6. Agnosticism in Science and Anthroposophy

GA 75/1922-05-11/p009 ·1922-05-11 · English HighHigh alignmentThis translation's paragraph count matches the German original — the locus maps cleanly to the same paragraph in DE.
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Thus, it is precisely through the scientific approach that one comes to an acknowledgment of the scientifically unknowable - one comes to certain limits of scientific research. At most, one comes to say to oneself: the human soul, the inner spiritual being of man, must be connected with something that cannot be attained by this science alone. What is connected with it in this way cannot be investigated scientifically; it belongs to the realm of the unknowable. Here we are not faced with Gnosticism, but with an agnosticism, and in this respect contemporary spiritual life, precisely because of its scientific nature, has placed itself in a certain opposition to what still existed at the time when Gnosticism was the attitude of knowledge and was called Gnosis.

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Cite: GA 75/1922-05-11/p009 · edition English