The processing of nature observation by the intellect leads away from the connection in which man initially stands in perception with nature. This connection is a living one - senses and thinking are involved in it -: man loses himself in it - nature offers what it has as living spiritual.
Modern natural science has concepts that no longer include the soul. (This was still different in the 16th century).
Only by penetrating into the supersensible is it possible to observe nature. This shows that the sensory side of nature is one with the inner world of the human being. It brings man to his own ephemeral being. Either you stop at observation and description, in which case you live in the living world; but you have not understood it. Or you proceed to explanation, which brings you more and more to experimentation, and then you have understood it, but in a dead way. There lies the transition to the pure supersensible.
Behind the world of the senses lies the supersensible; but man in the world of the senses as a sensual being. The supersensible is contained in the sensual. The supersensible is experienced in such a way that one strives for a kind of knowledge that goes in a completely different direction.
A social science will be a barren one if it does not absorb the powers of supersensible knowledge. A social theory modeled on natural science and put into practice creates processes of destruction. A purely anthropological foundation of sociology does not really speak at all of the forces at work in social life, but only of the processes of social dissolution. In this respect, the scientific study of life exposes humanity to the greatest dangers.
A scientific age cannot remain on the ground of the old cooperations. For science isolates the human individual.
The supernatural, grasped through science, does not give the personal relationship to the divine that is necessary for man. This belongs to the special field of religion. Man of the scientific age alone would lose the religious if he did not gain it through supersensible knowledge.
Theologia naturalis, Raymund von Sabunde, † 1432.
The age of religious justification is over; it is impossible to speak of a “religion of the future” because that personal relationship of man to the divine, which must take place in a religious justification, no longer exists. It requires the direct working of the spirit in the human soul, which has ceased with scientific thinking. Revival is necessary in each individual. Stronger inner powerful worship for the supernatural.