1.  Spirit knowing spirit is consciousness of itself and is itself in the form of objectivity.  Spirit is and is simultaneously being for itself.  ²It is for itself ; it is the side of self-consciousness and that in opposition to the side of its consciousness or relating itself to itself as object.  ³Antithesis is there in its consciousness and hence the definition of the pattern in which spirit appears to itself and knows itself .  ⁴This is the sole issue in this study of religion, for spirit's unpatterned essence, its pure concept, has already emerged.  ⁵The difference between consciousness and self-consciousness falls in the latter; the pattern of religion does not contain the existence of spirit as nature free of thought, nor as thought free of existence; rather, the pattern of religion is the existence contained within thinking, like something thought and yet out there to itself.

– ⁶The determinateness of this pattern in which spirit knows itself ensures that one religion distinguishes itself from one of the others; although it must be pointed out here that the presentation of this knowledge of itself in terms of this single definition in fact does not entirely exhaust an actual religion.  ⁷The series of distinct religions that will emerge can just as well be seen as the different sides of one religion, indeed, of each of them; and the images that appear to distinguish any given actual religion from another are found in each of them.  ⁸On the other hand the diversity must also be seen as religious diversity.  ⁹For spirit finds itself caught in the difference between its consciousness and its self-consciousness, so the motion has the goal of overcoming this principal difference and imparting the form of self-consciousness to any pattern that is an object of consciousness.  ¹⁰However, this difference is not simply overcome by the patterns consciousness contains also having the moment of the self within them so that the god of the given religion is imagined as self-consciousness.  ¹¹The imagined self is not the real one.  Now, for that self, along with every other more precise term of the pattern, in order to truly belong to this it must be asserted by the action of self-consciousness, but also the lower terms must be overcome and integrated in the higher ones demonstrating that they are comprehended in this way.  ¹²For what is imagined only loses that aspect of being imagined and hence alien to its own knowledge when it has been generated by the self, seeing the definition of the object as its own and with that seeing itself in the object.

– ¹³This activity also eliminates the lower term as well, for the action is the negative executed at the expense of another.  To the extent that the lower term is still present, it is much less important and virtually inessential.  On the other hand, where the lower term is still dominant but the higher does also happen, then the one selflessly takes its place beside the others.  ¹⁴When the distinct images within a single religion represent the entire motion of its forms in this way, the character of each one is determined by the particular unity of consciousness and self-consciousness in such a way that the latter grasps within it the definition of the object of the former, completely acquires it for itself through its action, and knows itself to be the essential one against the others.

– ¹⁵The truth of the faith in any given term of the religious spirit is shown by whether the real spirit is composed like the pattern in which it sees itself within the religion.  For instance, the god becoming a man, as we find it in oriental religion, has no truth to it because the real spirit of religion here lacks this reconciliation.

– ¹⁶This is not the place to retreat back from the totality of terms to a single one and show what pattern in it and its particular religion contains the totality of the others.  ¹⁷Placing the higher form back behind a lower one has no meaning for self-conscious spirit, belonging to it only superficially, only to its imagination.  ¹⁸The higher form is to be considered in its own genuine meaning, there where it is principle of the given particular religion, secured by its actual spirit.