On Contradictions...
(December 27, 1918 lecture.)
"If you want dogmatism, you will not be able to accept the contradictions, for they make you uncomfortable. If you want dogmatism, you can find it in one place or another; but it will never give you an understanding of reality, only something to swear by when you need it. If you want to understand reality, then you must realize that it has to be presented from various sides.
"Even if I hold concepts ever so beautiful from this or that traditional religious confession, they may be quite fine, but I still do not attain reality by means of them unless I can also set the opposite concept before me.
"I have called your attention to the fact that the Mystery of Golgotha itself makes it necessary to have two opposite concepts, so that you may say to yourself: It was truly an evil deed when men murdered the God Who was embodied in a man; but in reality that very deed was starting-point of Christianity. For if the murder on Golgotha had not occurred, Christianity in its reality would not exist. This paradox relating to a supersensible fact may be an example of many paradoxes with which you must come to terms if you really want to attain a comprehension of the supersensible world.
"But this must be gone through, so that concepts may no longer be something to swear by, but may be regarded as something that illuminates things from various sides-like pictures taken of a tree from various sides. The dogmatist, the scientist, the theologian believe that they can grasp the whole reality by means of dogmas of some sort. Someone who stands within reality knows that any assertion coming from dogmas may be likened to a photograph taken from one side, giving only one aspect of reality. He knows that he must have at least the opposite aspect, so that by seeing the two together he may approach the reality of the subject. More of this tomorrow."