analysis of fate v.s. free will

Most people are either for fate or free will. I'm actually for both. In that technically they are the same thing.


There is a lot of confusion that arises from the Fate v.s Freewill idea. The key is to remember that the will itself is absolutely free, but when it is willed it becomes entangled in outside forces. These forces are actually mental, but in our human state they are either natural, personal, or other (a different person). The first step is to get over the hindrance of stopping your own thoughts. If every time you start thinking about abstract things, and then your inner dialogue tells you to stop, or that it is foolish, or tells you to stop thinking about it, you are restricting your thoughts. If someone else tells you to stop thinking about it and you listen to them, it is because of another. If you simply can not understand it, it is an inferior evaluation and/or teaching.

Remember that the will is free, but when it is willed, it becomes fated. This means that we have limited free will, not absolute free will. Only absolute perfect being (God) can have uncorrupted freedom. When this will is constantly consumed with the 5 lower senses, it becomes burdened by natural laws. When the will is directed towards the higher 6th sense, it can gain complete freedom. Here comes a seemingly contradictory statement: attachment to God is true freedom. I know that you might be thinking this is an example of "doublethink" but actually it is the affirmation that since God is freedom, attachment to freedom is freedom. Freedom is the Spirit, it is our true nature. If we are aware of this freedom, we become more free through association. So that is the good attachment that we are after, the good co-joining as opposed to the material universe we wish to escape. So in short, we must transcend the material universe while cleaving to the spiritual absolute.

The less spiritual we are, the more material we are, and since material nature is imprisoning, we are actually more fated. An easy way of thinking about this is to imagine someone who thinks strictly on the level of the 5 senses. They are imprisoned in their 5 senses because they have nothing better. Their own skepticism has prevented themselves from accessing their higher 6th sense. This is ironic because without the 6th sense, there would be no way to distinguish the 5 senses from each other and no way to differentiate the different things in the material universe. So to only see the world through your 5 senses is less freedom than someone who sees things from both his 5 senses and his 6th sense, more specifically someone who acknowledges the immortal nature of the 6th sense.

But how can free will be limited? If it is restricted even partially - then it is not freedom. And since God (at least as i see it) is whole the universe and beyond - the closer person is to God the less free will he have since he is less capable to make wrong choices. Freedom of will is basically freedom of choice in my opinion. One can choose wrong path or correct one. And freedom is in this moment only. The more spiritual person is and the closer he is to God - the higher capability of choosing correct paths - maybe it is what you mean by fate.
But since i have no real idea what sixth sense is - i might be too "imprisoned" to see what you meant.

reply to post by ZeroKnowledge


the will is free, but our willed actions are entangled in natural laws and are not absolutely free. You are right in that freedom means absolutely free, so technically we don't have complete freedom as humans, but our spirit is 100 percent free, and the entire spiritual journey is to gain that absolute freedom. Freedom of choice is the freedom we possess, but even then you can see that it is partial freedom, since we have freedom when it comes to choices, but the paths we choose are set in stone, so although we can switch paths, the paths in the world follow a set order and so are not completely free. The True Path is freedom, in that there really is no path, only spirit.

In book five of the consolation, Fate and free will are discussed, and the way it is discussed is through the use of the various forms of knowledge, namely senses, imagination, reason, and intelligence. Intelligence here is associated with divine intelligence, meaning it is the intelligence of God, but obviously humans have a proportion of intelligence, however their main understanding comes in the form of reasoning, which reflects on the universals. Imagination comprehends sense objects, and the senses naturally sense the real objects in the world. Basically, the argument is that man is not positioned to see all things, meaning he does not have omniscient intelligence, and so it is impossible for him to know fate, meaning it is also impossible for him to escape fate since if you do not know fate, you can never change it. God, however, according to Boethius, does know fate, but that there is actually two kinds of fate, one is from God's perspective, called providence, and the other from the individual's point of free.