The Rudolf Steiner Archive

11. Original Sin and Grace

[ 1 ] Since karma has brought us together here today—rather than the fact that the course was actually supposed to begin in Helsinki—we may offer a brief reflection on a few topics in the spiritual sciences, and then perhaps one or two of you may contribute a question to this impromptu evening to build upon our discussion.

[ 2 ] Perhaps the most relevant topic to consider today is the light that may be shed on our spiritual movement when we view human evolution—from a certain perspective—in connection with the evolution of the Earth. Let us shed light in a special way on some of what we know—as we have done on occasion before. Perhaps you have often encountered aspects of what has made a deeper impression on you in people’s religious sentiments or in other questions of worldview, in such a way that you have had to ask yourself: How do the subjects of humanity’s religious sensibilities, or the subjects of other philosophical questions, relate to our deeper understandings of these issues in the light of spiritual science?

[ 3 ] From the very beginning, I would like to shed light on two important concepts that often come to the forefront of the modern person’s mind, even though these modern people may believe they have long since dismissed such things—the two concepts that are usually described by the words: sin and grace.

[ 4 ] Everyone knows, of course, that the words “sin” and “grace,” for example, are of immense significance in the Christian worldview and play the most important role there. However, certain Theosophists have become accustomed, as they believe from the standpoint of karma, to no longer giving much thought to such concepts as sin and grace, and in particular to no longer reflecting on the broader concept of sin and original sin. Now, this neglect of such reflection is nevertheless accompanied by negative consequences insofar as it prevents one from recognizing the deeper aspects of Christianity, for example, or indeed the deeper questions of worldview. These concepts of “sin,” “original sin,” and “grace” in fact have a far deeper background than is commonly thought. And the fact that this deeper background is no longer perceived in our present age stems simply from the fact that almost all the traditional religions of the world —almost all of them, more or less, as they exist outwardly—have actually completely obscured their true depths, so that there is scarcely anything in what is proclaimed here or there in a religious system that even remotely resembles what lies behind the corresponding concepts. Behind the concepts of sin, original sin, and grace lies, in fact, the entire development of the human race.

[ 5 ] We have become accustomed to dividing this development into two parts: a descending phase, from the earliest times of human development up to the appearance of Christ on Earth, and an ascending phase, which begins with the appearance of Christ on Earth and continues into the distant future. Thus, we structure the entire course of human development by regarding this Christ event as the greatest not only in our human development, but as the greatest in our entire planetary development. Why, then, must we place this Christ event as something so extraordinarily significant at the very center of our entire world development? — We must do so for the simple reason that, as we know, humanity has descended from spiritual heights into material, physical depths, and because it must once again ascend from these material, physical depths to spiritual heights. So we are dealing with a descent and an ascent of humanity. And we describe this descent of humanity in relation to its soul life more precisely by saying: If we look back to very ancient times, we find that in those ancient times human beings were essentially able to lead a spiritual life much more akin to the Divine than, say, now; that human beings were, as it were, closer to the Divine-Spiritual; that more Divine-Spiritual life shone into the human soul.

[ 6 ] However, we must not overlook the fact that it became necessary for humanity to descend into the material, physical world, because in those ancient times, when people were closer to the divine-spiritual, the entire consciousness of our soul was at the same time a duller, more dreamlike one: that is, a less bright, clear consciousness, but one more permeated by divine-spiritual ideas, divine-spiritual feelings, and divine-spiritual impulses of will. Human beings were closer to the divine-spiritual, but in return were less clear-minded human beings, more like dreaming children. Human beings descended by acquiring the power of judgment necessary for physical life—the intellect. In doing so, he has distanced himself from the divine-spiritual heights, but has become clearer within himself, has found a firmer foothold within himself. Now, in order to work his way back up to this inner center of gravity of his soul life, he must fill it with what has come about through the Christ impulse. And the more he fills it with this Christ impulse, the more he will ascend once again into the divine-spiritual world—not arriving as a dreaming being with an unclear consciousness, but as a being with a clear consciousness that looks sharply into the world. We have often illuminated this from various angles.

[ 7 ] Now, if we examine human evolution more closely, we know that what has given human beings the unique ability to gain a clear, lucid insight into the sensory world is the human ego, but that this developed last in human evolution, that the astral body developed first, the etheric body even earlier, and the physical body even earlier still in its initial forms. So let us remember today that the actual development of the ego was preceded by the initial development of the astral body. If we bring together various things we have heard over time, we must certainly say: It must be clear to us that before the human being could undergo the development of the ego, they underwent a development in which they possessed only these three members: the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body. But human beings were nevertheless already engaged in the development of the ego. They lived within this development, waiting, as it were, for the later addition of their ego. If we keep this clearly in mind, we will gain an understanding that certain things must have taken place with human beings and their entire development before they actually took the ego into themselves—facts of pre-ego development, so to speak. This is very important. For if the human being has already undergone a development before taking in his ego, then we cannot attribute to him what lay in his development at that time in the same way that we must attribute to him what he has undergone with his ego.

[ 8 ] We are, of course, familiar with beings about whom we are certain that they do not possess an “I” in the human sense. These are the animals. They consist only of a physical body, an etheric body, and an astral body. The fact that animals are like this compels us to acknowledge something very specific about them—something we all do, without exception, if we think rationally at all. For example, no matter how furiously a lion may charge at us—in the sense that we speak of a human being: he can be evil—we will not say of the lion: he can be evil, he can commit a sin, he can commit an immoral act—we do not speak of any animal in such a way as to attribute any action to it as immoral. This is very significant. For even if we do not reflect on it, we nevertheless acknowledge that the difference between human and animal lies in the fact that the animal possesses only the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body, whereas the human being possesses, in addition, the I.

[ 9 ] Before the human being took on the ego, it underwent a stage of development in which the astral body was its highest form. Did something happen to the human being during this time that we must view in a different light than we view the actions of animals? — Yes. For we must be quite clear about this: even though human beings once consisted of a physical body, an etheric body, and an astral body, they were by no means like today’s animals. Human beings were never animals; rather, they passed through this stage in other times, when they consisted of a physical body, an etheric body, and an astral body—in times when animals in their present form did not yet exist, in times when entirely different conditions prevailed on Earth. But what happened to human beings back then? Something we might describe by saying: Well, although human beings did not yet possess an ego, so we cannot attribute things to them in the same way we do now to distinguish them from animals, the facts that emanated from them must nevertheless be judged differently than they are judged today, since they now possess an ego. — Into this final transitional stage, where humanity stands at the threshold, where it is to receive its “I,” the Luciferic influence still extends. At that time, humanity could not yet be judged as it is today, but it was judged differently from the animal kingdom. Lucifer thus pressed himself upon humanity. Humanity could not yet, so to speak, follow or not follow Lucifer under full moral responsibility; but it could still, in a different way than we describe it today with regard to animals, be drawn, so to speak, into Lucifer’s nets. So that we must say: Lucifer’s seduction, this temptation by Lucifer, falls precisely into the time when humanity stood at the threshold of receiving its ego. It is thus a course of action on the part of humanity that predates its present ego development, but which has cast its shadow over this entire ego development. So who, then, has actually become a sinner? Humanity, insofar as it is an ego-human, not yet. Through Lucifer, humanity became a sinner with a part of its being, with which it can, in essence, no longer become a sinner today. For today it has its ego. Humanity thus became a sinner with the astral body back then. That is the radical difference between any sin we take upon ourselves today as human beings and what entered human nature as sin back then. When human beings succumbed to Lucifer’s temptation back then, they succumbed with their astral bodies. It is thus an act of pre-ego development, an act of a completely different nature than all the acts human beings have been able to perform after the ego had entered their nature, even in its very first glimmers. Thus, this is an act of human beings prior to the entry of the ego into human nature. But this act casts its shadow into all later times. Humanity was able to perform this act—to follow Lucifer’s temptation—before it had taken up its ego, but it has, so to speak, been brought under the influence of this act for all subsequent times. Why? Because this happened—because our astral body became guilty before our development of the ego—this brought about the fact that in subsequent incarnations, in every one, so to speak, human beings had to sink deeper into the physical world. This act, which took place while still in the astral body, is the impetus for this descent. Through this, humanity has found itself on a downward slope; as a result, with its ego, it follows forces within its nature that stem from its pre-ego development.

[ 10 ] How, then, did these forces manifest themselves in human development? — They manifested themselves in the following way. We know from earlier considerations that the human being develops his physical body up to about the age of seven, his etheric body from the seventh to the fourteenth year, his astral body from the fourteenth to the twenty-first year, and so on. We know that with the development of his etheric body, he enters a stage where he can bring forth his own kind. Let us now completely disregard the analogous phenomenon in the animal kingdom. We know that once a human being has developed their etheric body, they can bring forth human beings like themselves. This is contingent upon the human being having fully developed their etheric body. Anyone who thinks about it even a little—one need not be a clairvoyant, one need only think a little—will say to themselves: Thus, with the full development of the etheric body, the possibility must also be given for human beings to bring forth the whole of humanity, truly to bring forth their own kind. This means that even as a human being continues to develop into their twenties, they cannot develop new qualities for bringing forth their own kind. One cannot say that by the age of thirty, a person would add anything further to this quality that enables them to bring forth their own kind. A person possesses all the qualities that enable them to bring forth human beings with the development of their etheric body. What else comes later? Nothing more is added from the person themselves through what they later take in. For he must already possess the full capacity to produce his own kind. He can gain nothing more once he has fully developed the etheric body. What else is added? Indeed, the only capacity that a human being acquires later with regard to the production of his own kind is this: that he spoils the full extent of his capacity to produce human beings of his own kind. What one can still acquire after the full development of the etheric body cannot enrich the power to produce one’s own kind, but only diminish it. And that is indeed the case. Qualities acquired after full sexual maturity contribute nothing to improving the human race, but can only contribute to worsening it. This stems from the influence of that impulse I have described, which arises from the guilt of the astral body. After the etheric body is fully developed—that is, from about the age of fourteen onward—the astral body continues to develop. Yes, but that is where the influence of Lucifer lies! However, whatever flows back into the development of the etheric body can only serve to diminish the capacity of the etheric body’s inherent powers—namely, its ability to produce beings of its own kind. That is to say, what the astral body has become through that temptation by Lucifer is a constant cause for the degeneration of the human race, for the decline of humanity.

[ 11 ] A continuous decline throughout the course of incarnations was indeed the case for human beings. And the further back we go toward the Atlantean era, the more we would find higher powers in the physical constitution of human beings than in later times. So where was this impulse, brought about by Lucifer’s temptation in the astral body, implanted? In heredity! He continually made it worse. The sin that a human being acquires with his ego may have a retroactive effect on the astral body, but it can only be worked out through karma. The sin that a human being has incurred before he had an ego contributes to a continuous degeneration, an atrophy of the entire human race. This sin became a hereditary trait. And just as it is true that no one can spiritually inherit anything from their ancestors in a higher sense—for no one becomes intelligent simply by having an intelligent father, but rather by learning something intelligent; nor has anyone inherited mathematics from their ancestors, nor any other concepts from their ancestors— just as it is true that we cannot inherit these qualities but acquire them through education, so it is true that what flows back from our astral body into the etheric body—what we assimilate in such a way that it affects the etheric body—only contributes to the undermining of the human race’s capacities. And that is original sin. So here we have the true meaning of the concept of original sin. The original sin, which still clung to the astral body, gradually propagated itself, so that it imparted itself to the human hereditary qualities—which were already rooted in the physical degeneration of humanity at that time—as a cause of humanity’s descent from its spiritual heights into physical degeneration. Thus we have indeed received a continuous impulse through the influence of Lucifer, which must be described in the truest sense as original sin. For what entered the astral body through Lucifer is inherited from generation to generation. There is no more apt expression for what is the actual cause of humanity’s descent into the material physical world than the term: original sin. However, we must not then understand this original sin in the same way as other sins of ordinary life, which we fully attribute to ourselves, but rather as a destiny of humanity, as something that necessarily had to be imposed upon us by the world order, because we had to be led down from it, not merely to make us worse than we were, but to awaken within us the powers to work our way back up again, to find within ourselves the strength to work our way up. That is why we must understand this fall of humanity as something that has been woven into human destiny for the sake of humanity’s liberation. We could never have become free beings if we had not been cast down. We would have had to be led by the hand by a world order that we would have had to follow blindly. But we must work our way back up again.

[ 12 ] Now, there is never anything that does not also have its opposite pole; just as there is no North Pole without a South Pole, so there cannot be a phenomenon such as this sin of the astral body without its opposite pole. This means that, without being able to take it upon ourselves in the ordinary sense of the word today, without being able to speak of a moral transgression, we have the fate as human beings that we humans are filled with Lucifer. In a certain sense, we cannot help it; we must even be grateful that it has come to pass. That is true on the one hand. We cannot help it. We therefore had to take upon ourselves something for which we cannot be fully responsible.

[ 13 ] There is, however, something in human development that stands in opposition to this, something that relates to it, so to speak, like the North Pole to the South Pole. This sin, which is inheritable in its consequence—that is, the entry of guilt into the human being without the person being truly guilty—must be counterbalanced by the possibility of rising again, even without it being the person’s fault. Just as the human being had to fall through no fault of their own, so too must they be able to rise again through no fault of their own; that is to say, without their own full merit. We have fallen through no fault of our own. We must therefore be able to rise through no merit of our own. That is the necessary other pole. Otherwise, we would have to remain down in the physical-material world. Just as we must necessarily place a fall at the beginning of our development—without the person being at fault—so must we place a gift for the person at the end of our development, one that comes to them without their merit. These two things necessarily belong together. We can best get an idea of how this is the case in the following way.

[ 14 ] Consider that what a person does as a member of ordinary life arises from the impulses of their feelings, emotions, instincts, and desires. People get angry for whatever reason and do this or that out of anger; they love and do this or that out of ordinary love. There is only one word that can describe everything people do in this way. Isn’t it true that you will all admit that in what a person does when he is passionate, when he is angry, when he loves in the ordinary way, there is something that mocks abstract concepts, something that cannot be defined. One would have to be a thoroughly dried-up scholar to want to define everything that underlies any human action. But there is a word that designates what is present in a person when they do anything in ordinary life, and that is the word “personality.” With this word, we immediately encompass all those undefined things. Once we have grasped a person’s personality, we may then be able to judge why they developed this or that passion, this or that desire, and so on. Everything that arises from our drives, desires, passions, and so on has this personal character. But we are so easily entangled in physical-material life when we act out of our drives, desires, and passions. Our “I” is virtually submerged in the sea of the physical-material world. For how unfree it is when it follows anger, desire, passion, and even love in the ordinary sense. The ego is unfree because it is bound by anger, passion, and so on. Now, when we consider our age, we must admit that there is already something else that, strictly speaking, did not exist in ancient times.

[ 15 ] Only those who are ignorant of history and judge everything by a time frame that extends no further than the tip of their nose can claim that, in the early days of Greek civilization, for example, there existed such things as we today summarize with the words that have become famous for more than a century: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity of Man—words we describe as moral ideals, words such as those contained, for example, in the first principle of the Theosophical Society: “to form the nucleus of a universal brotherhood of humanity without distinction of creed, nation, class, or sex.” We, as people of today, follow these ideals. This was not the case with the ancient Egyptians, the Persians, or indeed with the ancient peoples at all, in the sense in which we speak of them. People in this present age are actually called upon to follow such ideals, but what people do under the concepts of liberty, equality, fraternity, and so on, has precisely the character of the abstract for most people. For most people, in relation to what they grasp of freedom, equality, fraternity, and so on, these ideals can only be defined as abstract, because they personally grasp very little of them. There, even though passions have been stirred up, we still have before us, in many people, something that truly evokes the idea of something parched. Personally, we cannot yet call these things our own; they are abstract ideas. It is not yet something that possesses the full vitality of personal life. And we regard as truly noble those individuals in whom the idea of freedom takes on such a character that it wells up with a primal force, as if it were springing from anger, from passion, from ordinary love. How soberly do people still treat, in many cases today, the ideas we regard as the greatest moral ideals! Yet it is the beginning of a great becoming. Just as human beings have plunged with their ego into the sea of the physical-material, having, so to speak, developed personality by acting under the influences of passions, drives, and desires, so too must they rise not merely with abstract concepts but with their personality into these abstract ideas, which are still abstract. With the primal force by which we see today that this or that arises from hatred or love in the ordinary sense, with that same force will arise that which stands beneath the most spiritual ideals. Human beings will ascend into higher spheres with their personality. But for this, something is necessary. When a person plunges with their ego into the sea of physical-material life, they find their personality there; there they find their hot blood, their surging drives and desires in the astral body; there they submerge into their personality. But now they must ascend into the realm of moral ideals, and this must not be abstract. He must ascend to the spiritual, and there something just as personal must pulsate toward him as something personal pulsates toward him when he dives with his ego into his hot blood, into his drives. He must ascend without falling into the abstract. How, then, does he enter into something personal when he ascends into the spiritual? How can he develop these ideals in such a way that they have a personal character? There is only one way to do this. In the spiritual heights, a person must be able to draw near a personality that is inwardly personal, just as the personality is personal down below in the flesh. And what is this personality that a person must draw near if he wants to ascend into the spiritual? It is the Christ. Just as someone who is the opposite of Paul might say: “Not I, but my astral body”—so Paul says: “Not I, but the Christ within me”—to indicate that, because the Christ lives within us, abstract ideas take on a wholly personal character. You see, that is the significance of the Christ impulse. Without the Christ impulse, humanity would arrive at abstract ideals, at all manner of ideals of moral powers and the like, at what many historians today describe as so-called historical ideas, which cannot live and cannot die because they simply have no creative power. When one speaks of ideas in history, one should realize that these are dead, abstract concepts that truly cannot dominate historical epochs. Only life can rule. And what human beings are meant to develop toward is the development of a higher personality. This is the Christ-personality, which human beings attract, which human beings take into themselves.

[ 16 ] Thus does humanity ascend once more into the spiritual realm, not merely by speaking of the Spirit, but by taking the Spirit in its living, personal form, as it comes to meet us in the events of Palestine, in the Mystery of Golgotha. Thus does humanity, under the influence of the Christ impulse, ascend once more. There is no other way to go beyond merely shaping abstract ideals with a personal character more and more than by allowing our entire spiritual life to be permeated by the Christ impulse. But if, on the one hand, through the guilt arising from the underdevelopment of the ego, we have taken upon ourselves what we call original sin—if, so to speak, we have something that cannot be fully held against us—then, fundamentally speaking, we cannot be held accountable for the fact that Christ has entered into the world, that we are able to draw Christ to ourselves. What we do, what we attempt to draw near to Christ—that already belongs to our ego; that is already our merit. That Christ is here, that we live on a planet where Christ walked, that we live in a time after this has happened—that is not our merit. So what flows forth from the positive, living Christ to lift us up again into the spiritual world is something that is, in turn, external to us, something that draws us upward without us being able to do anything about it, just as we cannot do anything about the fact that we have, so to speak, become guilty through no fault of our own. Through the existence of Christ on earth, the power comes to us to ascend once more, just as undeservedly as the other came without our fault. For both have nothing to do with the personal realm in which the ego lives, but with what precedes the ego and what follows the ego. We have often emphasized that human beings have evolved from a state in which they possessed only a physical body, an etheric body, and an astral body, and that human beings continue to evolve by transforming their astral body and, through this transformation, turning this astral body into Manas. Just as human beings have made their astral body worse through original sin, so do they make it better again through the Christ impulse. Something flows in that makes the astral body just as much better as it had previously been made worse. This is the equivalent; this is what is truly called grace. Grace is the equivalent, the complementary concept to the concept of original sin. So that the inflow of Christ into the human being, the possibility of becoming one with Christ, the possibility of being able to say, as Paul did: “Not I, but Christ in me”—expresses at the same time everything we designate as the concept of grace.

[ 17 ] Thus we may say: We do not misunderstand the concept of karma when we speak of original sin and grace. For insofar as we speak of the concept of karma, we are speaking of the reincarnation of the “I” across various lifetimes. Karma is inconceivable for human beings without the presence of the ego. Insofar as we speak of original sin and grace, we are speaking of impulses that lie beneath the surface of karma, that lie within the astral body. Yes, we may say that human karma is brought about only because the human being has taken on original sin. Karma runs through incarnations, and before and after it there are things that initiate and balance out karma: before, original sin; and after, the full success of the Christ impulse, the coming of full grace.

[ 18 ] Thus we can say to ourselves: Indeed, even when viewed from this perspective, spiritual science has a great and significant mission, especially in the present day. For just as it is true that humanity has only recently come to recognize ideals at all—to recognize them in abstract form—and just as it is true that people have been able to develop, so to speak, abstract ideas of freedom and brotherhood, so it is true that the time must lie ahead of us when these ideas will approach us not merely as abstract ideals, but as living forces. Just as it is true that people have passed through a stage where they were able to grasp abstract ideals, so it is true that they must advance to the point of living out these ideals personally, that they must advance toward entering the new temple. We stand before it. And people will be taught that what works down from spiritual heights is not merely abstractions, but something living. When they begin to see what has often been spoken of as what lies before humanity in the next epoch of development—when people begin no longer to think, “How good I am!”—but when the living power of Christ, whom they will see in the etheric body, comes before their eyes through etheric vision —as we know, this has been happening since the middle of our century in individual people—when people begin to see the Christ as a living being, then they will know that what they have for a time perceived in the form of abstract ideas are living beings who live within our evolution, living beings. For the living Christ, who first appeared in physical form and who at that time could only communicate with people within that form so that they might believe in him—even if they were not his contemporaries—will renew his appearance. Then there will be no need for proof that he lives; then the proof will be there: those who themselves experience—even without any special development, in a kind of mature vision—that the moral powers of the world order are living beings, not merely abstract ideals.

[ 19 ] Thus we see that our thoughts cannot lead us up into the truly spiritual worlds, because they are lifeless. Only when these thoughts no longer appear to us as merely our own thoughts, but as the testimonies of the living Christ, who will appear to humanity, will we understand these thoughts in the right way. Then the human being will be just as real as he became a personality by descending with the ego into the lower spheres; he will be just as much a personality when he ascends to the spiritual heights. This is what today’s materialism fails to recognize. It will only readily accept that there are abstract ideals of the good, the beautiful, and so on. That there are living powers which draw us upward through their grace—this must first be realized. This is realized through the development of spiritual science; this is what the renewed Christ impulse is. When we no longer see our ideals merely as ideals, but find through them the path to Christ, then we continue Christianity in the spiritual-scientific sense. Then it enters a new stage; then it ceases to be a mere preparation. Then Christianity will show that it contains the greatest thing for all times to come. Then those who believe that Christianity is always endangered when development is introduced into it will see how wrong they are.

[ 20 ] For these are the faint-hearted, who grow fearful when it is said: Behold, Christianity contains even greater glories than have been revealed so far! — And those who think highly of Christianity are those who know that the words are true: that Christ is with us every day, that is, that He always reveals something new to us, and that it is right to go back to the source of Christ. Through this, Christianity lives as something greater than what is expected of it, bringing forth ever newer and more vibrant creations from its bosom. Those who always say: “Yes, that is not in the Bible, that is not true Christianity,” and who call those heretics who claim that something else is Christianity—these must be reminded that Christ also said: “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.” He did not say this to imply that he wanted to withhold something from them, but rather that he intends to give them new revelations from age to age. And he will do so through those who wish to understand him. And those who deny this do not understand the Bible, nor do they understand Christianity. For they do not know how to listen to the Christian admonition contained in these words that Christ meant: I have much more to tell you, but prepare yourselves so that you may learn to bear it, that you may gain understanding of it.

[ 21 ] In the future, these will be the true Christians—those who are willing to hear what Christians, as contemporaries of Christ, were not yet able to bear. These will be the true Christians—those who have the will to allow the grace of Christ to flow more and more into their hearts. The stubborn ones will be those who resist grace, who will say: No, go back to the Bible; only what the letter contains and what has come out of it so far is true. They deny the words that kindle a blazing light within Christianity itself, the words that we surely wish to take to heart: “I have much more to say to you, but you cannot bear it now.” It will be for the good of humanity if it can bear more and more in this sense. For then it will make itself ever more ready for the ascent into the spiritual heights. And Christianity is to pave the way for this.