God Beyond Religion: The Paradox of Freewill and Determinism and Eclectic Spirituality

There is an age old debate within Christianity between the concept of freewill and determinism. Depending on ones position, one can find scripture passages that prove one or the other and conversely, one can find passages that contradict each position. For this reason the debates have raged on with different champions and different schools of thought over the history of Christianity. In adopting eclectic spirituality, I have found a way in which both can be true. It is resolved in understanding Hermetic Teaching. Since Christianity teaches that Jesus realized his divinity being the incarnation of the Logos, and since he taught that all of us are like him in that regard, one can believe that the All is mind, consciousness, and that we are egoic points of consciousness within the All. It is here that my view is the most eclectic as I see the Logos, the All, the Creative Source, the Tao, God as different descriptions of the same thing.

I am a Christ follower that places a lot of stock in the Hermetic principles. While I realize that the Kybalion is a very recent document in historical terms, I have a strong spiritual sense that it is correct. I would say that the author, who I believe to be William Walker Atkinson, received mystical illumination when writing the Kybalion. It is the second hermetic principle that I believe solves the paradox of freewill and determinism. It is the principle of correspondence. It states as above so below and as below so above. It speaks of three planes of existence. They are the physical plane, the mental plane and the spiritual plane. One can believe that the same rules apply in all planes according to the principle of correspondence. In other words, one can see the way the mental and spiritual planes operate by observing the physical plane. On the physical plane, cycles are everywhere. There is the water cycle, there is the daily cycle of the day and night, the planets cycle around the sun. there is the cycle of the seasons. Leaves grow, then die and fall to the ground and end up being fertilizer for the trees that produce more leaves the next season. In essence, there is cycles everywhere in the material plane.

So then, using the principle of correspondence, as above so below and as below so above, one can be fairly certain that there are cycles in the mental and spiritual planes as well. This strongly suggests that reincarnation and the transmigration of souls is a principle that one can count on. This would mean that we cycle through different lives.  If this is true, and I believe it is, then this principle alone can adequately explain the appearance of both free will and determinism as existing simultaneously. According to Hermetic teaching, the All is the creative source. It is mental and spiritual in nature. Further, within the All are individual conscious egos. We humans are those individual conscious egos. Free will comes into play with the choices we make. We choose our life path, our lessons etc. Perhaps it is based on criteria set by the All, or a collective of conscious egos, and quite possibly both. I sense that each individual conscious ego has a lot of input into the plan. That is the place of free will. Our conscious egos can choose the time and place for incarnating. Determinism enters within the plan once the choice is made. It is important to realize that we are a part of the creative source, the All. This is what Peter referred to as the divine nature. We are indeed participants with the creative source.

 

If this is the case, then it is possible that the entire Christian experience is a plan that was set in motion that each of us chose to play a role in. Paul’s mystical revelation in Ephesians chapter one lays out the overall framework of the plan. The source, in this case, God chose those who participate in the plan before creation, and therefore, we too chose that plan and that is why we were born into Christianity. What to do with the plan is a choice. I would look at it as a subplot drama in the overall drama of material existence. There are those who embrace and believe the plan. There are those who question the plan and leave. There are those that try to understand the plan in a contemporary way. But, what if this plan is integral in eclectic spirituality? What if there are many plans? What if Buddhism is a plan; Taoism is a plan; Hinduism, Islam, Mentalism, New Age, are all plans? What if all of the various plans make up eclectic spirituality, and the mystical revelation in Christianity plays an integral part in the upward spiral of spiritual awareness? What if, in the Christ, Christ Consciousness, the Cosmic Christ, the concept of a new humanity is an integral part of the spiritual advancement of humanity?

 

While I realize that there is so much toxic about Christianity, especially evangelicalism, and while there is a lot of toxic teaching in the Pauline scripture, there is also a substantial amount of mystical revelation that includes but is not limited to, Paul’s vision of a New Humanity. There is also his definition of love and the fruit of the spirit. There is John’s revelation that God is love, and that Jesus taught that humans are in fact also partakers of divinity. While those born into Christianity are part of a predetermined plan, each of us within that reality have the freedom of choice to embrace what is good and beneficial and reject out of hand the toxicity. The most toxic of all is the view of scripture that it is all equally the word of the creative source and that is patently false!