10. The Supernatural Human Being III

Now you know that the questions of free will and immortality have been and continue to be discussed scientifically from the earliest days of human thought to the present day. In the second half of the nineteenth century, attempts were made to present these two questions as arising from a childish view of human thinking. Recently, this view has been abandoned. People have become more cautious, but the main point has not changed. Essentially, it can be said that, however cautious they may be, philosophical observers of these questions do not get much further than a kind of admission that human methods of thinking are actually insufficient to determine anything definite about these questions. I will not detain you with an overview of what has been presented to people in this regard, but would like to consider my topic from the point of view that has been emphasized in all of these lectures here. I would just like to say in advance that it is striking that, despite the serious application of all possible human means of thinking and all possible acumen, ordinary philosophy does not produce much more than a kind of doubt in these questions. After the last few remarks, this will not surprise you, especially when you consider that the highest revelations of the human being must come from the innermost core of this human being, and that this innermost core of the human being must be sought in the supersensible, that is, in a realm that cannot be accessed by the ordinary powers of cognition, which are bound to the outer human organism. It is therefore not surprising that, before entering into spiritual scientific observation, no particular light can be shed on these questions. Researchers always find that they are working with inadequate means of cognition. Without being clearly aware of it, they sense that there is a supersensible life within the human being as it lives, but that everything that this human being can observe with the help of the ordinary organism is either directed toward the sensory world or abstracted from it, abstracted from it, so that when we observe the innermost core of human nature, we find ourselves in a situation comparable to that of the human eye, for example. The eye can perceive the things around it, but it cannot perceive itself. Since the eye is an external sensory organ, i.e., an external object, it can of course observe another human being, insofar as that being is an object of the senses. But one thing is clear: one is only able to observe this human eye if one can take a position outside of this eye. The observer of the human self, of the human soul being in its core essence, is in a similar situation. They would have to be “outside” the human soul being if they wanted to observe it. And here it cannot be said that another person can observe this human soul life, because only human physicality is visible to another person. It is not enough for another person to focus their attention on the soul being; it is necessary for the observer of their own being to actually be able to step outside their own being in order to observe it. Perhaps another comparison will help us to illustrate what is the subject of today's consideration.