[392] encounter it in our average dealing with it as subjects with objects. In this way the religious symbols^a became objects in the world of subject-objectivity. And they became something which lost its religious power. Instead of the Mother of God with a Child, which represents the Pantokrator, the Ruler of all--a beautiful human mother-child relationship, etc.--and finally what is lost in religious depth is replaced in a sentimental^b naturalism^c which we have seen (I hope all of you have seen)--with a kind of horror. This was the result of the falling-down on the level of objectivation^d. Now we come to the religious symbols^e in the cognitive realm^f. We have the same development. They have become objects in relationship to which we are subjects: God^g, a being beside other beings; the Christ^h, a person with miraculous qualities; the churchⁱ, a social club besides others; theology^j, a description of events in time^k and space^l, which are either supernaturalistically^m breaking INTO the temporal or are simply PARTS OF the temporal world. In other words, the churches followed the lead of the objectivation

process which produced modern society. These who attacked such a religionⁿ were not always subjectively better than the others--often they were glad to get rid of ultimates^o which determine their lives and which demand unconditional seriousness. But EQUALLY often, they saw that something is wrong with this kind of religion, church and theology, and criticized it. And the DEFENDERS were not always wrong. The churches knew that they defended something which is worthwhile being defended, namely a dimension of being which is EXPRESSED in the tradition of the churches--in thought as well as in act. But they were WRONG because they tried to choose the battlefield of their defense--the realm, or better the dimension, in which religion