Lecture Four

We have often emphasised that, by reason of forces well known to us, the inclination is always arising in man to lag behind in his evolution on the one hand, and on the other hand to overshoot his mark. Thus in cultural history we see numerous endeavours to retain the unconscious realisation of the Event of Golgotha, while applying to it as little as possible the development of consciousness that mankind is going through. Quite recently, in the sphere of a religious community, we have witnessed a struggle between the endeavour to maintain as far as possible only the traditional and unconscious relation to the Mystery of Golgotha, while Roman Catholic modernism has tried—though certainly with inadequate means—to claim equal validity for its endeavour to press on to a more conscious understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. Opposition to the spiritual-scientific approach to the Mystery of Golgotha represents simply the striving of those who wish to keep the Mystery of Golgotha as much as possible in the unconscious regions of man's soul.