Günther Dellbrügger’s book, published in 2024, is a hermeneutic device that manages to touch both the hearts and longings of its readers.
“One of the most shocking statements in spiritual science is that the spiritual world had reached a point in its development where it could not continue to progress any further on its own. . . . The faculties that the spiritual world needs for its further development must now be cultivated in the sensory world, and this must be done by human beings. It may be helpful to imagine that the gods also have a kind of religion—something they look up to and to which they make sacrifices—and that this is the human being.” Günther Dellbrügger wrote these lines in 2001 in a short note while sitting at the Goetheanum. The words will surprise anyone who considers the spiritual world to be a reality, not least because, after acknowledging the truth of such statements, we’re faced with the imperative, “You must change your life!” The religion of the gods isn’t focused on human beings as we are now, but only as we are to become—the ideal human, who was there at the foundation of the gods’ creation.
In his latest book, Was wir den Engeln geben können: Wege zu einem lebendigen Zusammenwirken [What we can give to the angels: Ways to a lively cooperation], Dellbrügger revisits this topic. He mentions several times how, already in his time, Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “Do you not know that even the destiny of angels will be decided by us?” (1 Corinthians 6:39). Today, we don’t seem to know this. How did such a relationship come about? This is Dellbrügger’s second major theme. “The starting point of this book is: the human being is what they think themselves to be. This will be decisive for the future of humanity and constitutes the radically new aspect of our time. We are at a crossroads. Everything depends on us!”1
I understand Dellbrügger to mean that, for him, the possibility of a humane future also depends on a changed relationship between humans and angels. In line with this second major theme of the book, one could reformulate Paul’s statement as, “Do you not know that our relationship with angels will determine the destiny of humankind?”
Dellbrügger’s book is divided into four chapters and an appendix. The first chapter deals with conceptions of humanity that have shaped and continue to shape our self-image. Various modern views of humanity are discussed, for example, those based on evolutionary theory, transhumanism, and international law, all of which are characterized by one-sidedness or naturalistic simplifications. Which conceptions of humanity should guide us in the future? Dellbrügger’s conclusion is clear: “We need a new perspective on humanity, a perspective that understands humans as ‘citizens of two worlds,’ the earthly-material world and the divine-spiritual world.”
While the first chapter asks how we are accustomed to thinking about our humanity, the second chapter deals with how human beings appear “in the eyes of the gods.” Here, Dellbrügger first refers to Rudolf Steiner’s statement that Christ’s descent from the angelic world to connect with the Earth and human beings was experienced as a departure for the hierarchies, a painful loss of their center. Since that time, they can no longer find Christ in their own realms but must turn to the human beings for whom he died and with whom he will remain until the end time (Matthew 28:20). Christ could not experience death in heaven, but only upon the Earth. The angelic beings are separated from it, but they want to experience it. Peter taught what is proclaimed to people about Christ’s deeds on the Earth (1 Peter 1:12). But they cannot find Christ in the written word either; they must find him in the hearts of people who have connected themselves with Christ and to whom Paul’s words apply, “Not I, but Christ in me.” If they are filled with Christ and follow him, then they shine for the spiritual beings like lights in the darkness, like stars in the night sky. Dellbrügger refers here both to Rudolf Steiner (The Connection between the Living and the Dead, CW 168, Oct. 10, 1916) and to Paul, who wrote, “You should become among men like the bright stars in the cosmos” (Phil 2:15).
Paul plays a key role in Dellbrügger’s book. He was the first to ask how one can think about the resurrection from the dead. To reenact the Resurrection with our thinking requires a different kind of shaping, imaginative thinking. Dellbrügger writes that “the Gospels are silent on this. Following the burial, they immediately describe the women’s journey to the tomb after he has risen. Paul goes one step further. He elevates his thinking to the question that ushers in a new era: How is the Resurrection to be conceived in thought? (1 Cor 15) Paul transforms his thinking into a higher organ of perception. The angels think in him! The different perspectives of the divine beings concerning humankind are revealed to him. He can formulate them conceptually in the divine names, in the “you are” words.” Paul conveys the words of God, illustrating the perspective of the hierarchies on humankind: “You are God’s field, God’s building” (1 Cor 3:9); “You are God’s temple” (1 Cor 3:16); “You are the body of Christ” (1 Cor 12:27); “You are a letter of Christ” (2 Cor 3:3).
With great hermeneutic artistry, Dellbrügger develops the respective intellectual core of these pictorial statements in four chapters. Readers have the special pleasure of benefiting from his decades of work on the subject, as well as his profound theological and anthroposophical knowledge. The thoughts developed in the process cannot be put in a short review; they are meant for meditative reading. The second chapter is followed by a short chapter on rituals as places of encounter between humans and spiritual beings, and a chapter on “The Risk of Being Human,” which discusses inner conflict using further “you are” statements from Paul’s letters. The book ends with an appendix where Dellbrügger develops his own thoughts on Pauline research and on Paul’s special, “modern” initiation. Paul appears here once again as a guide for future human development, as the “Apostle of Sophia,” whose “you are” words allow people to glimpse what they can and should become from a divine perspective: “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God” (Rom 8:19).
Book Günther Dellbrügger, Was wir den Engeln geben können: Wege zu einem lebendigen Zusammenwirken [What we can give to the angels: Ways to a lively cooperation], Stuttgart: Verlag Urachhaus, 2024.
Translation Joshua Kelberman
