Freedom

Page to be developed

The spiritual hierarchies in creation make part of a complex cosmic fractal with cascading interdependencies as the cosmic breath of brahma pushes up and down like the cylinders in an engine, see eg Schema FMC00.274. Each hierarchy is structurally interconnected and channels through the energy of the Logos, thereby giving expression of characteristics at that level. This spiritual reality is such a complex multidimensional process that it is beyond comprension for current human waking consciousness.

Humanity is the first level in creation that has been set free from this pattern. Through a divine intervention on Old Sun (Schema FMC00.019) a Luciferic influence was created in the spiritual hierarchies that cascaded down (see war in heaven, and the origin of evil in the lower planes of creation) to finally cause, in the current planetary stage of evolution, and due to the influence of backward Luciferic beings, the fact that Man was to wrestled free from the guidance of the hierarchies.

This was a gradual process starting in the Lemurian epoch with the Development of the I, as it is the Luciferic influence that triggers freedom in the Human I, as for example depicted in Schema FMC00.472A. This event corresponds to the seduction by the snake in Fall described in the Bible and the Book of Genesis. Though it caused 'side-effects' as human karma, evil in the world, and the start of reincarnation .. this luciferic infection did contribute in a unique way to the divine plan of creation, because all these things are a price to pay for the unique fact of freedom: Man is the first being that has freedom of choice, without being completely guided by higher hierarchies.

The reason and wisdom in this development is that Freedom is required for Love, as Love is about giving rather than receiving, and selflessness rather than selfishness, ultimately the selfless sacrifice of one's self for another. This requires consciousness to be able to choose freely for the one or the other, which is exactly the mission of the planet Earth and the Human 'I'.

This was achieved through a stepwise approach with divine impulses of Jehovah and Christ (see Schema FMC00.185) that combined and countered the Luciferic influences. Schema FMC00.428A below how this relates to Freedom and Love.

A spiritual hierarchy which has Freedom as a pathway to becoming the creative spirits of Love, represents a breakthrough in the evolution of the cosmos, which is why humanity is the 'crown of creation' and the exciting plan of the Gods who are developing mankind into becoming Gods.

Of course the 'price to pay' for this will require a major cleanup still in facing evil, not just in the current Postatlantean epoch but down to future planetary stages of evolution. This is represented in an overview in Schema FMC00.427A. The word for cleanup is redeeming, in a stepwise approach with multiple stations.

Aspects

freedom and love as arising from a balance between and mutual permeation of thought and will (1920-12-19-GA202)
- we attain freedom by irradiating the life of thought with will: pure thinking happens when our thinking attains such maturity that it is entirely irradiated by will; it no longer takes anything in from outside, but its very life is of the nature of will. Our inner life is constantly deepened when we permeate our thinking with will. We bring will into thinking and thereby attain freedom. Freedom dawns when we enable the will to become an ever mightier and mightier force in our thinking.This leads to 'moral imagination'.
- we attain love by permeating the life of will with thoughts: when we developing in ourselves the force of devotion to the outer world. Devotion to the outer world, which pervades our actions with thoughts, is nothing else than love.

Philosophy of Freedom
- considered the most important book by Rudolf Steiner, published in 1894 in German as Die Philosophie der Freiheit, with a second edition published in 1918, and now GA004 in Rudolf Steiner's Gesamtausgabe (GA). The work has appeared under various English titles, including The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity (the title Steiner proposed), The Philosophy of Freedom, and Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path.

Inspirational quotes

Massimo Scaligero (On Immortal Love). Added here in context of the importance of self-initiation.

The spirit will not suffer any obligation nor human design, it is like the wind that no-one knows where it comes from, nor where it goes

1908-06-30-GA104

freedom is inseparably connected with the idea of love.
It would be impossible for Man to develop either love or freedom without the possibility of sailing down into the abyss.
A man unable, of his own free decision, to choose good or evil, would be a being who would only be led on a leading-string to a good which must be attained of necessity and who had no power to choose the good of his own fully purified will, by the love which springs from freedom.

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.428A adds the explanation from Rudolf Steiner's narrative in the sources listed, against the background of Schema FMC00.428.

It shows how "the Christ Impulse triggered a reversal of the influences of the two crossing streams", and gave Man independence in love and allowed for a spiritualization of love, as love without true freedom is not love.

Note: all texts originate from the GA244 sources listed, but were aggregated into a single schema explanation.

Lecture coverage and references

1886-GA002

already covers 'human freedom'

1890-11-30 letter

Also, excerpt from essay by David W. Wood on The Johannine Question

In a letter from Weimar dated 30 November 1890, the 29 year-old Rudolf Steiner quoted to his correspondent Richard Specht the following words by the philosopher J. G. Fichte:
“life is love, and the entire form and force of life consists in love and arises from love.
What I have just said expresses one of the deepest principles of knowledge […].”
This excerpt is from the opening pages of Fichte’s 'The Way to the Blessed Life' (1806).
After citing this passage Steiner then briefly outlined his own philosophical conception of freedom, writing how he drew his inspiration not only from J. G. Fichte, but from J. W. von Goethe as well:

Whoever does not merely understand this [passage in The Way to the Blessed Life] with the dead intellect but is able to grasp it in a living manner, such a person lives a wholly independent life. And only he who is capable of doing this can understand the freedom that I would so dearly like to make into the pivotal and unified point of my entire philosophizing. It is wholly remarkable to me how Fichte and Goethe work their way in from two sides and meet together at the summit in perfection. I believe I understand my epoch very well when I say: the idealism of Fichte and Goethe must bear its final fruit in a kind of freedom philosophy. Because ‘freedom’ is the correlative of that concept for both of them.

1894-GA004 (Philosophy of Freedom)

1908-06-30-GA104

In answer to these questions, we might, to begin with, say something abstract, theoretical, and it already signifies a great deal for one who can grasp this theoretical statement is his feeling:
It is extremely wise that [Divine] Providence has taken care that this terrible fate is possible for a number of men. For if it were impossible for man to sink into the abyss of evil, he would not have been able to attain what on the one hand we call love and on the other freedom; since ... freedom is inseparably connected with the idea of love.
It would be impossible for Man to develop either love or freedom without the possibility of sailing down into the abyss.
A man unable, of his own free decision, to choose good or evil, would be a being who would only be led on a leading-string to a good which must be attained of necessity and who had no power to choose the good of his own fully purified will, by the love which springs from freedom.
If it were impossible for man to follow in the trail of the monster with the two horns, it would also be impossible for him to follow God out of his own individual love. It was in accordance with a wise Providence to give the possibility of freedom to the humanity which has been developing through our planetary system, and this possibility of freedom could be given on no other condition than that man himself has to make the free choice between good and evil.

1916-01-25/27-GA166

on necessity and freedom

1920-12-19-GA202

title: The Path to Freedom and Love and Their Significance in World-Events

Now it is possible to attain complete freedom of our inner life if we increasingly efface and exclude the actual thought content, in so far as this comes from outside, and kindle into greater activity the element of will which streams through our thoughts when we form judgments, draw conclusions and the like. Thereby, however, our thinking becomes what I have called in my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity: pure thinking. We think, but in our thinking there is nothing but will. I have laid particular emphasis on this in the new edition of the book (1918). What is thus within us lies in the sphere of thinking. But pure thinking may equally be called pure will. Thus from the realm of thinking we reach the realm of will, when we become inwardly free; our thinking attains such maturity that it is entirely irradiated by will; it no longer takes anything in from outside, but its very life is of the nature of will.
By progressively strengthening the impulse of will in our thinking we prepare ourselves for what I have called in the Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, "Moral Imagination." Moral Imagination rises to the Moral Intuitions which then pervade and illuminate our will that has now become thought, or our thinking that has now become will. In this way we raise ourselves above the sway of the ‘necessity’ prevailing in the material world, permeate ourselves with the force that is inherently our own, and prepare for Moral Intuition. And everything that can stream into man from the spiritual world has its foundation, primarily, in these Moral Intuitions. Therefore freedom dawns when we enable the will to become an ever mightier and mightier force in our thinking.
Now let us consider the human being from the opposite pole, that of the will. When does the will present itself with particular clarity through what we do?

When we sneeze, let us say, we are also doing something, but we cannot, surely, ascribe to ourselves any definite impulse of will when we sneeze! When we speak, we are doing something in which will is undoubtedly contained. But think how, in speaking, deliberate intent and absence of intent, volition and absence of volition, intermingle. You have to learn to speak, and in such a way that you are no longer obliged to formulate each single word by dint of an effort of will; an element of instinct enters into speech. In ordinary life at least, it is so, and it is emphatically so in the case of those who do not strive for spirituality. Garrulous people, who are always opening their mouths in order to say something or other in which very little thought is contained, give others an opportunity of noticing — they themselves, of course, do not notice — how much there is in speech that is instinctive and involuntary. But the more we go out beyond our organic life and pass over to activity that is liberated, as it were, from organic processes, the more do we carry thoughts into our actions and deeds. Sneezing is still entirely a matter of organic life; speaking is largely connected with organic life; walking really very little; what we do with the hands, also very little.

And so we come by degrees to actions which are more and more emancipated from our organic life. We accompany such actions with our thoughts, although we do not know how the will streams into these thoughts. If we are not somnambulists and do not go about in this condition, our actions will always be accompanied by our thoughts. We carry our thoughts into our actions, and the more our actions evolve towards perfection, the more are our thoughts being carried into them.
Our inner life is constantly deepened when we send will — our own inherent force — into our thinking, when we permeate our thinking with will. We bring will into thinking and thereby attain freedom. As we gradually perfect our actions we finally succeed in sending thoughts into these actions; we irradiate our actions — which proceed from our will — with thoughts. On the one side (inwards) we live a life of thought; we permeate this with the will and thus find freedom. On the other side (outwards) our actions stream forth from our will, and we permeate them with our thoughts. (Diagram IX)
But by what means do our actions evolve to greater perfection? To use an invariably controversial expression ..
How do we achieve greater perfection in our actions?
We achieve this by developing in ourselves the force which can only be designated by the words: devotion to the outer world.
The more our devotion to the outer world grows and intensifies, the more does this outer world stir us to action. But it is just through unfolding devotion to the outer world that we succeed in permeating our actions with thoughts. What, in reality, is devotion to the outer world? Devotion to the outer world, which pervades our actions with thoughts, is nothing else than love.
Just as

we attain freedom by irradiating the life of thought with will, so do

we attain love by permeating the life of will with thoughts.

We unfold love in our actions by letting thoughts radiate into the realm of the will; we develop freedom in our thinking by letting what is of the nature of will radiate into our thoughts. And because, as man, we are a unified whole, when we reach the point where we find freedom in the life of thought and love in the life of will, there will be freedom in our actions and love in our thinking. Each irradiates the other: action filled with thought is wrought in love; thinking that is permeated with will gives rise to actions and deeds that are truly free.
Thus you see how in the human being the two great ideals, freedom and love, grow together. Freedom and love are also that which man, standing in the world, can bring to realization in himself in such a way that, through him, the one unites with the other for the good of the world.
We must now ask: How is the ideal, the highest ideal, to be attained in the will-permeated life of thought?
Now if the life of thought were something that represented material processes, the will could never penetrate fully into the realm of the thoughts and increasingly take root there. The will would at most be able to ray into these material processes as an organizing force. Will can take real effect only if the life of thought is something that has no outer, physical reality. What, then, must it be?
..

1921-10-06-GA343

includes a question on whether humanity could have reached freedom without original sin. (re evo sl 186)

1923-10-24-GA351

[Regular (<-> necessity) and irregular (<-> freedom) influences], and eg link with cyanide/comets

see: Working of substances and their forces#1923-10-24-GA351

1923-10-27-GA351

physiological aspects of substances like iron as connected to free will in Man,

see: Working of substances and their forces#1923-10-27-GA351

Discussion

Related pages

References and further reading

Hans Erhard Lauer: 'Lebensfragen des Zeitalters der Freiheit : Freiheit, Wahrheit, geistige Führung : zwei Vorträge' (1963)
Hermann Poppelbaum: 'Destiny and freedom'
Frederick Hiebel: 'The epistles of Paul and Rudolf Steiners philosophy of freedom' (1980 in EN, original in DE 1946 and 1959 as 'Paulus und die Erkenntnislehre der Freiheit')
Otto Julius Hartmann:
- Der Mensch im Abgrunde seiner Freiheit (1932, 1979)
- Freiheit: wodurch? wovon? wozu? (1977)
Edward Warren: 'Freedom as spiritual activity' (1994)

Philosophy of Freedom resources:

Hans Büchenbacher: 'Die Philosophie der Freiheit und die Gegenwart' (1962)
Otto Palmer: 'Rudolf Steiner on His Book "The Philosophy of Freedom"' (original in DE 1966: 'Rudolf Steiner über seine „Philosophie der Freiheit‟')
Tom Last: Philosophy of freedom study guide (online)
Mark Riccio: A study guide for Rudolf Steiner's heart thinking (2006) (PDF) - based on the work of George O'Neil and Florin Lowndes
related:
- Frank Teichmann: 'Auferstehung im Denken: Der Christusimpuls in der "Philosophie der Freiheit" und in der Bewusstseinsgeschichte' (1996)