Christ and the Human Soul III

Firstly, we must make a distinction. We must consider the one element that fulfils itself in Karma in an objective retribution. Here we must clearly understand that man is certainly subject to his Karma; that he has to make karmic compensation for unjust deeds, and when we think more deeply about it, a man will not actually wish otherwise. For suppose that a man has done another person wrong; in the moment of this wrong he is less perfect than before he had done it, and he can only attain the grade of perfection which was his before he committed the wrong by making compensation for it. He must wish to make compensation for the wrong; for only in such compensation does he create for himself the stage of perfection which was his before the act was committed. Thus, for the sake of our own perfecting we can wish nothing else than that Karma is there as objective justice. When we grasp the true meaning of human freedom, we can have no wish that a sin should be so forgiven us; that if, for example, we were to put a man's eyes out, the sin would be so forgiven us that we should no longer need to wipe it away in our Karma. A man who puts out the eyes of another is more imperfect than one who does not, and in his later Karma it must come to pass that he does a corresponding good act, for then only is he again the man that he was before he committed the act. So that when we rightly consider the nature of man, there can be no thought within us that when a man has put out the eyes of another it will be forgiven him, and that Karma will be in some way adjusted. It is fully justified in Karma that we are not excused a farthing, but that the debt must be paid to the uttermost.