[545] to be obedient to it, and in this way to be BEYOND the law^a. Here again a religious dimension comes into all ethics^b. If you ask the autonomous moralist or ethicist what is the strength or the power out of which a man is able to fulfill the law, then he perhaps can answer: the strength of his good will, the obedience to the law, the freedom to act as he OUGHT to act---ultimately, in the Kantian^c formula: "You ought, therefore you can," or "You can, for you ought." Now this contradicts even many elements in Kant^d's own thinking, and it contradicts the real experience of mankind in all periods. "YOU OUGHT, BUT YOU CANNOT!" is the reality. And why the "You cannot"?---because in the moment in which there is a law, we are separated from what we essentially are. If we were not SEPARATED from it, there WOULDN'T be a law--- we would be identical with this. There is no law to those who are actually what they essentially are. Nothing is commanded to them, because they do it anyhow---they act in love^e because love

is their reality. But we are SEPARATED from love, and therefore love becomes the ultimate principle of the moral imperative^f. Now if this is the case, then obviously the question is: how can love^g become united with our actual being in such a way that we are able to fulfill the law, although we are SEPARATED from our essential being, and that means SEPARATED FROM the principle of love? Here the religious answer comes in, and it is that answer to which I already pointed, namely the answer of the Spirit^h. Spirit means there is within mankind a power of reunion, of reunion of the separated, and which means a power of love which is the source of all strength to act according to the imperative. WITHOUT these powers---which are called graceⁱ, in another terminology