Confess Your Contradictions: Schelling, Royce, and the Art of Atonement

1. Introduction: Tragic Contradictions

Two of Josiah Royce's lectures in Lectures on Modern Idealism concern the work of F. W. J. Schelling, the "poetic seer of splendid metaphysical visions" whom Royce considered "the prince of the romanticists."¹ These lectures are titled "The Dialectical Method in Schelling" and "Schelling's Transcendental Idealism." In the former, Royce remarks that "there are two simple ways to avoid all dialectical complications. One is an easy way, viz., not to think at all. The other is a prudent way, viz., not to confess your thoughts."² But, Royce insists, philosophers (and Schelling, notably) attempt to "confess their contradictions, to live through them, and so, if may be, to get beyond them."³ In his second treatment of Schelling, Royce describes Schelling as having sought the self and having found the Absolute, with art being "the best incarnation of the Absolute."⁴ Keeping these observations in mind, in this essay, I interpret Schelling's description of the artist as one who has confessed a contradiction (the involuntary compulsion to create works and the free act of creating them),⁵ sought his or her self by exacting restitution through the process of atonement,⁶ and found "infinite harmony"⁷ in the creation of the aesthetic.

There is indeed something distinctively Roycean about this interpretation. In his The Problem of Christianity, Royce offers a theory of atonement centering on the traitor, who, for Royce, serves as the "the exemplary type of moral tragedy"⁸ instantiated in the process of atonement. Holding that any reconciliation between betrayer and betrayed will be incomplete, Royce views the process of redemption as doubly tragic. While the traitor and community must forever reside in "the hell of the irrevocable,"⁹ Royce urges, "Great calamities are great opportunities."¹⁰ Reconciliation may be achieved, however incompletely, by creative acts; indeed, "this creative work shall include a deed, or various deeds, for which only just this treason furnishes the opportunity."¹¹ Thus, the calamity of treason acts as the precondition for the opportunity of the fortification of the individual and the community issuing from acts of atonement.

In this essay, I will engage Schelling's artist and Royce's atoning sinner together to elucidate the dual lessons that both disclose about human nature: the tragedy of our finitude and our capacity to thrive in spite of— perhaps, indeed, because of—this tragedy. In so doing, I will highlight compelling similarities and differences between each of these figures. Consider, for instance, that Schelling's artist confesses his contradiction, an ineluctable "gift of his nature," while the atoning sinner comes to terms with what, for Royce, is "a free choosing of . . . narrowness [of attention] which . . . [is] the natural fate of the human being."¹² At the same time, Schelling's artist "removes the pain of this contradiction" with "grace,"¹³ while Royce's sinner can achieve reconciliation only with the help of grace. Yet Schelling's artist achieves a feeling of "infinite harmony," while Royce's sinner must reside forever in the "hell of the irrevocable." In short, the aim of this essay is to highlight the ways in which Schelling and Royce grapple with the "contradictions of tragedy"¹⁴ (or alternatively, the "tragedy of contradictions") via the artist and the sinner, recognizing that the plight of each is, in fact, mine and yours.

2. Schelling, Contradiction, and Sin

"All life," Schelling writes, "must pass through the fire of contradiction . . . . Were there only unity and everything were in peace, then, forsooth, nothing would want to stir itself and everything would sink into listlessness. Now, however, everything ardently strives to get out of unrest and to attain rest."¹⁵ The theme of contradiction shows up in several texts of Schelling's, and the first sentence here underscores its significance; all life must pass through the fire of contradiction. All things strive from a state of unrest (conflict, opposition) to attain rest (harmony, agreement). Jason Wirth explains that "the system of freedom" developed by Schelling "is a contradiction and that, rather than being an argument against the system, is...