6. Anthroposophy and Agnosticism

GA 82/1922-04-12/p026 ·1922-04-12 · 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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What is accomplished there with the phenomenal world does not lead to knowledge in the old sense. Those who, for example, still have the religious content with the God impulse from old traditions, like Spencer, for example, and then see what is called knowledge today, but which is no longer knowledge, gnosis, they profess that they say: One does not actually come to the source in this phenomenal existence. Agnosticism! And basically this agnosticism has two sides. On the one hand, it takes away everything that makes us strong as whole human beings when we have an activity in cognition. On the other hand, however, we have to go through this phase of human development, to be purely passively devoted to the phenomena. It is part of the overall development of the human race to develop this phenomenalism in the Goethean sense, because it conveys to us a level of truth that is necessary for the overall development of humanity.

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Cite: GA 82/1922-04-12/p026 · edition English