Preface.

to redeem all people from the punishments of hell through his suffering, through his bodily death? Thus his existence would consist in a constant humiliation, in a constant suffering and dying for his creatures, who by their nature can never be perfect, can never be equal to him? But how can God demand highest perfection from his creatures when he has not given them the capacity to become perfect? Such and many other considerations present themselves to the truth-loving thinker. Then he concludes that neither the Bible nor the Apostolic Creed A foundational statement of Christian belief dating back to the early church, used to define orthodox faith is the true Word of God, but rather a human ordinance original: "Menschensatzung"; a term used to describe laws or traditions created by people rather than being divinely revealed. Then he examines the prophetic scriptural passages interpreted as referring to the Messiah, and finds highly striking agreement between these old prophecies and those events that occurred with Jesus. Now he asks: How then did the prophets know all this, if they did not know it through divine revelation? So their writings would be the Word of God after all? Nevertheless, he can in no way reconcile the doctrines of the person and the mediatorial office original: "Mittleramt"; the theological concept of Jesus acting as a bridge or mediator between a holy God and sinful humanity of the Messiah with those concepts that one must necessarily form of God, and now he concludes: either God is angry and vengeful, like a headstrong master who demands supernatural services from his subjects that they cannot possibly perform, and afterwards tortures himself as punishment just to satisfy his justice original: "Gerechtigkeit"; here referring to the "satisfaction theory" of atonement, where God's justice requires a penalty for sin, or all our fundamental laws of thought, all our generally recognized truths, are mere phenomena, mere imaginings,