The Rudolf Steiner Archive

13. Faith, Love, Hope

[ 1 ] It is a great pleasure for me to welcome you again today as I pass through and to be able to speak with you about some theosophical matters. Here, in this very place where, a little over a year ago, we spoke at length about a topic from the realm of theosophical knowledge and life, and having absorbed various ideas and concepts in the process, we may touch upon a topic that is closer to the spiritual life of the human being, to the inner life of the soul, and yet which in turn points us upward and can point us upward toward perspectives that will teach us about the connection between humanity and the great stellar worlds, with what we call the macrocosm.

[ 2 ] Today I would like to begin with a concept, a guiding principle that runs through all of human history and which, on the one hand, expresses humanity’s longing to draw closer to its higher self, but on the other hand shows how little it actually comes close to its divine self. In Greek history, we find Socrates walking about, teaching people, guiding them toward virtue through simple concepts, toward all that is close to the human heart. Socrates, the Greek sage, wanted to turn his contemporaries’ gaze away from external nature. While his predecessors pondered what underlies the great phenomena of nature and sought to explain them, it is said that Socrates uttered the following: “What do we care about nature, the trees, the birds? They cannot teach us how to become better human beings.” — This statement contains an error. But what matters here is not whether Socrates erred, but rather what he intended. He was one of the world’s greatest sages, who even paid for what he intended with his life.

[ 3 ] There is a maxim that has been handed down from Socrates. Its meaning strikes every human soul that seeks to know itself: he taught virtue and morality. If people could truly understand them, they would act accordingly. If people stray from morality, it is only because they do not yet fully understand it. Virtue can be taught. The human heart objects that human nature is weak, that it often fails in the face of virtue. The one who shaped this saying into a form that lives in many hearts—a form that is an expression of the deepest regret and apology—Paul, gave this saying its form: The spirit is strong, but the flesh is weak. — Many understand what virtue consists of and yet cannot follow it. This conflict runs through the whole of human nature. One need only inscribe this saying in one’s soul, and one has recorded the conflict within human nature. There is something in man that transcends him: the higher human nature transcends the lower.

[ 4 ] Theosophy teaches us not to view human nature as something merely simple. The human soul appears to us as a trinity. Here we must recall the evolution of our planet, its earlier incarnations, through which it has passed and in which humanity has also developed alongside it. The first incarnation of our planet was the Saturn state. Here the seed was sown for the human physical body. After this state had lasted a long time, the planet dissolved and reappeared, this time as the Sun with the forces of the life ether. In this state, the etheric or life body was added in embryonic form to the physical body. Again, after a long time, the planet dissolved and reappeared, this time in the lunar state. In it, the astral body was added to the human physical and etheric bodies. And after this state, too, had undergone dissolution, the Earth took on the form it has today. As a fourth principle, the seed of the human ego was now added to the human being.

[ 5 ] Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon form a trinity: the past of the Earth. During this period, the human trinity developed: the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body. These constitute humanity’s past. The ego is the present. Its future lies in what it works out of the lower triad, in the spiritualization achieved in the process. As the ego penetrates the astral body and learns to master it, it transforms it into the spiritual self or Manas. As the ego penetrates the etheric body, it transforms it into the life spirit or Buddhi. By permeating the physical body, the I transforms it into the spiritual human or Atman. This is the upper triad, the future of the human being.

[ 6 ] Now, the “I” is also threefold, for the soul has three aspects, three fundamental forces of which it is composed, and which can never be separated from or torn away from it. These three forces are what we have called the feeling soul, the intellectual soul, and the conscious soul. They are parts of the individuality that gradually struggles its way to consciousness. We can also describe them in our language as intelligence, individuality, and morality. In the feeling soul we sense the inner soul; the astral body can be regarded as the outer aspect of the feeling soul. From the intellectual soul the self, becoming conscious, struggles forth. Within the developing powers of the self, the consciousness soul is experienced as the inner aspect, the spiritual self as the outer aspect.

[ 7 ] Is there anything that can suggest to us that what has just been said is true? To answer this question, let us consider what we have become through the stages of human development. We stand in the midst of the past lower triad and the radiant spiritual-soul triad. Today we wish to describe this triad using words taken from everyday life, not as in the book *Theosophy*, where it is presented scientifically. What is it that can signify to us our deepest spiritual deficiencies, our spiritual longings and dissatisfaction? What is this trinity when we look at our wisdom, individuality, and virtue, at all our striving that can fill us with bliss or with disharmony? This is the triad that we can describe as faith, hope, and love. They are the three fundamental forces of the soul that can never be taken from it. Faith—what is faith? Faith is a spiritual force that can never be completely wrested from the human soul, and it lives in every human being. There has never been a people that did not possess it, nor has any religion refrained from speaking of it. It is the longing for faith that pervades the world. The soul always wants something to cling to. If this longing for faith is not satisfied, then the tormented soul is in a dire state. When what it can believe in is taken from it—as happens through materialism—then it fares as if the human body were deprived of the air it needs to breathe. Except that the process of suffocation takes very little time for the body, but a very long time for the soul.

[ 8 ] One often comes across sayings such as: “Knowledge is power”—and the like. Now, at the beginning of the Bible, a peculiar phrase has been found that has not yet been properly appreciated to this day. It speaks of the tree of knowledge and of the fruit of the tree of knowledge that is eaten. This is to be taken quite literally. Knowledge is nourishment; knowledge is food for the soul. The soul feeds on what we take in as concepts from theosophy. It feeds on what it believes, and it finds healthy nourishment only in what theosophy offers it.

[ 9 ] “Faith,” say the scientists and materialists, “is an outdated viewpoint.” “I believe only what I know,” says the modern person. This is a mistake. Faith is not a retreat into the past, for faith and knowledge are not opposites. Knowledge, however, is changeable and cannot satisfy the need for faith in the human heart. When material science claims that the world is composed of atoms and came into being by chance, the human heart rightly says: I cannot believe that; I find no satisfaction in this hypothesis. — And because the human being cannot believe, because he has nothing to which he can firmly cling with his sense of faith, the human soul is not healthy, and this unhealthy soul makes the body sick. This is how nervousness in the modern sense arises and becomes worse and worse. Thus the soul affects the body, and the human being who has become this way affects his surroundings—which he drags down and makes sick—and his descendants. This is why humanity is degenerating more and more, and unfortunately it will only get worse and worse. It is materialistic science that gives people “stones instead of bread.” The soul has no nourishment, even though the intellect is overflowing with knowledge. And such a person then goes about not knowing what to do with himself, not knowing what to hold on to, and just as if the air he breathes were taken from him, so the human soul suffocates because it has no nourishment, no spiritual sustenance. Theosophy has therefore come into the world to provide humanity with nourishment.

[ 10 ] When we come together to practice Theosophy, we do not do so in the same way as other societies, for example, that deal with literature, the fine arts, social issues, and the like. We do not practice Theosophy out of curiosity, but rather to satisfy the soul’s thirst for faith, to nourish the soul. That is why we allow theosophical concepts, feelings, and sensations to take effect on our soul.

[ 11 ] If we now consider this in relation to the development of the world and humanity, we must remember that during the Earth’s lunar phase, the astral body was added to the human being. What, then, is this astral body? It consists of forces that must always grasp something, that must always attach themselves to something. In their effect, these forces are what we experience as faith, as the power of faith. The astral body is the very source of faith itself. It must therefore be nourished if it is to develop, if it is to live. The craving for nourishment is the longing for faith. If this power of faith cannot be satisfied, if one thing after another is withdrawn from faith that it might cling to, if it is not offered good spiritual nourishment, then the astral body becomes ill, and through it the physical human being as well. But if it receives satisfaction from those concepts, ideas, and feelings that Theosophy draws from the truth, from the depths of world knowledge, then it has the spiritual nourishment that suits it, then it has its satisfaction. It becomes strong, healthy, and the human being himself becomes healthy. Views have changed almost to the letter over the past century or so. About 130 years ago, a person was called nervous if he was a sturdy fellow, with strong muscles and full of vigor. Today, a nervous person is a dissatisfied, frail person, a sick person, one whose soul searches unsatisfied for that from which it can draw its nourishment. It follows from all this that we can rightly call the astral body the body of faith.

[ 12 ] A second fundamental force is love. No one lacks it; it is always there; it cannot be eradicated. Anyone who believes that the greatest hater or the greatest egoist has no love is mistaken. To think so is entirely wrong. The longing for love is always and ever present. Whether it be sexual love, love for a child, for a friend, or love for anything—for a work of art—it is always there. It cannot be torn from the soul, because it is a fundamental force of the soul. But just as a person needs air to breathe, so does he need the work of love, the expression of love, for his soul. Its opponent, its obstacle, is selfishness. But what does selfishness do? It does not allow love to flow outward; it presses it into the soul, over and over again. And just as air must flow out during breathing so that a person does not suffocate, so must love flow out so that the soul does not suffocate from what is forcibly pressed into it. Better said: the soul burns in its own fire of love within itself and perishes.

[ 13 ] Let us now recall that on the ancient Sun, human beings received the etheric body in its embryonic form; that the fiery, luminous, and radiant nature of the Sun is the foundation of the etheric body. In it, we find only another aspect of love—that which love is in the spirit: light is love. In the etheric body, therefore, we are given love and the longing for love, and we can rightly call the etheric body the body of love: light and love.

[ 14 ] It is true: love is the greatest good. But it can also have the most disastrous consequences. You see this in everyday life, and here I will share a real-life example. A mother loved her little daughter very much, and out of love she let her get away with whatever she did. She never punished her, indulged her every whim. The little girl became a poisoner, and it was love that led to this. Love must be paired with wisdom; it must become an enlightened love; only then can it truly have a beneficial effect. Theosophical teaching is called upon to bring this wisdom to her, to give her this enlightenment. And when a person has taken in what is said and taught about world evolution—about this seemingly so distant, so distant, and what is communicated about the connection between humanity and the macrocosm, then humanity will become such that its enlightened love will turn toward its fellow human beings in order to look into them, to be able to understand them, and thus become enlightened love for humanity.

[ 15 ] We often hear people say that life is dreary and empty. This feeling even causes a kind of malaise to spread to the body. This is caused by the unsatisfied power of love. When the world rejects our love, we feel pain. When we do something out of love, we must do it because the soul needs it, just as the lungs need air. Theosophy has come into the world not out of scientific curiosity or to impose a scientific opinion on the world—we have more than enough of those, for there are a thousand questions awaiting a solution—but to give humanity fulfillment in life. We are still gathering in small circles, but these circles will soon grow larger and larger, and we will one day be able to solve the thousand questions of our time.

[ 16 ] Who will solve the social question? — Those who theorize and debate about it? Never. The theosophical worldview and love will solve it. And truly, as paradoxical as it may sound, humanity will soon not even be able to grow potatoes anymore—for potatoes are already getting worse and worse today—it will not even be able to grow potatoes without theosophy! How can this be explained? Much of what humanity does today is done instinctively, out of a certain instinct. But this instinct must gradually fade away. Why? Because the time has come for it to give way to consciousness. People will therefore be unable to practice agriculture without learning the truths of Theosophy regarding the nature of the earth, the forces at work within it, and so on.

[ 17 ] “The third fundamental force is hope. The human soul must hope; everyone knows that. People wander through the world unsatisfied and searching, and all too often one finds people to whom everything seems hollow, to whom nothing brings satisfaction, to whom one thing after another slips through their fingers. Let it be dark around them, without prospects, without hope—so they say.

[ 18 ] A great man once said: Virtue without hope is the greatest crime; eternity without hope is the greatest lie! — And yet the power of hope is inscribed in the soul; it is an indestructible force, and no power will ever be able to tear it from humanity. But if humanity is not given, but rather deprived of, that upon which it can climb upward, then the souls thus robbed will lose their security, their support, their steadfastness, and thus people will collapse into uncertainty; they will become foolish and senseless. The theosophical fundamental teachings of karma and reincarnation are a source of fulfillment for the power of hope within the human soul. They offer that which is enduring, that which leads into the future. What is an action, what is a thought, a word, when it is conceived as torn away from the person? Man and his deeds, man and his thoughts belong together, and it is illogical to regard an evil deed—an insult, for example—as atoned for if the perpetrator has not made amends for it himself. The law of causation speaks here: Man’s life is bound to man, and he must pass from incarnation to incarnation.

[ 19 ] Lessing left behind the book *The Education of the Human Race* as the culmination of his entire life’s work. The central idea of this work is that human beings return time and again. What else could the great minds—geniuses such as Lessing—have believed but the doctrine of reincarnation, namely that the human soul continues to develop from one stage to the next, that it continues to experience what it has brought about, over and over again. It will only be a short time before the doctrine of reincarnation and the doctrine of karma are also recognized in mainstream science. And with that, humanity will regain something that has been taken from it by materialistic science: hope.

[ 20 ] Why do we understand the essence of past cultural eras? It is neither literature nor art history that gives us what the Greeks left behind. Both offer far too little; it wouldn’t even be necessary to know anything about them. We carry the achievements of Greek culture within us, simply because we ourselves lived back then, because we lived through that cultural epoch, and we could not be what we are today if we had not lived through that epoch back then. Hebbel left behind notes on an idea that he was no longer able to develop into a play. In a school, a professor was teaching Plato to his students. The reincarnated Plato is among the students and receives one very poor grade after another from the professor, even punishments, because he—Plato—does not understand Plato! Here, too, the idea of reincarnation is expressed from the soul of a genius,

[ 21 ] If the fruit of virtue did not depend on human beings, what would virtue be? How could evil be atoned for if human beings themselves did not have to atone for it! Eternity would remain a lie if human beings themselves did not depend on eternity, if it did not concern them personally. Continuation through incarnation after incarnation—that is what constitutes hope, and only through this can souls lacking in hope, who cannot satisfy their longing for hope, be healed.

[ 22 ] The seed of the physical human being was sown on ancient Saturn. How so? It was sown there spiritually, namely in that which is to endure: hope. Therefore, the physical body can rightly be called the body of hope. The characteristic of the physical body is its density. When the waves of soul life strike the human body again and again and penetrate deeper and deeper into it, then it becomes permeated by hope, by the certainty that something will develop from it that lasts eternally, that is imperishable. This longing for the fulfillment of hope, for a continuation of life, is a consequence of the soul’s power of hope, and its nourishment is deprived of it by external science.

[ 23 ] Theosophy reflects these concepts, ideas, and feelings, and that is the great mission of Theosophy: to restore people’s strength of faith, their happiness in love, and their perseverance in hope.

[ 24 ] If we take only the truths that Theosophy imparts to us and feed them to the soul’s power of faith, then Manas will arise of its own accord; the transformation of the astral body into Manas will take place of its own accord. If we take only the truths and offer them as nourishment to love, Buddhi will arise of its own accord. If we take the theosophical truths and offer them as nourishment to hope, the spiritual man, Atman, will arise of his own accord.

[ 25 ] That is the sole reason why theosophy is practiced and contemplated—not out of scientific curiosity. It is wrong to say, out of convenience, that one does not need to know all this. For theosophical truths are drawn from Truth itself; they are brought down from the great Cosmos; they serve as living nourishment for the human soul, just as bread does, just as air does. If humanity is not to suffocate, if it is to be able to fulfill its mission, this nourishment must be brought to it—and precisely now, because it is so extraordinarily necessary. That is the purpose of theosophical study, and not a thirst for knowledge, not curiosity, or perhaps something even worse.