{"id":38576,"date":"2021-01-21T18:41:31","date_gmt":"2021-01-21T17:41:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/freimaurerei.at\/thoughts\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T12:01:35","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T10:01:35","slug":"thoughts","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/freimaurerei.at\/en\/thoughts\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Thoughts<\/h4><\/span>
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Auf dieser Seite sind Gedanken von Br\u00fcdern der \u00f6sterreichischen Freimaurerei zu finden. Es sind dies Ausschnitte aus Baust\u00fccken (Referaten), aus Vortr\u00e4gen im Rahmen der Freimaurer-Akademie der Gro\u00dfloge von \u00d6sterreich sowie aus Beitr\u00e4gen in freimaurerischen und profanen Publikationen. Die hier ausgew\u00e4hlten Texte sind bewusst kurz gehalten und sollen einen grunds\u00e4tzlichen \u00dcberblick \u00fcber die Gedankenwelt der \u00f6sterreichischen Freimaurer vermitteln. Die Textausschnitte stehen als Beispiele f\u00fcr Denkinhalte, weshalb wir auch bewusst auf die Namensnennung des jeweiligen Autors verzichtet haben. <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Why We Call Ourselves Freemasons (1950)<\/h4><\/span>
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We were admitted because we were free men of good repute. We are to be free not only outwardly\u2014independent and self-reliant, and in full possession of our civil liberties\u2014free in thought, word, and deed, but also inwardly, by opening our souls to what is good and noble and by being tolerant. Tolerance presupposes this freedom and unites it with kindness and understanding. We should not overlook the beam in our own eye because of the speck in another\u2019s, and we should show understanding for the needs and weaknesses of others, because we are inwardly free enough to acknowledge our own weaknesses and shortcomings candidly. If you wish to understand others, look into your own heart. By this the poet plainly means that, in noble self-restraint, we should not be more critical of others than we are prepared to be of ourselves. He calls for understanding and forgiveness\u2014and is there any greater freedom than being able to forgive? For he who condemns may err; he who forgives never errs. <\/p>\n

I would add that, in my view, freedom is to be understood in such a way that we are free of the ballast of poor qualities and habits by constantly working on ourselves\u2014thus, in a good sense, being active for the good within us. For above all, this \u201cgood activity\u201d brings inner freedom. Loh could cite no better example here than the work on the rough ashlar and the work on the perfect ashlar that is so close to our hearts as Freemasons. As Freemasons, one can build both contemplatively and in practical terms. This does not mean, incidentally, that contemplative work is not practical. Both directions are important.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Know Yourself (2021)<\/h4><\/span>
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Know thyself! Who is addressing us here? An apodictic exhortation, an unmistakable command, not an especially kindly invitation. As though the anonymous voice were adding: for only this is your chance\u2014your only one\u2014for which it is worth living. To be human, truly to become human! Either\u2014or! Either you despair and do not even notice the despair of not being aware that you have a self; or you despair at not wanting to be yourself; or you desperately want to be yourself. The self thrown into nothingness is the caller. You have the choice between enlightenment and madness. How many people are not manifestly insane only because they have already been inwardly crippled, as though dead? <\/p>\n

We are thrown, unasked, into our existence. Become who you are! The privilege of your lifetime is to be able to become the person you have always been in your innermost being. The true inner self, this inner core of being, remains unchanged. In this self, faith within us is anchored, as are loyalty and trust in ourselves. The ability to love is also grounded in this certainty (Fromm). It is not you who seeks; it seeks you\u2014and has long since found you. <\/p>\n<\/div>

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Against \u201cBlind Spots\u201d (2020)<\/h4><\/span>
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Freemasonry has always taken up new aspects, often those not yet obvious and not yet part of the mainstream. One might also think that it is in the nature of Freemasonry, alongside the refinement of the individual, to turn, in its social mission, to what is not obvious, to what is yet to come, to what is not seen\u2014the \u201cblind spots\u201d in a society\u2014in order to make room early on for a development guided by our values. <\/p>\n

In medicine, the \u201cblind spot\u201d is an area of vision that is not perceived, especially when one eye loses its function. Psychology, too, speaks of \u201cblind spots\u201d: areas of missing self-perception, as a result of which approaches to change and development ultimately fail to materialise. <\/p>\n

In many places in our rituals, reference is made to the Freemason\u2019s duty to participate in the development and shaping of society: to promote intellectual freedom, respect for the convictions of others, love of one\u2019s fellow human beings, and charity, but also to stand up against discord, hatred and strife, against nationalisms and extremisms of every kind. With the clear goal before our eyes to which we committed ourselves upon admission: to work for the good of humanity.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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On Truth (2017)<\/h4><\/span>
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I think to myself: if there is no absolute truth, then at least there is a \u201cnear certainty\u201d. In place of \u201cabsolute truth\u201d, the Enlightenment brought determinism: all events\u2014future ones in particular\u2014are supposedly unambiguously fixed by preconditions. If all\u2014indeed truly all\u2014preconditions were precisely captured, the entire further course could be predicted with certainty. The \u201crepresentatives of scientific truth\u201d therefore need only collect and compile many, indeed as many as possible, data, information and facts; at some point the accumulated knowledge will suffice for a complete, true description of the world out there. Somewhere out there is the truth\u2014certainty, information\u2014hidden in data: temperatures, sizes, measurable things. <\/p>\n

Truth hides behind probability; probability cannot reveal truth\u2014also, and above all, because we have no innate sensorium for grasping probabilities. One of the inventors of probability theory, Pierre-Simon Laplace, once remarked: \u201cOne of the great advantages of probability theory is that one learns to distrust first impressions.\u201d <\/p>\n

Dealing with probability must be laboriously learned: one must not only dare to know, one must also dare to distrust one\u2019s own \u201cintuition\u201d, one\u2019s own \u201ccertainty\u201d. Learning to live with probabilities\u2014as a modern variant of prophecy\u2014is therefore difficult, perhaps one reason why prophecy, the attempt to reduce chance in what is to come, is increasingly being replaced by apocalyptic scenarios that have nothing to do with unveiling, but rather with the deeply depressive wish \u201cthat salvation can come into this salvation-less history only from outside, and that a god might finally bring the world to an end\u201d and let the absolute truth break over us all. <\/p>\n<\/div>

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Ignorance and Stupidity (2021)<\/h4><\/span>
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When asked about a fundamental evil, we are told it is lack of knowledge\u2014ignorance. At first glance, ignorance seems far too harmless: annoying, yes; bothersome, yes; but a fundamental evil? We live in a time when access to knowledge has never been easier or more self-evident than ever before. All the knowledge in the world is literally just a few clicks away. Why not greed, envy, hatred or pride; increasing inability to form relationships; indifference; consumer frenzy? All of these seem far more dangerous than a simple mind. What is cause, what is effect? Can a fundamental evil be identified from which all others could be derived? Is the question aimed at being able to rid the world of everything with one fundamental evil\u2014by driving out the darkness of ignorance with the light of Enlightenment? <\/p>\n

If only it were that simple. Perhaps precisely because ignorance so often appears so innocent, it is all the more dangerous. Here is a quotation from Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One can protest against evil; it can be exposed; if necessary, it can be prevented by force. Evil always carries within it the seed of self-destruction, in that it leaves at least a sense of unease in people. Against stupidity we are defenceless. Neither protests nor force can achieve anything here; reasons do not take hold; facts that contradict one\u2019s own prejudice simply need not be believed. <\/p>\n

What leaves us so speechless is the return of an enemy believed long overcome: superstition in modern guise, as the post-truth equation of opinion and fact. This modern superstition\u2014against better knowledge, or against the possibility of better knowledge\u2014is more dangerous than old, na\u00efve superstition born of a lack of available knowledge, which somehow still preserved a spark of morality, still knew something like shame. Opinions and facts blur. It is no longer the claim to truth that counts; rather, in the post-truth age, voicing an opinion that feels true carries weight and wins more trust than facts, which are distrusted from the outset precisely because they are facts. <\/p>\n

Everyone has the right to their own opinion. On this, Hannah Arendt says: Freedom of opinion is a farce if information about the facts is not guaranteed. Freedom of opinion degenerates into licence, and quickly becomes a deadly threat in the form of horror clowns. We are confronted with a global, smug and malicious egoism of inflated egos, trapped in the illusion of their own exaggerated selfishness, having cast off all shame and all conscience. Every day we witness what a threatening weapon this new form of aggressive, provocative ignorance has been forged into. <\/p>\n<\/div>

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Common Ground (2017)<\/h4><\/span>
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It is obvious: we live in a time in which \u201cwhat we share\u201d has poor prospects. For the greater the social and economic pressure, the greater the retreat into the ego. We have become an \u201celbow society\u201d. The I before the you; one\u2019s own claims before the social. Whoever is not ahead of the other\u2014and even by unfair means\u2014has simply lost. The social environment does the rest. For the polarisation of our society is increasing tensions. The divide vis-\u00e0-vis marginal groups and minorities, between rich and poor, is growing. In such a climate, togetherness falls by the wayside. <\/p>\n

That generation which must assert itself with ego-oriented toughness\u2014when it comes to an apprenticeship or a place at university, when it comes to getting a job at all\u2014has to live this interplay of ego and elbows in order not to be washed out. Is it any wonder that the proportion of singles among 25- to 35-year-olds is rising? Self-organisation, being responsible only for oneself, and being able to do as one pleases\u2014that is freedom. Living together between partners, friends, neighbours, colleagues seems difficult. Our society is becoming more intolerant. <\/p>\n

Can \u201ccommon ground\u201d be lived in such a world\u2014regained? Doing things together. Thinking, acting\u2014living together. Standing together. Sticking together. Standing up for one another. Those old values, then\u2026 brotherhood. It is good that there are tireless people who want what is shared. They are needed today as rarely before. Idealists\u2014perhaps. In any case: Freemasons. <\/p>\n<\/div>

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Self-Knowledge (2020)<\/h4><\/span>
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In our reflection, we do not recognise another man and Freemason, but first and foremost ourselves. As we are. Only mirrored\u2014and thus reversed\u2014which already somewhat limits the significance of this fact. But do we thereby truly already \u201clook within\u201d? And behind the mask that we have put on\u2014or must put on\u2014in the profane world in order to be allowed to \u201cplay along\u201d in the profane world? <\/p>\n

At some point, each of us must decide whether we wish to know ourselves, or whether we are content with who and what we are. But the capacity for \u201cself-knowledge\u201d is not a gift that may once have been handed to us; it is work. Self-knowledge requires personal initiative, but above all great courage, determination, and the free will to change oneself. And it does not begin only with looking in the mirror, but daily\u2014within us\u2014on our path to ourselves, which can very quickly become a \u201cwrong path\u201d if one has not understood and internalised self-knowledge as a clear and unmistakable mandate for one\u2019s own thinking and actions.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Ethical Action (2017)<\/h4><\/h4><\/span>
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What should I do in order to find a path in a complex world, so that I can decide and act according to my best knowledge and conscience? Action that, ideally, is guided by the facts (knowledge) and by the heart (conscience). For wanting to act ethically presupposes factual knowledge and conscience. <\/p>\n

Simply acquiring knowledge is easier demanded than done. Besides selecting relevant sources from the confusing abundance of modern media with all their well-known pitfalls and uncertainties, it is also one\u2019s own inadequacy that sets limits, for not everyone is able to fathom and understand complex technical, scientific or economic interrelationships. <\/p>\n

In addition, the human thinking system has a peculiarity from which none of us, it seems, can escape: the Israeli-American psychologist and Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman showed, among other things, that our decision-making draws on two systems. The first, spontaneous, intuitive system manages with little effort and a low level of information, and quickly offers seemingly correct solutions\u2014thinking fast. Such decisions could also be described as typical gut decisions. In addition, there is a second system that can be activated subsequently. This system demands valid data as the basis for decisions. For conclusions, it weighs information critically and thinks logically; it needs time\u2014thinking slow. Decisions of this kind could be described as \u201chead decisions\u201d, which can be entirely at odds with \u201cgut decisions\u201d already made. <\/p>\n

In a devious way, the gut feeling, with its intuitive decisions, feigns a harmony that makes activating the system of slow thinking seem, at first, unnecessary. What is therefore needed is the willingness to employ consciously slow thinking\u2014the will to get to the bottom of a matter. An important instrument is, not least, conversation. The mutual exchange of ideas (listening and sharing) makes it possible, according to the principle of learning (listening) and teaching (sharing), to draw new thoughts from direct interaction with people. In addition, intellectual engagement offers good opportunities for self-reflection on one\u2019s own level of knowledge and on the state of one\u2019s ethical competence. <\/p>\n

Masonic ritual teaches us that no one person can possess the whole truth, and thus points to the need to exchange ideas with friends. (Lessing, Conversations for Freemasons; 1st conversation: Falk: Nothing surpasses thinking aloud with a friend.) <\/p>\n<\/div>

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Symbol, Emblem and Allegory (1930)<\/h4><\/span>
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Strictly speaking, everything in Freemasonry is expressed symbolically. But it would be wrong to regard every single tool and every single action as a symbol in itself. For over time, emblem and allegory have also crept in among us, and, on the other hand, modern people have become less suited to the pure experience of symbols. For many, what can be a symbol for some is merely an emblem.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Masonic Anthropology (2014)<\/h4><\/span>
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Masonic anthropology focuses on the ethical dimension of the human being; it may well seek enrichment through the content of other anthropologies. One\u2019s own, partial Masonic anthropology can be integrated with elements from other conceptions of humanity, expressed through the diversity of self-interpretations of human existence: behind every attribute stands a specific image of the human being, a self-experience of the person seeking his essence. In this way, the Order becomes globally sustainable. <\/p>\n

For the Freemason, this is not only about describing the human being as he truly is; he also sees the human being \u201cas he should be\u201d, i.e. moral perfection always exists as an intellectual point of reference.<\/p>\n

The basic elements of Masonic anthropology can (according to Di Bernardo) be summarised in five terms: freedom, transcendence, tolerance, brotherhood, and initiatic mystery. The four elements (freedom, transcendence, tolerance and brotherhood) are objective values that also apply to non-Freemasons, i.e. such universally understood values do not constitute the specific hallmark of Freemasonry. The image of the human being becomes Masonic anthropology in the proper sense only when the initiatic mystery is added to the four.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Renewal and Mediocrity (2015)<\/h4><\/span>
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One of the essential characteristics of fundamental, radical, profound, disruptive renewal is the largely unforeseeable nature of its results. Accepting that is difficult. The assumption that, if one only does everything correctly, the desired result will occur does not apply to fundamental renewal. The process of fundamental renewal is open-ended. Complete failure is just as possible as partial success\u2014or any other, entirely unexpected outcome. <\/p>\n

Anyone who is fundamentally satisfied with his life situation will therefore tend to avoid such a venture. Quite the opposite of those who must believe in an improvement in living conditions. This fundamental satisfaction then makes it particularly difficult to carry out renewals in an established society. A society that does not renew itself slides into mediocrity\u2014persistent mediocrity. In doing so, it is overlooked that renewal belongs to life, and that without renewal no life is possible. <\/p>\n

It is obvious that any change can and will also produce conflicts. This applies in particular to fundamental renewals. In a society like today\u2019s European one, in which everything is geared towards consensus and balancing interests, the thought of renewal\u2014and the conflicts associated with it\u2014causes discomfort. Put succinctly: he who shuns conflict shuns renewal; he who shuns renewal shuns life. In a mature, established society we can observe all of this well: persistent mediocrity.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Reflexive Enlightenment (2019)<\/h4><\/span>
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What seems urgently required today is the conception of a \u201cnew\u201d, \u201creflexive\u201d Enlightenment that critically develops further the indispensable foundations of the historical Enlightenment. Enlightenment, understood as a never-ending task and as a principle of thought, understands itself as self-enlightenment, as becoming oneself through free thinking, but also as factual enlightenment in the sense of clearing away intellectual and real obstacles to self-enlightenment. Enlightenment, as thinking for oneself (I. Kant), is directed against usurped authority and prejudice; as thinking correctly, against errors, irrationalism and superstition; against absolutisations and ideologies; against dogmas and absolute truths. The enduring relevance of Enlightenment results from the permanent need for enlightenment. It is a continually renewed attempt to overcome ever-proliferating pseudo-truth and to work in a critique of ideology. <\/p>\n

In the 20th century there were attempts to place the by no means obsolete programme of Enlightenment into a broader, world-historical perspective. Enlightenment was seen as progressive thinking not only as an epoch, but also presented as a philosophy-of-history phenomenon (e.g. by Max Weber, Wilhelm Nestle, Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno). These philosophy-of-history approaches initiated a qualitatively new self-reflection of Enlightenment thinking. Reason in conflict with itself plays an important role in Horkheimer\u2019s \u201cCritique of Instrumental Reason\u201d. What is meant here is the tendency of progress in the modern industrial age to destroy humane ideas. Technical civilisation threatens its own outcome. Horkheimer and Adorno\u2019s thesis is that the self-destructive tendency of reason is already inherent in Enlightenment thinking of the 18th century. If Enlightenment is to preserve itself from complete self-destruction, it must reflect on its immanent \u201cregressive moment\u201d. In this way, despite all criticism, a positive concept of Enlightenment is to be prepared that frees it from its entanglement in blind domination. <\/p>\n

Certainly, in view of the problems of our complex society, people seek a counterweight, an experience of wholeness\u2014that the world is not only rationalised through and through. Here, too, the significance of Enlightenment thinking becomes apparent, in the sense of overcoming the historical Enlightenment where it went wrong in some respects, and of an enlightenment about Enlightenment. Today there is indeed the possibility of developing Enlightenment further in the sense of critical enlightenment: a rationality that does not dissolve into technical calculation, but becomes aware of its limits while at the same time examining its possibilities\u2014how scientific understanding of the world and ethical action can be thought together and practised.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Good Repute (2007)<\/h4><\/span>
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How good repute is created on the internet today has been precisely defined by German researchers: a provider\u2019s good repute is calculated as the number of positive customer votes minus the number of negative votes. But one cannot make it that simple with \u201cgood repute\u201d, which\u2014as we know\u2014must be built up over a long time, indeed over an entire lifetime, and can then be destroyed in a single moment. Which of the synonyms best captures the meaning of good repute: reputation? prestige? image? Or is it, as lawyers might readily think, the term \u201cgood name\u201d, which is equivalent to \u201cgood repute\u201d? <\/p>\n

In addition, we must not forget that we live in an age of staging and self-presentation. What I tell about myself, what can be read about me, and what is therefore said about me, shapes my reputation as part of our society. Thus I am who I am in the eyes of others. And another pitfall: our time is characterised by the concept of a \u201cperformance society\u201d. Many therefore judge their fellow human beings far too quickly solely on the basis of their achievements as a businessman, manager, doer. \u201cGood repute\u201d as proof of performance. <\/p>\n

Social esteem\u2014or, put differently, the social recognition of a person\u2014thus has many foundations today, in many aspects. In ancient Rome, good repute was understood as fame, arising from three roots: from recognition for right action, from high merits for the common good, and above all from virtue, the highest good of human beings. <\/p>\n

At bottom, however, when we concern ourselves with \u201cgood repute\u201d, we are speaking of ethical and moral qualities. And we judge by criteria such as: Can I trust this person? Is he competent, helpful, a nice fellow? What friends does he have? Will I benefit from him? Or will he harm me? In this way, an emotional image of a person, of a fellow human being, arises for us. But does it reflect this person\u2019s reality\u2014does this acquired image constitute reality? At least it is one\u2019s own, subjective reality. For \u201creality\u201d is in any case a phenomenon that is perceived and experienced differently by each person. For \u201creal reality\u201d takes place only in our brain. <\/p>\n

And finally: if Werner Heisenberg formulated that a measured quantity assumes a specific ascertainable value only at the moment of measurement, then we can state, by analogy: our value as a human being, as part of the whole of our society, is also redefined in every moment in which it is subjected, in some way, to a test.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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What Is Truth? (1888)<\/h4><\/span>
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Self-knowledge is the beginning of all wisdom, and one can only add: wisdom is the knowledge of truth. This points us to the only path by which we can reach the goal, the truth. Yet what is attained on this path will always be only a subjective, limited truth, and not an absolute, objective truth\u2014if only because the human being cannot attain the ideal, perfection, here either, but remains in imperfection and limitation. <\/p>\n

Whoever seeks the truth must embark upon the long, arduous path of self-knowledge. It is the beginning of wisdom; but if it is the beginning, then it is already wisdom itself, for wisdom, like all other things on earth, has its beginning not outside itself, but within itself\u2014and it is already truth itself, even if still in a veiled and closed form within itself. <\/p>\n

The path of self-knowledge is a long and difficult one, for self-knowledge first leads to dissatisfaction with oneself. The first thing that becomes apparent to us about ourselves is that, in all our doing and striving, we allow ourselves to be determined by motives of vanity and selfishness, while we nevertheless know and understand that we ought to let ourselves be guided by quite different motives. This dissatisfaction with ourselves becomes ever greater if we continue to walk the path of self-knowledge, and finally so unbearable that we seriously resolve to ask ourselves what it is, then, that we actually want. <\/p>\n

From this state there is only one salvation for the human being: namely, that he seeks his true being not only in his natural existence, but even more in his spiritual existence; that he seeks freedom not in resisting his insight and his moral will, but in realising that will.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Foundations of Esotericism (1973)<\/h4><\/span>
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In a figurative and common sense, esotericism means: showing a path inward, as opposed to a path outward, exotericism. The exotericist sees the inward path as a nebulous journey into the unreal. For the true esotericist, the exact opposite is the case. For him, the inward path is a very clear, very realistic one, accompanied by strict self-discipline, for the experiences he has are very real\u2014only with the difference that this reality does not relate to the outer world, but to the inner states present in the human being, to the inner world. <\/p>\n

In the outer world, the human being experiences things at their surface, forces in their effects. In the inner world, he experiences what something is in its essence, how forces arise. In the outer world, the human being goes abroad and tries to settle in comfortably there; in the inner world, he is with himself, at home. <\/p>\n

On the inward path, the esotericist slowly learns to find himself in what is essential. For him, materialistic processes\u2014the side of natural states accessible to the outer senses\u2014are signs of inner processes. He learns and ultimately experiences that there are organs with a finer structure than the physical senses, independent of the bodily world, with which one can perceive processes that cannot be recognised with the outer sense organs. He knows that the brain is only a relay station, the most important one in the transition from outside to inside. But he also knows that the higher, finer bodies of consciousness are of a completely different nature than the cell structures familiar to us, which we usually assume to be the sole bearers of consciousness. Beyond that, he becomes aware that outer sensory perceptions and intelligible activity make up only a fraction of what it is possible for the human being to experience.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Enlightenment in the Digital World (2019)<\/h4><\/span>
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What is happening today to the three great ideas of the socio-political project of the Enlightenment? What about the intended emancipation of the individual, humanism and human rights? At a time of new demands that the digitalisation of society places upon us. For we have now reached the point where we must be concerned. If human beings are guided by algorithms, freedom of will and dignity are quickly lost. And if artificial intelligence\u2014which can make life so convenient\u2014leads them back into a state of immaturity that also promotes the \u201claziness and cowardice\u201d in thinking criticised by Kant. <\/p>\n

Immaturity begins with a Google search and the suggestions presented to us. And it ends with the many applications of artificial intelligence, whose preliminaries we are already experiencing. We are all already living in this antagonism of convenience versus intellect, laziness versus reason. The only question is how we deal with it. And those who cannot find their bearings often cultivate not only prejudices, but above all fears\u2014existential fears, fears about life. <\/p>\n

The more knowledge\u2014and its concentration\u2014increases, as it is now, the more the gap between the knowledgeable and the unknowledgeable widens. The result: uncertainty grows ever greater. How can the fight against it be waged? Best, most efficiently, of course, through education. Through Enlightenment. Here we have arrived at one of our core tasks. And in addition: we must be guardians of our fundamental rights as human beings; we must monitor, admonish and enlighten, so that the ethical values of our society are not sacrificed to the euphoria of the digitised technological surge. The values that are important to us and must remain important in the changed environment: freedom, equality, brotherhood, humanity, tolerance. In other words, what we have lived in our enlightened society for a quarter of a millennium\u2014at least what we wish to live.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Shaping the World (2019)<\/h4><\/span>
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The world is a backdrop of chance. Certainly, everything is the consequence of something, but justification, causation, causality\u2014these are all phenomena of human thought. This world of chance is, however, the foundation and condition for the freedom of the human will and human action within the framework of contingency. If there were no world of chance, everything would be determined. <\/p>\n

Freedom is a fact that cannot be justified. It is the irrational desire of the human being to crave a ground of being. First, he does not want to accept being determined by chance; and second, he shies away from responsibility for his actions. All of this is undoubtedly due to the findings of the natural sciences in the recent and most recent past; today\u2019s knowledge of mathematics, astronomy, chaos research and quantum physics has, of course, left its clear mark on the humanities of the present\u2014namely philosophy and theology. My standard sentence for those gifted in mysticism: the idea of God, the thought of God, is of course still real and meaningful\u2014but if one takes it seriously, only ever as a question, never as an answer. <\/p>\n

Keyword: the humanities. It is the human being who shapes the world\u2014more and more. We must \u201cseek out\u201d nature, since our lifeworld now consists almost entirely of human-made things, of artefacts. Heidegger said: the stone is worldless, the animal is poor in world, the human being is world-forming. The human will does not allow the world\u2019s own weight, or the inherent meaning of things. Everything receives meaning and weight only when related to the human being. In the human being\u2019s projection, the world holds sway; in the event of projection, world takes shape. It is life of a most proper kind, which we call \u201cDasein\u201d, that exists\u2014ex-sists: a stepping out of itself, without, however, being able to leave itself. In projecting, life\u2014Dasein\u2014constantly throws the human being into possibilities and thus keeps him subject to what is real.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-38576","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P7MBaw-a2c","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freimaurerei.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/38576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freimaurerei.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freimaurerei.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freimaurerei.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freimaurerei.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38576"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/freimaurerei.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/38576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38600,"href":"https:\/\/freimaurerei.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/38576\/revisions\/38600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freimaurerei.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}