Excerpts from:
The Essence of Christianity
Rudolf Frieling
Floris Books
Isbn 0-86315-039X

Contents
1. The riddle of man's being
2. The creation of Man
3. The loss of paradise
4. A godless world
5. When the time had fully come
6. The Son of God and the Son of Man
7. The mystery of the powerless God
8. The healing power of the Christ
9. Christendom
10. History and mysticism
11. Apocalyptic prospect

1. The riddle of man 's being

The nature of Christianity is inseparable from the question of man's own nature. Modern awareness feels this question weighing ever more heavily: 'What is man all about?' Human existence is no longer seen as clear-cut and obvious but is called into question. It has actually become questionable. Is there any meaning at all in being 'human'?

How often do we see the miraculous promise of early childhood collapse and perish in the empty routine of the adult world -a promise unfulfilled, unredeemed. Moreover, we can observe how the power of human thought resulted in the awful realities of poison gas and the atom bomb, while undirected emotional power wanders into greed and hatred. We witness daily the tragedies resulting from our inability to live together in peace at every level: peoples, races, classes, neighbours, families, marriages, and even, ultimately, the individual's struggle in living with himself. Indeed, all of us have experienced that sudden sigh within - perhaps on a walk in the country - which announces the thought: 'How beautiful the world would be without people!' Yet, put differently, this amounts to saying: 'How beautiful the world would be without its crowning creation!' This paradoxical statement brings us face to face with the whole troublesome riddle of man's existence. What kind of peculiar creature is it who, on the one hand, is such a miracle of divine creation, and yet can be more malevolent and horrible than the wildest beast? Is there not obviously something wrong with man?

How are we to make sense of all these contradictions?

It is our very labouring with this burdensome riddle which offers us the maturity to recognize and accept Christianity. As modern men we are able to look at Christianity afresh and with the best intellectual conscience. That we are able to do so, and to see in it the great, decisive concern of humanity, we owe to anthroposophy (wisdom of man), the body of knowledge made available by Rudolf Steiner.

Although Christianity entered the pages of history only at a specific historical moment, it must be seen in a broad human context. Thus from its inception, Christianity included in its view of the world the wisdom of past ages as preserved in the Old Testament. Let us first direct our attention to this prehistory of Christianity.

2. The creation of man

The ancient wisdom of the biblical story of the creation sees man as having originated in purity within the divine world. But this wisdom also speaks of a definite intention, a specific goal which stood before the divine world when it called man into existence. God created man 'in his own image'. Likeness to God this was the great goal, a goal worthy of God, which rayed forth over the creation of man.

In what does this likeness to God consist? If the human being were merely another creature, only a product of creation, albeit a nearly perfect one, this accomplishment would still not do justice to the exalted goal of man's consecration. Man would only deserve to be called an image of God if he too were a creative being, and thus something more than the product of creation. Man would only be in harmony with the divine purpose if he bore within him his own creative, personal centre of being, out of which he might act in freedom and love, in keeping with divine goodness.

Such a being, free and self-determining, a 'personality' in the best sense of the word, cannot simply come forth as a (in everyday language) finished product from the hand of God. Such a being cannot simply be made, if it is to be more than a created being. For this reason God breathed into man something of his own divine nature. To use another image, God offered to man a spark of his own divine, primordial fire, which through sacrifice was placed as a seed in man.

A long process of development is needed so that this seed may one day develop into a free personality in the image of God. In order to unfold his inborn capacities man must proceed through a historical evolution. The fact that he finds himself in just such a historical process is not simply something arbitrary or external to his nature. On the contrary, it is an integral part of his development. Only by suffering through his destiny and moulding it aright, does man gradually evolve to that state which is intended for him.

It is a fundamentally important insight that man, the image of God, is by no means yet complete. He is still 'on the way'. And in this he is distinct from all his fellow creatures on earth. Stone, plant and animal are finished works. A rose, for instance, is really one hundred per cent rose. It is the perfect expression of its purpose and potential. For the very same reason, however, the rose has no history. The same is true for the animal. In contrast to other creatures of nature, each complete in its own way, the human being is beset by the painful awareness of his own imperfection. He stands much higher than the creatures beneath him and yet, with respect to his own level of perfection, he is so terribly far behind. He is, as man, not nearly as perfect as the rose is as rose.

Of course, as far as his bodily form is concerned, man is without doubt the true crown of creation. Through a long historical development the human bodily form has attained a high degree of perfection. But the actual inner nature of man is as yet only in its beginnings. This is why it is so difficult to arrive at a clear answer to the question of man's real nature, of the ultimate problem of his worth or worthlessness. The final word has not yet been spoken. The process of man's development is still under way. If we understand ourselves properly, we must say that we are not yet 'human beings' in the strict sense of the word, but rather something for which a word must be coined, something rather like 'claimants' or 'aspirants' to the name.
Man in the image of God is a distant goal. The path leading to this goal is history.

3. The loss of paradise

Among the forces at work in this historical development is also the Power opposed to the divine plan. Man contains within him the possibility of evil, a possibility which has all too frequently found expression in the world. But, interestingly, man always feels the evil in himself as something foreign, as fundamentally alien to his nature, despite the fact that it may exert enormous power over him at a given moment. When we allow these alien forces of evil to work within us, we speak of 'letting ourselves go', of not knowing ourselves'. Each of us in his true nature would really like to be 'good' even if he does not admit it.

This elemental feeling that evil is something alien, not a part of our true being, confirms the view of the biblical tradition that evil did not reside in man from the beginning but entered him only at a specific point in time. At this moment it entered man as a foreign influence, as what one could call an infection of the soul-life. The Bible describes this event as the Fall, using the images of the serpent, tree and apple. These are of course pictures, but pictures which present themselves in a meaningful way to supersensory perception. Present-day man needs to translate them into modern concepts if he is to perceive them once more as higher truths.

How could a wise and loving God allow the power of evil to approach the still childlike, innocent human being and, as it were, infect his soul with egotism, thereby opening the way to all the future misery of mankind? We can begin to understand why by recalling that, as we all know well, a young person is not helped in his development by remaining constantly under the protection of his parents. If anything is to come of him, he must free himself from this protection. Parents must overcome their shortsighted fears and allow their young to step out into the hostile, dangerous world outside. The dangers must simply be taken as part of the deal. An insight like this, gained through experience of life, can offer us a window through which we gaze into deep secrets of the history of man. We begin to sense something of the quality of risk and daring in the divine plaii for humankind.

God's nearness to created man would not have permitted true independence to arise. In his original natural state, man's being and actions could not be anything but good. But the innocence of paradisal man was not the state ultimately intended for humankind. Following the Fall, our innocence is to be regained in future as holiness. Man will only become fully human when he can freely develop the good out the beginning but entered him only at a specific point in time. At this moment it entered man as a foreign influence, as what one could call an infection of the soul-life. The Bible describes this event as the Fall, using the images of the serpent, tree and apple. These are of course pictures, but pictures which present themselves in a meaningful way to supersensory perception. Present-day man needs to translate them into modern concepts if he is to perceive them once more as higher truths.

Following the Fall, our innocence is to be regained in future as holiness. Man will only become fully human when he can freely develop the good out of his innermost nature. Only then will the good actually be good. Between the innocence of Eden and the innocence of holiness, however, lies man's tragic involvement with guilt.

With the Fall there began man's increasing alienation from his divine origin. He became more and more independent. As a result of this progressive detachment, man found himself in an increasingly solidified, hardened environment. The more physical his body became, the more it shut him off from the divine world. This gave the increasingly isolated human being, whose environment was becoming ever more solid and earthly, the chance to take his first steps towards independent existence. In this way the Fall of man inaugurated a long process which even today has not reached its end. Even now, man's alienation from his divine origin may go through many more transformations as it encroaches upon more and more areas of his existence.

The ancient dreams of a lost Eden, of a vanished golden age, were therefore visionary. But we must avoid the error of conceiving 'paradise lost' in a clumsy, materialistic sense. To do so would be to misinterpret the imaginative language of the ancient sacred texts. In reality it was man's original condition of childlike, innocent nearness to God which echoed in the memory of the ancient peoples.

This 'origin in the Light' is thus the source of the primordial revelation which gradually faded and became obscured. It shines forth in the wisdom of all peoples and may still be recognized through all later disguises and elaborations. In this context belong also the so-called 'mysteries' of antiquity. In these mysteries a chosen person was led through an 'initiation' which enabled him, to a degree, to overcome his alienation from the divine world. The mysteries, in so far as was possible, reversed the process of the Fall. The old pre-Chnstian religions originate in the echoes of the primordial revelation. Not only in Israel but also in pagan religions, there was great wisdom, although the Fall manifested itself here, too. The original pagan 'gods' were higher spiritual beings - angels, archangels and other supersensory beings - who revealed the divine world to man. At one time man still had contact with them. Gradually, however, he lost the ability to perceive these higher powers. The place of the 'gods' was frequently taken over by demons and ghosts. In this way, the mysteries themselves were largely drawn into decadence.

4. A godless world

To the same degree that man experienced this twilight of the gods' and forgot his supersensory home, so he came to feel at home on earth and made it more and more his home. In this way he acquired greater consciousness and alertness, although this growth was at the expense of paradise.

The earthly world became rather like a vacuum, an empty space within the all-encompassing divine presence. In the strict sense, the earth did not fall away entirely from this presence. But we must form a more living picture of God's omnipresence, a concept which often remains relatively abstract and meaningless. We must expand our understanding to see how omnipresence can encompass gradations of 'more' or 'less'. For example, God is present in the criminal, inasmuch as he sustains every man's existence every minute, and inasmuch as he takes notice of the crime. But God is clearly 'present' in an act of goodness in a very different sense and to a much higher degree. Our prayers for the coming of his kingdom and for the doing of his will on earth would be meaningless if there were no variation in the degree of his presence. It is in this sense of a 'diluted' divine presence that the earth may be called a vacuum, a godless space. As far as man's consciousness is concerned, God's presence is then reduced almost beyond recognition, diluted to the point at which it can no longer be felt. In this vacuum man now develops more and more independence.

It is for this reason that so many horrors and abominations can take place on earth. And this is why God 'allows' it all. Without the serious possibility of error there can be no freedom; and in the long run, without freedom and independence there can be no real love. The fact that God remains silent, letting these things occur, is founded upon the very opposite of indifference and unconcern. It is rather the tragic reverse side of the most exalted divine love for man. In its inescapable necessity it cannot be altered even by God. It is to be sure, a love for man as he one day is to become. It is the love of God for the human being of tomorrow and beyond, a love which cannot spare us the necessity of passing through evil and death. God renounces the possibility of preventing evil, which he could do through his omnipotence. He allows evil to exist, and yet he comes to man's assistance in another way: by sending the Christ.

6. The Son of God and the Son of Man

Why is the Saviour called the 'Son of God'? We must first realize that our concepts of the divine are somewhat inadequate. Thus the word 'Son' is itself a metaphor which we must first translate from the language of imagery into our present-day abstract thought.

God is on the one hand the totally self-sufficient, perfect being - 'as your heavenly Father is perfect'. However, we must not jump to the conclusion that we can confine God in the prison of our own inadequate thought-forms. We must not rush in with our clever logic and conclude that this completeness precludes the possibility of God's 'becoming'. Regardless of theological and philosophical concepts, God is simply not the prisoner of his own completeness, which we conceive of as circumscribing and enclosing him. God's nature consists not only in eternal rest, but also in a divine 'greening' and 'growing'. God in the completeness of his eternal being is the 'Father'. Yet we can also speak of another aspect of God which is equally justified and real: the God who is in the process of becoming, of growing forth into the future: the 'Son'. Because of this quality of growing, the Son is a bearer of creative forces. As expressed by St John's Gospel (1:3) and by the Epistles of St Paul, the Son is the mediator of the creation of the world.

It is this God who unites himself with mankind: the God whose own nature springs forth like a plant freeing itself from inert matter and developing through its stages of growth - a God with a future...

7. The mystery of the powerless God

How is the intervention of providence on man's behalf the entrance of the divine Son into the earthly world, compatible with the notion above that man's world has in a sense been emptied and that this 'vacuum' furthers the development of man's independence? Is not man's germinating freedom invaded by this divine intervention? To answer this serious question properly, we must look at the unique way in which God's entry into man's world took place. The God who appeared on earth did not reveal himself in the fullness of his power. On the contrary, the divine sacrifice which inheres in the phenomenon of a God who allows events in a sense to take their course, culminates on the cross of Golgotha. This image has become so familiar to us that we can hardly understand how it once stirred the feelings of even the most pious in its puzzling and offensive appearancce: 'unto the Jews a stumbling~block, and unto the Greeks foolishness.' A crucified God - such a God is a powerless God. Let us emphasize the point once again: the very same impotence of God is seen in his silent countenancing of all earthly abominations, only here it is carried to the extreme. However, the point is to recognize this impotence for what it is: not God's weakness, but self-limitation; a conscious restraint, a renunciation for the sake of man's freedom.