The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Christ and the Human Soul III

[ 1 ] One of the concepts that must give us pause when discussing Christ’s relationship to the human soul is undoubtedly the concept of guilt and sin. We know, of course, what a decisive significance the concepts of guilt and sin have, for example, in the Christianity of Paul. We must admit, however, that our present age is little inclined to have a truly deep inner understanding of the broader context that also confronts us in Paul between the concepts of guilt and sin, and death and immortality. But this is rooted in the materialism of our time. We need only recall the words I spoke in the first reflection I presented here: that the immortality of the human soul, without the continuation of consciousness into the states beyond death, would not constitute true immortality. An end to consciousness with death would be tantamount to the fact that one would then have to assume: that man is, in fact, not immortal. For the human being to continue to exist unconsciously after death would mean that the most important thing—that which makes man human—would not exist after death. And an unconscious human soul that survives death would, so to speak, mean little more than the sum of atoms, which materialism also assumes remain even when the human body is destroyed.

[ 2 ] For Paul, it was still an unshakable conviction that one could speak of immortality only if individual consciousness were preserved. And since he had to conceive of individual consciousness as dependent on sin and guilt, Paul naturally reasoned: If a person’s consciousness is clouded after death by sin and guilt or by the consequences of sin and guilt—that is, if consciousness after death is disturbed by sin and guilt—this means that sin and guilt truly kill the person, kill the person as a soul, kill the person as a spirit. Far removed from this, of course, is the materialistic consciousness of our time, including that of many contemporary philosophical researchers who are content to speak of—or to be able to speak of—the survival of the human soul, whereas human immortality can only be identified with the conscious survival of the human soul after death.

[ 3 ] Now, of course, a difficulty easily arises, especially for the anthroposophical worldview. To address this difficulty, one need only draw attention to the relationship between the concepts of “guilt and sin” and “karma.” Some anthroposophists resolve this by simply saying: We believe in karma, which means that a fault a person commits in any given incarnation is carried along with their karma and is later worked off; thus, a balance is established over the course of incarnations. — And this is where the difficulty begins. Anthroposophists then readily ask: How can this be reconciled with the concept, accepted as Christian, of forgiveness of sins through Christ, for example? And yet, the concept of forgiveness of sins is indeed connected with true Christianity. One need only think, for example, of this: Christ on the cross, between the two criminals. The criminal on the left mocks Christ: “If you are God, save yourself and us!” (Luke 23:39) The criminal on the right replies: the other should not speak that way, for both of them had indeed deserved a fate of death on the cross commensurate with their deeds, but he himself was innocent and must suffer the same fate. And the criminal on the right adds: “When you are in your kingdom, remember me.” And Christ answers him: “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:42–43) This word certainly cannot simply be denied or argued away from the Gospels; rather, it is an important, a meaningful word. The anthroposophist now faces the difficulty arising from the question: If the criminal on the right must atone for what he has done through his karma, what then is the meaning of Christ, as it were forgiving him, saying: “Today you will be with me in Paradise”? The anthroposophist may say: The criminal on the right will have to atone for his guilt through his karma, just as the criminal on the left must.

[ 4 ] Why does Christ make a distinction between the criminal on the right and the criminal on the left? There is no doubt that this presents a difficulty for the anthroposophical view of karma. Nor is this difficulty easy to resolve; but it resolves itself when one delves deeper into Christianity through Spiritual Science research, when one attempts to penetrate more deeply into Christianity. And I now wish to approach the matter from a completely different angle, from an angle whose nature is already familiar to you, but which can nevertheless bring us closer to the peculiar circumstances that exist here.

[ 5 ] Just think for a moment, my dear friends, how often we speak of Lucifer and Ahriman, and recall how Lucifer and Ahriman are portrayed in my Mystery Dramas. The moment one begins, I would say, to view the matter in a human-anthropomorphic way and simply makes of Lucifer a kind of inner criminal and of Ahriman a kind of outer criminal, at that very moment one will find it difficult to cope; for let us not forget that it must be said that, alongside being the bringer of evil and so on into the world—the inner evil that arises from the passions—Lucifer is also the bringer of freedom; that Lucifer plays an important role in the whole of the world. Likewise, it must be said of Ahriman that he plays an important role in the whole of the world. We have indeed experienced, when we first began to speak more about Lucifer and Ahriman, that anthroposophists became somewhat unsettled. On the one hand, I would say, they still have a lingering impression of what Lucifer has always been made out to be: that he is actually a terrible criminal in the world, whom one must simply guard against. Of course, the anthroposophist cannot simply go along with this feeling toward Lucifer, because he must assign Lucifer an important role in the whole of the world. And yet, on the other hand, one must portray Lucifer as an adversary of the progressive gods—that is, as a spirit who in a certain way thwarts the plan of creation, as an enemy of those gods whom we must actually revere. So, in essence, when we speak of Lucifer in this way, we are assigning an enemy of the gods an important role in the universe as a whole. And we must do the same with Ahriman as well.

[ 6 ] On the one hand, it is understandable that the human mind might now ask: “Well, what am I actually supposed to make of this Lucifer and this Ahriman? Should I hate them or love them? I’m not quite sure what to make of them!” — Where does all this come from? Well, when one speaks of Lucifer and Ahriman, it must become clear from the way one speaks of them that one is speaking of beings who, in all their peculiarity, do not actually belong to the physical plane; who, so to speak, have their mission and task in the world outside the physical plane, in the spiritual worlds. In particular, during my last lectures in Munich, I strongly emphasized that the essence of this matter lies in the fact that Lucifer and Ahriman have their roles in the spiritual worlds, as assigned to them by the advancing gods, and that a discrepancy, a disharmony, arises only when they carry their roles into the physical plane and assume rights that are not actually assigned to them. But we must come to terms with a fact, my dear friends—one to which the human soul is reluctant to adapt when speaking of these things—namely, that our judgment, our human judgment, as we form it, actually applies only to the physical plane, and that this judgment, while correct for the physical plane, cannot simply be transferred to the higher worlds. That is why we must, of course, slowly and gradually find our way into anthroposophy, in order to broaden our judgment, to broaden our entire world of concepts and ideas. That is why the materialistically minded people of the present, even though everything in anthroposophy is comprehensible, find it so difficult to grasp, because they do not want to broaden their judgment, but wish to remain with the judgment that applies to the physical plane.

[ 7 ] When we say that one power stands in opposition to another, it is quite correct—if one wishes to remain on the physical plane—to say that enmity is something improper, something that ought not to be. But the same does not apply to the higher planes. There, our judgment must be broadened. For the world to be possible in its entirety—just as, for example, positive and negative electricity are necessary in the realm of electricity—spiritual opposition is also necessary. It is necessary for spirits to stand opposed to one another. Here the words of Heraclitus come true, that not only love but also strife constitutes the universe. Only when Lucifer acts upon the human soul and conflict is carried into the physical world through the human soul is this conflict wrong. But the same does not apply to the higher worlds; there, too, the opposition of spirits is something that belongs to the entire structure, to the entire evolution of the world. This means that as soon as we ascend into the higher world, we must apply different standards, adopt different perspectives in our judgment. That is why it is so shocking how often one must speak of Lucifer and Ahriman, on the one hand portraying them as enemies of the gods, and on the other hand portraying them in such a way that they are necessary in the entire course of the world order.

[ 8 ] Above all, one must bear in mind that human beings come into conflict with the cosmic order when they allow the judgment that applies to the physical plane to be valid for the higher worlds as well.

[ 9 ] Well, that is precisely the crux of the matter that has always been emphasized: that Christ, as Christ, does not belong to the other beings of the physical plane; that from the moment of John’s baptism in the Jordan, a being who had not previously been on Earth—a being who does not belong to earthly beings—entered into the physical body of Jesus of Nazareth. We are thus dealing in the Christ with a being who could rightly say to the disciples: “I am from above, but you are from below” (John 8:23), that is to say: I am from the heavenly kingdom, you from the earthly kingdom. And now let us consider what follows from this. What follows is this: Must that which is an earthly judgment—which is entirely justified as an earthly judgment, which everyone on Earth must pass as a judgment insofar as they are an earthly being—also be the judgment of that cosmic being who entered the body of Jesus as Christ? That being who entered the body of Jesus at the baptism in the Jordan does not have an earthly judgment, but a heavenly one; it must judge differently than human beings must judge.

[ 10 ] And now let us consider the full weight of the words spoken there on Golgotha. The criminal on the left does not believe that Christ is not merely an earthly being, but a being from a special realm that is not the earthly realm. The criminal on the right, however, realizes just before his death: Your kingdom, O Christ, is a different one; remember me when You are in Your kingdom. At this moment, the criminal on the right shows that he has a sense that Christ belongs to another kingdom, where a completely different power of judgment reigns than on earth. Then Christ can answer, out of the awareness that He stands in His kingdom: Truly, because you have a sense of my kingdom, you will be with me in my kingdom today—namely, at the moment of death. Here we have the reference to the superhuman Christ-power that lifts the human individuality into a spiritual realm. Earthly judgment, human judgment, must of course say: With regard to karma, the criminal on the right will have to atone for his guilt just as the criminal on the left. — But a different principle applies to the heavenly judgment. Yet this is only the beginning of the matter, for of course you may now say: Yes, then the heavenly judgment simply contradicts the earthly judgment. How can Christ forgive when earthly judgment demands karmic justice?

[ 11 ] Yes, my dear friends, this is a difficult question; but let us nevertheless explore it more closely in tonight’s discussion. However, I would like to expressly point out that we are touching upon one of the most difficult questions in occult science. For we must make a distinction that the human soul is reluctant to make, because it does not like to follow a line of thought through to its ultimate consequences, due to the presence of certain difficulties. So I would like to point out that we are about to engage in a difficult line of thought, and that you may need to turn what is said over and over in your soul in order to truly grasp the matter.

[ 12 ] We must first make a distinction. We must consider what takes place in karma in terms of objective justice. Here we must be absolutely clear that human beings are indeed subject to their karma, and that they must karmically make amends for the wrongs they have committed. And upon deeper reflection, a person will actually want nothing other than for it to be so. For suppose someone has committed a wrong. At the very moment they were able to commit this wrong, they are less perfect than if they had not done so, and they can only regain the degree of perfection they had before committing the wrong by making amends for it. He must therefore desire to make amends for the wrongdoing, for only by making amends, by working out the compensation, does one attain the degree of perfection one had before committing the act. Thus, for the sake of our own perfection, we can desire nothing other than that karma exist as objective justice. Thus, from the perspective of human freedom, the desire cannot even arise that some sin should be forgiven us—for example, in the sense that if we were to gouge out someone’s eyes today, this sin would be forgiven, and we would no longer have to atone for it in our karma. A person who gouges out another’s eyes is less perfect than a person who has not done so, and in the course of karma, it must follow that he performs a corresponding good deed to atone for it; only then is he once again, within himself, the person he was before committing the act. So, when one truly reflects on the nature of humanity, the very thought cannot arise that if one gouges out another person’s eyes, one will be forgiven and that karma would then be balanced. Thus, it is entirely true of karma that we are not spared a single penny, so to speak, and that we must pay for everything.

[ 13 ] But there is, of course, something else besides guilt. The guilt we take upon ourselves, the sin we take upon ourselves—this is not merely our own reality; we must make this distinction—but rather it is an objective fact of the world; it is something that also affects the world. What we have committed, we balance out in our karma; but the fact that we gouged out someone’s eyes—that has happened, it has truly taken place—and if, say, in this present incarnation we gouge out a person’s eyes and then in the next incarnation do something that balances this out, the objective course of the world still retains the fact that we gouged out someone’s eyes so many centuries ago. That is an objective fact in the whole of the world. We will balance it out later for ourselves. We balance out the blemish we have inflicted upon ourselves through karma, but the objective fact of the world remains; we cannot erase it by removing the imperfection from ourselves.

[ 14 ] We must distinguish between the consequences of a sin for ourselves and the consequences of a sin for the objective course of the world.

[ 15 ] It is extremely important that we make this distinction. And now, perhaps, I may offer an esoteric perspective that might make the matter a little clearer.

[ 16 ] If one looks at the course of human development since the Mystery of Golgotha, and approaches the Akashic Records without being imbued with the Christ-consciousness, one is very easily led astray—one is very easily led astray. For in this Akashic Record there are entries that very often do not correspond with what is found in the karmic evolution of individual human beings. I mean the following: Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that in the year 733 some person lived and at that time incurred a grave debt. Now one examines the Akashic Records, initially without having any connection whatsoever to the Christ. And lo and behold, one cannot find the debt in question in the Akashic Records. But if one now looks at the person who lived on and examines his karma, then one finds: Yes, there is still something in this person’s karma that he must work off; that should be recorded in the Akashic Records at a specific point in time; but it is not recorded there.

[ 17 ] When one examines karma, one sees: Yes, he must atone for it; one would expect to find the cause of his suffering in the Akashic Records from that incarnation, but it is not recorded there. What a contradiction! This is a completely objective fact that can occur in numerous cases. I might meet a person today. If, by grace, I am given some insight into his karma, I may find that some misfortune or stroke of fate that befalls him is due to his karma, that it is the compensation for a past debt. If I investigate the matter in past incarnations and examine what they did back then, I do not see this fact recorded in the Akashic Records. Where does this come from?

[ 18 ] This is because Christ actually took the objective guilt upon himself. The moment I merge with Christ, the moment I explore the Akashic Records with Christ, I discover the fact! Christ has taken it into his realm and carries it on as a being, so that when I look away from Christ, I cannot find it in the Akashic Records. One must bear this difference in mind:

[ 19 ] Karmic justice remains in force, but with regard to the consequences of guilt in the spiritual world, Christ intervenes, taking this guilt into his realm and bearing it forward.

[ 20 ] Christ is the one who, because he belongs to another realm, is able to wipe away our debts and sins in the world and take them upon himself.

[ 21 ] So what, in essence, does Christ on the cross at Golgotha say to the criminal on his left? He does not say it aloud, but the fact that he does not speak is precisely the point; he says to the criminal on his left: What you have done will continue to have an effect in the spiritual world as well, not merely in the physical world. — But to the criminal on his right, Christ says: “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” That is to say: I am with your deed; through your karma, you will later have to face the consequences of what the deed means for you. But what the deed means for the world—if I may put it in trivial terms—that is my concern! says Christ. — It is, however, a very important distinction we are making here, and the matter has significance not only for the time after the Mystery of Golgotha, but also for the time before the Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 22 ] Some of our friends will recall that I have pointed out in earlier lectures that it is not merely a legend that Christ truly descended to the dead after his death. In doing so, however, he also did something for the souls who had incurred guilt and sin in previous times. The error also arises when one studies the Akashic Records and investigates the period of Earth’s development prior to the Mystery of Golgotha without being imbued with Christ. One will then encounter errors everywhere in the Akashic Records. It therefore did not surprise me at all that, for example, Leadbeater—who in reality knows nothing of Christ—arrived at the most abstruse assertions regarding Earth’s evolution in his book *Man: From Where and To Where*. For it is only through being imbued with the Christ impulse that the soul becomes capable of truly seeing things as they are—how they have been ordered in the development of the Earth—even before the Mystery of Golgotha—toward this Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 23 ] Karma is a matter of a person’s successive incarnations. What karmic justice entails must be viewed in light of the judgment that is our earthly judgment. What Christ does for humanity must be measured by a judgment that belongs to worlds other than the earthly world. And if that were not the case? If that were not the case? Let us consider the end of the world for a moment; let us consider the time when human beings will have completed their earthly incarnations. Surely it will come to pass that everything must be paid in full, down to the last penny. Human souls will have had to balance their karma in a certain way. But let us imagine for a moment that all guilt had remained on Earth, that all guilt were to continue to operate on Earth. Then, at the end of the Earth’s time, humanity would arrive with their karma balanced, but the Earth would not be ready to evolve into Jupiter, and all of humanity would be left without a home, without the possibility of evolving into Jupiter. That the entire Earth evolves alongside humanity is the result of Christ’s deed. Everything that would accumulate as guilt for the Earth would plunge the Earth into darkness, and we would have no planet for further development. We can take care of our own karma, but not that of all humanity, nor that which is connected with the evolution of all humanity in the Earth’s evolution.

[ 24 ] Let us therefore be clear that, while karma is not taken away from us, our debts and sins toward the development of the Earth are indeed atoned for through what has come about through the Mystery of Golgotha. Now, of course, we must realize that all this cannot, of course, come to the human being without his own effort, that it cannot come to him without his cooperation. And this is indeed quite clearly demonstrated to us in the speech on the Cross of Golgotha that I have cited. It is shown to us quite clearly how the criminal on the right takes into his soul a glimpse of a super-earthly realm where things are different from the merely earthly realm. The human being must fill his soul with the substance of the Christ-being; he must, as it were, have received something of Christ into his soul, so that Christ is active within him and carries him up into a realm in which man does not have the power to render his karma ineffective, but in which, through Christ, our guilt and our sins are atoned for in the eyes of the outside world.

[ 25 ] This has actually been depicted wonderfully in a figurative sense, even in painting. Who wouldn’t be deeply moved by the image of Christ as the judge of the “Last Judgment,” for example, in a painting such as Michelangelo’s in the Sistine Chapel? What is the underlying basis for this, then? Well, let us not consider the profound esoteric reality, but rather the visual image that stands before our soul. There we see the righteous and we see the sinners. There would be a way to depict this image differently than Michelangelo does as Christ, namely the possibility that at the end of the world or after the end of the world, people would see their karma, and they would say to themselves: “Yes, I have indeed expiated my karma, but there, written everywhere in the spiritual realm on tablets of bronze, are my debts, and these debts mean a burden for the Earth; they must destroy the Earth. I have made amends for myself, but there it stands everywhere.” — But that would not be the truth; it might appear that way, but it would not be the truth. For through the fact that Christ died on Golgotha, man will not see his tablets of debt, but he will see the One who has taken them upon Himself; he will see, united in the essence of Christ, all that which would otherwise be spread out in the Akashic Records. Christ stands before him in place of the Akashic Records; He has taken all of this upon Himself.

[ 26 ] Here we glimpse the profound mysteries of the creation of the earth. But what is necessary to see through the true facts in this area? It is necessary that people, whether they are sinners or the righteous, have the opportunity to look to Christ, so that they do not see an empty space where Christ should stand. The connection with Christ is necessary. And even this criminal on the right testifies to us in his speech of his connection with Christ. And if Christ has, so to speak, given those who work in his spirit the commission to forgive sins, this is by no means meant to interfere with karma; rather, it means that the earthly realm is saved for those who are in relationship with Christ from the consequences—the spiritual consequences of guilt and sin—which are objective facts, even if they have been balanced out in later karma.

[ 27 ] What does it mean for the human soul when, in the name of Christ, the one who is authorized to speak says, “Your sins are forgiven” (Matthew 9:2)? This means that the person concerned can affirm: Although you must expect to face karmic retribution, Christ has transformed your guilt and sin so that you will not later have to bear the immense suffering of looking back on your guilt in such a way that you have thereby destroyed a part of your earthly existence. — Christ erases them. But this requires a certain consciousness, which is demanded, which the one who wishes to forgive sins—the forgiver of sins—may demand: an awareness of guilt and an awareness that Christ can take the guilt upon Himself. Then the utterance “Your sins are forgiven” signifies a cosmic fact, and not a karmic one.

[ 28 ] At one point, Christ demonstrates so wonderfully—in a way that cuts deep, deep into our hearts—how he stands on this issue. To those who come before him with the adulteress to condemn her—let us picture this scene in our souls, how they bring the adulteress before him (John 8:1–11)—Christ meets them in two ways: first, by writing on the ground, and second, by forgiving, by not judging at all, by not condemning. Why does he write on the ground? Because karma is at work, because karma is objective justice. For the adulteress, her deed cannot be erased; Christ writes it on the ground. But it is different with the spiritual, the non-earthly consequence; Christ takes that upon himself. “He forgives” does not mean that he erases it in an absolute sense, but that he takes upon himself the consequences of what has objectively been done.

[ 29 ] Now let us consider what it means for the human soul when it can say to itself: Yes, I have done this or that in the world. It does not hinder my further development, for I do not remain as imperfect as I was when I committed the act. I may regain my perfection in the further course of my karma by balancing the deed. But I cannot undo it for the sake of Earth’s development. — We would have to bear unspeakable suffering if a being had not united itself with the Earth to undo for the Earth’s sake that which we can no longer change. This being is the Christ. Not subjective karma, but the spiritual, objective effects of our deeds and guilt—these he takes from us. This is what we must, as I said, continue to pursue in our hearts. Only then will we understand that Christ is, in essence, the being who is connected to all of humanity, to all of Earth’s humanity; for the Earth exists for the sake of humanity. Thus, Christ is also connected to the entire Earth. And this is the weakness of humanity that arose as a result of the Luciferic temptation: that while humanity is capable of subjectively redeeming itself through karma, it is not capable of co-redeeming the Earth. This is accomplished by the cosmic being, Christ.

[ 30 ] And now we understand why some Theosophists simply cannot grasp that Christianity is entirely consistent with the idea of karma. These are the Theosophists who bring into Theosophy the most extreme form of egoism, a higher form of egoism; who, though they do not say it aloud, nevertheless feel and think deep down: If I can only redeem myself through my own karma, what does the whole world matter to me; let it do as it pleases! And these Theosophists are content as long as they can speak of karmic balance. But that is not enough. Man would be a purely Luciferic being if he thought only of himself. Human beings are a part of the whole world, and they must think devotedly of the whole world. Thus they must consider that while they can indeed redeem themselves egoistically through karma, they cannot redeem all earthly existence along with it. This is where Christ enters. And the moment we resolve not to think only of our own self, we must think of something other than our own self. But what must we think of? Of the Christ within me, as Paul says. Then we are connected with him and with all earthly existence; then we do not think of our own salvation, but we say: Not I and my own salvation—not I, but the Christ within me and the salvation of the earth!

[ 31 ] My dear friends! One must truly have very little Christian sensibility to interpret Christianity the way many do—those who believe they are entitled to call themselves true Christians and who condemn others, such as anthroposophical Christians. One must have little Christian sensibility to do so. Perhaps the question may be permitted: Is it really Christian to think that I may do anything and that Christ actually came into the world only to take all that away from me, to forgive my sins, so that I no longer have anything to do with my karma, with my sin? I believe a different word applies to such a way of thinking than the word “Christian”; perhaps the word “convenient” would be better than the word “Christian.” It would indeed be convenient, however, if one merely had to repent, and thereby have everything one has committed in the world wiped out for one’s entire future karma. No, it is not wiped out of karma, but it can be wiped out from where we, due to human weakness and through Luciferic temptation, cannot penetrate ourselves: from the development of the Earth. And that is what Christ does. This suffering is taken from us through the atonement for sin: that we have inflicted an objective guilt upon the entire development of the Earth for all eternity. Naturally, we must take a serious interest in this. But then, when we grasp the matter in this way, a profound seriousness will truly be connected with a genuine, true understanding of Christ in many other things as well. A deep seriousness will be associated with it, and much will fall away from certain conceptions of Christ that might appear to the one who takes the full seriousness of the Christ conception into his soul as nothing less than a kind of frivolity and cynicism. For everything, everything that has been spoken of today—and which can be substantiated point by point with the most important passages from the New Testament—speaks to us of this: All that Christ is to us, he is to us precisely because he is not a being like other human beings, but a being who, from above—that is, from the cosmos—flowed into human earthly development at the baptism of John in the Jordan. Everything points to the cosmic nature of the Christ. And anyone who comprehends in a profound sense how the Christ relates to sin and guilt might say: Precisely because humanity could not atone for the guilt of the entire Earth in the course of its earthly existence, a cosmic being had to descend so that it might be made possible for the Earth’s guilt to be atoned for.

[ 32 ] True Christianity cannot help but view Christ as a cosmic being. But then we will be deeply, deeply penetrated in our souls by the true meaning of the words: “Not I, but Christ in me.” For then something radiates from this realization into our soul that I can describe only with the words: When I allow myself to say “Not I, but Christ within me,” I acknowledge in that moment that I am lifted above the earthly sphere, that something lives within me that has significance for the cosmos, that I am honored as a human being to carry within my soul something that is extraterrestrial, just as I carry an extraterrestrial being within me in my constitution derived from Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon.

[ 33 ] And a profound significance will dawn upon human consciousness: that of being permeated by Christ. And along with this Pauline saying, “Not I, but Christ in me,” one will also feel the need to take one’s inner responsibility toward Christ with the deepest, deepest seriousness. But this is what anthroposophy will bring into the Christ-consciousness: that this sense of responsibility arises, that we do not take the liberty on every occasion to say: “Yes, I believed that, and because I believed it, I was also allowed to say it.” — Our materialistic age goes further and further in this “I was convinced of it, and therefore I was allowed to say it!” But is it not a desecration of the Christ within us, a renewed crucifixion of the Christ within us, when we are so short-sighted that, simply because we believe something at any given moment, we shout it out to the world or write it out to the world without having examined it?

[ 34 ] As humanity takes Christ seriously, a feeling will arise within it that we must prove ourselves worthy of this Christ who lives within us by relating to him—to this cosmic principle within us—with ever greater conscientiousness.

[ 35 ] Yes, one can readily believe that those who wish to take Christ as a cosmic principle are the very ones who, at every opportunity, want to repent of their transgressions—first telling pretty lies about their fellow human beings, and then wanting to erase those lies. The one who wishes to prove himself worthy of Christ in his soul will first examine whether he may say a thing, even if he is momentarily convinced of it.

[ 36 ] Much will change when a true understanding of Christ comes into the world. All those countless people who write today—or deface paper with dirty ink—by hastily jotting down what they do not know will come to realize that in doing so they are desecrating Christ in the human soul. And the excuse will cease: “Yes, I believed it to be so; I said it in good faith.” Christ does not want mere “good faith”; Christ wants to lead people into the truth. He himself said: “The truth will set you free!” (John 8:32) But where has Christ ever said that it is permissible, if one thinks this or that in his spirit, to shout it out into the world and write it down without knowing anything?

[ 37 ] Much will change! Certainly, a large part of our current literature will not be able to survive if people adopt the principle of proving themselves worthy of the words, “Not I, but Christ in me.” But the cancerous damage of our declining culture will be eradicated when the voices cease to speak—those who, without real conviction, carelessly shout everything to the world, defiling white paper with ink by writing things down without first convincing themselves that they correspond to the truth.

[ 38 ] We have, in fact, had to experience many such things in this very area within the Theosophical Movement and in relation to it. And how readily people are to offer the excuse: “Well, the person in question was simply convinced of that at the time!”

[ 39 ] What, my dear friends, does such a “conviction” often turn out to be? The greatest recklessness, the purest frivolity! Truly not for personal reasons, but because of the gravity of the situation, it may perhaps be worth pointing out that there is no excuse when, in an important address before the Theosophical Society, the president of that society puts forward the frivolous untruth of the Jesuit fairy tale. Certainly, it may have long since been dismissed, but to characterize the fact, it may well be worth pointing out once again. After the fact, people have said: The president did retract it after a few weeks! All the worse, when one in a position of responsibility trumpets something that one must retract in a few weeks, for that is when the world’s judgment begins, and not personal judgment.

[ 40 ] And let us also add this insight to the distinction we must make between subjective karma—which takes place within the human ego—and what we might call the objective. Let there be no misunderstanding: every person must make amends for the harm they have done to themselves. We have no say in this; we accept the facts as they are, just as Christ did with the woman caught in adultery: he wrote her sin in the dust. However, attention must be drawn to the fact that egoism must be overcome within the Spiritual Science movement. It must be clear that not only subjective judgment, but also an objective judgment toward the world is necessary.

[ 41 ] What might, in a certain sense, be called a Christian conscience will also take root as Christ increasingly enters into souls; it will take root when souls become aware of Christ’s presence, when Paul’s words come true: “Not I, but Christ in me.”

[ 42 ] More and more, people will come to realize that one should not merely say what one believes, but that one must test what one says against objective facts.

[ 43 ] Christ will be a teacher of truth to the soul, a teacher of higher responsibility. In this way, he will permeate the souls as they increasingly feel the full weight of the words: “Not I, but Christ in me.”