A being without suffering is a being without a heart. The mystery of the suffering God is therefore the mystery of feeling sensibility. A suffering God is a feeling, sensitive God. Man has the consciousness not only of a spring of activity, but also of a spring of suffering in himself. It is the musical power in man.
Religion is human nature reflected, mirrored in itself.
Where, therefore, feeling is not depreciated and repressed, as with the Stoics, where existence is awarded to it, there also is religious power and significance already conceded to it, there also is it already exalted to that stage in which it can mirror and reflect itself, in which it can project its own image as God. God is the mirror of man. If feeling seems to thee a glorious attribute, it is then, per se, a divine attribute to thee. Therefore, the feeling, sensitive man believes only in a feeling sensitive God, i.e., he believes only in the truth of his own existence and nature, for he can believe in nothing else than that which is involved in his own nature. God. is for man the commonplace book where he registers his highest feelings and thoughts, the genealogical tree on which are entered the names that are dearest and most sacred to him.