THE FUNCTION OF will, at least in a context of free choice, is a perennial problem of philosophy. Are we really free to choose or is our way predetermined? The view of religious culture is that man has free will to choose his way of life and discern his own spiritual path. But many philosophers deny this freedom. The behaviouristically orientated psychologist, who sees all action as arising from the brain's response to stimuli, and behaviour as a response to past conditioning of the brain to various stimuli, would take the extreme view against the concept of free will. And it must be acknowledged that behaviouristic psychology has shed important light on modes of human behaviour. But there is more to human experience than can be accommodated in the view of pure behaviourism. The nuances of altruistic love, self-sacrifice, and personal integrity in the face of public hostility speak of a higher mode of mental activity than a merely predictable response of the brain to a pleasant stimulus.
The Enslaved Will
The will, in its broadest context, can be thought of as the active response of the person to a tangible desire. Each desire drives the person on towards its own satisfaction, but the active response incurred in this transaction cannot be described as free without considerable qualification. A person's whole life may, for instance, be devoted to making money or achieving some position of power within the community in which he lives. The will of such a person may appear to be immensely strong and well focussed, and yet it may be enslaved to a desire deeply placed in the unconscious. How many very powerful men, tyrants to those immediately subservient to them, like their family, and a source of admiration and envy to those further off, are really the slaves to a deep inner sense of inferiority, possibly social or intellectual! They have been driven on a course of self-assertion to assuage the unconscious desire for recognition and security. And behind this façade of ruthless power over others, there lies a frightened child, longing desperately to be acknowledged and loved for himself alone. In due course this façade may crumble, perhaps through outside failure or inner physical and mental collapse, and the little child is then revealed in his pristine helplessness. Such a person has never been free while he was asserting himself, but only begins to know the meaning of freedom once all his pretensions have been crushed. Much of our impassioned outer self expression has little to do with free will; it arises either from unconscious drives within us, or from the conditioning we have acquired from the environment in which we have lived and been educated (an aspect of the Freudian super-ego).
The Conscious Will
We can in this way be propelled by the psychic energy that emanates from unconscious drives. Though apparently active, we are in fact being passively driven by forces outside our own control. No wonder the psycho-analyst has little respect for the concept of free will. Even apparently fine religious works may originate from unresolved feelings of guilt over half-forgotten actions or beliefs in the past, and the energy of our ungratified sexual drives may be sublimated in aesthetic performance. But when we begin to know the personal, or existential self, we also begin to glimpse an aspect of will over which we have a conscious control. It is then that the freedom of the will becomes possible.
As I have already said, the personal self makes itself known when we have to choose between two courses of action on moral grounds. The implied judgment based on values - and over which no authority outside ourselves can give a final verdict - brings the personal self into full focus, and its action is an act of will freed from bondage to forces outside ourselves. This is the heart of the "conscience" that we know deeply placed in ourselves.
Conscience itself is a vague and rather unsatisfactory psychological concept, because it is the resultant of at least three factors: the conditioning impressed on us by our parents and teachers (the super-ego), group loyalty to those around us, and a deeper awareness of our own true nature which is the core of the personal self (through which the spiritual self, or soul, shines radiantly in such a time of moral crisis). When we can detach our inner awareness of the right attitude from that based on our previous conditioning or that demanded by those people amongst whom we work, we are beginning to experience our real identity. And let it be said that the "right" response can be judged only in terms of the personal growth it stimulates and the spiritual understanding that accrues from it. Judgments of right or wrong actions in terms of immediate results are invariably short-sighted. What appears to be a good result may have, later, less pleasant repercussions; what appears to be a disaster may bring with it a later train of good fortune. The Bhagavadgita states the law of action perfectly: "To action alone hast thou a right and never at all to its fruits; let not the fruits of action be thy motive; neither let there be in thee any attachment to inaction" (Chapter 2, verse 47). This disinterestedness towards results is the heart of spiritual action; it is called "holy indifference" in the Christian tradition and has been practised by its saints of all generations. In such an action the person is in control and his will is free of all motives save the burning one of living and working in present perfection.
The Free Will
The action of the personal self is never completely free in the sense that it has absolute licence to satisfy itself. This is because the person does not live in isolation; he is in physical and psychical contact with the world around him and especially with the remainder of mankind. Furthermore, his life is not static; it follows its inevitable course to disease, old age, and death. The law of the lower unconscious, or the flesh as St. Paul puts it, is inexorably one of death. He who is chained to the flesh and its desires is imprisoned in mortality. But the law of the spirit is life eternal, and its drives come to us from the superconscious. The fundamental desire of a fully alive person is one of meaning, an understanding of the nature of the strange process of life and death to which our flesh is heir and of the destiny of the self we know through the crises and choices of existence. This desire for meaning takes us on a path of exploration past the isolated self and its demands for gratification to a concern for the world in which we live and the people around us. It shows us the meaning of love, of sacrifice of our personal self in order to attain a knowledge of the immortal spiritual self which is the source of the personal self. It leads us finally to unitive knowledge of God, Who reveals Himself to us in the spirit within us.
From this it can be deduced that the will can either be enslaved to the lower drives of the person and devote itself to self-satisfaction even at the expense of others, or it can serve the highest it knows and lead the person on to full humanity, even the humanity that was manifest in the Incarnate Christ. Then the will of the person knows and serves the will of God; "in His will is our peace" (Dante, Paradiso, Canto 3, verse 85). Well is it said in the Collect of Peace in the Book of Common Prayer, "O God...whose service is perfect freedom." In the service of God we are freed from the shackles of all mortal things, and enter into a knowledge of the love of God. Instead of being tied to mortal things, including our own bodies, we control and govern them and become agents for their resurrection from the dead to the realm of spiritual reality, which is eternal life.
Free Will and Predestination The more we consider life in general and look back on our own lives in particular, the more do we come to see how little control we really have in the outer course of our earthly destiny. There is indeed a power far above our understanding that knows about us and what is to become of us. Jesus reminds us that not even a sparrow falls to the ground without God knowing, and even the hairs on our head have been counted (Matthew 10:29-30). Those who have the psychic gift of precognition, which sometimes manifests itself in dreams, are aware to what extent the future is pre-ordained. But one thing is not ordained, our final response to the unknown future. We can either fail, as Peter in his weakness did after the betrayal of Jesus whom he denied three times, or else we can move to realms of sublime self-sacrificial heroism. And even if we do fail on one occasion, we can be redeemed later on, as was Peter himself.
In my own life it is clear that I was called to active Christian ministry from my earliest days, and this first required sufficient spiritual growth to render my service valid. I could, however, quite easily have rejected the call, as Jonah tried to do in that magnificent parable of the Old Testament. But had I acted thus, I would certainly have brought increasing psychological disturbance on myself which might well have culminated in a fatal physical malady or even in a termination of my life by my own hand. As I learnt from my own experience, the will is most active when it is quiet and receptive, causing the whole personality to wait on God and learn what He wants us to do to be full persons. This is the meaning of prayer. Thus the concepts of free will and predestination, far from opposing each other, are each necessary for the fulfilment of the other. We are predestined to become real persons, made in the image of God, in the fullness of Christ Incarnate. For this to happen our wills have to be freed from all desires other than that for God Himself, in whose service we alone can be free to become as He was when He revealed Himself in the form of a man. The greatest freedom a man can have is to become a real person.
The Use of the Will
Many are called, but few are chosen (Matthew 22:14). The reason for this is that only a small number respond to the call and even fewer have the persistence to remain to the end. The will, once it is acknowledged as the action of the personal self and is manifested in the execution of clear decisions during crises, has then to marshal the psychic energy of the unconscious drives so that these become part of the person and no longer separate, dominating forces. In other words, the drives to self-preservation, sexual activity, and self-assertiveness have to be controlled and used constructively. The sexual impulse, for example, when it is in control of the person, can lead him to animal bestiality. On the other hand, sexuality can be a most beautiful human attribute, flowing out in warmth and radiance to other people and drawing them into a greater community of friends, provided it is under the guidance of the personal self, which in turn mirrors the soul of the person.
It is by an act of will that man leaves behind his pre-occupation with the animal drives of the lower unconscious and ventures forth into the superconscious realms of universal love and brotherhood, where self is sacrificed in love for the greater community. In this way talents, once hidden, are now brought to the light of consciousness and developed. The highest aspiration is the will to good, in which one's whole being is dedicated to the divine quest and the transfiguration and resurrection of the world through love. This is very different from mere goodwill, which can so often remain a pious attitude without any driving force behind it to make it real.
The will should be informed and reinforced by the Holy Spirit in the act of prayer. Will that derives from personal desire, no matter how noble it appears on the surface, without the humility of waiting for God's redeeming word, tends inevitably to dictate to others, especially those whom one really wants to help. In other words, personal will is arrogant, tyrannical, and intractable until it is informed of divine grace. This comes to us when we are humble and receptive. At this point the will is no longer assertive in proclaiming the views and desires of the person; it is instead quiet and still in prayer, waiting for God and acting only after hearing the divine command.
The well-known injunction of St. Augustine emphasises this: "Love, and do what you will." The person who really loves is filled with God's love, and is thereby cleansed of personal longings and desires. Only then are his motives pure, and his will is inspired by God Himself. Whatever he does is a blessing to many. And he will persist to the end, for "lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world" (Matthew 28:20).