III. Historical Occurrences of the Last Century

But in many respects this confusion is the content of the life of the present time, of the life that is perishing. What is lacking in this present life of ours? We have a conception of nature: it is merely the continuation of ancient paganism; we have a moral social conception: it is merely the continuation of the Old Testament. Christianity was an episode which was at first historically understood; but today it has fallen through the sieve of human culture, so to speak. In reality, Christianity does not exist; for with the people who frequently speak of Christ you can do as I recommended in connection with Harnack's Nature of Christianity. Wherever Harnack writes “Christ” in this book, you can strike out the word “Christ”, and substitute “God the Father,” or you can even replace it with a merely pantheistic “God,” or anything of the kind, and generally speaking there will be no essential contradiction. Where there is contradiction, he is talking nonsense, with predicates unrelated to subjects. All these things must be said today, for it must be thoroughly understood here what the content of the future consciousness must be.