Christ Module 9: Trinity and Logoi

The Christ being that went through the Mystery of Golgotha was part of the highest threefold divinity or Trinity, and is therefore also called the Son, the Word, the Logos.

This module covers (9A) the beginning of the Gospel of John and statements that Christ was the creator of the solar system, and what this implies for the relationship between Father and Son. It requires a deeper understanding on the threefold aspect of the Trinity.

Secondly (9B) this module also looks into what is what additional meaning is in the fact for Christ the name or term 'Logos' is used, or 'the Word'. This to distinguish when the term Sun God is used, to denote the highest being in the hierarchy of the Sun. See also Threefold Sun.

Thirdly (9C), this module looks into Christ's relationship to the hierarchies.

Aspects

9A - Christ as creator, part of the Trinity, and threefoldedness

relationship between the Father and the Son symbol of divinity
- in the symbol of 'God the Father' and 'God the Son', the Christ is added to the Father-God as a free creation which does not follow in due course, but which emerges as a free act alongside the previous creation and which also had the possibility not to be; the Christ is therefore not given to the world because the Father had to give the Son to the world, but the Son is given to the world as a free act, through grace, through freedom, through love, which when it creates, gives freely. Christian religion uses this ymbolic image to say that the relation of this other God, Christ, to the Father-God can be understood 'as the relation of the Son to the Father' (1914-04-12-GA153)

the beginning of the Gospel of John: ‘In the beginning was the Logos. And the Logos was the Life.In the enlivened Logos was Light.’
- the Logos (Son) as the creator of everything, instead of the Father principle (1921-06-30-GA204)
- comparison first sentence Gospel of John and Genesis (1909-06-25-GA112)
- In the beginning, during the Old Saturn stage of evolution, everything arose out of the Logos. During the Old Sun evolution, there was Life in the Logos; and from out of the living Logos, during the Old Moon evolution, there arose Light. During the Earth stage, from out of the Logos filled with Light and Life, there arose on the Sun, Light in a more glorious form, but Man fell into a state of darkness. (1909-06-26-GA112)
see note [3] - 'The beginning of creation' in the Discussion area below for an overview
aspects of, difficulties with and discussions on: the concept of the Trinity and threefolded divinity
- versus monotheistic divinity:
  - thinking philosophy, can lead nowhere but to a monotheistic Father-God. Christ cannot be found by any philosophy, by any method of thought. (1914-04-12-GA153)
- threefolded nature of divinity and three dimensions of evolution
  - see note [1] in the Discussion area of Three dimensions of evolution, regarding 'The three logoi and the three dimensions of evolution: the 1904-10-25-GA089 quote'
the threefoldedness links into the rosecrucian line: 'Ex Deo nascimur - In Christo morimur - Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus', see EDN - ICM - PSSR.

9B - Christ as Logos versus Christ as Sun God

Christ as the Logos part of the Trinity
- "Christ .. does not belong to the hierarchies, but to the Trinity." (1909-04-21-GA110) .. "Christ is the second form of the godhead .. the Trinity" (1924-06-12-GA239)
- "descended to the Sun from yet more distant heights" (1922-04-24-GA211) .. "Christ's descent is the ensouling of Mankind with the Logos of the Beginning and of Eternity" (1924-GA026-LT139, see also IAO)

9C - Christ's relationship to the hierarchies

regarding the relationship between Christ, the Trinity and the spiritual hierarchies. This question was asked to Rudolf Steiner at various occasions, see ao below:
- Christ Module 9: Trinity and Logoi#GA244 coverage - Q.26A about the nature of the Christ being and the hierarchies
- the Rittelmeyer question (on Note [1] in the Discussion area below) "the Logos stands 'above' or 'behind' this highest of the Sun hierarchy or Sun God called Christ. Behind each of the three groups of the Spiritual Hierarchies stands a person of the Godhead"
a personal view, is to see Logos coming down through the hierarchies as in a 'folding telescope', a stepladder let down from heaven. The folding telescope metaphor can be seen into Schema FMC00.471 below.
the Christ Logos as part of the Trinity, stands above, but is linked to (and - we can imagine - can 'work and shine through') various levels of the nine spiritual hierarchies. See more on Note [5] in the Discussion area below.
- Cherubim
  - Christ is described (a) as the Lion (of the tribe of Judah) in the Book of Revelation (5:5). Also (b) Ezekiel (10:14) makes reference to the Cherubim with four faces, one of which is the Lion. Rudolf Steiner refers to Christ as the Lion and Sun Cherub (c). Furthermore there is symbolism (d) linking the Lion as the middle between Bull and Eagle, the basis for the fourth balanced development out of these three: Man. That symbolism also includes (e) the link of the Lion with the heart, and buddhi; and (f) the zodiac sign Leo.
  - For further coverage of the above, see
    - Note [2] - 'Christ as Lion and Sun Cherub' in the Discussion area below
    - Note [1] - 'The Christ Impulse in the starry script' in the Discussion area on Christ in the future .. (incl. Schema FMC00.373)
- Spirit of Wisdom
  - See note [4] - 'Christ Shining through the gate of the Spirit of Wisdom' in the Discussion area below. Note this takes place in a context of the current Postatlantean epoch on Earth.
  - reference extract, see: Christ's descent to Earth#1912-04-13-GA136
- Spirits of Form
  - the six Elohim on the Sun and the seventh Jehovah on the Moon
- Archangel
  - ensouled by the Christ in the Three pre-MoG interventions of Christ
  - as well as the link with Archangel Michael as 'the face of Christ'
  - see also note [1] - 'The 1914-02-10-GA148 quote' on Three pre-MoG interventions of Christ, regarding the link of the archangel Michael, the archangel ensouled in the pre-MoG interventions, and the Adam sister soul later incarnated in the Nathan Jesus child
- Angel: Christ in the form of an angel after the MoG (see 1913-05-02-GA152 on Christ in the future cultural ages and next epoch)
  - "Christ then united Himself with the hierarchy of the angels and has since that time lived invisibly in the sphere of the Earth." .. "the angelic being, who since then has been the outer form assumed by Christ"

Inspiring quotes

Shelly Trimmer

.. you can't explain God, because if you have explained him, then you have limited him, and if you have limited him, then you are no longer explaining God .. .. but perhaps the closest we can come to understanding is through unselfish love.

taken from 'An Infinity of Gods, see ' More sources on the topic of initiation#Spiritual biographies

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.471 may be useful to meditate on Christ's relationship to the hierarchies during the Earth planetary stage of evolution. This has to be put in perspective of what happened in the evolution from Old Sun onwards, both for Christ and the spiritual hierarchies (see oa FMC00.077A).

See also Discussion Note 5 on the notebook entry 1922-NB212-GA046 'About the I in the cosmic world order' which includes the text "the I .. is fully part of and included within the spiritual world order: I <- archangel <- SoF <- Cherubim"

Compare with Schema FMC00.472 and FMC00.472A.

Lecture coverage and references

Johannes Scotus Eriugena

We do not know what God is. God Himself does not know what He is because He is not anything. Literally God is not, because He transcends being.

GA244 coverage - Q&A about the nature of the Christ being and the hierarchies

1912-1913-GA244 - Q&A S22 (p20) - In what relation does Christ Jesus stand to the first hierarchy? Does he belong to the group of the Seraphim, or is he part of the Third Logos spirit that stands above the three hierarchies and works through them?

1906-03-01-GA244 - Q&A 84.5 (p93) - The Individuality of the Christ

1912-06-12-GA244 - Q&A 232.13 (p418): Can we relate the Christ to a certain level of the spiritual hierarchies?

1922-03-04-GA244 - Q&A 481.3 (p691): To what spiritual hierarchy belongs the Christ?

1907-06-24-GA100

We designate the whole hosts of Spirits whose Leader is the Christ as the 'Fire Spirits' and we say:
The 'I spirits' (or asuras) reached the human stage during the Old Saturn stage.

During the Old Sun stage the archangels (fire spirits) or the logoi whose highest representative is named the Logos or the Word, reached this stage.
For this very reason, Christ is named the 'Word' that existed in 'the beginning', and the 'beginning' designates in the Bible a definite point of departure in the cosmic evolution.

1907-11-16-GA100

[Gospel st John as intro]If we translate St. John's Gospel according to the spirit and not only according to the words, the first 14 verses run approximately as follows:
1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a God
2. The same was in the very beginning with God
3. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.
4. In Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men.
5. And the Light shone in the darkness, but the darkness did not comprehend it.
...
Even the very first words are taken in an abstract sense by the modern man. The “Very Beginning” is thought of as an abstract beginning; but to grasp the true significance of this word we must recall what was taught on this point in the Christian Secret School of Dionysius the Areopagite.
Mineral, plant, animal, and man make up the series of being in evolution which require the physical body. Above them are beings who do not need the physical body, namely, the Angels, Archangels, Very Beginnings, the Powers, Virtues, Dominions, the Thrones, Cherubim and Seraphim, and Beings were still higher.
Thus the 'Very Beginnings' are real Beings. They are those who, at the beginning of the evolution of our world [editor: the Earth stage is meant], were already at the stage humanity will only reach at the end of its evolution (in the Vulcan stage)
[editor note: in the above it appears Very Beginnings maps to archai; indeed see Schema FMC00.273.jpg where another name for Archai is 'Primal Beginnings'. See Schema FMC00.077A, Man will be at CoC=7, and at the Earth stage of evolution the Archai are at this level]
[First verse]
If in the light of this we study the first verse, “In the very beginning was the word,” we might represent the state of affairs pictorially by the following comparison. Before we utter a word, this word lives in us as thought. It lives within us. When the word is uttered the air around us is set in motion; vibrations are produced. If we imagine these vibrations condensed and hardened in some way, we should see the words fall to the ground as forms and figures; we should perceive the creative power of the word with our eyes. If the word is already creative now, it will be much more so in the future.
[Man's creative power: heart and larynx]
Man already possesses organs which will only attain their full significance in the future; he also possesses others which are already in decline. To the latter belong the organs of reproduction, to the former the heart and the larynx, for these are only at the beginning of their development. At the present time the heart is an involuntary muscle, although it has transverse fibers like all voluntary muscles. These transverse fibers are an indication that the heart is in the process of transition from an involuntary to a voluntary organ. The larynx is destined to be the human organ of reproduction in a distant future, strange as this may sound at present. Just as Man, by means of speech, can already transpose his thoughts into vibrations of the air, he will in the future be able to create his own image by means of the word.
The 'Very Beginnings' already possessed this creative power at the outset of the evolution of our world and can therefore be rightly looked upon as divine Beings. At the beginning of the evolution of the Earth a divine Word was uttered, and this has become mineral, plant, animal and Man.

1908-05-19-GA103

beginning of solar system

The first words of the Gospel of St. John touch upon the deepest mysteries of the world. This can be seen when we allow the truths of Spiritual Science which lie at their very foundation to pass before our souls. And we must dip deeply into spiritual knowledge, if these first words of this Gospel are to appear to us in the right light.
…
[Old Saturn]
Let us consider now for a moment as a whole what we have today brought before our souls. The power of speech, namely the Word, was originally with the Divine, and the whole of evolution was so directed that the Godhead first created, as pre-requisite, a physical apparatus which only later acquired the power to allow this Word to sound forth out of itself. Everything was thus guided and directed. Like the flower within its seed, the tone-uttering human being, endowed with the Word or Logos, existed already in germ upon Old Saturn. Sound was concealed within this germ and developed out of it just as the whole plant grows out of the seed in which it has been hidden.
Let us look back upon the physical human body as it existed upon Old Saturn and ask ourselves:
Whence came this physical human body? What was its primal source? What did it need to carry it through the whole of evolution?
It came from the Logos or the Word. For even as early as the Old Saturn stage this physical human body was directed in such a way that it later became capable of speech, became a witness of the Logos. That you are formed as you are today, that this human body has its present shape, rests upon the fact that the 'Word' lies at the very foundation of the whole plan of our creation. The whole human body has been constructed upon the Word and from the very beginning it was so endowed that at last the Word was able to spring forth from it. When, therefore, the esoteric Christian, looking at this physical human body, asked: What is its original prototype and what is its image? the answer was: This physical human body has its origin in the Word or Logos. This Word or Logos was active from the beginning within the physical human body — and it is still active there today when the physical body lies in bed deserted by the I. During that time, the divine Logos is active within the members thus forsaken by the human soul. If we ask: What was the very first beginning of the physical body? then the answer is: The Logos or the Word.
[Old Sun and Old Moon]
We shall now follow evolution still further. Old Saturn passed over into the Old Sun stage; and then to the human physical body, the life or ether body was added. But what must have entered in order that such a step forward could be made? While on Old Saturn, the physical body was a kind of machine, a sort of automaton, wholly permeated and maintained, however, by the Logos; on the Old Sun, the life body was added within which the divine Life-Spirit was active. During Old Saturn, the human body was an expression of the Logos; then Old Saturn disappeared, and this human body was reborn upon the Old Sun. To the physical body was added the life body, permeated by the Life-Spirit. The Logos became Life upon Old Sun, while advancing the human creature to a higher stage. The Logos became Life upon Old Sun!
…
All that we have been trying to present in the language of esoteric Christianity, deep mysteries of existence familiar to those who were 'servants of the Logos' in the earliest times, all this is presented unequivocally in sublime, clear-cut verses in the Gospel of St. John. One must, however, translate these first words in the right way, in conformity with their meaning. Properly translated, these words give the actual facts which have just been presented. Let us bring these facts again before our souls, in order that we may fully comprehend their value.
In the beginning was the Logos which was the archetype of the physical human body, the foundation of all things. All animals, plants and minerals appeared later, for the human creature alone was present upon Old Saturn. During the Old Sun stage, the animal kingdom was added, during the Old Moon stage, the plant kingdom and upon the Earth the mineral kingdom appeared.
Upon Old Sun, the Logos became Life and upon Old Moon, it became Light; then when the human creature became endowed with an I, the Logos as Light confronted him. But he had to learn to know the nature of the Logos and learn in what form It eventually would make its appearance. First there was the Logos which became Life, then Light, and this Light lives in the astral body. Into the human inner being, into the darkness, into the ignorance, the Light shone.
And the meaning of life upon Earth is this: That men should overcome this darkness of the soul, in order that they may recognize the Light of the Logos.
The first words of the Gospel of St. John are incisive, although, perhaps, very difficult to understand, as many may say.
But should the most profound mysteries of the world be expressed in trivial language?
Is it not a strange point of view, a real insult to what is Holy when one says, for example, that in order to understand a watch one must penetrate deeply into the nature of the thing with the understanding, but for a comprehension of the Divine in the world, the simple, plain, naive human intelligence should suffice? It is a very bad thing for present humanity that it has reached the point of saying, when reference is made to the profoundness of religious documents: O, why all these complicated explanations? It should all be plain and simple. However, only those who have the good intention and good will to plunge down into the great cosmic facts can penetrate into the deep meaning of such words as those at the very beginning of the most profound of the gospels, this Gospel of St. John, words that are in fact a paraphrase of Spiritual Science.
Let us now translate the introductory words of this Gospel:
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was a God (or divine). This was in the beginning with God. Through the same all things were made and save through this Word, nothing was made. In It was Life, and Life became the Light of men. And the Light shone into the darkness, but the darkness comprehended it not.
How the darkness, little by little, comes to an understanding of the Light is recounted later on in the Gospels.

1908-05-20-GA103

beginning of the earth

Yesterday we saw what profound contents are concealed within the first words of the Gospel of St. John and we shall now be able to summarize our observations by saying that the writer of this Gospel pointed to the creation of a pre-humanity in the far distant past and indicated that, according to Esoteric Christianity, everything leads back to the Word or the Logos.
The Logos was already a creating power even in the Old Saturn stage; it then became Life while our Earth was passing through its existence as the Old Sun, and it became Light while the Earth was passing through the Old Moon stage. Under the influence of divine spiritual forces and powers, in the course of the three planetary states of evolution, the human creature reached the point in his development at which he became penetrated by the human I, the Earth having now developed into our present planet. Thus we may say that a creature, like a kind of seed, came over to the Earth from the Old Moon, consisting of a physical body, derived from the divine, primal Word; an ether or life body having its source in divine Life; and an astral body issuing from divine Light. Within this creature's inmost being, during life upon the Earth, the light of the I itself was now enkindled and this three-fold bodily nature, physical, etheric and astral, became capable of saying to itself “I AM.” Thus, in a certain sense, we may call the Earth evolution, the evolution of the “I AM,” the evolution of the self-consciousness of the human race. This “I AM,” this capacity for full self-consciousness, developed slowly and gradually in the course of the evolution of Earth humanity. We must clearly understand how this evolution of Earth humanity proceeded, how slowly and gradually the I, that is to say, full self-consciousness, made its appearance within it.
…
[Start of Earth - separation sun]
When the Old Moon had completed its evolution, there were seven great beings of this kind who had progressed far enough to pour forth love. Here we touch upon a deep mystery which Spiritual Science reveals.
In the beginning of the Earth-evolution, there was on the one side the childlike humanity which was to receive love and become ready for the reception of the I, and on the other side there was the sun which separated from the Earth and rose to a more exalted existence. Seven principle Spirits of Light, who at the same time were the dispensing Spirits of Love, were able to evolve upon this sun. Only six of them, however, made the sun their dwelling-place and what streams down to us in the physical light of the sun contains within it the spiritual force of love from these six Spirits of Light or, as they are called in the Bible, the six Elohim.
One separated from the others and took a different path for the salvation of humanity. He did not choose the sun but the moon for his abode. And this Spirit of Light, who voluntarily renounced life upon the sun and chose the moon instead, is none other than the one whom the Old Testament calls Jahve or Jehova. This Spirit of Light who chose the moon as a dwelling-place is the one who from there pours ripened wisdom down upon the Earth, thus preparing the way for love.
Now, let us consider for a moment this mystery which lies behind the outer facts. The night belongs to the moon and it belonged to the moon to a much greater degree in that ancient time when the human being was not yet able to receive the force of love in the direct rays of the sun. At that time he received the reflected force of ripened wisdom from the moonlight. This ripened wisdom streamed down upon him from the moonlight during the time of night-consciousness. Therefore, Jahve is called the Ruler of the Night who prepared humanity for the love that was later to manifest during full waking-consciousness. Thus we can look back to that ancient past in human evolution when spiritually that event occurred which is merely symbolized by the heavenly bodies, the sun on the one side, the moon on the other. (See drawing). During the night, at certain times, the moon sends down to us the reflected force of the sun, but it is the same light which also shines upon us directly from the sun. Thus in ancient times, Jahve or Jehova reflected the force of matured wisdom, the force of the six Elohim, and sent this force down into human beings while they slept, preparing them to become capable later, by degrees, of receiving the power of love during waking-day consciousness.
[illustration diagram]
You will ask what was that Being Who appears at the beginning of our era as Christ-Jesus?
It was the incarnation of the Logos, of the six other Elohim, whose advent had been prepared by Jahve-God who preceded them. This figure of Jesus of Nazareth, in whom the Christ or the Logos was incarnated, brought into human life, into human history itself, what previously streamed down upon the earth from the sun, what was present only in the sunlight.
“The Logos became flesh.” It is upon this fact that the Gospel of St. John places the greatest importance and the writer of this Gospel had to lay great emphasis upon it because it is a fact that after the appearance of a few initiated Christian pupils who understood what had occurred, there followed others who could not fully understand it. They understood full well that at the foundation of all material things, behind all that appears to us in substantial form, there exists a psycho-spiritual world. But what they could not comprehend was that the Logos itself, by being incarnated in an individual human being, became physically visible for the physical sense-world. This they could not comprehend.
Therefore, that teaching which appeared in the early Christian centuries called the Gnosis, differs from the true Esoteric Christianity on this point. The writer of the Gospel of St. John pointed to this fact in powerful words, when he said: “No, you should not look upon the Christ as a super-sensible, ever invisible being only, one Who is the foundation of all material life, but you should consider this the important thing: ‘The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.’” This is the fine distinction between Esoteric Christianity and the primal Gnosis. The Gnosis, as well as Esoteric Christianity recognizes the Christ, but the former only as a spiritual being and in Jesus of Nazareth it sees at most a human herald, more or less bound to this spiritual being. It holds firmly to an ever invisible Christ. On the contrary, Esoteric Christianity has always held the idea of the Gospel of St. John, which rests upon the firm foundation of the words: “And the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us!” He Who was there in the visible world is an actual incarnation of the six sun Elohim, of the Logos! With the incarnation of the Logos, the earthly mission — or in other words, what the Earth was to become through the Event of Palestine — first really began. Previously, all was only a preparation.

1909-04-21-GA110

Q&A (not on rsarchive)

The Elohim is the name for the Spirits of Form. They are the only ones who, at the separation of the Sun with Earth and Moon, remained connected with the Sun. Elohim is the name for the totality of sun beings. At that time they had chosen the Sun as residence, not as working area of their influence. Christ, the highest of the Elohim, is the regent of the Elohim. However he does not belong to the hierarchies, but to the Trinity. In Christ we have before us a being, so powerful, that he works his influence on all members of our solar system.

1909-06-25-GA112

And who was the Being born in Jesus of Nazareth? We indicated this yesterday: the God who was there from the beginning, who had remained in the spiritual world, leaving Mankind to its development. He it was who descended and incarnated in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. Does the writer of the Gospel of St. John give us to understand this? To answer this question we need only read attentively the words of the Gospel; ...
[the Spirit of God in Genesis]
... but first let us read the beginning of the Old Testament:
‘In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth. And the Earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.’
Let us call up this picture before us: ‘The Spirit of God moved upon the waters.’ Below is the Earth with its kingdoms, which issued from the divine Spirit. Among the descendants of the divine Spirit there is an individual so highly advanced that he can receive into himself this Spirit that moved upon the waters.
What does the writer of St. John's Gospel say? He tells us that John the Baptist recognized that the Being foretold in the Old Testament was there. He says: ‘I saw the Spirit descending from Heaven like a dove, and it rested upon him.’ John knew that he upon whom the Spirit descended was He who was to come: The Christ. Thus, the Spirit moving upon the waters is the beginning of earthly evolution; then, as John baptized with water, the Spirit who in the beginning moved upon the waters, descended into the body of Jesus of Nazareth. It would be impossible to express in words sublimer than St. John's, the connection between the events in Palestine and that other event related at the beginning of the same tradition of which his Gospel is a continuation.
[the Logos in John's gospel]
St. John also has words to express the fact that with Jesus of Nazareth that Spirit was united to whom the whole earth owes its creation and evolution. We know the first words of St. John's Gospel:
‘In the beginning was the Word (or Logos), and the Word (or Logos) was with God, and the Word (or Logos) was a God.’
What is the Logos? How was the Logos with God? Take the beginning of the Old Testament. We read of the Spirit of whom it is said: ‘And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.’
Let us note this well and then express it in different words. Let us listen to the call of the divine Spirit whose creative Word resounded through the world. What is this Word? In the beginning was the Logos, and the divine Spirit called, and that came to pass even as the divine Spirit called. That means: ‘In the Word was life.’ For had there been no life in the Word, nothing would have come to pass. What came to pass? We are told: ‘And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.’ Now let us again turn to the Gospel of St. John.
‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a God.’
The Word was now poured out into matter; in matter it had become, as it were, the outer form of the Godhead.
‘In Him (the Word) was life; and the life was the light of men.’

The writer of the Gospel of St. John refers directly to the ancient Book of Genesis and to the same divine Spirit, only in different words. He explains to us that this same divine Spirit appeared in Jesus of Nazareth; and, with regard to the Baptism by John, he is in agreement with the other Evangelists that at that moment the Christ was born in Jesus of Nazareth, after long preparation duly undergone by him. We must be clear on the point that, up to the Baptism by John, the life of Jesus of Nazareth, as related to us in the Gospels, presents nothing but a sum of experiences demonstrating his ascent to higher worlds in former incarnations, and showing how he prepared his entire being — his astral, etheric, and physical bodies — for the final reception of the Christ.

1909-06-26-GA112

On Old Moon the astral element was added, both to the beings on Old Moon and to those evolving on the separate Sun. We find the spiritual prototypes on the Sun, and on Old Moon their counterparts on the level of the animal.
Finally on the Earth a new condition was brought about, enabling man to absorb into himself the astral element which had developed on the Sun during the Old Moon stage, and which henceforth worked in him as a force. We will now trace these four conditions.

The sublime power which, during the evolution on Old Saturn, furnishes the germ of the human body form out of cosmic Chaos, is called by the writer of the Gospel of St. John the Logos.

The element which appeared on Old Sun and united itself to the first bodily form, he calls Life; it is what we call accordingly etheric or life body.

The element added on Old Moon, he calls Light; for this is the spiritual light, the astral light. This astral light causes a densification on the Old Moon, but a spiritualization on the separate Sun. This spiritualized element could evolve further, and did so evolve. And when the Sun again separated, the force evolved during the third stage (Old Moon) now shone into men; but Man was not yet able to behold that which shone into him from the Sun. It worked upon man as a force and formed him, but man could not behold it.

The essential nature of the Old Saturn stage, as we have clearly understood it, we now express in the words of St. John:
‘In the beginning was the Logos.’
We now pass to Old Sun. When we express the fact that whatever originated on Old Saturn was further developed on the Old Sun, we say: The etheric body was added:
‘And the Logos was the Life.’
On Old Moon the astral being was added, both of a corporal and of a spiritual nature:
‘In the enlivened Logos was Light.’
The light developed further; on the one hand, to the light of clairvoyance and, on the other, with Man to darkness. For when he should have received the Light, Man, being darkness, comprehended it not. Thus when we throw light from the Akashic records upon the Gospel of St. John, we read of the evolution of the world as follows:
In the beginning, during the Old Saturn stage of evolution, everything arose out of the Logos. During the Old Sun evolution, there was Life in the Logos; and from out of the living Logos, during the Old Moon evolution, there arose Light.
And from out of the Logos filled with Light and Life, there arose, on the Sun, during Earth evolution, Light in a more glorious form, but Man fell into a state of darkness.
From the Sun, the beings who were the advanced Bull-, Lion-, Eagle-, and human-spirits shone down as Light upon the Earth into the developing human forms. But these were darkness; they could not comprehend the Light that shone down upon them. (We must not confound this Light with physical light; this Light consisted of the combined radiations of the spiritual beings, the Bull-, Lion-, Eagle-, and human-spirits who represented the spiritual evolution on the Moon in continued form.)
This Light that streamed down was spiritual Light. Men could not receive it; they could not comprehend it; their whole evolution was furthered by it, but they were unconscious of its presence.
‘The Light shone in the darkness, but the darkness comprehended it not.’
Such are the exemplary words of the writer of the Gospel of St. John, when he places before us those great truths. And they who knew these things were ever called ‘ministers and priests of the Logos, as He was from the beginning.’ A priest or minister of the Logos, as he was from the beginning, is one who speaks thus.

1910-08-17-GA122

describes the fact that the start of the Book of Genesis refers to the Earth stage of evolution, at the point of the separation of the Sun from the Earth

Let us concentrate on this moment, when the sun withdraws from its former state of union with the rest of the planet and begins to send its forces to the earth from without. Let us bear in mind that this was what made it possible, within the earth, for the solid element — what we today call matter — to begin to condense. If we fix this moment firmly in our minds we have the point of time at which Genesis, the creation story, begins. This is what it is describing. We should not associate with the opening words of Genesis the abstract, shadowy idea we get when we say “In the beginning,” which is something unspeakably poverty-stricken compared with what the ancient Hebrew sage felt. If we would bring the sound B'reschit before our souls in the right way, there must arise before us — in the only way it can do so, in mental images — all that happened through the severance of sun and earth, all that was to be found at the actual moment when the separation into two had just taken place.

1914-04-12-GA153

contains a good explanation father and son christ principles

Notes:

Hermann Lotze (1817-1881) was a German philosopher who proposed the principle teleomechanism part of a teleological idealism; based on the idea that, in logic, metaphysics and science, mechanism is compatible with teleology.

To position teleology, see: Meaning of life#Teleology

[Philosophy leads to concept of monotheistic God the Father, holistic divinity pervading nature]
In order that we arrive at the answer to this, may I bring forward the following?
We can study the various philosophies and inquire as to how philosophers arrive at the idea of God — there are, of course, philosophers who have sufficient spiritual depth to be convinced from the existence of the world that we may speak of a Divine Being who pervades it. In the nineteenth century we need only take Lotze, who tried to produce in his religious philosophy something that was in harmony with the rest of his philosophy. Others too were sufficiently profound to have with all their philosophy a sort of religious philosophy also. We find one peculiarity in all these philosophers, a very definite peculiarity. They think to reach Divinity with ideas gathered from the physical plane; they reflect, they investigate in a philosophical manner, and come to the conclusion — as is the case with Lotze — that the phenomena and beings of the world are held together by a divine First Cause which pervades all and brings all into a certain harmony. But when we go more minutely into the ideas of these religious philosophers, we find that they always have one peculiarity. They arrive at a Divine Being who pervades all; and when we consider this Divine Being more closely, this God of the philosophers, we find that it is approximately the God called in the Hebrew, or rather, the Christian religion ‘God the Father’. Thus far do the philosophers go; they observe Nature and are profound enough not to deny everything divine in an empty-headed, materialistic way; they can arrive at divinity, but it is God the Father.
One can demonstrate most exactly, after studying these philosophers, that mere philosophy, as thinking philosophy, can lead nowhere but to a monotheistic Father-God.
[Christ cannot be found by any method of thought]
If in the case of individual philosophers, such as Hegel and others, Christ is mentioned; it does not spring from philosophy — this can be proved — it comes from positive religion. These people have known that positive religion possesses the Christ and therefore they can speak of Him. The difference is, that the Father-God can be found through philosophy, but Christ cannot be found by any philosophy, by any method of thought. That is quite impossible.
That is a statement which I suggest you should weigh well and consider; if rightly understood it leads us far into the most important probings and strivings of the human soul.
It is connected with something which is expressed in the Christian religion in a very beautiful, symbolic and pictorial manner; namely, that the relation of this other God, Christ, to the Father-God is understood as the relation of the Son to the Father.
That is a very significant fact, although it is only a symbol. It is interesting to notice that Lotze, for example, cannot make anything out of it. ‘One cannot take this symbol literally, that is obvious,’ says Lotze. He means that one God cannot be the son of another.
But there is something very striking in this symbol. Between father and son the relationship is something like that between cause and effect; for in a certain way one may see the father is the cause of the son. The son would not exist if the father were not there — like cause and effect.
But we must take into account one peculiar thing, namely, that a man who eventually may have a son, may also have the possibility of not having a son, he may be childless. He would still be the same man. The cause is the man A, the effect is the man B, the son; but the effect need not come about, the effect is a free act, and follows as a free act from the cause. For this reason, when we study a cause considering it in connection with its effect, we must not merely inquire into the nature of the cause, for by this we have done nothing at all; but we must inquire whether the cause also really causes; that is the important question.
Now a characteristic of all philosophy is that it follows a line of thought, it develops one thought out of another; it seeks for what follows in that which has gone before. Philosophers are justified in doing this; but in this way we never arrive at the connection which comes about when we call to mind the fact that the cause need not cause at all. The cause remains the same in its own nature whether it causes or not. That changes nothing in the nature of the cause.
And this important fact is presented to us in the symbol of God the Father and God the Son: this important fact, that

the Christ is added to the Father-God, as a free creation, as a creation which does not follow in due course, but which emerges as a free act alongside the previous creation and which also had the possibility not to be;

the Christ is therefore not given to the world because the Father had to give the Son to the world, but the Son is given to the world as a free act, through grace, through freedom, through love, which when it creates, gives freely.

For this reason we can never arrive at 'God the Son', the Christ, through the same kind of truth by which the philosophers arrive at God the Father.
In order to arrive at Christ it is necessary to add the truth of faith to the philosophical truth, or — as the age of faith is declining more and more — to add the other truth which is obtained through clairvoyant investigation, which likewise only develops in the human soul as a free act.
Thus from the ordered processes of nature it may be demonstrated that there is a God; but it can never be proved by external means from the chain of causes and effects that there is a Christ.
Christ exists and can pass by human souls if they do not feel in themselves the power to say: That is Christ!
An active up-rousing of the impulse for truth is required in order to recognise Christ in that which was there as Christ.
[Recap summary of this point]

We can arrive at the other truths which lie in the realm of the Father-God, if we merely devote ourselves to thought and follow it consecutively; for to be a materialist means at the same time to be illogical. Religious philosophy according to Lotze, and religious philosophy in general, has its origin in the fact that through thought we can rise to this divinity of religious philosophy.

But never can we be led to recognise Christ merely through philosophy; this must be our own free act. In this case only two things are possible;
(1) we either follow faith to its ultimate conclusions,

or (2) we make a beginning with the investigation of the spiritual world, spiritual science.

.
(1) We follow faith to its ultimate conclusion when we say with the Russian philosopher Solovioff:
‘With regard to all the philosophical truths Man gains about the world, to which his logic forces him, he does not stand related as to a free truth. The higher truth is that to which we are not forced, which is our free act, the highest truth won by faith.’
Solovioff reaches his highest point when he says:
‘The higher truth, that which recognises Christ, is the truth which works as a free act, which is not forced.’
(2) To the spiritual investigator and to those who understand spiritual science, knowledge comes; but this is an active knowledge which rises from thought to meditation, inspiration and intuition, which becomes inwardly creative, which, when creative, participates in spiritual worlds and thereby becomes similar to what we have to develop when we enter into the spiritual world, whether we do so through initiation or through death. The wisdom which we acquire with such difficulty on Earth, surrounds us in all its fullness and wealth in the spiritual world — just as nature surrounds us here on the physical plane.
The important thing in the spiritual world is that we should have the impulse, the power, to make something out of this wisdom, to produce from it reality. To create freely through wisdom, to bring about something spiritual as fact, must become a living impulse in us. This impulse can only be ours if we find the right relationship to Christ.
Christ is not a Being who can be proved by external brain-bound logic, but who proves Himself, who realises Himself in us as we acquire spiritual knowledge. Just as spiritual science joins up with other science as a free act, so knowledge about Christ is added to us as soon as we approach the world into which we enter through spiritual investigation, or through death.
If in our present age we seek to enter the spiritual world aright, that is to say, if we wish to die to the physical world, our attitude to the world must be that attitude which is only gained when we relate ourselves to Christ in the right way.

Through the observation of nature we can attain to a God who is like ‘God the Father’ of the Christian religion, Him we find through the observation of what is around us when we live in the physical body;

but to understand Christ aright, apart from tradition and revelation, from pure knowledge alone, is only possible through spiritual science. It leads into the realm which Man enters by dying —
whether it be that dying which is a symbolical dying, the going forth from the physical body in order to know oneself in the soul outside the body,

or the other dying, the passing through the portal of death.

We provide ourselves with the right impulses to pass through the portal of death, when we find the true relationship to Christ. The moment when death takes place, whether it comes about through Spiritual Science or whether we actually go through the portal of death, the moment it comes to dying, to leaving the physical body, the important thing in the present cycle of time is that we should confront in the right way the Being Who has come into the world, in order that we may find connection with Him. God the Father we can find during life; we find the Christ when we understand the entering into the Spirit, when we understand dying in the right way.
IN CHRISTO MORIMUR
We die in Christ.

The end of this quote and lecture leads into the other module: Christ Module 15 - Study of Spiritual Science and the Mystery of Golgotha

1921-06-30-GA204

In the lecture 1921-06-30-GA204 the person of Scotus Erigena is presented as an example of the change in consciousness and thinking in the 4^th century. It is illustrated by an explanation of what is in the Gospel of St John, starting from the fact that everything in the cosmos and earth's kingdoms was seen to be as the creation of God, the Father principle.

Among the things that were no longer understood, for example, is the beginning of the Gospel of St. John in the form generally known. If we take this beginning of the Gospel of John seriously, it actually states something that is no longer present in subsequent centuries in the general consciousness of those who profess Christianity. Consider that this Gospel starts with the words: “In the beginning was the Word” and then it saysfurther that through the Logos all things were made, that is, everything came into being that belongs among created things, and nothing was created except through the Logos.

If we take these words seriously, we have to admit: They signify that all visible things, all the things of the world, came into being through the Logos and that the Logos is therefore the actual creator of all things. In the Christian thinking after the fourth century A.D. the Logos,rightly identified with Christ in the sense of the Gospel of John, was certainly not regarded as the creator of all visible things. Instead, Christ is contrasted with the Creator as the Father, as God the Father. The Logos is designated as the Son, but the Son is not considered the Creator; it is the Father Who is made into the Creator. This doctrine has persisted through the centuries and completely contradicts the Gospel of St. John. You cannot take this Gospel seriously and not regard Christ as the Creator of all things visible, and instead view the Father God as the Creator. You can see, my dear friends, how little this Gospel was taken seriously in later Christian times.

and later in the lecture this is explained:

And the Gospel of St. John, a mighty, significant monument was written in order to indicate:

No, it is not as the people of old believed; the Earth was not created by the Father God. The Father God made the Son come forth from Him; and the Son is the creator of the earth.
This is what the Gospel of John was supposed to state.

And again he concludes the lecture with:

I wanted to point out that the ways to properly grasp the buried primordial wisdom have yet to be sought. Nowadays people pay no attention to the fact that the Gospel of St. John clearly states that the Logos is the creative principle, not the Father God.
Now, what is implied by saying that the Logos is the creator of everything?
[continued on Blood is a special fluid]

1921-09-30-GA343A

see longer extract: Lord's Prayer#1921-09-30-GA343A

the below is just the relevant few sentences in internet translation

It might seem strange that I say that the words "Hallowed be thy name" arouse in us the name of Christ.
But therein, my dear friends, lies the whole mystery of Christ. This Christ mystery will not be properly seen until the beginning of the Gospel of John is properly understood.
At the beginning of the Gospel of John you read the words "Everything came into being through the Word, and there is nothing in that which came into being that did not come into being through the Word".
By ascribing the creation of the world to the Father God, one infringes the Gospel of John. One only holds fast to the Gospel of John if one is certain that what came into being, what one has as a world around oneself, came into being through the Word, that is, in the Christian sense through Christ, through the Son, that the Father is what is essentially fundamental, what is subsisting, and that the Father has no name, but that his name is what lives in Christ.
The whole mystery of Christ lies in this "Hallowed be thy name," for the name of the Father is given in Christ.

original German

Aber darin, meine lieben Freunde, liegt ja das ganze Christus-Geheimnis. Dieses Christus-Geheimnis wird solange nicht richtig gesehen werden, solange der Anfang des Johannes-Evangeliums nicht richtig verstanden wird. Am Anfang des Johannes-Evangeliums lesen Sie die Worte «Alles ist durch das Wort entstanden, und nichts gibt es in dem Entstandenen, was nicht durch das Wort entstanden wäre».
Indem man dem Vater-Gott zuschreibt die Weltenschöpfung, vergeht man sich ja gegen das Johannes-Evangelium. An dem Johannes-Evangelium hält man nur fest, wenn man die Sicherheit darüber hat, daß dasjenige, was entstanden ist, dasjenige, was man als Welt um sich hat, durch das Wort entstanden ist, also im christlichen Sinne durch den Christus, durch den Sohn, daß der Vater das substantiell Zugrundeliegende, das Subsistierende ist, und daß der Vater keinen Namen hat, sondern daß sein Name eben dasjenige ist, was in dem Christus lebt.
Es liegt das ganze Christus-Geheimnis in diesem «Dein Name werde geheiliget», denn der Name des Vaters ist in dem Christus gegeben.
Wir werden darüber noch genug zu sprechen haben bei anderen Gelegenheiten, aber ich wollte heute vor allem darauf hinweisen, wie im Gebet ein reales inneres Wechselgespräch mit dem Göttlichen schon durch den Inhalt des Gebetes da sein muß.

1922-04-24-GA211

They were deeply initiated, the earliest Christian initiates; and they knew that the Christ, Whom we think of today as the Being Who passed through the Mystery of Golgotha at the beginning of our era, — they knew that the Christ, Who came hither from the Sun, had also descended to the Sun from yet more distant heights.
It was in the Sun that Zarathustra beheld Him.
Then His power went over into the rays of the Sun. The initiates of Egypt beheld Him in the rays of the Sun.
And then His power lived in the environment of the Earth. It was there that the initiates of Greece beheld Him.
And now in this present time — so said the earliest Christian initiates — it is given to man to behold Christ as One Who walked on Earth in an earthly body, and Who is seen by us in His true form when we behold Him as the Risen One — the Christ Who is in the Earth, and has seen the Mystery of the Earth and can now bring it about that this Mystery shall gradually flow into the evolution of mankind.

1924-06-12-GA239

The principle that is working in us when we attain our freedom, when we release ourselves altogether from the sway of nature, this principle is the Son Being, the Christ — the Second Form of the Godhead. But it is the Power of the Holy Spirit that quickens within us the recognition that we live not in the body alone but having been associated with the body through its phases of development, we awaken, we are awakened as beings of Spirit. Man in the fullness of his being can be understood only through the Trinity; it is there that we perceive the concrete reality.

1924-GA026-LT137-139

The Divine had to enter inwardly as Being, even in the earthly life, into the Organisation of the Intellectual or Mind-Soul which, during earthly existence, has its life from what is earthly. This took place through the Divine-Spiritual Logos, Christ, uniting His cosmic destiny with the Earth for the sake of mankind.
...
Over against this event — which is also a cosmic event occurring on the Earth — we have for Humanity the descent of the Logos. Persephone descends to bring Nature into its original direction. In this case there must be rhythm at the foundation; for the events in Nature take place rhythmically. The Logos descends into humanity. This occurs once during human evolution. For the evolution of humanity is but one part in a gigantic cosmic rhythm, in which, before the stage of man's existence, humanity was something altogether different, and in which, after this stage is passed, it will be something altogether different again; whereas the plant life repeats itself as such in shorter rhythms.
...
The world of Man must be so recognised that in Christ it reveals the original and eternal Logos who works for the unfolding of the Spirit-being of man in the sphere of the Divine Spiritual Being bound up with man from the Beginning.
...
LT 139: In the quick rhythmic repetition of the seasons of the year, the Divine-Spiritual Being which descended into the depths of Earth to permeate Nature's process with the Spirit, accomplishes this process. It is the ensouling of Nature with the Forces of the Beginning and of Eternity which must remain at work; even as Christ's descent is the ensouling of Mankind with the Logos of the Beginning and of Eternity, whose working for the salvation of mankind shall never cease.

Friedrich Rittelmeyer

reports a conversation with Rudolf Steiner about the difference between the Christ and the Logos.

Rudolf Steiner confirmed that Christ was the highest being in the hierarchy of the Sun, but that one needed to differentiate this being from the second divine person or Logos. The Logos stands 'above' or 'behind' this highest of the Sun hierarchy or Sun God called Christ. Behind each of the three groups of the Spiritual Hierarchies stands a person of the Godhead.
When Christ spoke of the Father it was always with extraordinary respect or awe, but this was not versus Jehovah - even though this was how Jewish people maybe understood it. Christ would have identified himself with Jehovah.

Discussion

Note 1 - Rittelmeyer quote

Friedrich Rittelmeyer reports a conversation with Rudolf Steiner about the difference between the Christ and the Logos.

Rudolf Steiner confirmed that Christ was the highest being in the hierarchy of the Sun, but that one needed to differentiate this being from the second divine person or Logos.
The Logos stands 'above' or 'behind' this highest of the Sun hierarchy or Sun God called Christ.
Behind each of the three groups of the Spiritual Hierarchies stands a person of the Godhead.
When Christ spoke of the Father it was always with extraordinary respect or awe, but this was not versus Jehovah - even though this was how Jewish people maybe understood it. Christ would have identified himself with Jehovah.

Note 2 - Christ as Lion and Sun Cherub

Why do we sometimes find references to Christ as the Lion, or as the Sun Cherub?

On Old Sun, the spiritual hierarchy going through the human stage of waking consciousness were the archangels. The highest hierarchy meeting the archangels in their support of their development were the Cherubim (see 1909-04-13-B-GA110, and Schema FMC00.077A).

The most advanced leader of these archangels got an initiation by the 'world initiators'. One could put forth the hypothesis that the Son Logos used this level of the Cherubim for the initiation of Christ the Sun God on Old Sun.

Sources

For the description in the Book of Ezekiel as Winged Lion, see the further commentary after 1905-10-25-GA093A (also given below) on Luciferic beings and their influences

Schiller's 'An die Freude' (1785)

contains the line:

And the cherub stands before God.

1904-07-02-GA089

, when describing the seven creative spirits before the throne:

Let us think of this spread among seven planets. In truth, all seven are present, but one of them always has the power (the others hold lesser offices). If we take the fourth orb, it is ours. The device for us is therefore: The Father principle veils itself in the Word and reveals itself to the Spirit. And that is Christianity. With this Cherub we have the key word and hence also the meaning of Christianity.

1905-10-25-GA093A

maps to the Bull-Lion-Eagle in Ezekiel's description

Quite alone, it would be impossible for Lucifer to lead upwards what is on the Earth. For this, not only is the power of a Moon Adept necessary, but of a Sun Adept, who embraces the universality of human life, not manifesting only in science and art. Lucifer is represented as the Winged Form of the Dragon; Ezekiel describes him as the Winged Bull.
.
Now there came a Sun Hero, similar to those who appeared in the Hyperborean Epoch, represented by Ezekiel as the Winged Lion. This Hero, Who gave the second impulse, is the Christ, the Lion out of the tribe of Judah. The representative of the Eagle will come only later; he represents the Father Principle. Christ is a Solar Hero, a Lion-Nature, a Sun Pitri.

1906-10-04-GA091

has the correspondence between Christ and the Lion

Lion = budhi-force corresponds to Christ. The Lion is this Cherub. .. .. the Cherubim with the Lion-head.

1910-09-10-GA123

.. it is our duty to speak of this fact, just as the great Essene teacher, Jesus ben Pandira, spoke prophetically of the Christ as ‘the Lion Who was to come forth from the line of David,’ thus referring to the Sun-Force that was to stream from the constellation of Leo.

Note on the side: 1909-04-17-GA110 describes the development of the physical bodily germ on Old Saturn

Each member of the human body was given a distinct name in ancient speech. The heart was called the Lion within the body. Primeval wisdom said: to which direction of the Zodiac must one point, if one wishes to indicate the region out of which were laid the first foundations of the human heart? They pointed upwards, and named the Thrones, Cherubim and Seraphim who acted from the region of Leo (Lion). Man received the first outline of his physical body projected from out [of] universal space, and the region of his body, which he was accustomed to call inwardly, Leo, was also called the region of Leo out in the Zodiac Thus are these things connected. Thus also have all the other foundations or germs of the human organs been formed by the Animal Circle or Zodiac. The heart was formed by Leo the Lion.

Note 3 - The beginning of creation

[3a] The beginning of the John's Gospel is key to an understanding of the Word, the Logos, and Christ.

Rudolf Steiner describes this from various perspectives:

1907-11-16-GA100 describes the Earth stage, and the fact the Archai were at creative level CoC=7
1908-05-19-GA103 maps the first lines of John's Gospel to the planetary stages: Old Saturn, Old Sun, Old Moon, then Earth
1908-05-20-GA103 continues on this to state in summary: "The Logos was already a creating power even in the Old Saturn stage; it then became Life while our Earth was passing through its existence as the Old Sun, and it became Light while the Earth was passing through the Old Moon stage". Then goes on to describe the seven SoF (at CoC=8) of which six went with the separation of the sun, and one (Jehovah) to the moon.
1909-06-25-GA112 states that John refers to the beginning of Genesis and the same divine being that is described there. The beginning of Genesis is the moment of the separation of the Sun during the Earth stage of evolution. (1910-08-17-GA122)
1909-06-26-GA112 maps the divine powers Logos, Life and Light to what worked and appeared on Old Saturn, Old Sun, Old Moon.
1921-06-30-GA204 states that the Earth and all visible things (see underlined sections in extract above) were created by the Son or Logos and not by the Father.
1921-09-30-GA343A is keyt

The lecture extracts above seem to support two options:

Option A is that the Son Logos is creator of Earth and all visible things. This in the meaning of the Earth evolutionary stage, so not the planet Earth but the solar system and all we know and perceive as the current cosmos.
Option B is that is inferred that the Son Logos is creator since the start of the solar system evolution from the start of Old Saturn.

[3b] The above can now be connected to the creation by the three logoi, see the following two notes in the Discussion areas:

Three dimensions of evolution#.5B1.5D The three logoi and the three dimensions of evolution: the 1904-10-25-GA089 quote

Creation by the three Logoi#.5B1.5D - Schemas FMC00.067 and FMC00.010A

[3c] Furthermore see also: Cosmic breath of Brahma, specifically Schema FMC00.400

Note 4 - Christ shining through the gate of the Spirit of Wisdom

See the extracts of 1912-04-13-GA136 and 1912-04-14-GA136 on Christ's descent to Earth, where is described (a) how what we call Christ shone down through the Sun-SoW as a portal, and (b) how the Sun represents the SoW as a portal. Note this takes place in a context of the current Postatlantean epoch on Earth.

The essence of what is stated in 1912-04-13-GA136 is:

[the being] we .. designate by the word Christ, is that which has shone down through the portal of the Sun-spirit of Wisdom.

See Schema FMC00.077A:

The 'level' 10 CoC-10 on Earth corresponds to the hierarchy of the Spirits of Wisdom. One could say that the second Logos quite naturally started his descent to Earth, as CoC-10 represents the emanating level of the Third Logos or Holy Spirit.

Note 5 - Christ, the cosmic I, and relation to the spiritual hierarchies

Over a period of 20 years, Rudolf Steiner made various explicit statements with regards to Christ and Cherubim, SoW, SoF, and archangels. See section 9C above. However these separate fragments were not integrated into one comprehensive story regarding the structure of the Christ, so they remain separate unconnected statements.

The question of the relationship of Christ to the spiritual hierarchies was always answered by Rudolf Steiner pointing to the Trinity (see more on this page), eg see the GA046 volume: Christ Module 9: Trinity and Logoi#GA244 coverage - Q.26A about the nature of the Christ being and the hierarchies

However in this GA046 volume published in 2020, the following notebook entry appeared, see:

Christ Module 12 - the cosmic 'I'#1922-NB212-GA046

This is relevant when considering the Christ in the context of the macroscopic I for humanity.

Specifically consider the summary sentence below.

The I is totally withdrawn from the earthly, as it is fully part of and included within the spiritual world order:
I <- archangel <- SoF <- Cherubim

It is likely that RS potentially wanted to explain this in a lecture at some stage by means of the highly concise indications in the full note. The note sketches how the I is really a new cosmic principle (and how it is) linked to (specific) hierarchies, and is not to be regarded as something Earthly at all. Certain hierarchies listed indeed play a key role in the relationships required to establish the I principle in the 'context' of humanity (as seed and carrier), as the start of a new center, as covered in Christ Module 7, see described for example by the quote: Christ Module 7 - Cosmic dimension#1906-09-13-GA091

The human I is the key to the center of this world. It is the spark or flame that connects Man with this central fore of the world. ... and when the whole of humanity has become an expression of the Christ, then that will represent the transition to a new step in world development. Then all powers that were in the world have been put out and used, and now these life forces can be involved in something new in the center of the world and a plan for a new cosmos. This new cosmos will stream out of this center in a new evolutionary stage ..

As further positioning for the above, note that Christ was not directly involved in the first divine impulse by Jehovah (see Schema FMC00.185 on Earth's Seven Epochs) as per quote: Christ's descent to Earth#1914-03-05-GA152

However the 'cosmic I' principle (see also Christ Module 12) is explicitly linked by this notebook entry (and to my knowledge this is the only record available), to the levels of archangel, SoF (pleroma, the fullness of the other six Elohim), and Cherubim.

So a working hypothesis is that Rudolf Steiner did further research after earlier statements in the 1913-14 period (eg those on the three pre-MoG interventions of Christ, whereby he states that all three took place through ensouling an archangel and none through an angel), and this notebook entry of 1922 is a reflection of this.

Note: as study for this notebook entry and background regarding the I and the hierarchies (ao how the true human 'I' connects to the first hierarchy), see the lecture (in full) referenced here Human 'I'#1923-04-22-GA084

Note 6 - A lot to do about God

Introduction

A huge number of books, and these days - youtube movies with opinions and lectures - abound on 'do you believe in God', 'does God exist', etc.

It is quite popular to ask well-known figures, or discuss their statements and opinions, whether Einstein, Carl Sagan, ..

Then there are also people on the barricades, some extremists .. the atheists, creatonists, .. some feel they have a mission: fundamentalist religious, for example, or fundamentalist scientists.

However the 'discourse' is usually quite poor in terms of the contents and depth offered. This does not mean people don't have (very) strong opinions, the question demands respects and one can often feel how people are/become emotional, some can struggle, others become offended in debates that do stir people's soul.

Commentary

1/ God is a word and a human thought

God is a word, it is a label in human language that we use as a pointer to meaning. But that meaning is implicit and ill-defined.

The word God is thé illustration of a pyramidion-term or concept. It only becomes what it is, due to its position on top of a supporting pyramid. However, mostly that is not how discussions on God are approached, quite on the contrary: the pyramid of the worldview and belief system with assumptions is ignored.

It is human thought that came up with the concept of God, and so the riddle is what was the experience and meaning that it was used for, and how can we relate to it. With what meaning do we fill it, for ourselves?

So definitely "Mankind created this thought and word/label/name of God" in the course of history, but unfortunaley today that thought and word exists as an abstraction. It leads to some people putting forth it does not point to any reality at all, the argument that 'Man created God' for reasons of necessity, comfort, convenience, religious powers, whatever. So quite the opposite of the belief that 'God creating everything including Man'.-

The above being said, one needs to add that it is not impossible to construct the pyramid of thought and experience to fill the concept and word with meaning. Spiritual science and this site does so, and in a later section below we show a pathway of building blocks. That's for the study part, in thought upto imagination. However initiation can take Man much further than that in the realm of the experiential, as described in God experience

2/ Popular discussions on God

In contemporary culture, with a materialistic worldview based on mineral science, the subject of God is of course a very difficult, if not impossible to tackle. Because just as proud science is of its technological achievements and mastery in the physical material world (and rightly so), so much blind, handicapped and helpless it is to talk about something which is the utmost spiritual, which it ignores and knows nothing about.

Nevertheless, if you are reading this, you are here on this site for a reason, which can only be very personal. So what I'm suggesting is that it's a useful and interesting experience to learn about how God is approached in today's world. Because you will be confronted with thought leaders being asked, expression their opinions, and so on. And it can be an interesting exercise (and an entertaining one, for that matter) to 'see where they are' as human beings and be compassionate in understanding, rather than ignoring, discarding or combating the argument.

Below will follows a few 'trains of thought', or 'angles of approach' to the theme of discussing God. Often discussions can be reduced to some of these. Three cases put forth below (for the concepts of cosmogony, teleology etc, see the topic pages of worldview and meaning of life):

cosmogony: the quest for creation of cosmos?
teleology: the quest for purpose, meaning? the moral dimension, how come man cares and matter does not seem to care
eschatology: death and the destiny of the soul, and destiny of humankind as a whole?

Naughty God - the problem of evil

A very popular argument by atheists and scientists, which is often expressed in a self-confident to haughty way, is the following.

Given God is total goodness, total wisdom and total power (see Schema FMC00.410), they reason, is not compatible with all the terrible suffering and evil there is in the world. Usually an emotional picture is sketches with diseases, disasters, the most terrible of human suffering and dispair, child death, wars, and so on. A God which has total power and wisdom and who's good is not compatible with this. Hence, I cannot believe in such God, hence God cannot exist.

However now scrutinize the thinking process and the use of logical contraposition: p -> q => not q -> not p. It is not because God is total goodness, in its essential nature, that therefore everywhere should be only absolute goodness. That is a nearly ridiculous statement, given how relative 'good' is (what is good for the one is not for the other etc). So the reasoning is just not correct.

And for some reason, extremely bright and intelligent people have forgotten to frame this, and forgot there was also something as 'the Fall'. See more on Fall and redemption - original sin and grace.

The Mystery of Evil is a very difficult and deep one. Schema FMC00.427A is offered as a meta-view, with the appreciation that this view cascades down in so many related topics that it is quite demanding to not only comprehend it all, but more importantly to hold it all together in an integrative way in one's contemplation.

3/ What do I have to imagine?

This section surveys and comments on a few well known images used when discussing God. Such as:

old man with a beard
nature (Spinoza), stars Kant, cosmos - no emanation
myths - 'gods' (<-> spir entities)

God, the old man with a grey beard

How fun is it to ridicule God as an old man with a grey beard. But is depicting concepts as Man, as a human being, not part of art and culture in the middle ages? In the end so many paintings depicted angels with wings, and cherubim as little baby heads with wings. What else would you propose the painter depicts if he wants to depict a religious team with spiritual beings? Are we doing better today with computer generated graphics that can produce anything that one would want, but that would not have any meaning that could be deciphered?

Well today we do have some imagery which can illustrate properties, such as movies of Mandelbrot series that one follows as they seem to dive into infinity. Other illustrations are for example rendered spirals that turn inside out. But all these things are surely not linked to the spiritual of divine.

the God of nature (Spinoza)

the Gods of the myths

3/ Believing in God and spiritual science

Question

God is a concept in all religions of the world, that maintain different versions of the concept.

The question can arise whether people who adhere spiritual scientific frameworks such as anthroposophy or theosophy (have to) 'believe in God'.

Commentary

Anthroposophy is about knowledge and/from inner experience, and not belief, as opposed to dogmatic or dead 'belief' or '(dead) knowledge from (purely) intellectual study". Anthroposophy is a path of inner development based on reedom, enquiry and experience, not faith or dogma.

(Note it may sometimes give that impression based on how certain people talk and live their version of it).

Rudolf Steiner mostly avoided 'God talk' a.o. because the realities he described from clairvoyant research of the akashic records are (radically) different to mainstream religious / Christian teachings.

the ideas about God familiar from the dominant (monotheistic) religions are different from how Rudolf Steiner described the spiritual world. The words god and gods are and have been used very differently throughout the different cultural ages and cultures of the world, as related to the state of consciousness of the time. For examples the gods in the Two streams of development, in Greece and Rome (Apollo, Jupiter, .. ), or in the North (Thor, Wotan-Odin, ..), or in India.
within Christianity also, the esoteric understanding of the nature of the being of Christ-Jesus is different in ancient gnostic teachings, and the current three streams of Christianity (roman Catholic, protestant, orthodox Christianity). This is also a result of the state of consciousness of the last two millenia, and how humanity, through theology and the established churches, tried to develop views of understanding the Gospels and story of Christianity (eg see First Council of Nicaea in 325, 869#Eighth Council of 869, ..). So established religions and churches are Man-made spiritual masters of the White Lodge that were always pointing to the very same universal truths, but with different languages and metaphors fitted to the culture and consciousness of the time, see Spiritual guidance of mankind.

.

What Rudolf Steiner, but also the apostle John (Individuality of Christian Rosenkreutz), Buddha and Master Jesus have been describing about the creation and development of humanity stands at a level beyond humanity's current waking consciousness, hence these spiritual truths about universal cosmic principles go beyond our current earthly (mineral) thinking or historical interpretation withing a limited horizon.

For this reason, it is said that one cannot have anthroposophy without the Christ of the Mystery of Golgotha, or the way around, see the Inspirational quotes on the topic page Christ Module 15 - Study of Spiritual Science and the Mystery of Golgotha. The Mystery of Golgotha, the nature of the Christ being, the resurrection .. are essential or foundational viewpoints, irrespective of exoteric religion or churches established by humans based on some set of man-made viewpoints fitted to certain culture and timeframe (and corresponding language and state of consciousness).

Furthermore, beyond the concept of God, the more essential distinction is whether the worldview one adheres to includes a moral dimension. A worldview is not only a set of ideas, information, knowledge .. it is also a moral guiding framework (like a compass or gyroscope), see oa moral ideals and love (and selflessness, including the meaning of suffering and sacrifice).

Nevertheless:

faith is a very important virtue (with a moral element), to be distinguished from mere belief (in this or that information)
one cannot adhere to a worldview spiritual science and not include the divine
people may have high morality and a purified heart without consciously adhering a spiritual scientific thought framework, that is some people excel at selflessness, piety and the good (feeling) without necessarily bothering about the intellectual dimension or worldview (thinking). This is independant and irrrespective of culture and religion.
- as illustration, also Rudolf Steiner recognized people who were 'anthroposophical' maybe more so than students who had been working with him for years, or who were beyond and didn't need anthroposophy any more because they already incorportated this (examples to be added and confirmed, eg Rilke)

Established religions date from times before the current intellectual and consciousness soul, where the majority of humanity had not yet developed the capabilities to develop knowledge and insight about the spiritual realities (just as real as the world we see with our physical eyes and touch with our physical hands). That is why in these religions the word god usually refers to moral ideals and an unknown spiritual world that one believes in. For soul and spirit to be just as real as the sense world requires a certain level of development and conscious experiential activity of the human soul, to develop organs of perception and be able to relate personal experiences to a conceptual body of knowledge.

Hence the question of 'do I believe or not' becomes reframed into one which is much deeper, and includes 'knowing' and 'feeling'. In spiritual science the word 'God' has a different coverage and contents which conceptually goes far beyond our current human life on Earth .. it is so to speak far 'above our heads' .. as the source of creation, the alpha and omega, logoic principle, .. are above the higher spirit world and the frame of our current planetary stage of evolution Earth.

Notes

1 - atheism and belief

Rudolf Steiner did speak about atheism as a disease of the soul, as the human being is a spiritual being and hence the normal balanced development includes the pathway of the spiritual consciousness soul towards spirit-self (manas) and life-spirit (budhi). Atheism and the hard denial of any spiritual reality by fundamentalistic or dogmatic materialists is a reflection of a segment of the total population of humanity,but this does not mean that every individual who claims to not believe in God or Christ-Jesus is a reflection of the atheistic phenomenon, as it is the state of soul and

2 - importance of the historical existence of Jesus

independent historical record keeping

on Earth, in his death and his resurrection - no, you cannot be an Anthroposophist, because that is one the main teachings of Anthroposophy.

The expectation that Jesus should appear in Roman or Jewish administrative records is not entirely realistic, as he was likely considered a relatively insignificant person during his lifetime from a Roman perspective. However, the existence of Jesus is well documented through extra-biblical sources, even though these sources do not offer detailed information about his life.

There are extra-biblical mentions of Jesus that confirm his existence. The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus mentioned Jesus in his works Antiquitates Judaicae (Jewish Antiquities). The Roman historian Tacitus also mentioned Jesus in his work Annals, where he wrote about the persecution of Christians under Nero. These mentions confirm that Jesus was a historical figure, but they do not provide detailed biographical information.

the story of Christ is a retelling of a retelling of a retelling of a retelling of older stories that predates Jesus by thousands and thousands of years.

To imagine that the last telling of an ancient story is thee only true telling is supremely egoic.

Jesus is not found in any (and the Jews and Romans were both obsessive about recording lineages and crimes).

It is far more likely Jesus is symbolic of the zodiac age of pisces, and the 2 fish…and is referring to the Age of Pisces that was thought to last for around 2,000 years.

However, predating the story of Jesus, there’s at least 12 stories of virgin births, 12 followers, father Joseph/Moses…sooth sayer who tells truths and promises to come again….

Winter Solstice…the sun moves in one direction and then stays still for 3 days, before moving back in the other direction….the sun dies under the southern cross (constellation), stays dead for 3 days, and rises again….this is a clear and repeated story of the end of a solar year and the rise of a new solar year.

By Steiner eluding to the fact that the story of Jesus transcends the biblical story into something more universal, thus predating the biblical story…one could conclude the belief in the story OVER the understanding of the universal force the metaphor of Jesus represents….is what misleads people who have not attained as Castaneda called it, sufficient personal power to grok it.

4/ Towards the experience of Unity - God in Initiation

In Bardon IIH, once one has attained the spiritual faculties represented by Step 8, one can aim for Step 10 or Unity, or the God experience. One uses one's faculty of imagination and a choosen personal version or image of the divine Godhead, that condenses the properties of (water) love and eternal life (fire) almightiness and omnipotence (air) wisdom, purity, clarity (earth) omnipresence, eternity, immortaility (see Schema FMC00.410). If one's spirit is a laser beam instead of a diffused light (as our consciousness usually is)

Because it's experiential, and the typical reader is so far apart from imagining the faculties of one that has attained II step 8 to 10, there is no way or sense to trying to describe further.

However for those who want to make the mapping to spiritual scientific concepts with their intellect, to conclude we could relate to a few pictures and concepts on the site, eg the right on Schema FMC00.416A as related to Schema FMC00.128, and FMC00.479. Or, as related to Schema FMC00.532 and Schema FMC00.474 on Cosmic Fractal and considering Schema FMC00.141 on Golden Chain. We are reaching 'upwards' beyond the higher spirit world to our nature of spirit-man Monad. Some quotes of those who have been there and have tried to describe the experience, such as Shelly Trimmer or Rawn Clark, are on that page God experience.

Draft scribbles

qualities
- omnipower, omnigood
- gives meaning, purpose to 'life'
- 'created everything'
- eternity, infinity, ..
recurrent elements in the discussion
- free will, true but
- proof, evidence .. typically asked by scientists, some juxtapose it with faith
- voice of conscience

References

1 - Some movies

These short movies are merely meant as entertainment,

a selection:

Sri M: movie A (1')
- if you have studied this site, you may enjoy the directness and clarity of a 40" answer of one who knows
Jordan Peterson: movie A (5') (first minute) - movie B (2') .

scientists
- Carl Sagan: movie A (5') - movie B (2')
- Neil deGrasse: movie A (2')
- Brian Cox: movie A (5')
atheists
- Richard Dawkins: movie A (4')
various
- Krishnamurti: movie A (18') takes a light entertaining approach
- Alan Watts: movie A (13') is just one of various Alan Watts movies on the topic of God
- Carl Jung: movie A (1') with this famous statement he later explained in a letter see eg movie B (4')

Additional reading

André Frossard: 'God exists. I have met Him' (1988 in EN, original in FR 'Dieu existe, je L'ai rencontré' in 1970)

Related pages

References and further reading

Oskar Kürten: Christ (unpublished), english translation of the three German booklets. Contents:
- The Sun Spirit Christ According to Rudolf Steiner (1967)
- God the Son, the Logos and the Trinity (1971)
- Jesus of Nazareth: A Contribution towards Understanding the Jesus Mystery (1973)
- Appendix: The Son of Man and the Cosmic Christ
Anna Kingsford: The perfect way (1888)
- Lecture 2 Part IV - Of the nature of God
- Lecture 9 Part IV