The spheres in which the world of relation is built are three.
First, our life with nature, in which the relation clings to the threshold of speech.
Second, our life with men, in which the relation takes on the form of speech. Third, our life with intelligible forms, where the relation, being without speech, yet begets it.
In every sphere in its own way, through each process of becoming that is present to us, we look out toward the fringe of the eternal Thou; in each we are aware of a breath from the eternal Thou; in each Thou we address the eternal Thou.
Every sphere is compassed in the eternal Thou, but it is not compassed in them.
Through every sphere shines the one present.
We can, however, remove each sphere from the present.
From our life with nature we can lift out the “physical” world, the world of consistency, from our life with men the “psychical” world, the world of sensibility, and from our life with spiritual beings the “noetic” world, the world of validity. But now their transparency, and with it their meaning, has been taken from them; each sphere has become dull and capable of being used—and remains dull even though we light it up with the names of Cosmos and Eros and Logos. For actually there is a cosmos for man only when the universe becomes his home, with its holy hearth whereon he offers sacrifice; there is Eros for man only when beings become for him pictures of the eternal, and community is revealed along with them; and there is Logos for man only when he addresses the mystery with work and service for the spirit.
Form’s silent asking, man’s loving speech, the mute proclamation of the creature; are all gates leading into the presence of the Word.
But when the full and complete meeting is to take place, the gates are united in one gateway of real life, and you no longer know through which you have entered.
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Of the three spheres, one, our life with men, is marked out. Here language is consummated as a sequence, in speech and counter-speech. Here alone does the word that is formed in language meet its response. Only here does the primary word go backwards and forwards in the same form, the word of address and the word of response live in the one language, 1 and Thou take their stand not merely in relation, but also in the solid give-and-take of talk. The moments of relation are here, and only here, bound together by means of the element of the speech in which they are immersed. Here what confronts us has blossomed into the full reality of the Thou. Here alone, then, as reality that cannot be lost, are gazing and being gazed upon, knowing and being known, loving and being loved.
This is the main portal, into whose opening the two side-gates lead, and in which they are included.
“When a man is together with his wife the longing of the eternal hills blows round about them.”
The relation with man is the real simile of the relation with God; in it true address receives true response; except that in God’s response everything, the universe, is made manifest as language.