"The difference between
having something that is just abstract and dead, and having something
that is alive, will be apparent if you compare this with the
abstract moral idealism that is otherwise put forward. This aliveness
and this awareness that the world is not just purely and simply
there, is going to be needed: the minerals, plants, animals and
the human beings are not simply there so that man can dictate
the shape of the world by constructing all kinds of ideals which
are nothing but abstractions.
No, there is a living chain
that reaches up, through mineral, plant, animal, and human being
to the Angels, Archangels, and beyond. And as this living connection
is re-established, the life that needs to flow into the development
of humanity begins to flow again. Until people come to a more
complete understanding of this fact through spiritual science
they will continue to formulate abstract ideals — just thoughts
— as though there could be something creative in thoughts
that are not the thoughts of the Angels, Archangels, and so on!
This ability to stand in a
living connection with the sense and goal of the world will develop.
The truth will become more moral, because one will feel a moral
responsibility towards the truth. And morality will take on more
the aspect of a wisdom-filled knowledge because one will know
which beings are being served as one carries out this or that
task.
The correct understanding
of the Christ principle for our times is also contained in what
I have just been saying. What has been obtained from the Christ
principle up to now has not been enough to stem the manifold
tide of decline that has swept, and will sweep, over our times.
But, as I have often said before, Christ did not come with the
message, `Here I am. Quickly write down everything you can say
about me so that humanity can believe in it until the last days
of the Earth!'
That is what is taught by
the short-sighted, narrow-minded theology of today. What it very
often teaches implies that the Christ said, `Certain things have
I done. Quickly write them down, for that is what is to be taught
until the last days of the Earth, and nothing shall be added
to it.'
This assertion sits falsely.
It is so false that people hesitate to utter it at all. I refer
to those who consistently act in accordance with this assumption
without ever once stating it. But the assumption on which they
act sits falsely, very falsely.
For the Christ said, `I will
be with you to the last days of the Earth.' And this implies
that it is always possible to receive Christ's revelation! In
the early days of Christianity it was the Gospels that came from
this source; today it is spiritual science.
Those who wrote down what
could be written down in those days did not say, `We have written
this down, and there is nothing else in addition to what we have
written that can be written.' They said, rather, `And there are
also many other things which Jesus did, that which, if they should
be written down, every one, I suppose that even the world itself
could not contain the books that should be written.'
As regards understanding the
Christ, spiritual science lays bare a nerve that nothing else
in our time is able to reveal. It is truly essential in our times
to draw attention to the attitude mankind needs to achieve toward
its own thoughts and — toward the impulses on which it acts.
So much is said about this — at any rate, much is written
down — but most of it is unfounded, because people want
to go in the other direction.
They do not want thinking
to be a path that must be traversed for a long, long time before
one arrives at the goal and obtains something in which one can
believe; they want to get the thinking over with as quickly as
possible. But we can only arrive at the goal after we have established
a relationship with truth. And even when we have arrived at something
that is wholly correct — even though we have considered
the matter from all sides to obtain a wholly correct manner of
expressing it — we should never cease to look at it anew,
considering it from yet other sides. "