Free Will, the Gateway (audio option)
Norman Lindsay (1879 – 1969)
Free Will is the Gateway to Acknowledging a Spiritual World,
and Essential to experiencing particular spiritual paths.
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I’ll start this small writing with the reminder that I speak as a Catholic. I am also speaking as someone without a theology degree. Without any relevant degree – only a little life experience, and doing my best to listen to people.
(Also a head’s up, when I say “pagan” – it is not a demeaning term, it is only a description. I rather think that term is mysterious; if I were a pagan I’d want to be called pagan.)
In short, there are actual scholars with a doctorate degree who have written a better paper or novel on this topic.
But here we are.
Free Will seems to be the literal key to acknowledging the spiritual world generally, and to experiencing a particular spiritual path.
(Aside on word use: “World,” or “worlds”? I am using the word spiritual “world,” because it simplifies the subject between Physical World and Spiritual World.
I believe there are different “areas” within the Spiritual World, which is where I use the word “paths.”)
When I say “Free Will” I am not, of course, speaking of civil rights (though a metaphor exists there). I mean free will of the soul.
The freedom of the soul to choose its path in life, both the temporal paths as well as the spiritual paths.
Free Will is accepting, “I believe in God the Father Almighty and His Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, etc.”
Free Will is accepting: “I believe the natural world and its spirits are the most beneficial to my soul, etc.”
I will now say something that will upset some Christians, and by that token pleasantly shock many others:
all spiritual paths (witchcraft, Christanity, Islam, Buddhism, the forgotten faith in the hills, etc) are Real, Powerful, and contain Truth.
Franklin Booth (1874-1948)
Now I’ll explain that further,
and everyone who was pleasantly shocked before, will now be disappointed at me:
- There is only One True God, One Creator – and He has revealed Himself to us through His chosen people the Jews, and then incarnate in Jesus Christ. (Christianity is not a new religion with a new God, it is the continuing iteration of God’s plan.)
- There exists Satan, and his demons, and they have some dominion of this world. (Why? Free Will necessarily creates the opening for evil, ie: absence, or digression from God who is Love. Satan used his Free Will as an angel to divert from God).
- The spiritual world, at the end of the day, is Black and White: either from God, or from powers who have rejected God. (That being said, we experience life often through Grays. And that is part of our journey: getting close enough to see the gradients in the grays.)
So how can I say that all spiritual paths are Real, Powerful, and contain Truth (if I profess there to be One Holy God Jesus Christ)?
It is because within the spiritual world, darkness and light, malevolent forces and holy forces… both exist.
Is Satan and his demons’ spiritual existence Real? Yes.
Is Satan and his demons’ spiritual existence Powerful? Yes.
Does Satan and his demon’s spirituality contain Truth? Yes…
For starters, they would not exist if it were not for the Truth that God created them in the first place.
Secondly, all lies are re-imaginings and re-purposings of Truth. The building block of a lie is truth.
And a note on evil itself (diverting from the topic of Truth for a moment): evil is good turned upside down, but the necessary origin is Good. For example: how often do evil actions, reactions, or thoughts occur from purely evil intention? – Usually, a person does something bad (eg: looks through Facebook during work hours) because of a good they are seeking (eg: diminishing boredom). Evil is Good perverted. Evil is Good turned into itself.
So I wanted to start this small writing acknowledging basics:
that all spiritual paths are Real, Powerful, and contain Truth.
Vassilev Vesselin
And to explain from my perspective:
I do not believe that just because something is Real, Powerful, and contains Truth, that it is also necessarily the Original Real, the Most Powerful, the All-Truthful (in short, the Wisest spiritual path).
So… what happens when we use our Free Will to follow (ie: learn about, witness, live) a spiritual reality?
The spiritual world seems to takes its cue by our power of Free Will.
Free Will is an act of consent, in a way. An Invitation. It is an agreement between your spirit and the spiritual reality you seek:
“I find this fascinating. I feel alive as I walk down this path. I invite this spirituality to teach me more. I invite it to reveal more to me, through people, books, experiences.”
We can consent to become entwined with any spiritual reality we desire. That is our Free Will acting.
And inaction is just as much an act of Free Will.
Mr. Jones doesn’t want anything to do with any Christian mumbo jumbo, no Native American mojo, nothing - just leave him alone gosh-darnit-all! Mr. Jones wants to watch baseball drinking a cold beer on a hot summer evening, and Mr. Jones is happy about that.
That, too, is Free Will: the Free Will to remain closed to the Spiritual World.
Sometimes, however, God allows the spiritual world to be revealed to a non-consenting (spiritually-closed) soul. This revelation may be a tiny miracle that means everything to a person, or maybe it’s a ghost encounter, or maybe it is just right words at the right time from the right person and everything just clicked.
When God allows a spiritual revelation/event to occur to a spiritually-closed individual, it is a grace.
MARR, CARL VON 1858
Why would it be a grace? - Shouldn’t that be the norm for a loving God?
I say first, it is the norm for God (but often when He knocks we don’t hear the door over the din of our inner restlessness manifesting in our outward distractions). To see a flower blooming after months of rock-hard winter is not enough for some to see God…. Water becoming wine is also sometimes not enough for some to see God.
Secondly, it is a grace because such a spiritual revelation gives the higher chance of swaying someone’s Free Will. That is, once they have encountered something spiritual, now the person is less apt to be spiritually-closed (which was their Will to choose such in the first place).
However, even with a spiritual revelation that will potentially sway a soul’s Free Will a certain way, their Free Will is still very intact. They still need to use Free Will to interpret the event (was it even spiritual? or maybe just natural, or my imagination?), and to pursue knowledge about the event (was this something malevolent? good? from where did it come?), and so on.
A spiritual event is inevitably going to change our direction in some way, but we still use our Free Will to decide which way.
Mariusz Lewandowski
One reason I have come to believe that our Free Will to invite a certain spiritual path is mandatory for us understanding that path, and experiencing the truth is offers (again, even a dark spiritual path offers truths of varying ilk),
is something that is mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew in chapter 13, verse 58:
“And he did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief.”
(Some translations say “miracles” instead of “mighty works.”)
A miracle is a spiritual event, a spiritual revelation. A grace.
Wouldn’t a loving God desire to do more spiritual acts in a place where there is unbelief?
Wouldn’t He want an unbelieving people to have no doubt about Who He Is, and therefore pump out those miracles and mighty works?
But… somehow, no.
This verse implies to me that belief – that is, the Free Will to invite the spiritual reality (in this instance, that Jesus has the power of God) – is somehow necessary for us to understand and experience, or at the very least acknowledge, a particular spiritual reality.
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A non-Christian example might be: people who practice witchcraft understand, experience, and see real results in their practice.
However, someone who does not fully Will themselves to the spiritual reality of witchcraft, may not experience its power.
The pagan, however, is inviting – consenting to – the particular spiritual reality of witchcraft. And thereby experiences its Realness, its Power, and the Truth it contains.
It seems apparent that Free Will is essential not only for understanding the Spiritual World generally, but also experiencing particular spiritual paths.
Afterthoughts…
As stated earlier, that all spiritual paths are Real, have Power, and contain Truth, is not the same as me saying that all spiritual paths lead to the same destination. Namely, that all spirtual paths lead to the Holy of Holies, the Alpha and Omega.
A note on false gods. False gods are not called false because they are not powerful. They are called false gods because they are not gods. Angels and demons, as an example, are more powerful than we can imagine, and so we might easily mistake them to be gods if we saw them in all their fearsome presence, perhaps… but just because a spiritual entity is more powerful than man, does not mean it is more powerful than its Creator.
Further thoughts, and ending questions.
Once we understand that our Free Will – our Invitation to accept a spiritual reality – is essential to knowing it even exists, then experiencing it more wholly…. the next step begs the question:
How will I use my Free Will?
Will I will myself to accept that there exists a Spiritual World?
If so, what spiritual path do I begin to walk, if I know that all spiritual paths are Real, Powerful and contain Truth?
Some questions to help guide:
What do I desire in my spiritual journey? Wisdom? Self-Empowerment? Power over the natural world? Humility? Inner Peace? (And try to answer “why?”)
What is my definition of Wisdom, Power, Humility, Peace?
If I desire Enlightenment, what does that term mean to me? How do I know if I’m enlightened? How do I know when others are enlightened?
Closing thoughts from a Catholic.
I wandered into the mothership of Catholicism for varying reasons that I will write about another day, but for the purpose of this small writing I’ll summarize saying: I was asking a lot of questions, and I thirsted for deeper waters. And I was praying and meditating.
I now understand that whenever I’m in a “plateau” of faith (where things are feeling lackluster, I’m not growing, etc), it is a clue to me that it is time to lower my bucket deeper into the well.
There are always more mysteries to be uncovered about the One True God. The Origin. The Omnipotent. The Holy of Holies.
If you believe you have drank every last drop, I dare to say: lower your bucket.
All paths may have some answers, some power, and contain certain truths… but some will lead you closer to the narrow path, others farther away.
And even when we find the narrow path,
where Jesus Christ walks,
be warned and excited to know
that there are even gradations and more paths
within that path.
how is it possible? Paths in a path?
but it is…
Bee well 🐝
and let me know if I can pray for you
and how.
