizes himself. Only the invisible, that is non-illuminated, that which is not made visible by another, has the ability to make itself visible. Only the silence, the not-spoken, has the ability to cause itself to speak, and a being must therefore first disappear from out of the row or region of things that are being made visible (illuminated) in order to make an appearance as self-illuminated from out of his own region that makes visible. Only by beholding [schauend] or knowing [wissend] Himself does the Spirit behold (or know) others (or himself as his image). And only in beholding others (his image) does He behold Himself. This holds true for each self-illuminated being in each region–he only makes others visible under the circumstances of making himself visible.

To give another example demonstrating the law just set out, we also see that those who are separated from the earthly [irdisch], or who have obtained an existence [Existenz] free of time and space, or who have ascended, have also obtained an incomparably greater or broader–as well as more intensive–power of sensible manifestation. We concede that the opposite is true for those who have sunk [below time]. However, one must certainly have some knowledge of these “Non-allants” in order to give information to the so-called “Revenants.” [51]

31

Everything we have said about time is important for a theory of time (without which no theory of history and therefore no theory of society is possible). The beginning or the continuance or progress of time can only be understood in terms of a voluntary suspension of one or more integral beings (those who have obtained the perfection of their Existenz), who for the sake of disintegrated beings have entered into a relation of solidarity with them). This means: we can understand time only as a sacrifice, and that is why the Scriptures speak of a Lamb offered from the beginning of time.[52] Moreover, time certainly actively advances, although to be sure only as it is known in those smallest to largest periods with the same signature of recurring stages, levels or epochs. And it is the task of philosophy to demonstrate the principle for this, both for individuals as well as for individual peoples and for collective-humanity itself. This should be done both for the normal evolution as well as for the abnormal which comes from the non-action or reaction of people in their thoughtlessness or through their wickedness; such an abnormality sets itself against the power of evolution.

32

Now in relation to such a theory or philosophy of time, or of history and society, the insight must above all be maintained that such a theory of history is not possible without a history of revelation. For revelation as such always involves the divination of nature or anticipations of the future, and a drawing towards or away from the temporal present. For, as already remarked in section 26, everyone has within him, more or less, the power to draw towards him the future, as the temporally still unborn Presence, as well as to bring the deceased as Revenants into a rapport with those who are still in temporal or earthly life. One must also know that society as a whole (as Burke says, a social contract of all those living on the earth together with all the deceased as well as the yet unborn) can not progress if there do not continue to be people to whom above all is transmitted (with or without their will), this drawing in or anticipation of the future, and who likewise through their own self extension of the same present (believing what they do not yet see) [53], offering themselves as open to the influence of the future, keeping their souls as flowing sacrificial blood. For what is not yet effective in a lower region or, as is said, “at hand” [vorhanden], is so already in a higher region, just as what in a lower region has already passed away nevertheless still is in either a higher or a deeper region. When for example, many hours before an earthquake, dogs and horses behave as if they want to reassure themselves in front of that which will later be thrown over, i.e. as if the earth had already moved, they demonstrate by this that this earthquake is already sidereally there and within them, just as the atmospheric events are sidereally in the divining barometer. In a similar sense, but one intended to refer to a higher order of things, the Scriptures say that God does nothing that He has not previously (auparavant) shown to his disciples [Vertrauten, confidens] or prophets.[54] They really form the true youth of the society of every era, insofar as that which is still temporally unborn [and which the prophets see] yet unborn in time are still younger than the youngest already temporally born.

Endnotes

[1] JGF: This seems to be a paraphrase of the Vulgate, which reads

et iuravit per viventem in saecula saeculorum qui creavit caelum et ea quae in illo sunt et terram et ea quae in ea sunt et mare et quae in eo sunt quia tempus amplius non erit.

[2] JGF: Baader himself uses the French words ‘idées causes or mères,’ as well as the other French words in round brackets.

[3] JGF: Baader wants to relate speculation to philosophy. In other works, Baader connects his use of this word with ‘specula’ or mirror, and our being in the ‘image’ of God.

[4] JGF: ‘Inexistenz’ or ‘inexistence’ is not the same as ‘non-existence.’ Baader’s point here is that to have our existence in God is not the same as to be identical with God.

Dooyeweerd has this same idea of Inexistenz. He refers to our tendency towards an Origin as the ex-sistent character of our heart. He says that religion is the ex-sistent condition in which the ego is bound to its true or pretended firm ground. Even our absolutizing shows this ex-sistent character of the religious center of our existence. In the state of apostasy we attempt an autonomous ex-sistere. We need to be ‘pulled out of’ (ex-trahere) this state by God in order to regain our true ex-sistent position (NC I, 58, 59).

[5] JGF: “as omnimpotent, because omnitenens,” or “all-powerful because holding or containing all.”

[6] JGF: Baader uses the word ‘Gesetztheit’ from ‘Gesetz’ or ‘law.’ God’s law is that which places or determines and limits created reality in time. This is also Dooyeweerd’s law-idea, from which his philosophy gets its name, De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee, or "The Philosophy of the Law-Idea"

[7] JGF: ‘Ternar’ is a term that Baader frequently uses for a triad of terms. The Trinity is the original triad or Ternar.

[8] JGF: Bossuet’s error seems to be to have identified ‘being’ only with the Father. But ‘Being’ includes acting, knowing and willing (loving).

[9] JGF: It has been pointed out that Baader’s knowledge of Kabbalah was fairly limited. He is correct that Binah (Intelligence, understood as masculine) is the third sephirot in the Tree of Life. Hochmah is the second sephirot, Wisdom, and is understood as feminine. As the preceding sephirot, it contains the successive ones, including Binah.

[10] JGF: ‘Materiality’ is not to be understood in a dualistic way as referring to some substance that is independent of our selfhood. For Baader, the material is the temporal.

[11] JGF: Baader describes the process of sublation in his “Concerning the Concept of Time.” First there is a differentiation form the whole. there is then the analysis of these parts. Then the differentiation is sublated to the Whole again.

[12] JGF: both of these words play on the meaning of ‘Gesetz’ or ‘law.’ Dooyeweerd uses similar terminology. Dooyeweerd speaks of our being "fitted-into" the temporal cosmos [gesteld zijn].

[13] JGF: Dooyeweerd speaks of God as self-sufficient, and of creation as restless and not self-sufficient. Creation as meaning is restless and points to the Origin which is absolute and self-sufficient (NC I, 10).

[14] JGF: Kabbalah interprets this verse as distinguishing among ‘created,’ ‘formed’ and ‘made.’ Dooyeweerd also sees at least a double creation. Creation was of humanity as an undifferentiated totality. Man's embodiment was a second stage. Dooyeweerd speaks of the second stage not as a creation, but as the “forming” of a previously existing and created material. He says that Gen. 2 speaks of becoming "living souls"–that is the bodily forming process. That is not creation, but giving form to "an already existing material present in the temporal order." He criticizes a historicistic interpretation wipes out the distinction between creation and becoming and that sees creation as a temporal event:

…het principieel verschil tussen schepping (Gen. 1) en wording (formering uit reeds voorhanden materiaal, Gen. 2) vervalt in dat de schepping, als boven-creatuurlijk tot aanzijn roepen door het Goddelijke Woord, binnen het creatuurlijk kader van het historisch tijdsaspect wordt getrokken." ("Na vijf en dertig jaren," Philosophia Reformata 36e jrg. 1e en 2e kwaartaal 1971, p. 1-10)

[…the principal difference between creation (Genesis 1) and becoming (the forming out of an already existing material, Gen. 2), falls away in that the creation as a supra-creaturely calling to existence [aanzijn] by the Divine Word, is brought within the creaturely category of the historical aspect of time].

[15] JGF: a medieval proverb.

[16] I have translated ‘Mensch’ as ‘Humanity’ instead of ‘man.’ This is sometimes too cumbersome a construction, but it works in this context. This kind of political correctness may be anachronistic. But in any event, Baader viewed the primal human as androgynous.

[17] JGF: The perfection was subject to the Fall.

[18] JGF: The reference is from Augustine: the immortalitas minor became immortalitas major, or the posse non mori a non posse mori. (City of God, Book XXII).

[19] JGF: Dooyeweerd has a similar view of the non-human temporal world finding its center and existence within humanity, its religious root. Just as our existence is only an ex-sistence in God, the temporal world also has its existence in humanity as its religious root. Dooyeweerd says that the image of God is the radical unity of all the different temporal modalities in which they coalesce (NC III, 69). The whole meaning of the temporal world is integrally (i.e. completely) bound up and concentrated in this unity (Roots 30). Our temporal world, in its meaning differentiation and coherence, is bound to this religious root of humanity; it has no meaning and therefore no reality apart from this root (WdW I, 65). And even this religious root has no existence in itself, but exists only as meaning and refers to its Origin, God.

[20] JGF: Dooyeweerd also says that it is only man who can have cosmic and cosmological self-consciousness because only man’s cosmic temporal structure is founded in an individual religious root transcending time, viz. his selfhood. (NC II, 480).

[21] JGF: The reference is to the Lord’s prayer, “And lead us not into temptation,” (Matt. 6:13; Lk . 11:4).

[22] JGF: The reference is to being “born again,” (John 3:3,7; I Peter 1:23).

[23] JGF: Paul has many references to our sons and heirs of God. There seems to be a reference to two passages here. Gal. 4:4-7 speaks of God sending his Son that we might receive the adoption of sons.” And Col. 1:15-27 speaks of Christ as the “firstborn of every creature,” by whom “all things” were created, and the “mystery” of “Christ in you.”

[24] JGF: The reference is to John 1:12,

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, [even] to them that believe on his name.

[25] JGF: caput mortuum is a term from alchemy, meaning the residue after the process of distillation. All that is valuable has already been removed.

[26] JGF: Baader is here combining Persian religion with Kabbalah. Adam Kadmon is the first man in Kabbalistic thought.

[27] JGF: The reference is to those attempting to live entirely in the periphery of time. The division between body and soul is not one that is actual, or in Baader’s words, “not original or constitutive.”

[28] JGF: Cf. the idea of the religious antithesis, as stated in Kuyper and Dooyeweerd.

[29] JGF: In the temporal world there is not yet a total rejection of God.

[30] JGF: Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1748-1773). His epic poem The Messiah is in 4 volumes and was written from 1748-73. It is considered the first major modern work by a German poet. Klopstock influenced Goethe. For an online version, see http://www.ccel.org/w/winkworth/singers/htm/klopstok.htm. The following description is given of Abbadonna:

The "Messiah," which as we have seen occupied twenty-seven years in its composition, is a poem in twenty cantos, written in hexameters except where certain choral songs occur in the unrhymed lyrical measures employed by Klopstock for his odes. The action opens after the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, when the Messiah withdraws from the people, and alone on the Mount of Olives renews His solemn vow to the Almighty Father to undertake the work of Redemption; it closes when that work is completed, and He sits down at the right hand of God. Around the central figure of the God-man are grouped an infinite variety of spectators and actors: angels and seraphs, among whom Eloa and Gabriel are especially appointed to attend on the Divine Sufferer; evil spirits who conspire against Him, but one of whom, Abbadonna, repents and at last obtains mercy;

[31] JGF: Dooyeweerd also says that cosmic time splits up temporal reality or “nature.”

[32] JGF: Dooyeweerd also sees humanity as the religious root of temporal reality. When humanity fell, a New Root was required–Christ.

[33] JGF: I don’t know whether this is the first use of the idea of virtual reality. ‘Virtual’ is here used in the sense of a representative world contained in another. The analogies with the virtual reality of cyberspace are interesting but cannot be explored here.

[34] JGF: Dooyeweerd has the idea of the continued supratemporality of humanity. Both Baader and Dooyeweerd say that humanity, after the fall, is both outside of and within time. Dooyeweerd speaks of our temporal body as the temporal “mantle of functions” of a supratemporal selfhood.

But it must be emphasized that Dooyeweerd does not share Baader’s idea of the earth standing outside of time. For him, the earth and cosmos are entirely temporal. Dooyeweerd in fact calls the temporal the “earthly.” But his rejection of Baader’s idea can explain why Dooyeweerd specifically says,

The cosmos itself cannot be called individual. It is not an actual being. Its only temporal meaning-coherence is rather the structural frame-work within which the individuality of temporal things, events and societal relationships are only possible. (NC II, 594).

[35] JGF: Baader plays on the words curse [Fluch] and flight [Flucht].

[36] JGF: Note that this was written 28 years prior to Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859). Baader’s view of these stages is that beings need to be freed from them in their evolution or ascent.

[37] JGF: [Gesetztheiten]

[38] JGF: [Lokationen]. See his previous use of the word ‘lociert’ in relation to being displaced.

[39] JGF: The idea seems to be that animals, completely within time, cannot stand over against time. Dooyeweerd shares this idea. He says that conscious experience is a quite different thing from the subjective undergoing of sense-impressions found in animals (NC II, 539). It is only man who can have cosmic and cosmological self-consciousness because only man’s cosmic temporal structure is founded in an individual religious root transcending time, viz. his selfhood. Other creatures are ex-statically absorbed by their temporal existence (NC II, 480).

[40] JGF: This anti-Semitic comment cannot be excused.

[41] JGF: The reference is to Christ.

[42] JGF: ‘festgerannten’—a term from metallurgy.

[43] JGF [Gemeinschaftlichkeit]

[44] JGF: ‘sich reimt’ from “to rhyme.” Used figuratively as "to agree with."

[45] JGF: This is the “kenosis.”

[46] JGF: Baader is not always accurate in his quotations. The reference reads:

And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. (John 17:5)

[47] JGF: Baader seems to be referring to the French word for being present, ‘assister.’

[48] JGF: The relation between feeding and sacrifice is a very Hindu conception as well.

[49] JGF: There is a kind of dialectic here. Dooyeweerd also speaks of a good dialectic, as opposed to a religious dialectic based on a dualism that cannot be overcome.

[50] JGF: For Dooyeweerd, all of our actions come out of our supratemporal center (NC I, 32). In this center, all temporal aspects also coincide in a radical unity (NC I, 106). Our actions function in these aspects, so a change in either the type or function of action must come from our center. Our supratemporal center is also supraindividual:

The central and radical unity of our existence is at the same time individual and supra-individual; that is to say, in the individual I-ness it points beyond the individual ego toward that which makes the whole of mankind spiritually one in root in creation, fall and redemption (NC I, 60).

[51] JGF: The ‘Non-allants’ are the non-returning, those intelligences that have sunk below the temporal into the infernal. In Baader’s theory of time, the infernal has only a past, no present or future. The so-called ‘Revenants’ are those who can see into the past because they are non-returning. [“…als revenants sich erwisen, weil sie non-allants sind,” “Pasqualis Lehre,” Werke 4, 118]. Baader says that the Central viewpoint of Totality allows us to see both forwards and backwards in time, although different people have differing gifts. Prophets see into the future; they show us that the future is already here. Others represent the past and show us (remember) that the past is still there (Werke 4, 117 fn). It seems that the ‘Revenants’ also see into the past, but that is because they have chosen the infernal center, and not the Central viewpoint of Totality.

I do not believe that Baader is referring to spiritualistic encounters when he says that we must have some knowledge of “Non-allants.” Baader expressly discourages the opening of the infernal center and occult practices. But like many of his contemporaries, Baader was interested in the phenomena of sleepwalking and hypnotism. Some of the cases that he observed did show evidence of demonic (infernal) influence, whereas others demonstrated the supratemporal ‘Silberblick’ whereby the Central viewpoint of Totality was achieved.

However, section 32 of this article does make reference to the power of “to bring the deceased as Revenants into a rapport with those who are still in temporal or earthly life.” If spiritualism is intended by this reference to ‘Revenants,' then this is certainly not something that is found in Dooyeweerd. Although his early student article shows that he had some knowledge of spiritualism, it forms no part of Dooyeweerd's philosophy. It is interesting that this section was edited out in Franz Hoffman’s Lichtstrahlen, a collection of excerpts from some of Baader’s works. Hoffman was the editor of Baader’s Collected Works.

[52] JGF: The reference appears to be to Revelation 5:6

And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.

[53] JGF: The reference is to Hebrews 11:1,

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

[54] The reference seems to be to Amos 3:7,

Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.

Revised Sept 20/08