[437] is a direct interference of God^a, i.e., a fundamental substance^b which is the point of unity in all this. When we today speak of atomizing individualism^c, we usually mean this type. Then there is a third type of individualism--I called it the Renaissance^d type, but you can also call it the romantic type, but it has negative connotations, and ''Renaissance'' does not have too much--except for some theologians^e! This Renaissance type of individualism has a basis in the philosophy ^fof Nicholas Cusanus^g, namely the idea that in every individual being, especially in man, the whole universe^h is mirrored. For this reason, man is called the microcosmⁱ in contrast to the macrocosm, but representing the macrocosm and being at the same time a part of it. And since the macrocosm is the self-manifestation of the Divine, is the Divine going over into manifoldness, according to the Renaissance man, every individual becomes the mirror of the divine ground of being^j himself. As such, the individual represents something unique, but not unique as before God, in CHRISTIAN thinking, namely an object of the love^k of God, but unique in the cultural sense, the representative of unique creative possibilities. This is the DIFFERENCE from the rational^l concept^m also, because it is not the development of CONSCIOUSNESSⁿ which is

decisive here, but it is a qualitative character, qualitative elements, which are potentially in every man *Cf. Karl-Hermann Kandler, ''Die Einheit von Endlichem und Unendlichem. Zum Verhältnis von Paul Tillich und Nikolaus von Kues.'' KuD 25, 1979, 106-122. [Noted in his article, ''Nikolaus von Kues als Theologe.'' Theologische Literaturzeitung, 115, No. 7, July 1990, cols. 481-490, esp. 488, 490n.68.--PHJ