The Bible and Wisdom II

Here we are already in the midst of the New Testament, where the new Spiritual Science must separate itself from any merely literal interpretation of the Bible. What do you usually find in the writings of so-called new research about the event at Damascus? You usually find that it was an ecstatic state in which Saul became Paul, a state that cannot be fully understood. It eludes human research. Yes, it eludes external human research. But that is precisely what we have so often emphasized in Spiritual Science, that human beings — as we will learn further in the following lectures — can ascend to the knowledge of a higher world that surrounds them like colors and light surround the blind. Human beings can learn to see this higher world, just as the blind-born person who has undergone surgery can learn to see colors and light. This is what takes place through the methods of Spiritual Science with the soul of the true student of Spiritual Science, enabling him to look into the spiritual worlds in order to see for himself what is there. What happens to this student, and what every student today and at all times can testify to, happened to Paul. He received it: to hear with ears that are not sensory ears, to see with eyes that are not sensory eyes. He was then also able to perceive the One who dwelt in Jesus of Nazareth. So the whole power of Paul extends into the supersensible. If one takes Paul as a whole, as he is, one can say: What he said is imbued with the idea that “Christ lives, he is risen. Therefore, our faith is not in vain.”