there madly lurks
What, then, is the unknown? It is the frontier that is
continually arrived at, and therefore when the category of motion is replaced
by the category of rest it is the difference, the absolutely different. But it
is the absolutely different in which there is no distinguishing mark. Defined
as the absolutely different, it seems to be at the point of being disclosed,
but not so, because the understanding cannot even think the absolutely different;
it cannot absolutely negate itself but uses itself for that purpose and
consequently thinks the difference in itself, which it thinks by itself. It
cannot absolutely transcend itself and therefore thinks as above itself only
the sublimity that it thinks by itself. If the unknown (the god) is not solely
the frontier, then the one idea about the different is confused with the many
ideas about the different. The unknown is then in [dispersion], and the
understanding has an attractive selection from among what is available and what
fantasy can think of (the prodigious, the ridiculous, etc.).
But this difference cannot be grasped securely. Every time
this happens, it is basically an arbitrariness, and at the very bottom of
devoutness there madly lurks the capricious arbitrariness that knows it itself
has produced the god.
Soren Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments
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