Note 1 — Chapter XX · THE CONTRADICTION IN THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.

The proofs of the existence of God have for their aim to make the internal external, to separate it from man.1 His existence being proved, God is no longer a merely relative, but a noumenal being (Ding an sich): he is not only a being for us, a being in our faith, our feeling, our nature, he is a being in himself, a being external to us,—in a word, not merely a belief, a feeling, a thought, but also a real existence apart from belief, feeling, and thought. But such an existence is no other than a sensational existence; i.e., an existence conceived according to the forms of our senses.