Original sin
Original sin is a consequence of the Luciferic temptation and the associated fall into sin, which happened when the I had not yet moved into the human being and therefore cannot be charged to him as individual guilt. The influence that Lucifer had on the astral body continues to work in the etheric body and thereby enters into the hereditary current, whereby humanity was burdened with original sin. In order for the etheric body not to become completely corrupted, man had to be deprived of the dominion over the higher etheric forces, over the sound ether and the life ether, which is expressed in the Bible by the fact that with the expulsion from Paradise, after eating from the tree of (sensual) knowledge, man was at the same time forbidden to eat from the tree of life.
Through the Fall of Man, death came to humanity and it also brought about the separation of the sexes, which from about the middle of the Atlantean period led to the two sexes finding sensual pleasure in each other, whereby the lustful passionate love was added to the originally purely supersensual love borne by the spiritual world. As a result, people increasingly passed on the effects of what they experienced in the sensual world to their descendants in the form of original sin:
„Original sin is brought about by man's being able to transplant his individual experiences in the physical world to his descendants. Every time the sexes flare up in passions, the ingredients of both sexes are mixed into the human being coming down from the astral world. When a human being incarnates, he comes down from the devachanic world and forms his astral sphere according to the peculiarity of his individuality. This own astral sphere is mixed with something from what is inherent in the astral bodies, the drives, passions and desires of the parents...“ (Lit.:GA 107, p. 131ff)
Original sin, which is a consequence of Lucifer's superhuman deed, cannot be redeemed by man himself, but again only by a superhuman deed, namely by the atoning sacrifice of the Christ connected with the Mystery of Golgotha, which the Christ offered as a voluntary gift of grace for the whole of humanity.
The Fall, as a result of which we were burdened with original sin, was also the indispensable prerequisite for man to acquire freedom on earth and thus also love. For the bearer of love can only be a being that is able to give itself away out of freedom. In this sense, man is the anthropos, literally the one turned against, who opposes or turns away from the gods in order to be able to reconnect with them as a completely independent being out of freedom and love.
Literature
- Rudolf Steiner: Geisteswissenschaftliche Menschenkunde, GA 107 (1988), ISBN 3-7274-1070-1 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
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