Note 13 — Chapter XXVI · THE CONTRADICTION OF FAITH AND LOVE.

Thus faith is essentially a spirit of partisanship. He who is not for Christ is against him.13 Faith knows only friends or enemies, it understands no neutrality; it is preoccupied only with itself. Faith is essentially intolerant; essentially, because with faith is always associated the illusion that its cause is the cause of God, its honour his honour. The God of faith is nothing else than the objective nature of faith—faith become an object to itself. Hence in the religious consciousness also the cause of faith and the cause of God are identified. God himself is interested: the interest of faith is the nearest interest of God. “He who toucheth you,” says the prophet Zachariah, “toucheth the apple of His eye.”14 That which wounds faith, wounds God, that which denies faith, denies God himself.