Freedom

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Freedom (Latin: libertas; {{Greek|ἐλευθερία]] éleutheria) of man lies, according to Rudolf Steiner, in the fact that he can recognise the laws of his actions and base his decisions on them. The starting point of freedom is therefore not freedom of will, but freedom of thought, which man can attain in pure, sensuality-free thinking through moral intuition - not out of blind instincts, drives or desires, nor in the mere observance of external norms, but knowing out of fully conscious love for what he does. Only in this way can he shape his actions self-determinedly, autonomously, in defiance of all external constraints. If he lacks inner freedom, he cannot make use of outer freedom, no matter how generously it is granted to him.

„Read in my "Philosophy of Freedom" what great importance I have attached to not asking about the freedom of the will. It sits below, deep down in the unconscious, and it is nonsense to ask about the freedom of the will; one can only speak of the freedom of thought. I have kept this apart in my "Philosophy of Freedom". The free thoughts must then impulse the will, then man is free.“ (Lit.:GA 235, p. 46ff)

That this is a distant ideal, rarely achieved, can hardly be doubted. Only rarely does man act truly freely out of fully conscious insight into the true reasons for his actions. Often he is the slave of his own egoisms or at best follows the external rules that he has been brought up with. But in his I lies the power to approach this ideal step by step in the course of a long development and finally to become a true Spirit of Freedom. That this goal is not attainable in a single earthly life, but requires many repeated earthly lives and the healing power of karma, does not seem implausible when viewed in this light.

According to Rudolf Steiner's ideas on social threefolding, a free spiritual life, based on the individual abilities of man, is to develop today as an independent member of the social organism alongside economic and legal life.

„The spiritual member in the threefold social organism comprises science, art, religion, the entire educational system and the judicial administration of justice. All these spiritual-cultural factors can only fulfil their task and fertilise social life in the right way in complete freedom from state intervention. Spiritual life, culture, must develop out of the free co-operation of all spiritual-creative individual personalities and give itself its own administrative bodies.“ (Lit.:GA 24, p. 473)

Literatur
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.
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