A modern philosopher supposes that every man believes of necessity either in God or in "idols"--which is to say, some finite good, such as his nation, his art, power, knowledge, the acquisition of money, the "ever repeated triumph with women"--some good that has become an absolute value for him, taking its place between him and God; and if only one proves to a man the conditionality of this good, thus "smashing" the idol, then the diverted religious act would all by itself return to its proper object.
This view presupposes that man's relation to the finite goods that he "idolizes" is essentially the same as his relationship to God, as if only the object were different: only in that case could the mere substitution of the proper object for the wrong one save the man who has gone wrong. But a man's relation to the "particular something" that arrogates the supreme throne of his life's valued, pushing eternity aside, is always directed toward the experience and use of an It, a thing, an object of enjoyment. For only this kind of relation can bar the view to God, by interposing the impenetrable It-world; the relationship that says You always opens it up again. Whoever is dominated by the idol whom he wants to acquire, have, and hold, possessed by his desire to possess, can find a way to God only by returning, which involves a change not only of the goal but also of the kind of movement. One can heal the possessed only by awakening and educating him to association, not by directing his possession toward God. If a man remains in the state of possession, what does it mean that he no longer invokes the name of a demon or of a being that is for him distorted demonically, but that of God? It means that he blasphemes. it is blasphemy when a man whose idol has fallen down behind the altar desires to offer to God the unholy sacrifice that is piled up on the desecrated altar.
When a man loves a woman so that her life is present in his own, the You of her eyes allows him to gaze into a ray of the eternal You. But if a man lusts after the "ever repeated triumph"--you want to dangle before his lust a phantom of the eternal? If one serves a people in a fire kindled by immeasurable fate --if one is wiling to devote oneself to it, one means God. but if the nation is for him an idol to which he desires to subjugate everything because in its image he extols his own--do you fancy that you only have to spoil the nation for him and he will then see the truth? And what is it supposed to mean that a man treats money, which is un-being incarnate, "as if it were God"? What does the voluptuous delight of rapacity and hoarding have in common with the joy over the presence of that which is present? Can mammon's slave say You to money? And what could God be to him if he does not know how to say You? he cannot serve two masters--not even one after the other; he must first learn to serve differently.
Whoever has been converted by substitution, now "has" a phantom that he calls God. God, however, the eternal presence, cannot be had. Woe unto the possessed who fancy that they possess God!
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Whoever knows the world as something to be utilized knows God the same way. his prayers are a way of unburdening himself--and fall into the ears of the void. He--and not the "atheist" who from the night and longing of his garret window addresses the nameless--is godless.
I and Thou
Martin Buber
