The Rudolf Steiner Archive

39. The Origin of Evil

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! There are mysteries of the world that confront us not only when we turn our attention to life’s major events, but that arise at every turn in our everyday lives. We could cite many such mysteries of life; one is the very one that is to occupy us today: the question of the origin of evil. It is one of those mysteries that we encounter in everyday life but which can only be answered if we go back to the sources and origins of life. Precisely such a question—in the way it has been approached by humanity since ancient times—shows us that it can really only be fruitfully addressed within what we call spiritual science or the theosophical worldview. Without those profound insights into the world, without delving into the sources of existence—which can flow to us through this current in cultural life—an answer is not possible. Therefore, you will have to join me on a rather extensive journey to the sources of existence in order to gain insight into this, in a certain sense, everyday mystery. Anyone who views the world solely through a mindset rooted in materialism, who follows the course of events with the senses, cannot even remotely find an answer to this question.

[ 2 ] Evil appears to us, though not in its true sense, in this subordinate existence, in human life. The wise person, who is a person of faith, asks himself: How is it compatible with a wise world order—which is also called Providence—that this Providence allows human beings to sink to what we call evil, that the Deity allows human beings to become evil in order to then punish them? It is not only the naively devout person who interprets it this way; we also hear the same idea in the poem that the young Goethe wrote when he cried out to a divine spirituality:

You make the poor man guilty,
Then you leave him to suffer!

[ 3 ] Those who stand on less religious ground are even less able to grapple with this question. Without a spiritual foundation, we cannot arrive at a coherent understanding of evil, much less a connection to the World Spirit. Ever since humans have been capable of thought, their leaders and thinkers have sought to answer the question: Where does evil come from, and what is its significance? —

[ 4 ] We must look back to a time in the past when Persian myths already recounted the ongoing struggle against the evil forces that pitted Ahriman against Ormuzd, portraying Ahriman as a relentless opponent of good. There, Ahriman is presented to us as the force that, through the struggle, strengthens the good spirit.

[ 5 ] If we take a great leap into the profound thought of German thinkers, to Jakob Böhme, we find in his writings—and, subsequently, throughout his entire life—a preoccupation with the question of the origin of evil. Jakob Böhme says that multiplicity arises only from unity, but that multiplicity must be guided by the will of unity; just as, for example, two hands, if not directed by a single will, are separate limbs; without this guiding unity, we cannot accomplish any great work. These hands can rage against one another; they can tear each other apart. The possibility arises precisely when the two are given what we call freedom. As long as the two hands are coordinated by the personality and as long as a single will governs them, they will not turn against one another.

[ 6 ] And here Jakob Böhme already expresses a sense that evil has something to do with love. If the divine being that permeates the world loves the world so much that it gives everything to all beings and withholds nothing, in order to grant the many the greatest possible freedom, then the many may strive against one another.

[ 7 ] If we were to review the thinkers, we could talk about this at length and cite many more examples from major historical periods; however, we would always end up with only a kind of philosophical answer. Today, however, we do not wish to concern ourselves with philosophical questions, but rather to address the facts of the spiritual world without further ado, in order to gain the clues needed to answer our question. So as not to broaden the scope of our discussion too much, I would like to go straight to the heart of the matter, and there we must briefly consider the nature of the human being. We are well aware that evil must have something to do with human nature.

[ 8 ] If we view human beings from the standpoint of what the eyes can see and the hands can grasp, we perceive only a part of the human being as understood by spiritual science. We see only the physical part of the human being, which the human being shares with all seemingly inanimate beings. Everything found in the human body is also present there; however, these mineral forces are, of course, present in the human being in a very special way: They are so intricately interwoven and so diversely structured that the physical body would disintegrate under its own physical laws if it were not permeated by something—just as water permeates a sponge—something that, in every human being and at every moment, fights against all disturbances in the physical body. We call this fighter the etheric body or life body. In each of you, the physical body is subject to decay at every moment, were it not for that fighter, that victor, within you whom we call the etheric body or life body. Human beings share this with all of living nature; this fighter is present in everything that lives. At the moment when, at death, the physical body is separated from the etheric body, it follows the laws of physics; it decays and passes into the lifeless world. The etheric body is something that modern science regards as impossible. However, we cannot delve further into this here; we must merely touch upon the subject in outline form.

[ 9 ] Beyond the etheric body, the human being has a third aspect of his being. This third aspect of his being is visible at all times to those whose spiritual eyes are open. You can conceive of this third aspect logically. We ask ourselves: Is the physical body and the life body all there is? A simple consideration suffices; there truly is something that is much closer to a person than their bones, muscles, blood, and nerves. There is something very close to us as a reality—the sum of what we call feelings, instincts, and passions—which truly belongs to us and exists in the same spaces as blood, muscles, and nerves. We share this part of the human being only with animals, not with plants.

[ 10 ] Now there is a fourth element through which human beings are the crown of creation. The fourth element of their being is that which enables them to summarize everything within themselves under the name “I.” This name “I” is a name that already conceals the mystery of its essence behind the distinction it exhibits compared to all other names we have in the German language. Anyone can call a chair “chair,” a table “table,” and so on, but no one can hear the name “I” from the outside; it must resound from one’s own soul. Every object can have its name resound to us from the outside; the “I,” however, can only be heard from within oneself. This has always been sensed by those worldviews that were based on what we call spiritual science. In the Old Testament, Hebrew religion, you will find the unspoken name of God corresponding to this intimate name of the soul. Why is it called that? If the soul is to hear its true name, then something within the soul must speak—something that can be connected to that soul without penetrating through any external organs: the “I” must resound from within the soul itself. A spark of divine being is within the soul when it utters its name, “I.”

[ 11 ] No matter what a convoluted philosophy may have sought to find, the true meaning of the word “Yahweh” is: “the unpronounceable name of the divine part of the soul within man.” And this was precisely the intention when it was alluded to in ancient Egypt through the veiled image of Sais. We can read the inscription: “I am the one who was, who is, and who will be. No mortal has yet lifted my veil.” A researcher, a German Romantic, spoke the truth out of a strange instinct, even though he did not delve deeply: No mortal has lifted the veil; we must become immortal.

[ 12 ] It was the belief of the great Egyptian priest-sages that the self was enveloped, but that these layers would fall away. No one can unravel the essence of the self except the self itself, when it becomes aware of its true nature. By descending into its own depths and abysses, it grasps its own immortality; then it knows what is hidden behind the veil. However, very few people today are inclined to look into the essence of the “I”; Fichte’s saying still holds true today: Most people would rather consider themselves a piece of lava on the moon than an “I.” Since Fichte, we have seen crude materialism flood into nineteenth-century culture. People today are quite content if they can partially understand something physical and prove it materialistically. They consider themselves more akin to that piece of lava on the moon than to the “I.” It would be nonsensical to speak of the higher aspects of human nature if, in the context of spiritual research, we were to describe the fourth part as somehow being a manifestation of the physical body. Of course, spiritual research in this field must involve something that must seem very foolish to a person who today often believes that everyone must stand on the ground of scientific facts: What takes place in the etheric body, the astral body, and the “I” is not the effect of the physical body, but rather the reverse. What takes place in the physical and etheric bodies are the workings of the astral body. Only by gradually rising to this perspective can one answer this question.

[ 13 ] Consider, for example, two processes that we encounter every day. Something puts us in a state of shame; there is something about me that I would prefer those around me not to see; I blush. Another process is the feeling of fear, which manifests as a pallor. With shame, a rush of blood flows to the skin; with fear, the blood withdraws from the skin back into the body’s interior. What has happened here? A psychological process causes the blood to recede; a psychological process acts upon the body. Each of these processes appears to you as a consequence of a psychological process. These are indications in which the psychological influence plays out in the material realm. Today, these manifestations in the material realm are, so to speak, no longer so easy to recognize; they have more or less receded in the face of the powerful forms that the physical body has assumed, in contrast to earlier forms of existence. But the further back we go in human evolution, the more the spiritual elements gain the upper hand.

[ 14 ] Today there are even people who go so far as to deny the influence of the soul on the physical body. It is hard to believe that there are people with such materialistic views, but there is a theological movement in America that calls itself “Pragmatism.” It has produced a statement that reveals the absurdity of the materialism it espouses. We need only reflect on this one statement: “A person does not cry because he is sad, but he is sad because he cries.” Here it is plain to see how the materialistic worldview has come into conflict with common sense.

[ 15 ] It is a fact that it must seem natural to us that such consequences—which occur today in countless areas—should arise; it’s just that they do not come to the surface in such a grotesque manner. If we now accept that physical processes are effects of the spiritual-soul aspects, then it will no longer seem alarming to us when, looking back into earlier periods of development, we discover that these effects become all the more significant the further back we go—so that in the primeval ages of human development, we must reckon with far-reaching spiritual influences that are hidden from us today.

[ 16 ] You may know that the Theosophical worldview holds that human existence unfolds through repeated earthly lives. Let us just briefly mention this: In the course of their development toward ever greater perfection, human beings pass through many earthly lives. In spiritual science, we speak of the fact that all that lives is in a state of transformation. Everything in the world is undergoing such a transformation—not only human beings, but even vast worlds are in a state of constant transformation. Just as, when we consider the individual human being, we say: What takes place in the present life between birth and death is the effect of earlier incarnations; in the same way, we can look at an entire celestial body; and from a spiritual scientific perspective, we can understand such a body only if we know that it has acquired what it has become today through earlier lives. We also speak of the Earth and the planets as having passed through other incarnations. Just as a spiritually highly developed person can look back on earlier earthly lives, so too can earlier planetary states be surveyed from the standpoint of spiritual science. We refer back to the Earth’s preceding planetary state, and in spiritual science we designate this pre-Earth as the “Cosmos of Wisdom.”

[ 17 ] A look at what surrounds you can help explain why we regard the pre-earth as the cosmos of wisdom. Look at the human being, the physical body; examine its parts. Take a section of the femur, which is composed of countless beams and joints. It is an artfully assembled framework, constructed with marvelous wisdom. It is joined together through the wisest of engineering so that, despite its relatively slight strength, the femur is capable of supporting the upper body. No engineer is capable of constructing a bridge with such wisdom; and anyone who contemplates this marvelous human structure knows the great wisdom contained within it.

[ 18 ] But we also know that other parts of the human being are not yet so wise. We need only consider how the passions and instincts of the astral body operate. What we eat and drink often contains substances toxic to the heart, and yet the heart is so wisely constructed that it can endure these assaults for decades; and everywhere we find wisdom spread out before us. In the structure of the body—we find this wisdom everywhere, in every flower, in every animal, and we see how the whole world is permeated by this wisdom. Let us consider, for example, the beaver and its lodge, how it builds its dams with remarkable artistry; and if one measures the angles, one will find that they are precisely calculated.

[ 19 ] In this way, we could examine, piece by piece, everything that surrounds us. Could we ourselves extract this wisdom from the world if it were not already contained within it? The materialistic mindset denies that the wisdom which human beings extract is inherent in phenomena. Common sense will tell you that something a person extracts from nature must be contained within it. Just as one cannot drink water from a glass if there is none in it, so too one cannot extract wisdom from the world if there is none in it. But this wisdom is there, and spiritual science knows that this wisdom was present in all things at the beginning of Earth’s development. Thus, for example, a beech tree was contained within the plant seed; and as proof of this, we see that a beech tree grows from it and not an oak.

[ 20 ] The wisdom that confronts us today was already present in the Earth when all the things around us were still in their seed form. Just as the seed does not come from the earth but from the plant, so it is true that the seed from which our earth was born comes from what the earth was before—that is, the cosmos of wisdom. What you see today in every leaf, in every organ of the human body—what you see spread out before you—has come into being slowly and gradually, has formed limb by limb, and has emerged only after wisdom had struggled with wisdom. On the pre-earth of our Earth, we had an incarnation in which the wisdom of things was worked out—in which, so to speak, things were prepared in their wisdom.

[ 21 ] Our Earth, which has inherited wisdom—what is its purpose? It has its own special mission; just as the pre-Earth gradually developed, piece by piece, the wisdom that surrounds us today, so too is our Earth today gradually developing, step by step, another cosmic force—and that force is love. That is why, in spiritual research, we call the Earth the “Cosmos of Love.” The Earth’s development proceeds in such a way that love emerges as a force and increasingly takes hold, and when the Earth has reached its goal, everything will be permeated by the power of love; that is why we call the Earth the Cosmos of Love. Just as in the preceding cosmos, the beginning was marked by ignorance, and the form of wisdom was gradually developed, so too does this Earth evolve in such a way that love gradually takes shape; then, when the Earth has reached its goal, love will have spread everywhere and everything will be imbued with love, and the Earth will see beings upon it who will find love just as we find wisdom in everything that surrounds us. Those who are on the Earth’s new incarnation will stand in awe before love, just as we stand in awe before wisdom. Our Earth has the sacred mission of instilling the impulse of love into all things. This impulse exists to fulfill this mission and put it into action.

[ 22 ] We should thus conceive of the development of our Earth as the development of love that runs through the entire course of human evolution on Earth. Once we realize this, we have a starting point for understanding today’s question. We must simply be clear that human beings are not the only beings that exist around us. You know that the spiritual researcher does not speak of the spiritual worlds as something located in some distant, far-off realm, but rather in the most natural and self-evident sense. Just as a person born blind, whose eyes are opened, suddenly sees everything bathed in light and radiance, so too does he see a new world around him that has always existed—just as light and color have always existed—before his eyes were opened. In this world, which only illogical thinking can deny, there are other beings with forms of spirituality different from those of human beings. We can form a conception of these spiritual beings by reminding ourselves that human beings are engaged in a continuous process of development, in which they must ascend ever higher and higher, and that in every incarnation they learn and experience something; they become ever more perfect beings.

[ 23 ] What perspective emerges here? We see humanity’s great ideals; the human being of the future … exalted like a god … [Gaps in the transcript]. We see that just as today’s human being stands above animals and plants, so will the human being of the future stand above his present existence. Spiritual science already knows today—it is undeniable that there are beings above human beings at their present stage of development who are as perfect as we will be in the distant future. These are beings who are far exalted above human beings and who long ago passed through the stage we occupy today; they lead a purely spiritual life and no longer need to descend into a physical body. Thus we see that when a human being begins his earthly existence, when he brings over from the Cosmos of Wisdom what was present within him, it is not only he who enters the Cosmos of Love, but also higher spiritual guiding beings.

[ 24 ] Who are these? They are the very ones who have poured their wisdom into the Cosmos of Wisdom; they are the very ones who, out of their creative wisdom, have built this “Cosmos of Wisdom.” What stands before us today as a completed work was created by these beings. They are the possessors of productive wisdom; they have infused their wisdom into it. By having previously developed creatively in relation to wisdom within the Cosmos of Wisdom, these beings have acquired the ability to, so to speak, pour love into all earthly human beings, and bit by bit this love flows into the Earth. We need only cast a brief glance at this Earth to see how love develops little by little—in ancient times, it appears to us within the narrowest of bounds. Who loved one another in ancient times?—At first, only small groups of blood relatives. Further on, we see love spreading beyond the closest blood ties; the circle that love draws grows ever wider. At first, we see only the closest relatives marrying one another; then love expands to encompass an entire tribe; then, in the Old Testament, the entire people are loved, and anyone who does not belong to that people is considered a stranger. The path is long, but we have taken the great step where love is led from the principle of blood kinship into the spiritual realm—all the way to the great brotherhood that is to encompass the earth, all the way to the Christ principle. This is also what the saying refers to:

Whoever does not leave his father and mother, brother and sister, and follow me, et cetera. (Luke 14:26; Matthew 19:29)

[ 25 ] This saying is not to be taken literally; it refers to the fact that love must step outside the narrow circle of blood kinship, become spiritual, and embrace soul after soul. This is the great mission of Christianity: to make love ever more spiritual until it descends into the form of all-encompassing love, with which the entire earth is to be imbued, so that the beings of the next world will find this love in all things, just as we have found wisdom. Thus we see that during earthly existence, the mission is fulfilled: that which humanity has brought over from the pre-earthly realm is permeated by love. The assimilation of love is the task that humanity has to develop throughout its entire lineage during the course of earthly life. Thus we can see that a whole force, which brings people together, is advancing ever further and drawing ever wider circles.

[ 26 ] Only love can do this. Let us return once more from the cosmos of love to the cosmos of wisdom. What is present in the human being at this transition? What I have described as the fourth member of the human being’s nature—that which makes humanity the crown of creation—was not yet present at the beginning of our Earth’s evolution; only the rudiments of the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body existed. But just as a seed decays and yet sprouts again, giving rise to a plant, so human beings disappear during the transition from the cosmos of wisdom to the cosmos of love and reappear on the present Earth, and the “I” gradually developed. And this “I” had to be there as the counterpole to the power of love. Love has different conditions of existence than wisdom. Wisdom can prevail where all individual members are interdependent; wisdom can prevail where a being of love reigns. If love is to flow from one being to another, this can only occur where it is a free gift that must be present like a fatherly force.

[ 27 ] Only beings who possess the divine power to continually gain greater freedom—only such beings have the power to love. The ego is the antithesis of love. To the same extent that love developed, the ego developed. This could only happen gradually in the process of becoming. At first, it is the blood that speaks—the blood that is related to a beloved being. Love appears to us at its most primitive stage. Love develops more and more into a soul-spiritual force, and in the process, the “I” frees itself more and more. However, in order to understand the true development of the human being within the cosmos of love, we must take one thing into account. We must recognize that the cosmos functions like a school: there are always some who fail to advance; the same is true in the cosmos. Those beings we have spoken of—who stand exalted above humankind—created through productive wisdom and were able to transition to love. However, some remained behind who did not attain the ultimate goal of the cosmos of wisdom, who were not yet finished with their task; they still had work to do on their wisdom and could not yet radiate love; it had not yet been given to them.

[ 28 ] These are beings that stand between the exalted beings and human beings. Spiritual science refers to them as the Luciferic beings, under the rule of Lucifer. — One might laugh. But just as there are, for example, magnetic forces all around us, so too are there Luciferic forces. They extend from the cosmos of wisdom into the cosmos of love. It was they who endowed human beings with their modest wisdom; they created the subjective intellectual wisdom of the human being within the “I,” which was, so to speak, initially imbued with it. This “I” was endowed with a degree of independence that was appropriate for the cosmos of wisdom only once this love-filled wisdom had reached a certain level. Thus, the “I” received a power that is now meant to transform it into independence.

[ 29 ] Only to the extent that the Christ principle shone forth did the ego become capable of harmonizing itself with all the forces of its earthly environment. Before this approach to the ideal of Christ is achieved, beings that represent the opposite force of the ego repeatedly take root within the human being. This force is a divisive one that seeks to sever the “I” too soon. The Luciferic beings wage a battle against everything that brings people together. This force also has a positive purpose: it prevents people from collapsing, so to speak, into a primordial mass of love. Just as people had to be prepared for love, they had to be prepared for wisdom in the past. Thus, this Luciferic principle must be regarded as the principle of enlightenment and of fostering independence.

[ 30 ] Now we have the two forces that guide humanity in two different directions, and with them we also have the principle of the independent self, which is strengthened through this struggle. Without this independence, love would not be possible; without this independence, the origin of evil would not be possible; love makes evil necessary. And from this comes the principle of love, which originates from the spirits of love, and the principle of wisdom, which originates from the spirits of wisdom—both of which guide us from soul to soul, spirit to spirit, and self to self.

[ 31 ] Evil is based on this spiritual reality. With the possibility of love came the possibility of evil. Only because the God of the Earth is the God of love and human beings became independent, self-aware individuals—only through this was the origin of evil possible. Love made evil possible. It is only through the Luciferic forces that human beings attain free love and true greatness, and it is only through this that they take the forces of evil into themselves. The power of love must permeate the entire Earth; it must have overcome evil—converted it, so to speak—by the end of the Earth’s cycle. We recognize that what humanity owes to evil is a good thing; humanity owes freedom to evil. Thus, within the Lucifer principle—in which the origin of evil lies—lies also the origin of freedom and, with it, the possibility for the development of love.

[ 32 ] If we imagine this Earth without any evil, then only a small measure of the power of love is needed to overcome the forces of evil, and the forces of love grow because their task is to transform existing evil into love. In this way, we truly glimpse something of what Böhme sensed—that evil strengthens the mission of love; we see, along with the origin of evil, the meaning of evil; and when we view evil from a spiritual-scientific perspective, we see it as justified in a certain sense; we regard it—wherever it may confront us—with different feelings.

[ 33 ] But if we live with these feelings deeply imbued within us, they make a completely different impression on us—not on those who have grasped them speculatively, but on those who understand them theosophically. When we have quiet moments and lift our minds to the great mysteries, we must experience something so powerful that we sense the good even in evil. In this way, we imbue ourselves with feelings; we feel every step of life. We face the whole world through thought, action, and feeling, and that is of the utmost importance. Oh, how gentle we become when we see something that once outraged us. These feelings, which emerge as the sediment of quiet moments, constitute the theosophical life. Applied even more to everyday life, this will be considered tomorrow. Today we have been able only to hint at the function of evil in fleeting sketches.

[ 34 ] We have come to realize that we are short-sighted if we try to object to evil, wisdom, love, or the spirit of the world. We have seen that this spirit of love so powerfully permeates the world—it is such a good spirit—that it once brought evil into the world in order to bring about the most powerful and the greatest good possible.

Q&A

[ 35 ] Question: How do the opening words of the Gospel of John relate to the Christ principle?

I and the Father are one. (John 10:30)
In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. (John 14:2)
Before Abraham was, I am. (John 8:58)

[ 36 ] Rudolf Steiner: In the Gospel of Luke, the word is used in the same sense as at the beginning of the Gospel of John. (Luke 1:2)

[ 37 ] In the beginning of the Old Testament:

In the very beginning, God created the world. (Genesis 1:1)

[ 38 ] At the beginning of the Gospel of John:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God, et cetera. (John 1:1)

[ 39 ] The old Jew spoke of the preparatory love that was to be carried forward through the love of Christ.

[ 40 ] “The same blood flows through us as through Abraham,” said the old Jew. “I and Father Abraham are one.” This was stated in the Old Testament.

[ 41 ] Older than all else is the “I,” which has descended from the bosom of the Godhead into the three bodies on Earth. This “I,” as the spiritual, is older than blood ties. That is why Christ says: “I and the Father—that is, the Godhead—are one.” (John 10:30) I find within myself a spring that leads to the Eternal. This “I” already had the power to preserve kinship through the influence of the lineage.

[ 42 ] Before Abraham was the “I Am” (John 8:58). That is the true meaning. The “I” that has renounced its personal nature. The “I” will find itself within the Godhead as an individual: a separate house, a separate cell for each “I.”

[ 43 ] Before the physical, we find the “I.” Light is still physical. “In the beginning was the Word.” (John 1:1) One could also say: “In the beginning was the ‘I am.’”

[ 44 ] “I am the light” (John 9:5) means: I am the bringer of the self.

[ 45 ] “And the ‘I Am’ dwelt among us: = Christ dwelt among us.” (John 1:14)