in man's free development. If the imagination were wholly in command, it would eventually run into a riot of daydreams or fanciful schemes that could not be worked out successfully in a world where natural law is inexorable. It is this "peril" (Asenath) that the mind considers, and brings forth, in sequence, will and understanding. "The highest and most excellent thing in man," says Goethe, "is formless, and we must guard against giving it shape in anything save noble deeds."
Man is a free agent in the possession and the use of the faculty of will. Freedom of will has been variously regarded and defined. It is the subject of volumes of theological literature and also the rock on which religionists have split. The theory of predestination relieves man of all responsibility. If God has fixed every act of man's existence, then there can be no mental or moral freedom. If man cannot determine the character of his acts, he has neither understanding nor will--he is a puppet.
The understanding and the will should be especially active in one who would master the sensations of the body. Potiphar's wife represents the sense consciousness that tempts us to meet its desires, and, when we deny it, has us imprisoned. This means that when a certain habit in the sense consciousness is refused expression, it reacts and for a time seems to prevent our expressing even the good. But let us patiently bide our time; the higher will yet show its God-given power.
The several visits of Joseph's brothers to Egypt for corn, and the final reconciliation, are symbolical representations of the manner in which we make connection with the obscured vitality within the organism and finally bring all our faculties into conjunction with it.
Volumes might be written with Joseph as a text. In his history, as given in Genesis, some of the most interesting processes of regeneration are symbolized. This hidden realm within the subconsciousness is in an Egyptian, or obscured, state to most of us. Yet it is a great kingdom, and its king is Pharaoh, ruler of the sun, or the "brain" and nerve center, which physiology names the solar plexus. This is the brain of the physical man, and it directs the circulation, digestion, assimilation, and so forth. Students of mind have discovered that the solar plexus is the organ through which a ruling thought in the head is carried into the body. He of the "hard heart," who would not let the people go, is human will, acting through the solar plexus, or city of the sun.
The spiritual life in the subconsciousness (Children of Israel in Egypt) is often prevented from expressing itself by the opposition of the will. If the understanding decides that what it conceives to be the natural law shall be the limit of expression, there is further bondage and there are harder tasks. Any hard, dictatorial, or willful state of mind will harden the heart. This state of mind acts through the solar plexus (the distributing station for building forces of the body), and thereby brings its limitations upon the whole system. Hardened arteries are the result of hard thoughts, this hardness originates in the will. Jehovah represents the law of the I AM in action.
The ambiguity in the term "motive" has caused much of the controversy that has raged over free will. The champions of free will commonly suppose that before performing an act a man is affected by various motives, none of which necessarily determines his act. Their opponents, on the other hand, argue that there is no such thing as this unmotivated choice. Some hold that free will proper consists of choice only as between higher and lower good. Some regard it as consisting in the power to do as one pleases or chooses. Others define it as the power to do or to choose as one should.
According to some academic metaphysicians, the freedom of the will includes the power to act contrary to all of one's own motives or inclinations or tendencies, this power being inherent in the will. It is readily seen that this thing called "motive" is another name for understanding, and that it is a necessary adjunct to that faculty. But not all people use understanding as the headlight for both motive and will. The undisciplined mind feels the impulse that lies behind motive, and acts without considering either cause or effect. This is partaking of the knowledge of good and evil without heeding the voice of wisdom--the sin of Adam, undeveloped man. Understanding may be illumined by the Christ Mind, and thus receive the light that "lighteth every man, coming into the world." Without this light man breaks the law in nearly every act. The divorcement of understanding from will has led to endless controversies between those who have written and debated about the necessity for man's having free will, and those who, because of the evils that have come upon man through ignorant willing, have advocated the utter effacement of the will.
We do not need less will; we need more understanding. Jesus (spiritual light) showed Thomas (intellectual understanding) the wounds that ignorance had inflicted upon the innocent body. Jesus' apostles represented His own faculties of mind. When He called them they were ignorant and undisciplined children of the natural world. But the image and likeness of the creative Mind was on them, to discipline them in the wisdom of the Christ (spiritual I AM).
As the executive power of the mind, human will is the negative pole of spiritual decision. Right here is where those who study man from a personal viewpoint fail in their estimate of his power and his accountability. As mortal, living in a material world, he seems circumscribed and limited in capacity and destiny. Philosophers have studied man in this cage of the mind, and their conclusions have been that he is little better than a reasoning animal.
But there is a higher and truer estimate of man, and that estimate is made from what the academic school of philosophy would call the purely speculative side of existence. Failing to discern his spiritual origin, they fail in estimating his real character. As a product of the natural man, will is often a destructive force. Nearly all our systems of training children have been based on breaking the will in order to gain authority over the child and obedience from him. We should remember that the right to exercise freedom of will was given to man in the beginning, according to Genesis, and that will should always be given its original power and liberty.
It is possible, however, for man so to identify his consciousness with Divine Mind that he is moved in every thought and act by that Mind. Jesus attained this unity; when He realized that He was willing not in the personal but in the divine, He said: "Not my will, but thine, be done."
Many sincere Christians have tried to follow in the way of Jesus, and they have negatively submitted their will to God. But they have not attained the power or the authority of Jesus by so doing. The reason is that they have not raised their will to the positive spiritual degree. Jesus was not negative in any of His faculties, and He did not teach a doctrine of submission. He gave, to those who went forth preaching the Gospel, the power and authority of the Holy Spirit. In Mark 16:16-18 it is recorded that Jesus says: "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned. And these signs shall accompany them that believe: in my name shall they cast out demons; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall in no wise hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." We must believe in the higher powers and be immersed in the omnipresent water of life. If we fail to exercise faith in things spiritual, we are condemned to the prison of materiality.
Some Christians believe that God's will toward men varies, that His will changes, that He chastises the disobedient and punishes the wicked. This view of God's character is gained from the Old Testament. Jehovah was the tribal God of the Israelites as Baal was of the Philistines. Men's concepts of God are measured by their spiritual understanding. The Jehovah, of Moses, is quite different from the Father, of Jesus, yet they are spiritually one and the same. "It is not the will of your Father who is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish," is the teaching of Jesus. He bore witness that the will of God is that men should not suffer--that through Him they should have complete escape from sin, sickness, and even death. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life." The sin, sickness, suffering, and death that men experience are not punishment willed by God; they are results of broken law. The law is good; men have joy, satisfaction, and life in everlasting harmony, when they keep the law. Creation would not be possible without rules governing the created.
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