God’s self-seeing in a single moment is Christianity’s speculative principle.

Evidence

It is possible to comprehend God only by means of such a gaze, God is ‘visible’ only in such a gaze: in a word, God is the gaze itself. Every picture that creates the illusion of an all-seeing gaze – regardless of what it portrays, whether it is an image of Christ, an angel or a self-portrait of the painter – thus discloses God and can be called an ‘icon of God’. — Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 51 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

God’s self-identity is, however, not formal and empty. Even in the conceptual element God is already differentiated, and does not remain ‘aloof and enclosed within himself’. As ‘underlying and essential power’, he . — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 663 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
• XREF: connects to: The Christian God is the primal speculative instance because he reflects on himself.; God’s self-identity is differentiated and not empty even in pure thought — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 663; For Cusa, the all-seeing gaze itself constitutes God’s representation — Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 51 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• The Christian God is the primal speculative instance because he reflects on himself. #expands (0.95)
• God’s self-identity is differentiated and not empty even in pure thought #expands (0.80) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 663
• For Cusa, the all-seeing gaze itself constitutes God’s representation #corroborates (0.80) — Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 51
• Sublating sensuous immediacy leaves God presented to knowledge as representation #expands (0.75)
• Consciousness’s distance from God mirrors and derives from God’s own self-distancing #expands (0.70) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 163