1. KNOWLEDGE AS GUILT AND ATONEMENT - The Christianization of All Human Knowledge

Note by the Translator

Following the recent online presentation of the essays “Christ as Judge – Man as the Religion of the Gods” and “The Mystery of Golgotha – ‘The Philosophy of Freedom’ as a Key to its Revelation” by the great Christian hermetist Valentin Tomberg (1900-1973), here now appears his three-part essay “Knowledge as Mysterium – The Christianization of All Human Knowledge”, all translated from his collection of early essays and other writings published in 2020 by Achamoth Verlag (Tomberg Books) entitled Towards the 6th Cultural Age (German: "Aufbruch zur VI. Kulturpoche") as study material for an international conference with the title "The New Christianity - Emergence into the 6th Cultural Age" on May 27, 28 and 29, 2022 at the Elisabeth Vreede House in The Hague.

Inspired by the truly remarkable contents of these profound essays, which the author writes in this most recent essay “can be experienced as an inner Testament revolution on the field of human knowledge", it has now been decided to organize this meeting as a contribution to the celebration of the Centenary of the Christmas Conference Foundation in 2023 under the very sub-heading of the title of this ground-breaking essay bundle. For the New Christianity inaugurated at the Christmas Conference can be seen – as Herbert Witzenmann has shown in his majestic 13-part introduction to the book Christianity as Mystical Fact and the Mysteries of Antiquity by Rudolf Steiner (partly translated) - as the contemporary metamorphosis of the events of the early Christian faith congregation into a modern knowledge society. The Anthroposophical Society, reconstituted at the Christmas Conference, according to Rudolf Steiner, was furthermore intended as the organizational form for the heavenly inspired anthroposophical movement in which the many anthroposophical souls present at the Michael cult in the spiritual world were destined to bring this new Christianity down to earth, according to my research, as a vehicle for the emergence into the 6th cultural age. 

However, this social corporeality has since its conception almost a century ago been seriously weakened and until now nothing has been done to revive it. All this and more may be gleaned from my video request to the General Assembly of the General Anthroposophical Society at the Goetheanum, Dornach on March 27, 2021, with links to sources and references in earlier motions to the General Assembly in Dornach and articles since 2018 from the work of Rudolf Steiner, Valentin Tomberg, Herbert Witzenmann and Reto Andrea Savoldelli.

The meeting in the Hague will include an exhibition of the paintings by the Dutch artist Jan de Kok for the 12 meditations of the months of the year and the title page of the book "The Virtues – Seasons of the Soul" by Herbert Witzenmann, for this handbook for the new nobility of the spirit contains a new perception of the classic chivalric virtues of courage, righteousness and loyalty as well as of the traditional vows of the monks: obedience, chastity and poverty that may serve as a guide to the inner constitution of a modern knight of the Word (m/f). For its outer constitution, it is only logical that such an Order would want to align itself with the Christmas Conference impulse and thus with the letter and spirit of its original 15 statutes, since these formerly called principles, as Herbert Witzenmann has shown in his Social-Aesthetic Studies "Charter of Humanity – The Principles of the General Anthroposophical Society as a Basis of Life and Path of Training" and "To Create or to Administrate – Rudolf Steiner’s Social Organics / A New Principle of Civilization"  are the archetypal basis of modern social design. But exactly how is still an open question. 

The semi-public event will take place in three languages, namely Dutch, English and German, possibly with simultaneous translation depending on the budget. Friends and colleagues wanting to contribute by giving a lecture or seminar on why and how the New Knowledge Christianity can be fathomed, furthered and protected are cordially invited to submit an abstract on what they want to bring in. Why the New Christianity needs protection from its greatest opponent “The New Arabism”, i.e. the materialistic natural science originally developed by the Arabs in the early Middle Ages that has since then grown into the greatest, destructive anti-human power on earth (Herbert Witzenmann in his essay "Monetary Order as a Matter of Consciousness") can be gathered by reading the three karma lectures by Rudolf Steiner on July 18, 19 and 20, 1924 in Arnhem. An online presentation may also be possible. Depending on the response, the meeting could be prolonged to May 29 and continued in the fall. More information and study material will follow, including the already announced translation of the 13-part introduction by Herbert Witzenmann on Rudolf Steiner’s book Christianity as Mystical Fact and the Mysteries of Antiquity, which can be read in Dutch here. A complete translation of Knowledge as a Mysterium by Graham Rickett from Tomberg Books has in the mean time appeared. 

(Update: This conference has in the meantime been held with a contribution by yours truly "Presenting Rudolf Steiner's Memoranda - Powers to the People" and one by Patrick Steensma, "Assessment of the Antroposophical Society and Its Viability" For my latest view on the sad state of the Society, see my lecture "The Entombment of the Anthroposophical Society and Its Possible Resurrection") 

Robert J. Kelder,

Willehalm Institute, Amsterdam, 

Last updated October 5, 2023

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1. KNOWLEDGE AS GUILT AND ATONEMENT - The Christianization of All Human Knowledge

There is a philosophical axiom that one ought to pay the greatest attention to, because its application to the field of epistemology, the theory of knowledge, can give us a deep insight into the mysteries of the world. This philosophical axiom expresses the relation of truth to freedom and freedom to truth and can be formulated as follows: Freedom is only to be comprehended in truth, truth is only to be established in freedom.

A entity that does not recognize its freedom in truth can never be certain that its freedom is not based on self-delusion. For truth and freedom are two sides of a self-motivated existence that according to its content is true and according to its conduct is free. If Man thus wants to seek the truth, he must seek it in freedom and if he wants on the other hand to be free, he must seek his freedom in truth.

The question is: How ought human knowledge to be organized in order to comply to this self-evident demand? What type of structure must knowledge have in order that Man can possess the truth in freedom and freedom in the truth?

For a mindset that avoids compromises there are in principle only three types of human knowledge possible: Firstly, a type of knowledge is conceivable in which the truth is given a priori. Now the question is whether with such an original knowledge of the truth human knowledge would be possible. It is not difficult to realize that there could in this case be no freedom. For freedom is after all only possible when a knowledge initiative is present. And the latter can only be taken when one does not yet know the truth. With an entity that knows the truth a priori, there can arise no need to seek this truth. From this it is obvious that with such type of knowledge freedom is completely excluded.

The second type of knowledge would be such by which the truth is not at all given to the knowledge seeker. Can one in this case speak of freedom? Man could now indeed develop the greatest cognitional initiative, however, this initiative would be just a matter of self-delusion, for Man could in this case never recognize his freedom in truth, since after all the truth would remain transcendent to his knowledge.

The third type of knowledge that enables us to attain true freedom, as well as free truth, has been presented to the world in The Philosophy of Freedom [also translated as The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity] by Rudolf Steiner. According to the only right view of Rudolf Steiner, the truth is from the beginning indeed immanent in human cognitive activity, yet this immanent truth is with respect for human consciousness blotted out. Cognitive activity consists in bringing this deleted content of the truth through human thinking again into the light of day. It is easy to see what is new in this third view, namely that truth in freedom and freedom in truth can be comprehended. For through the fact that the truth is blotted out at the beginning of knowledge, the initiative to gain knowledge is secured, through the fact however that the truth nevertheless remains immanent to the cognitive human being, the possibility is given to him to finish his knowledge initiative in truth.

If one studies modern European worldviews carefully, one will become aware of three different types of worldviews, three ways of thinking that correspond to the above-mentioned types of knowledge, namely the East-European, the West-European and the Central-European schools of thought. The East-European and the West-European schools of thought contradict each other.[1]

The Central-European mindset, which blossomed from German idealism into the form of anthroposophy, appears as a mediator between the other two. When studying the East-European resp. the Russian school of thought one gets the impression that there is no real Russian thinker, with the exception of the unreal thinkers, the Marxists, that has not dealt with the ultimate questions of existence. One discovers that real Russian philosophy is always quite apocalyptically and eschatologically disposed.

In return, this real Russian philosophy has actually no epistemological starting point and thus no beginning. It approaches the truth according to the first type of knowledge as if the truth would have been given a priori. One can certainly not maintain that Russian philosophy completely ignores any West-European methodology whatsoever. It too makes use of the systematic West-European way of thinking, but only with the sole intent to justify its own irrational attitude.

No matter how different the Russian philosophical systems may be, they all possess a common attribute: they all lack a conscious individual I-principle at the beginning of their path of knowledge. And it is only thanks to this evaporated I-consciousness that the Russian thinkers can retain their vital feeling for the divine universe. Half-consciously these thinkers sense that the individual I-principle must blot out the divine beingness from the human worldview. And in order to let the divine beingness prevail in the human worldview, these Russian thinkers want to eliminate the individual I-principle from their worldview. Not Man but God is to be at the base of their worldview. And that is exactly what the methodological awkwardness of the Russian philosophy consists of, namely that it believes to already possess the end goal of knowledge at its beginning. East-European resp. Russian philosophy can therefore be designated as a philosophy of an end without a beginning.

The opposite features are shown by West-European philosophy. This West-European philosophy acts as if the second type of knowledge would be the right one. For the latter, the truth is not given to the knowledge-seeker, it is transcendent. For that reason, this West-European philosophy takes its starting point from the famous Cartesian saying, “Cogito, ergo sum”. Born from doubt, it completes every next step carefully and thoughtfully, systematically and methodologically. But since the object of knowledge appears to be unattainable, it condemns itself to only ever begin, without any hope whatsoever to ever reach the final goal of knowledge, the truth. And more and more new methods are created by it, more and more new systems constructed, but the use of these methods in these systems leads often to an end in itself, whereby the actual task of philosophy, to gain knowledge of the truth is al but forgotten. One can therefore with reason term this philosophy a philosophy of endless beginnings.

Let us now ask how these two ways of thinking are related to Central-European philosophy. It is easy to see that this relation must be partly consenting and partly adverse. To wit, anthroposophy consents to both, in so far the West-European mindset has a beginning and the East-European mindset has an end. At the same time, anthroposophy has to reject both of them, in so far as the West-European mindset has no end and de East-European mindset has no beginning. Anthroposophy relates in this way to both schools of thought because it is itself based on true freedom and free truth.

True freedom and free truth are however only possible when Man at the beginning of his path of knowledge affirms himself as a doubter but at the end of his path of knowledge posits God as the consummation and ultimate goal.

In order to become free, Man must first give himself a beginning. And since God gives all entities – and thus also Man – the beginning in truth, Man must, in order to give himself a beginning, blot out the divine truth, to forget it. Since he cannot affirm his independence in the knowledge of the truth, he must do so in ignorance, in doubt.

Thus we see with respect to the starting point of knowledge that anthroposophy is related to the West-European mindset. However, the West-European mindset lacks a sense that the East-European mindset eminently possesses, namely the sense for metaphysical guilt, for guilt towards the deleted truth. The West-European mindset has absolutely no feeling for the fact that in our doubt lies buried a God killed by us. And thus for that reason, the West-European mindset views divine truth as something absolutely transcendent and there arises in it thus no striving to atone the amassed guilt for the truth. However, this feeling of metaphysical guilt for the truth is the best proof that a God killed by us rests in our thinking. And at the same time, this feeling of metaphysical guilt creates an impulse in us to atone this guilt for the truth and to resurrect God through a self-sacrificing self-abandonment.

In the service of this impulse, we must at the end of our worldview be willing to posit God and no longer Man, for only when we posit God as an ideal and an ultimate goal of the whole path of knowledge, only then can our freedom in truth be consummated. Whereas thus Man and not God is to stand at the beginning of our knowledge, at the end of it is to stand God and no longer Man.

And in this striving toward self-abandonment, anthroposophy is related again to the East-European philosophy and no longer to West-European philosophy. The essential difference between both consists in the fact that the Russian mindset already at the beginning of knowledge seeks to practice this self-abandonment, whereas anthroposophy only places it as the ultimate goal of knowledge. In this way, the whole process of knowledge receives in anthroposophy a religious-moral meaning and becomes a mysterium of guilt and atonement.

Understood in this sense, anthroposophy places itself in the middle between both opposites and enables their higher synthesis in an all-human total worldview, by giving the East-European philosophy a beginning and the West-European philosophy an end. In so far that the religious-moral sense of anthroposophy remains immanent in its thinking, anthroposophy can be understood by the West-European mindset, in so far thinking that in anthroposophy receives a religious-moral sense, the religious disposed East-European mindset can no longer have a reason to reject this anthroposophical thinking. But with that said, the significance of this religious-moral view of this process of knowledge is not limited A further immersion into the mysteries of this cognitive process gives us a possibility to Christianize the whole field of human knowledge.

If we want namely to study the thus designated process of knowledge more closely, three questions arise in us that are all related to the nature of this cognitive process. And just these three questions will be able to give us the key to the profound Christian mysterium of self-knowledge.

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[1] Since this essay was written almost a century ago, the philosophical landscape in Europe has obviously changed considerably. The question to what extent this perception of its three ways of thinking is therefore still basically accurate, which it may very well be, goes beyond the present knowledge of the translator. For the view by Valentin Tomberg on the various philosophical perceptions of freedom in the Orient, in Christianity and in America, see chapter II in his book The Foundation Stone Meditation by Rudolf Steiner.