The Rudolf Steiner Archive

20. The Faculty of Theology and Theosophy

[ 1 ] If the Theosophical Movement is truly to have an impact on modern culture as a whole, it cannot limit itself solely to disseminating certain doctrines or presenting insights on this or that subject; rather, it must engage with the most diverse cultural factors and elements of the present day. After all, theosophy is not meant to be a mere doctrine; it is meant to be life itself. It should permeate all our actions, our feelings, and our thoughts. Now, it is in the nature of things that such a movement—one that speaks directly to the heart of modern culture—must, if it is to be viable, intervene above all where we are dealing with leadership in intellectual life. And where else should we seek leadership in intellectual life today than in our universities, where indeed all those—at least if you view the matter idealistically—who work in the service of truth, progress, and the spiritual movement in general are meant to collaborate as the bearers of our culture and our entire intellectual life. They are to collaborate with a youth that is preparing itself for the highest tasks of life. That would be the great and significant influence that universities must naturally have on the whole of cultural life, the significant influence that emanates from them as an authority, for one cannot deny—no matter how much one may resist everything that is called authority in our time—that an authoritative influence emanates from our universities. And in a certain sense this is right, for those who are to instruct our youth in the highest matters of culture must be authoritative with regard to all questions of human existence. Thus it is truly fitting that the entire nation looks to what the members of the faculties say on any given matter. That is how it is. In all our faculties, after all, what the university lecturer says about a matter is regarded as the authoritative view.

[ 2 ] It therefore seems natural to me that we, as Theosophists, should ask ourselves: What stance should we take toward the various aspects of our university life? This is not meant to be a critique of our university institutions; that is not the subject of today’s lecture. What will be discussed in this and subsequent lectures is simply intended to provide a perspective on how the Theosophical Movement—if it is truly viable, if it can truly engage with the impulses of the spiritual movement—might have a potentially enriching effect on our university life.

[ 3 ] The faculties are divided into theology, law, medicine, and philosophy. However, given the state of higher education today, we must, in keeping with our current way of thinking and outlook on life, also include other institutions of higher learning—as it were, as an extension of the university—namely, the colleges of technical sciences, the arts, and so on. This will be discussed when we address philosophy. Today we are dealing with the faculty that, in the early days when universities first emerged—universities arose in the middle of the Middle Ages—was the first to assume a leading role in modern education. At that time, theology was the queen of the sciences at the universities. Everything else that was pursued was grouped around theological scholarship.

[ 4 ] The university had its origins in what the Church had established in the Middle Ages: the monastic schools. The old schools had a sort of appendix for what was needed in terms of secular knowledge; but the main focus was theology. In the early days of university life, it was the teachers, clergy, and monks who had been educated by the Church who were active until the end of the Middle Ages. Theology was called the “queen of the sciences.” Is it not, when one considers the matter abstractly and ideologically, quite natural to call theology the queen of the sciences, and should it not, if it fulfilled its task in the broadest sense, be this queen? At the center of the world undoubtedly stands that which we call the source of the world, the Divine, insofar as it can be grasped by human beings. Theology is nothing other than the doctrine of this Divine. Everything else must be traced back to the divine primal forces of existence. If theology is truly to be the doctrine of the Divine, then it cannot be conceived of otherwise than as the central sun of all wisdom and all knowledge, from which the power and energy for all other sciences radiate. This was still the case in the Middle Ages. Essentially, what the great medieval theologians had to say about the world derived its light, its most important power, from the so-called sacred science, theology.

[ 5 ] If we want to get a sense of this way of thinking and this view of life in the Middle Ages, we can do so in just a few words. Every medieval theologian viewed the world as a great unity. At the very top was the divine creative power. Below, scattered throughout the diversity of the world, were the individual forces of nature and the realms of nature. What was known about the forces and realms of nature was the subject of the individual sciences. What guided the human spirit toward enlightenment regarding the highest questions, what was meant to shed light on what the individual sciences could not discern—that came from theology. Therefore, one first studied philosophy. By this one understood the sphere of all secular sciences. Then one ascended to the science of theology. The medical and law faculties occupied a somewhat different position in university life. We can easily form a picture of how these faculties relate to one another if we consider the matter in this way: Philosophy encompassed all the sciences, and the theological faculty considered and dealt with the great question: What is the source, and what are the individual manifestations of existence?

[ 6 ] Now, this existence is such that it unfolds over time. There is a progression toward perfection within existence, and as human beings, we are not merely placed within the world order; rather, we ourselves contribute to the world order. While the faculties of philosophy and theology contemplate what is, what was, and what will be, the faculties of law and medicine contemplate the world in its becoming—the world as it is to be guided from the imperfect toward the perfect. The faculty of medicine turns more toward natural life in its imperfection and asks how it might be improved. The law faculty turns to the moral world and asks how it must be improved. The whole of medieval life was a single body, and something similar must undoubtedly return. Once again, the entire unity, the Universitas, must become a living body, in which the individual faculties are merely the limbs of a shared life. Today, the university is more of an aggregate, and the individual faculties have little to do with one another. In the Middle Ages, everyone who studied at the university had to acquire a basic philosophical education—what is today called a general education—although one must admit that it is precisely those who graduate from university today who are often distinguished by their lack of a general education.

[ 7 ] This was the foundation above all else. In Goethe’s *Faust* as well, it is said: First the *collegium logicum*, then metaphysics. And it is certainly true that anyone who wishes to be introduced at all to the mysteries of the world’s existence, to the great questions of culture, must first have a thorough grounding in the various branches of knowledge. It is no progress that this general physical education has completely disappeared from our university education. For the most part, what one can know is lifeless, inanimate nature: physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, mathematics, and so on. Only after the student had been introduced to the teachings of thought, to the laws of logic, to the fundamental principles of the world or of metaphysics, could he advance to the other, higher faculties. For it was with some justification that the other faculties were called the higher ones. He could then advance to theology.

[ 8 ] Anyone who is to be instructed in the deepest questions of existence must first have learned something about the simplest questions of existence. But the other faculties, too, require such a foundation. The state of jurisprudence and medicine would be much better if such a general education were thoroughly cultivated, for anyone who wishes to engage in legal practice must know what the laws of human life actually are. One must understand in a living way what can lead a person toward good or toward evil. One must not only be moved as one is moved by the dead letter of the law, but one must be moved as by life itself, as by something with which one has an intimate relationship. And these people must first have this broader perspective, because the human being is truly a microcosm in which all laws live. One must therefore, above all, know the laws of nature. Thus, if properly conceived, the university would have to be an organism of the entirety of human knowledge. The theological faculty, however, would have to have a stimulating effect on all other knowledge. Theology, the doctrine of the divine world order, cannot exist in any other way than by being integrated into the smallest and greatest aspects of our existence, than by immersing everything into the divine world order.

[ 9 ] But how could anyone who knows nothing about minerals, nothing about plants, animals, and humans, who knows nothing about the origin of the Earth, and nothing about the nature of our planetary system, possibly speak with any authority about the divine order of the world? God’s revelation is everywhere, and there is nothing through which the voice of the Divine does not speak. Everything that human beings have, are, and do must be able to be connected to these highest questions, which theological science is meant to address. Now we must ask ourselves: Does the theological faculty present itself in this way today? Does it function in such a way that strength and energy can flow from it into all other aspects of life? I would like to offer not a critique, but rather, if possible, an objective description of the circumstances. In recent times, theology has even fallen somewhat into disrepute, even within the religious movement. You may have heard something of the name Kalthoff, who wrote the Zarathustra sermons. He says that religion should not suffer under the letter of theology; we do not want theology, but religion. These are people who, out of their immediate conviction, are able to find the world of the religious worldview.

[ 10 ] Now we ask ourselves whether this view can hold, whether it could be true that religion without theology, or preaching without the study of religion, is possible. In the early days of Christianity and also in the Middle Ages, this was not the case. Nor was it the case in the first centuries of the modern era. Only today has a kind of dichotomy arisen between immediate religious activity and theology, which seems somewhat detached from life. In the early days of Christianity, a theologian was essentially one who, through his wisdom and scholarship, looked up to the highest heights of existence. Theology was something alive; it was something that lived in the early Church Fathers, that animated such minds as Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Scotus Erigena, and Saint Augustine; it was theology that animated them. It was that which lived within them like a life-giving sap. And when the word came to their lips, they had no need to communicate dogmas; they knew how to speak to the heart in an intense way. They found the words that were drawn from every heart. The sermon was imbued with soul and religious currents. But it would not have been so had there not lived within these personalities the aspiration toward the highest beings in the highest form that a human being can attain.

[ 11 ] It is impossible to have a dogmatic system that engages in an abstract debate about dogma for every word spoken in everyday life. But anyone who wishes to be a teacher of the people must have personally experienced, through wisdom, the highest form of knowledge. He must possess the resignation, the renunciation of that which is immediate to him; he must strive for and experience what leads him to the highest form of knowledge in solitude, in a cell, far from the bustle of the world, where he can be alone with his God, with his thoughts and his heart. He must have the ability to look up to the spiritual heights of existence. Not with fanaticism, not with desire, not even with religious desire, but in pure spiritual devotion, free from everything else that manifests itself in the longing of religions. The conversation with God and the divine world order takes place in this solitary height, at the summit of human thought.

[ 12 ] One must first train oneself to reach this level; one must have attained resignation and renunciation in order to engage in this lofty soliloquy, to internalize it, and to allow it to flow as the lifeblood of the words that constitute the content of popular teachings. Then we have found the right stage of theology and preaching, of science and life. The one sitting below then feels that this flows from the depths, that it has been brought down from lofty heights of scientific wisdom. Then no external authority is needed; then the word itself is authority through the power that lives in the soul of the teacher, because through this power it lives its way into the heart to work through the echo of the heart. Thus harmony between religion and theology was achieved, and at the same time a tactful distinction between theology and religious instruction. But he who has not ascended to the theological heights, who is not versed in the deepest questions of spiritual existence, will not be able to infuse into his words that which is meant to live in the preacher’s words as the result of a dialogue with the divine world order itself.

[ 13 ] This was, in fact, the view held for centuries within the Christian worldview regarding the relationship between theology and preaching. A good sermon would be one in which a preacher only steps before the congregation after having thoroughly studied the lofty teachings on the Trinity of God, on divinity, on the proclamation of the Logos in the world, and on the profound metaphysical significance of the person of Christ. All these teachings, which are comprehensible only to those who have devoted many, many years to them, all these teachings, which may initially form the content of philosophy and other sciences, must have been assimilated; one’s thinking must have been matured for these truths. Only then can one penetrate these heights of truth. And for the one who has accomplished this, who knows something of the lofty ideas of the Trinity and the Logos, the Bible verse in his mouth becomes something that gains a completely different vitality than it initially has without this prior theological training. Then he uses the words of the Bible freely; then, within the words of the Bible themselves, he creates that flow from himself to the congregation which brings about an influence of divine creative power in the hearts of the multitude. Then the Bible is not merely interpreted by him, but handled. Then he speaks as if he himself had taken part in the composition of the great truths contained in this primal book of religion. He has looked into the foundations from which the great truths of the Bible have flowed. He knows what those who once stood under an even greater influence of the spiritual world than he did felt, and what is expressed in the words of the Bible as the divine world government and the human order of salvation. He has not only the Word that he is to comment on and interpret, but behind him stand the great, mighty writers, whose student, disciple, and follower he is. He speaks from their spirit and now himself infuses the Scripture with the spirit they have placed within it.

[ 14 ] This has been the foundation of the establishment of authority in one era or another. It has been the ideal that people have envisioned, and it has often been put into practice. The present age, however, has brought about a major upheaval in this regard as well. Let us once again consider the great upheaval that took place from the Middle Ages to modern times. What happened back then? What made it possible for Copernicus, Galileo, and Giordano Bruno to proclaim a new worldview? This new movement became possible because people approached nature directly, because they wanted to see for themselves, because they did not rely on old documents as in the Middle Ages, but set out to explore natural existence. It was different in medieval science. There, the fundamental sciences were not derived from an unbiased observation of nature, but from what the Greek philosopher Aristotle had systematized. Aristotle was an authority throughout the entire Middle Ages. Teaching was based on him. Those who lectured on metaphysics or logic had his books. They interpreted them. Aristotle was an authority.

[ 15 ] This changed with the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern era. Copernicus sought to systematize even that which is given through direct observation. Galileo shed light on the world of immediate existence. Kepler discovered the great law of the universe governing the planets’ orbits around the sun.

[ 16 ] This is how it has come down to us through the centuries. People wanted to see for themselves. Anecdotes have also been told about what happened to Galileo: There was a scholar who knew what Aristotle had written. Someone told him something that Galileo had said. He replied that it must be different; I must first look it up in Aristotle, for he said it differently, and Aristotle is right after all. — Authority was more important to him than direct observation. But the time was ripe; people now wanted to know things for themselves again. This does not presuppose that every individual is immediately capable of acquiring this understanding quite quickly, but it only presupposes that there are people who are capable of approaching nature themselves again, that they are equipped with the instruments and tools and are familiar with the methods necessary to observe nature. This is what has made progress possible. What Aristotle wrote can be interpreted; but that alone does not lead to progress. Progress is only possible when one advances oneself, when one understands things for oneself.

[ 17 ] Over the past four centuries, this principle of self-knowledge has been applied to all external knowledge, to everything that unfolds before our senses. First in physics, then in chemistry, then in the science of life, and finally in the historical sciences. All have been subsumed under this self-observation, under the external observation of the sensory world. They have thereby been removed from the principle of authority. What has not been subsumed under this principle of self-knowledge is the perception of the spiritually active in the world, the direct knowledge of that which exists not for the senses but only for the spirit. Therefore, in recent centuries, something has emerged in relation to this science and wisdom of the spirit that could not be spoken of in the past. We could go back to the most ancient times. But let us go only as far back as the early days of Christianity. There we find a science of the divine, and then a great doctrine of the origin of the world that extends down into our immediate sensory environment. If you look around at the great sages of earlier centuries, you can see everywhere how this path is taken from the highest peak down to the lowest form of existence, so that there is no gap between what is said about the divine world order in theology and what we say about the sensory world. People once had a comprehensive view of the origin of the planets and our Earth; however, there is no longer any need to communicate this today. But those who place the process of becoming above the course of time will be able to see that we will also move beyond our own wisdom. Time will also move beyond the form of our science, just as we have moved beyond earlier forms.

[ 18 ] What existed back then was a unified world structure that stood before the soul, and the foundation of the soul was the Spirit. In the Spirit, one saw the source of all existence. That which is not Spirit originates from the Spirit. The world is the reflection of the infinite Divine Spirit. And from the Divine Spirit derives what we find depicted as higher spiritual beings in the various religious systems, and furthermore that which is the most powerful on this earth: human beings, then animals, plants, and minerals. From the formation of a solar system to the formation of minerals, people held a unified worldview. The atom was linked to God Himself, even though one never presumed to recognize God Himself. The Divine was sought in the world. The spiritual was the expression of the same. The striving of those who wished to know something of the highest realms of existence was directed toward educating themselves so that they were able to perceive the sensory world and form concepts of it, and also to form concepts of what lies beyond the sensory world—that is, of the spiritual world order. Thus it was that they ascended from simple sensory perception to a comprehensive understanding of the spiritual. When we look at cosmologies in the old sense, we find no break between what theology teaches and what the individual secular sciences say about the things of our existence. One link follows another without interruption. One had proceeded from the innermost depths of the spirit to the outer sphere of our earthly existence.

[ 19 ] In more recent times, however, a different path was taken. People simply directed their senses—and what might be considered the “weapons” of the senses, or tools to enhance sensory perception—toward the world. And in a magnificent, powerful way, a worldview was developed that teaches us something about the external sensory world. Not everything has been explained yet, but even today one can already get an idea of how this science of sensory things is advancing. However, something was interrupted as a result, namely the direct connection between world science and divine science.

[ 20 ] The concept that remains the most widely accepted today, albeit contested—the concept we currently use to describe the origin of the world, for cosmology—is found in the so-called Kant-Laplacean worldview. To get our bearings, let us say a few words about it, and then see what such a Kant-Laplacean worldview means to us. It states: Once there was a great cosmic nebula, quite sparse. And perhaps, if we could sit on chairs in space and watch, and if something were visible to more sensitive eyes, then this cosmic nebula might have structured itself as it cooled. It forms a center within itself, rotates, sheds rings that coalesce into planets, and in this way—you are familiar with this hypothesis—such a solar system is formed, which has in the sun itself a source of life and warmth. This is what emerges, but as it develops, it must come to an end. Kant concedes this, and others do as well, that new worlds form again and so on.

[ 21 ] What, then, is this worldview that modern researchers seek to construct from the scientific findings of physics, chemistry, and so on? It is something that ought to be present to the senses at every stage. Now try to really picture this worldview for yourself. What is missing from it? The spirit is missing. It is a material process, a process that can play out on a small scale with a drop of oil in water, which you can observe with your senses. The process of the world’s creation is made perceptible to the senses. The spirit was not originally conceived as part of the primordial foundation of such a solar system. So it is not surprising that the question arises: How does life arise, and how does the spirit arise?—since one originally conceived only of lifeless matter moving according to its own laws.

[ 22 ] What one has not experienced cannot possibly be derived from concepts. One can only derive what has been placed within them. If one conceives of a world system that is empty, devoid of spirit, then it must remain incomprehensible how spirit and life can exist in this world. The question of how life and spirit can arise can never be answered from within the Kant-Laplacean system. Modern science is, after all, a sensory science. It has therefore included in its theory of the origin of the world only that part of the world which is a fragment of the whole world. Just as your body does not represent you in your entirety, so matter is not the whole world. Just as there are life, feelings, thoughts, and instincts within your body that cannot be seen when one looks at your body with the eyes of the senses, just as this is true within you, so too is the spirit true in the world. But it is also true that what the Kant-Laplacean theory presents is only the body, the physical form. Just as the anatomist who describes the human structure of the body cannot say how a thought can arise from blood and nerves if he thinks only in material terms, so too can he who conceives of the world system according to Kant-Laplace never arrive at the spirit. Just as the blind person, who cannot see the light, is unable to say anything about our sensory world, so too can the one who lacks a direct perception of the spirit not explain that there is something spiritual beyond the physical body. Modern science lacks a perception of the spiritual. Its progress lies in the fact that it has become one-sided; it is precisely through this that humanity can reach the highest peak of that one-sidedness. By limiting itself to the sensory realm, science achieves its high level of development. However, it becomes an oppressive authority because this science has established habits of thought. These are stronger than all theories, stronger even than all dogmas.

[ 23 ] People have become accustomed to seeking science in the sensory realm, and as a result, the fact that the sensory has become the only reality for modern humans has crept into their habits of thought over the past four centuries, to the point where they believe that the sensory world is the only real one. Something that is justified as a theory has become a habit of thought, and anyone who looks more deeply into this way of thinking knows what infinitely suggestive power such an active habit of thought, cultivated over centuries, has on people. It has permeated all circles. Just as a person under suggestion, so the whole of modern educated humanity stands under the suggestion that only what one can see with the senses and grasp with the hands is the only reality. Humanity has lost the habit of regarding the spirit as something real. But this has nothing to do with a theory, but merely with ingrained patterns of thought. These lie much, much deeper than any understanding. This can be demonstrated through epistemology and philosophy, which, unfortunately, are not sufficiently developed within us. All of modern science is subject to these modern habits of thought. For anyone who speaks today about the origin of animals and the origin of the world, this habit of thought lies in the background, and they cannot help but imbue their words and concepts with such a tone that, rich and full of content, they naturally give the impression that it is real.

[ 24 ] The situation is different when it comes to what one merely thinks. Today, one must come to recognize the deeper reality in what one merely thinks. One must attain the vision of the spirit oneself. This cannot be attained through books and lectures, nor through theories and new dogmas, but through intimate self-training that reaches into the habits of the soul of modern man. One must first recognize that it is not absolutely necessary to regard the sensory-real as the only reality; rather, one must realize that one is merely practicing here what has been instilled over centuries. This is the nature of this habit of thinking. It flows into people’s original sensibilities, and they are unaware that they are thereby creating illusions for themselves, because these have been instilled in them from the very beginning. This impression is so powerful, even on an idealist, that it cannot be otherwise than that he, too, emphasizes things in this way and allows them to flow into the souls of his fellow human beings, so that only the sensory-real is the real.

[ 25 ] Theology has evolved through this transformation of ways of thinking. What is theology? It is the science of the divine, as it has been handed down for millennia. It draws from the Bible, just as medieval science drew from Aristotle. But it is precisely the teaching of theology that no revelation lasts forever, but that the world and the words of the ancient revelations change. The immediate spiritual life no longer flows through the teachings of the Catholic Church; what matters there is whether there are personalities through whom the spiritual life can still flow. If we understand it in this way, we must say that theology, too, is subject to the habits of thought of materialism.

[ 26 ] In the past, the Creation in six days was not understood as having taken place purely in a material sense over the course of six days. People did not hold the strange notion that one need not study Christ in order to understand him; rather, they simply pointed out that the Logos itself was once incarnated in the man Jesus. If one did not strive to rise above this, one did not presume to judge what actually lived there from the years 1 to 33. Today, people see in Jesus—who is also called the “simple man from Nazareth”—only a man like any other, merely nobler and idealized. Theology, too, has become materialized. This is the crux of the matter: that the theological worldview no longer looks up to the heights of the spirit, but seeks to understand, in a purely rational and materialistic way, what took place historically. No one can understand the life’s work of Christ who regards it merely as history, who merely wants to know what the man who wandered through Palestine from the year 1 to the year 33 looked like and how he spoke. And no one can claim that there was nothing in him that was different from other human beings. Or can anyone refute him when he says: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me”?—But today people want to understand things historically.

[ 27 ] What was said in a speech on May 31, 1904, at a pastoral conference in Alsace-Lorraine is very telling. There, a Professor Lobstein from Strasbourg gave a lecture on “Truth and Fiction in Our Religion”; a speech that is deeply sympathetic and shows how the materialist theologian seeks to come to terms with external research. Anyone who approaches the Gospels with materialist habits of thought will first try to understand when they were written. In doing so, they will be able to rely only on external documents, on what external history has handed down as the material record. But what has been handed down actually originates from a much later period than is commonly assumed. If one takes the external text at face value, one is led to conclude: the Gospels contradict one another. The three Synoptic Gospels, which can be reconciled, have been compiled together; the Gospel of John must be set apart. It has therefore become a kind of fiction for many. The Pauline Epistles have also been examined, and it has been found that only this or that passage is authentic. These are the facts that have been made the foundation of religious research.

[ 28 ] The most important field of study has therefore become the history of religion or dogma. What matters today is not immersing oneself in dogmatic truths, but rather the history of religion—the external depiction of how all of this unfolded in that era. That is what one seeks to investigate. But that is precisely what should not be the focus at all. It may be important for a materialistic history. But that is not theology. Theology is not concerned with investigating when the dogma of the Trinity arose, when it was first spoken or written down, but rather what it means, what it is, what it proclaims to us, and what living, fruitful elements it can offer to our inner life.

[ 29 ] This is how it has come to be that today, as a professor of theology, one speaks of truth and fiction in our religion. It has been found that there are contradictions in the scriptures. It has been shown that some things do not agree with the natural sciences; these are things that are called miracles. People do not seek to understand what is meant by them, but simply say that they are not possible. This is how the concept of fiction came to be introduced into Holy Scripture. It is said that this does not diminish its value, but rather that the narrative is a kind of myth or fiction. One must not succumb to the illusion that everything is fact, but must come to recognize that our Holy Scriptures are composed of fiction and truths.

[ 30 ] This stems from a lack of understanding of the nature of poetry. Poetry is something entirely different from what people today imagine it to be. Poetry emerged from the spirit. Poetry itself has a religious origin. Before poetry existed, there were already forms such as Greek drama, to which the Greeks made pilgrimages just as they did to the Eleusinian Mysteries. That is the primal drama. When it was institutionalized, it was for the Greeks both a science and a spiritual reality. It was beauty and art, but at the same time also religious edification. Thus, poetry was nothing other than the outer form intended to express the truth—not merely symbolically, but to truly express the truth on the higher plane. This underlies all true poetry. That is why Goethe says: Poetry is not “art,” but an interpretation of secret laws of nature that would never have been revealed without it. That is why Goethe calls only that person a “poet” who strives to recognize the truth and to express it in beauty. Truth, beauty, and goodness are the forms through which the divine is expressed.

[ 31 ] Thus, we cannot speak of fiction and truth in religion. The modern age no longer has a proper understanding of fiction. It does not know how fiction springs forth from the very source of truth. Therefore, every word gains something through it. We must return to a proper understanding of fiction. We must understand what poetry originally was and apply it to what theology must explore. We often say: By their fruits you shall know them. Well, where has this led theology? In a book that has caused quite a stir recently, and which people have accepted because it was written by a modern theologian—I mean *The Essence of Christianity* by Harnack—there is a passage, and this passage reads: “The Easter message tells of the miraculous event in the garden of Joseph of Arimathea, which no eye has seen, of the empty tomb into which some women and disciples looked, of the Lord’s appearances in a transfigured form—so glorified that His own could not recognize Him at once—and soon also of the words and deeds of the Risen One; the reports became ever more complete and confident. But the Easter faith is the conviction of the victory of the Crucified One over death, of the power and righteousness of God, and of the life of Him who is the firstborn among many brothers. For Paul, the foundation of his Easter faith was the certainty that “the second Adam” is from heaven, and the experience that God had revealed His Son to him as the living One on the road to Damascus.”

[ 32 ] The theosophical worldview seeks to guide people toward an understanding of this great mystery. The theologian says: We no longer know today what actually happened in the Garden of Gethsemane. Nor do we know how to interpret the accounts handed down to us by the disciples regarding those events. Nor can we assess the value of Paul’s words about the risen Christ. We cannot make sense of it. But one thing is certain: faith in the risen Savior arose from this event, and we wish to hold fast to that faith and not concern ourselves with what underlies it. - Thus, in modern dogmatics, you will find a concept cited that is strange to those who seek reasons for the truth. It is said: Metaphysically, it cannot be explained. No objection is possible, but neither is any explanation. Only the third remains: the religious truth of faith.

[ 33 ] In Trier, they once hung up the robe of Christ, believing that it could perform miracles. That belief has faded, for any belief can only be sustained if it is confirmed by experience. What remains, however, is the fact that some people experienced it; what remains is the subjective religious experience.

[ 34 ] Those who say this are supposedly not materialists. In their theory, they are not, but in their habits of thought, in the way they seek to explore the spiritual realm. This is the foundation of the spiritual life of today’s idealists and spiritualists. They have all adopted materialistic habits of thought. Even those who wish to gather together, sit in a séance room, and see materialized spirits are materialistic. Spiritualism has become possible through our materialistic habits of thought. Today, people seek out the spirit in a materialistic way. All idealistic theories can bear no fruit as long as the knowledge of the spirit remains mere theory, as long as it does not become life.

[ 35 ] This is what a renewal, a renaissance of theology, requires. It is necessary not only that faith be present, but that direct insight be incorporated by those who are to proclaim the word of the divine world order. The theosophical worldview also seeks, in the spiritual realm, to lead from a belief in documents, books, and stories to an observation of the spirit through self-education. The same path that our science has taken must be taken in spiritual life, in spiritual wisdom. We must return to the experience of the spiritual. Science, even wisdom, decides nothing here. You cannot explore anything through logic or through reflection. Your logic spins a sensory world system out of the soul. But it is spiritual experience that fills our understanding with real content. It is higher spiritual experience that must fill our concepts with spiritual content. Therefore, a renaissance of theology will only occur when people come to understand the words of the Apostle Paul: “All human wisdom is incapable of comprehending the wisdom that is divine.” — Science as such cannot do so. Nor can external life grasp this spiritual world. Not all thinking can lead to the spirit; just as little as one who sits on a distant island will ever discover great physical truths without instruments and without scientific methods.

[ 36 ] What is needed for human beings is something that goes beyond wisdom, something that leads to direct experience of life. Just as our eyes and ears convey sensory reality to us, so must we directly experience the spiritual reality. Then our wisdom can attain it. Paul never said: Wisdom is the prerequisite for attaining the divine. Only when we have gathered all the wisdom of the world will we once again be able to bring the whole together. Only when we once again have a spiritual framework for the origin of the world, just as we have a materialistic one—on the other hand, we need not hold to the old faith, but look here and there—will the sensory and the spiritual unite in a chain, and one will once again be able to descend from the spirit down to what sensory science teaches.

[ 37 ] This is what the Theosophical worldview seeks to offer. It does not seek to be theology, nor a doctrine derived from a book, nor the interpretation of a book; rather, it seeks to provide an experience of spiritual life and to convey the experiences of that spiritual life. Even today, the same spiritual power speaks to us that once spoke when the religious systems were proclaimed. And it must be the task of anyone who wishes to teach about the divine world order to seek the ascent where he can once again speak in solitude within his heart with the spiritual heart of the world. The transformation will then take place within our faculty, just as it occurred from the Middle Ages to the modern era in the realm of external natural science. Then it will come to pass that when someone proclaims something of the spirit, and another opposes him with the words: “But it is written differently in the Scriptures”—he may or may not convince him. Perhaps the other will also say to him: “But I believe the Scriptures more than what some may say from immediate experience.”—Yet the course of spiritual life cannot be stopped. There may be many obstacles, and those who today work for theology in the spirit of the aforementioned medieval Aristotelian may resist as much as they like, but the transformation that must take place here cannot be stopped. Just as knowledge has risen from faith to vision, so too will we rise from faith to vision in the spiritual realm, and see in theosophy. Then there will be no more literal faith, no more theology; then there will be living life. The Spirit of Life will reveal itself to those who can hear it. The Word will press upon the lips and find expression in a popular way. The Spirit will speak of the Spirit. Life will be there, and theology will be the soul of this religious life.

[ 38 ] This is the role of Theosophy in relation to the theological faculty. If Theosophy is to be a movement that seeks to be viable, capable of infusing life and vitality into the letter of scholarship, then we have a certain mission. Those who view the matter in this way will not regard us as enemies of those who are called to proclaim the Word. If theologians were to seriously engage with what the Theosophical Movement seeks, if they were to open themselves to our aims, they would see in Theosophy something that could inspire and enliven them. They would see in it something that ought to invigorate them. Not fragmentation, but the deepest peace could exist between those who are earnestly striving theologically and theosophically. This will become apparent in time. People will overcome their prejudices against the Theosophical Movement and then see how true it is what Goethe said: “/p”

Whoever possesses science and art,
Also possesses religion;
Whoever does not possess those two,
Let him have religion.

[ 39 ] Theosophy will not oppose any religion in any form. A true Theosophist is one who desires that wisdom may flow into those who are called to speak to humanity, so that it should not be necessary for Theosophists to speak about direct religious vision. Theosophy can joyfully welcome the day when wisdom is spoken from the very places where religion is to be proclaimed. If theologians thus proclaim the true religion, then there will be no further need for Theosophy.