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and properties of sensible phenomena as necessarily valid for both human and hypotheticdivine consciousness. 55 The absolute ineluctability of the transcendental structures ofconsciousness with regard to sense perceptions seems to deprive even the potential ideaof a divine being of the possibility that this divine being might have an intuition that isnot only “original” but “originating,” i.e., “creative.”Concerning God’s relationship with the already “existing” world, however, Husserldoes not follow the common dualist conception of radical super-natural “transcendence.”If the divine being can be said to be transcendent, this is to be understood in quite adifferent sense than the noematic transcendence of phenomena inside the sphere of pureconsciousness or the simple negation of mundane phenomenality as a whole. 56 If God is notpart of the sphere of “worldly” phenomena, he is not to be located in a sphere “above”or “beyond” the natural world either. For the earlier Husserl, God has no “place” at all;he is no more than the functional consistency of the one, indivisible transcendental reason,in the virtually infinite multiplicity of empirical egos. 57In the context of Husserl’s transcendental interpretation of history, this merelyfunctional, non-factual notion of God undergoes a noticeable modification. On the onehand, God is still defined in relation to human consciousness, and never with regard toa “nature” of any kind. As internal entelecheia -- i.e., as the governing principle -- ofhuman reason in its history, God is the “sovereign” in the kingdom of transcendentalsubjects. On the other hand, Husserl does not simply make God coincide with the meredynamic of humanity’s progress toward transcendental reason. Given the double, noeticnoematicstructure inside the historical intentionality of reason, the notion of God is at thesame time the motor for, and the infinitely remote limit of, this transcendental evolution. 58The tendency being that of a constantly growing adequacy between historical reason’sintention and fulfillment, the “transcendence” of the divine is, if not altogether overcome,constantly diminished by the asymptotic realization of a perfectly rational form of humansociality. Here, the difference from the gnostic division of reality is quite obvious: insteadof opening up an abyss -- first between God and the world, and then between the worldand human beings -- the later Husserl tries to bring these three instances as closelytogether as possible by interpreting them as so many eidetic variations of the genetichistoricalintentionality of transcendental reason.The perspective of a theo-teleological perfection of mankind by means of transcendentalrationality, confers upon the temporality of history a meaning that is radicallyopposed to the gnostic interpretation. If on the one hand, Husserl seems to credit transcendentalphenomenology with a genuinely “soteriological” power, 59 on the other hand,he never considers the necessity for this ‘redemption’ to be a legacy of an “original sin”committed at the dawn of history. Despite the somber and sometimes downright propheticundertones in his reading of the historical present, 60 Husserl never goes as far asconsidering history as a history of original disaster. His approach is in no way centeredupon an “unforethinkable” past, be this initial moment of history identified with anoriginal lapse or an original integrity. The very idea of nostalgia is quite alien to Husserl,as is the notion of “doom” or “damnation” with respect to the temporary inner-worldly55See Edmund Husserl, Ding und Raum, Hua XVI (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1973), 116-117.56See Husserl, Ideen zur einer reinen Phänomenologie, 109-110; 124-125.57Ibid., 175.58See Husserl, Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlaß, Dritter Teil(1929-1935), 381; 610, and Husserl, Aufsätze und Vorträge (1922-1937), 33-34.59In ibid., 95. 118, Husserl praises transcendental phenomenology as a “source of redemption”(Heilsquell) against the “sinful degeneration” (sündhafte Entartung) of European humanity.60See Husserl, Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften, 3-4; 8; 12-17.232