Since I became a philosophy teacher/researcher overe 4 decades ago, I have been investigating the issues around freedom and fate, cause and choice. My standpoints on many related issues have undergone many changes and developments, not least almost entire reversals of my convictions as regards fundamental philosophical issues. This I regard as inevitable if a person is truly to learn and discover, to deepen and broaden understanding... to be capable of accepting having been mistaken time and again, itself something which presupposes self-reflection and self critical thinking of a quite radical kind. However, my standpoint on issues of freedom of the will has been fairly consistent throughout. I have nearly always been convionced that some degree of real personal freedom is possible, though my views have changed on in what it consists, what evidence supports it, how much and to what it extends, what it is that limits it and to what extent it may be increased through personal development.

Formerly, while I was involved with Indian spirituality (Sathya Sai Baba) and was still much inclined to believe in a cosmic intelligence, I wrote rather disparagingly of the possibilities of science, having fallen out of touch withtoo much of the detail of its enormous advances even in the space of two or three decades. For example, I wrote :-

" Does our having a measure of freedom conflict with the alleged existence - and omnipotence of - God? Can these apparently opposed views really be reconciled? If we see the connection between two viewpoints between which we are necessarily always moving, either that of the mundane ego or that of the sublime 'I', the questions of freedom and destiny become easier to understand."

and

"... science has not been a dominant philosophy for very long, and is still far from universal acceptance in the world population. It may yet prove to be a temporary diversion from the mainstream of human spirituality, a worldly materialism that even distracts us from humanity's task as anciently defined: the inner process of self-realisation. It may also prove to be moving closer and closer towards the epistemological goal of total knowledge, if it is to explain every event at any level including both natural and human phenomena. Though this may seem highly unlikely, it's possibility cannot be excluded either. Te opposite can be argued on reasons of epistemological principle as well as on practical grounds. Both philosophers and religious mystics in various cultures have asserted thus, whose standpoints I shall bypass for the present.

The above suggests adopting tentatively the following position: that the phenomena of reality cannot totally be construed according to any one fully explicit and coherent system that satisfies strictly logical reason. This assumes an actual overall purposive order in reality, yet one that is too subtle, intricate, deep and extensive to be fixated in an definitive or complete way by the human mind, individually or collectively. This is to say thatthe mind cannot fully understand the purpose or meaning of the universe, not least because this exceeds the mental sphere altogether.

Some universal physical laws are most likely already known to us, though they do not actually serve to explain all that much of life on the whole. There are reasons why only the hypothesis of a wholly-intelligent Creator is adopted in religion, for it makes what for many is a more satisfactory resolution of these difficulties. To be satisfactory, it need not be total, but it must give an account of all phenomena observed and of what reason conceives. An overall, total rational purpose in or 'behind the scenes' applying to every phenomenon might seem to amount to total determinism: and 'automatic mechanical universe', however intricate. As shown, this thought cannot satisfy the human mind. But if, as many mystics assert, the universe is created out of divine bliss and with universal love for ineffable purposes, one would not be able to say it was primarily rational or could be understood fully in rational terms."

Since then my thought went through what, for me, was a second major paradigm-shift. away from all belief in any kind of divinre creator or all-encompassing intelligence. My views on the theory of karma were also much affected in the direction of discounting that there is any moral system working through cause and effect to equalise the effects of actions through reactions which 'reward' or 'punish' the person.

Other similar distortions of my philosophy at the time are seen in such statements positing a belief in God such as:-

"The modern fact of physical indeterminism makes room - within the otherwise iron determinism of universal causality - for the reasonability in principle of the truth also claimed almost universally by great scriptures, namely that God indeed can and does play dice in allowing the human being a measure of free will. "

and indirect support for religious ideas such as the Indian doctrine of karma and related assumptions that there id a dvinely-ordained balance of justice through reincarnations in the affairs of mankind. From my new perspective, which came of my having taken a very radical reassessment of the evidence on which these doctines were based. The evidence - which I had taken too much on trust and out of my attempt to rationalize the philosophy of advaita eventually proved to be so weak and speculative as to cause a major shift in my convictions. The following quotes are consequently now dead an void

"many mystics assert, the universe is created out of divine bliss and with universal love for ineffable purposes

The most universal expression of the idea of causality is the age-old theory of karma. This is the Vedantic equivalent of the scientific assumption of regularities and 'laws', but which extends the principle of law beyond what the sciences today are able or willing to consider seriously. The theory of karma is not simple, as many current sources suggest, but a very many-sided philosophical conception of nature, man and the cosmos which leaves - in principle - few major questions untackled. Suffice here to indicate the standpoint of Vedantic theory of cosmic law (karma) as follows:-

"The Cosmic Law of Karma is not fatalistic or deterministic. Karma is self-determined in the sense that it is a resultant of the forces of determinism and indeterminism acting on the personal self. The universe of inanimate matter is governed by causality and the universe of animate matter is governed by teleology. The universe is 'pushed' by mechanical causes and 'pulled' by conscious purposes. The Karmic Law of self-determinism recognises the existence of an absolute and unconditioned Cosmic Will and a relative and conditioned personal will."⁽⁴)

THE NARROWER 'INDIVIDUAL EGO' VIEWPOINT

Though we appear to have the free will to do anything we like this is the illusion of the individual ego viewpoint. Fundamentalistic religionists hold that the freedom to pursue one's 'individual' instincts and inclinations, whatever they happen to be, is a miasma for no good purpose and is therefore really not freedom at all. It may seem to be freedom but, according to this restrictive 'spiritual' view of life, it is really only bondage to one's karmically-obtained inclinations (vasanas) and one's acquired desires. What one thought were 'free choices' are sooner or later seen to have consequences that work back upon the doer (both of the good or pleasurable and bad or painful sort). One's free will was thus 'used' only so as to create future limiting conditions for oneself. From the mundane viewpoint, the conditioning of our minds by our wants and desires is itself obscured... and the more so the stronger the ego. The sense of 'me' and 'mine' hides from us the operations of the law of karma. Even the 'me' (i.e. the passive aspect of the ego) is itself formed as the (karmic) end result of many previous acts (whether before or since birth).

THE BROADEST CONCEIVABLE VIEWPOINT

In contrast to the mundane self, there is 'The I'. 'I' am not my ego, but a consciousness. Is not this witnessing 'i' awareness an expression of universal intelligence working in and through us? Scriptures tell us that human beings are created in his own image by God, who is all-knowing and has almighty will. Firstly, an omnipotent being is free to will that human beings have some share of this potency and to apportion some responsibility to us, whether we like it or not. Secondly, God does not have to exercise omnipotence in all things to remain omnipotent. Christian divines, such as St. Thomas, held that he has endowed us with a small measure of knowledge and freedom of will in some matters, all subject to the general laws and limits within which the cosmos is regulated. As the divine qualities latent in us are realised and become actual, the reflection of God's will within us as moral intelligence (or conscience) enables us to do what is right. Selfless and dedicated action is the cessation of egoistic 'doership'. We progress very gradually from the mundane to expand towards the divine viewpoint. We regard the omnipotent Divine Will as that which encompasses sustains and orders the entire cosmos. Yet latitude is somehow allowed in the plan of creation, some divergence from the general rule, some chance in the play of events (what physicists have proved to be 'indeterminacy' in microphysical events). Otherwise it would be as if the rules for the 'game of life' that we are to play determined every tiniest movement in advance and left nothing to the players' initiative or efforts. However, if we could but know directly the inconceivable intricacy and vastness of Creation from God's eternal viewpoint and the plan that lies beyond our ken, would not even real individual freedom and chance be seen to be so minimal in effect as never to be able to upset universal order?

A 'WORKING RULE' BETWEEN FREEDOM AND FATE

How can we in practice meet the challenge of surrendering our will to God without thereby giving up positive action based on self-confident willpower? To counteract the passivity of fatalism, we can quote the Jewish sage Maimonides: "We ought to exert our efforts in everything as though they were absolutely free, and God will do as he sees fit." On the other hand, against an excess of active, ego-willed voluntarism, we must learn from experience how identifying with our own acts is but an attachment that further binds us up to their consequences. Then we realise more how destiny and fate (karma) set bounds to our ambitions. So as to reconcile our worldly perspectives with the eternal viewpoint that we cannot e xperience as such, a conscious intelligence (qua 'God') may be thought to be 'behind' any action in a similar way that a President is behind the actions of the many executives of a government. He leaves some judgement, the details of the doing and some responsibility to them, yet he never loses control of the overall plan nor fails to know what his delegates are up to. Similarly, when in doubt we would refer to the highest authority of which we are but instruments. He then guides and corrects us. A president who establishes a law doesn't himself physically do all the things the law is intended to regulate. Nor does the author-director of a drama himself script all the parts in every detail. God's (latent) knowledge of every single thought and act, therefore, need not itself mean that each of these is directly pre-ordained by God's will. If they were, then God would directly responsible for every error, unrighteous and evil act too, which seems totally absurd. That would also have absolved us from all moral responsibility.

 

SACRIFICE AND FREEDOM AS LIBERATION

When I choose an end and a means to reach it, some of my freedom is then expended to that end and I am bound to all the consequences. However, there is allegedly one great exception to the entangling web of karmic action and reaction. It is being able fully to surrender the act and its fruits to God (nishkama karma). To the extent that my aim is to become a mere instrument of God's will, I sacrifice my selfish choices (desires) and do whatever duty that arises for me. We might say that a great devotee 'invests' her or his freedom by doing nothing from selfish interest and thus becomes 'duty bound'. Scriptures assert that God uses his Omnipotence for ensuring the good of all mankind. The most ultimate freedom we can think of is for liberation (Mukthi or Nirvana) from the karmic cycle of birth-death, yet no mortal soul can presume to know its full meaning. Complete equanimity in all circumstances - and thus detachment from all sense of pleasure or pain - seems to be the closest one can conceive of liberation in human terms. It is self-evident that such liberation cannot be an absence of freedom! Would not a liberated 'soul' possess and use will freely in perfect unity with whatever is and can be? Those who surrender totally to Divine Will will presumably have no desire to exercise individual freedom or act separately from the Universal Will.