THERE IS NO MORE important factor in the spiritual life than an actively functioning will. And yet often in psychological and religious circles the concept of will is regarded either with derision or with distrust. The modern schools of psychology, the behaviouristic and the psychodynamic, are sceptical, to say the least, of the very existence of a will sufficient to enable the person to become a free agent. Traditional religionists, on the other hand, confuse the will with wilfulness. To them the will means the will to power, to self-assertiveness, to lordship over the world, and as such it is directly opposed to God's will. Therefore they believe that the spiritual man must abdicate his own will altogether and make himself subject to God's will.
If only the latter were easily ascertainable this advice might be quite acceptable! Unfortunately, as we have already seen, there is no divine oracle at hand, nor do the world's sacred scriptures give a completely coherent doctrine, to say nothing of the fact that they were written centuries ago and often have little direct advice to give as regards the peculiar problems that confront a scientifically orientated world. If there is some abiding meaning to our lives we have to accept personal responsibility for our conduct. Whatever the theoreticians may say, we have to accept the fact of will as a part of our life in the world.
It is instructive, therefore, to ponder the psychological objections to the concept of will, for they are by no means foolish, and indeed have much truth in them. To the behaviourist, the actions of a person derive from his past responses to various stimuli reaching his brain. The concept of mind apart from the activity of the brain is not accepted by this important school of psychologists. Thus while new stimuli can evoke different patterns of behaviour, the person himself is in no way in command of the response. Such a view of personality is important in that it emphasises the role that conditioned reflexes play in our behaviour, but it cannot account for the finer aspects of personality, the aspects that speak of the uniqueness of human nature.
To the psychodynamic school of psychologists, who adhere to the theories of Freud and his successors, the importance of the unconscious mind is stressed, and rightly so. It is the repository of many drives that are only fitfully brought into conscious awareness, and indeed some are permanently submerged. But they come to consciousness when the "censor" is removed. This occurs during dreams and also in various situations when we are taken off our guard. The influence of the drives is, however, more subtle than this. They pervade all our conscious actions and are the real source of our attitudes. Freud, of course, stressed the pre-eminence of sex, in the broadest context, as the motivator of our conscious actions, but others have also drawn attention to the will to power and to the will to survive. Now all these unconscious impulses are very important in the conduct of our lives, and we are indebted in no small measure to the insights and understanding of these pioneers of modern psychology who have laid bare the motivation of much allegedly altruistic and religious activity. I need not emphasise that much religious observance, particularly in the past, was based more on the fear of divine retribution than on the love of God. Likewise a conventional churchgoer could trade on the esteem of his neighbours for his piety, whereas a candid agnostic would arouse the suspicion and hostility of those around him. Nor can the repressed sexual undertones of some types of religious ritual be denied. Some of the greatest mystics have used erotic imagery to symbolise the union of man and God, thereby reinforcing the belief of agnostic psychologists that the life of the cloister, by repressing normal sexuality, stimulated orgiastic yearnings.
There can be no doubt that much of what passes for a strong free will in a successful person is often, in reality, an unconscious drive moving the person in a predetermined pattern of response. For instance, one who has suffered from rejection or material insecurity as a child may be so dominated by a desire for safety and esteem that his whole life is devoted to making money or acquiring power over other people. On the surface we may admire the single-tracked will power that has made such material success possible, but in fact the individual himself is little more than a small child in possession of great riches with which he can defend himself against the onslaughts of the inhospitable world. A life devoted to the achievement of a circumscribed material ambition at the expense of a full development of the personality cannot be regarded as satisfactory, no matter how "successful" it may appear on the surface.
This, of course, does not mean that all materially successful people are inadequate and immature. Their degree of maturity does, however, depend not merely on their success in any one particular enterprise but in the wider field of relationships with other people and their attitude to the world and to life itself. "What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" asks Jesus. A person driven by unconscious impulses does not know himself at all, but merely identifies himself with the particular drive that has possessed all his psychic energy. Thus a great deal of the will is really not free at all, but is bound to unconscious desires that dominate the personality. No wonder many psychologists are sceptical about the concept of will, at least in a context of freedom and responsibility.
However there is still more to be said about the will than this. There are times when it is a conscious activity derived not from hidden drives but from the deep desire to find meaning in the dark world we inhabit. Desire is the stimulus that sets the will in action. Where there is no desire, there is no action whatsoever and the person lies inert. Desire is often deprecated in religious circles, but without it there would be no growth into the knowledge of God. Desire for purely personal gratification or for self-aggrandisement, even to the extent of gaining personal knowledge of divine things, leads to disillusionment and despair. But a desire for the good of others besides ourselves, a desire which is the prerequisite for the action of love, is the way of true understanding of the self. And this desire sets in motion the spiritual quest, a quest not to be fully realised in this life, but one that leads us out of the darkness of selfish isolation into the ever increasing light of fellowship with others.
It follows then that the will is the active response of the personality to the various desires to which it is heir.The flesh has its desires of survival, nourishment, and sexual satisfaction which are so inveterate that they manifest themselves continually as the unconscious drives we share in common with the animal creation. In the case of many people the will is identified with the satisfaction of these primitive drives, and there is no freedom of action outside the body's demands. But in other, more evolved, people there is an awareness of the world they inhabit, of the basically incomplete nature of man, and a deeply felt yearning for understanding and self-fulfillment. It is this desire for meaning and self-realisation, often precipitated, as we have already seen, by some tragedy or great suffering, that leads us on to the spiritual path, for then at last we realise that, in the end, nothing matters except the unitive knowledge that comes from the encounter with God. The true identity of the person, the soul, now comes into its own. It directs the personality and indeed eventually so penetrates and pervades the personality that it becomes soul-filled. At this stage there is an integration of the body and the mind (with its reasoning and emotional faculties) under the control of the soul which in turn is directed by the Spirit of God within it. The controlling, directing action of the soul is that aspect of the will which is conscious and free.
The freedom of which I speak is a freedom from enslavement to the senses or the outside environment. It does not cast off the needs of the body or the directions of the senses any more than it escapes from being involved in the outside world. But instead of being subject to these influences, it is in control of them and gives them that rein which is necessary for the well-being of the person's physical, emotional, and intellectual faculties without allowing them to take charge and disrupt his personality. Only when one has established one's identity in a crisis of moral choice can one really know what is meant by free will. Only then is one a free agent.
Let us consider some of the attributes of this liberty to be oneself.
The glory of a freed will-one under the direction of the soul-is that it can be used for the final flowering of the personality. It is no longer subservient to the drives of the body and no longer under the domination of the outside world, being driven hither and thither by the flux of circumstances. It can act according to the direction of the Spirit within, and does not need to placate or bribe other people. Such a will is not, as I have already pointed out, above the influence of our inner drives or the demands of the environment around us. It is, on the contrary, very sensitive to these facts of life, but is no longer subject to them. A free person is one who can be himself in any situation. He does not depend on the support of others to sustain his own inner life. He is not bound by the opinions of others nor the fleeting fortunes of the world around him. He does not need the patronage of those whom the world calls great, because his support comes from within him. But being no longer beholden to others, he is an inevitable centre of attraction and support for them, because in him they see something, albeit inchoate, of the nature of God. The more one seeks friends, the more friendless and alone one is. The more the kingdom of God, which is within us and around us, is sought, the more will all other things, and above all, loving human relationships, be added to us. This is the law of spiritual supply. It is clear that, at this stage of being, the will is no longer a thrusting assertive force, but is rather the quietening influence in the personality which makes us receptive to the inner voice. "Be still, and know that I am God." (Psalm 46.10). It is now that we can begin to fathom the mystical juxtaposition of the free will and the will of God.
The free will does not go into a state of restful oblivion and wait for God to do everything. This error, which is called quietism, leads to a complete atrophy, or withering, of the personality. The free will brings the personality under the direction of the receptive soul, so that the inner voice can make its wordless message felt. And this message is one of strengthening, for indeed, it is the Comforter (the bringer of strength) Who is the Holy Spirit. It is something of a paradox that the person convulsed with incessant activities is, far from being an active agent, really passive and under the domination of powerful unconscious drives. On the other hand, the quiet receptive person who waits patiently on the Spirit is showing great inner activity.
Contemplation is the most exalted activity that man can perform. In it the whole personality is, under the action of the enlightened will, kept quiet so that the Holy Spirit can inspire it and lead it into greater truth. This apparently simple action of the will takes a longer time to fulfil than we could bear to consider. It is the very meaning and purpose of life. It is the core of the great statement of Jesus, "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's the same shall save it." (St. Matthew I6.25). Indeed, the life that is saved is no longer the circumscribed life of the personality but the all-pervading consciousness of the soul that extends to the nethermost regions psychically and mystically.
Thus the end of the spiritual life is liberty. Liberty is quite different from licence, in which there is no imposed control on the drives and lusts of the body and mind and the person is free to do whatever he likes. The end of licence is disintegration of the personality and the collapse of the social order, because if there is no higher direction, the animal selfishness that is part of our earthly inheritance will dominate our lives. Real freedom is far from being a condition in which we are in absolute charge of ourselves according to the personal selfishness we exhibit. It is a state of willed discipline to the highest we know, a knowledge that is innate in the soul, and which, through the gift of faith, is made manifest in our lives. St. Paul describes himself as a servant of Jesus Christ, and yet it was through the same Christ that he passed beyond the bondage of the law to the love in which all law is consummated. This love is no instant attainment. It requires a life consecrated in ardour and self-giving to the highest we know for love to dawn upon us and transform us. It is in such service only that there is perfect freedom. The way to this heavenly freedom is by the enlightened will, a will free from all carnal and intellectual encumbrances, yet at the same time glorifying the body and the mind.
The proper use of the will is the basis of discipline. In the early stages of the ascent to God we should have the desire to serve Him sufficiently to be prepared to give of a little of our time to worship Him. Thus the will must be active enough to cause us to retire from the work in which we are engaged, whatever it is, and move to God in silent meditation. This is one of the reasons why time set aside assiduously for the inner life is an essential part of our spiritual development. In the religious life, the Office is recited to bring the mind to recollectedness. In the early stages of prayer, the mind may derive great benefit from the willed visualisation of sacred scenes, parables, and symbols. Later it often becomes fatigued, bored, and apparently far from the awareness of the divine reality. Then it is that the will should lead the mind into greater stillness, so that beyond even the range of the discursive intellect, a realm of ineffable reality may be touched where the soul is enraptured in the silence, and worships the eternal Godhead in wordless adoration.
Discipline is the way in which the components of the personality are put progressively under the direction of the spirit that is the highest part of the soul. If the will acts in this way there is a sacrifice of the personal self that is necessary for the emergence of the spiritual self, or soul. When the personality is infused by the authenticity of the soul, the will is free and acting under the direct instructions of the Holy Spirit. Then we are indeed participants in God's will. In St. Augustine's famous dictum, "Love, and do what you will," we see the meaning of a freed will. In real love, as I said earlier, the centre of our being is no longer rooted in the personal self but in the soul, which is in eternal communion, through the spirit, with all other souls and with God. Love seeks not its own but rather the liberty that embraces all the children of God. Thus when we know of this transcendent, and yet impersonal, love, we are free, and whatever we do is to God's greater glory.
This is man's end-to worship God and to enjoy Him forever. Our will is most closely attuned to His will when we are most like what He was when He became flesh of our flesh. In the incarnation of Christ we see the coincidence of the human and the divine wills, separate yet united. And this is the promise for all mankind as it partakes fully of the divine nature deeply ingrained in it, yet sadly obscured by a perverse will. We have to grow into a knowledge of God through faith and an enlightened will.
The will can never force a knowledge of God. It is important to recognise that. Even the most exhaustive techniques of meditation that aim at forcing open the very doors of heaven and bringing us face to face with God Himself fail miserably. Their fruits are illusory psychical phenomena, not the peace that passes understanding-that peace which Jesus left with His disciples, the peace He gave them which was so unlike the trivial peace of the world. For power, whether secular or occult, there is great striving. For the peace of God there is only submission and self-sacrifice. And yet everything that is surrendered and sacrificed is restored, blessed in name and transfigured in essence. The freed will, which shows itself in real personal protest against moral evil at the beginning of its ministry, fulfills itself by making the personality receptive to the love of God. A freed will is therefore necessary for God's grace to be properly received and perfectly used. We shall return to God from Whom we come as free agents. The will is the power behind the action of return. And we shall return as mature, integrated human beings full of the knowledge of the love of God. Every consciously willed act in God's name (or nature) leads us to the moment of union with Him.
Mysticism at its peak is that union with the Divine. Let us think about mysticism and spirituality, with this in mind