Concerning freedom of the will, our pictorial representation provides some further clarifications. But let me first stress that when looking at the diagram above, the reader should not take it too literally. The soul is not extended, with cognition and volition happening in different places, and influence as something in between, that volition flows through, ending in an event. All these things happen together, in the same spot and simultaneously. They have been separated schematically, for purposes of analysis; but they are in fact all one event. It is one and the same self that cognizes, is influenced by cognition, and wills something, all together, in one and the same movement.
It is obvious that even the first physical event emerging from volition is subject to natural terms and conditions.
We have suggested specialized organs in the nervous system are probably necessary for such events40; and such organs would naturally depend on neurological, biological, chemical and physical laws41. If such organs are absent or damaged, or when inappropriate conditions prevail in them, they are inoperative. The soul is not free to will whatever it wants wherever it wants to into its physical environment, but only certain possibilities
‘allowed’ by natural law. This principle of due process is the philosophical assumption of most people, except perhaps lunatics 42
On the other hand, the soul has considerable freedom of will within itself. It can manifestly (as introspection and internal experiment shows) do a lot ‘at will’ there, though much of what we call ‘will’ is not immediate will but a cumulative result of smaller immediate wills that adapt to changing conditions (adaptation implying consciousness, note). Thus, volition is not unaffected, but influenced by cognized external as well as internal events. This influence (which is finally something internal) can never generate or block will, but only
40 This concerns humans and animals. With regard to the will of God, we would have to suppose such a restriction to be inapplicable. Obviously, the Creator of matter must have a will independent of matter. It follows that His providential acts in the ongoing life of the universe do not require special material receptors.
41 Signals within the nervous system are electrical and chemical.
42 Even believers in shamanism and magical powers allow for ‘due process’. Only, the processes they regard as possible seem obscure or ineffective to the rest of us.
accelerate or decelerate a particular direction of will, because will (the inner movement of soul) is a function of the agent only. Cognitions cannot in themselves move soul or stop it from moving.
All the more so, external conditions be they mental or physical, be they natural or artificial products of the will of some other soul(s), which might be construed to impinge upon the agent directly (i.e. not as influences, via his cognition of them), are apparently incapable of doing so. We may at least postulate such incapacity, as a further principle of freewill. This position is quite conceivable, if we express it as an independence of the spiritual domain from the mental and physical domains.
It is conceivable that whereas the physical and mental domains can be modified, directly or indirectly, within specific terms and conditions, by the spiritual domain (in our context, through certain acts of volition by souls), the reverse is not possible. It is not inconceivable that Nature includes this limitation, this one-way street between its domains.43
It is worth noting that causal pathways between the mental domain and the spiritual and physical ones seem to have precise directions. According to our theory here, the soul projects mental phenomena only indirectly via
43 It does not follow that the spiritual cannot control the spiritual. Thus, we may assume that God can dominate the human or animal soul anytime He chooses to. This would be a theological limitation to our freewill. It is a privilege however that God mostly chooses not to exercise, since it is His will that humans, and to a lesser extent animals, have freewill. He gracefully relinquishes some of his power, de facto though not de jure, so that we may exist “in His image and after His likeness” (to quote Genesis 1:26).
its volition of physical events in the nervous system (so that memory in the brain of a mental projection precedes the actual appearance to the soul of the imaginations projected by it). Also, whereas the physical domain can after volition, or even without prior volition, affect the mental domain, the reverse is not true. The mental domain does not seem to directly affect the physical domain, but does so only through its cognition by the soul, which thereafter affects the physical domain under influence of such cognition.
To repeat our freewill thesis: the physical and mental domains condition the spiritual domain through consciousness of their contents (this is influence); but they do not condition it directly, without consciousness (in the way of ordinary conditioning). This concerns the internal workings of soul, implying one aspect of freedom of the will.
On the other hand, soul has the privilege of being able to make changes in the physical or mental domains.
However, this capacity is not infinite, but subject to natural law. This restriction is especially evident in the physical domain, which sets finite terms and conditions to the volitions of the soul on it. Thus, volition may not operate just anywhere in it, but only in circumscribed locations (such as special living cells, probably).
Subsequent limitations may occur in the body (e.g. a man’s muscles may be too weak for some job); or further out, beyond the body (e.g. he may be imprisoned by impassable walls).
Once a volitional act has inscribed its ‘first physical event’, material nature takes its course. Some physical reactions may follow inevitably, some conditionally, and
some may be impossible come what may. Reactions may occur in the body (e.g. a man’s arm and hand move), or onward outside it (e.g. he may break down a wall). In these senses only, i.e. with reference to all physical limitations and reactions to volition, volition may be said to be liable to ordinary conditioning. But all that occurs outside the soul, note well, and so does not essentially qualify its freedom of volition as such44.
Cognition, volition and valuation are not only distinctive functions of soul; they are presumably its only ways to function. The soul’s cognition is not to be confused with the computer-style operations of the nervous system serving as its accessory. The soul’s volition is not to be confused with physical or mental preliminaries or consequences. The soul’s mode of operation is volition, i.e. freewill; that is presumably its only modus operandi:
it is not subject to any causation from nature (the physical and mental domains), though it may be affected by nature through cognition. But of course, its freewill is operative only during the soul’s existence; for the soul may be generated or destroyed by natural causatives (birth or death of a body)45.
44 If we are precise in our thinking about volition, we can avoid doctrines that put freedom in doubt. Thus, for example, if a boxer gets knocked-out, his soul’s freedom of will is not affected, but the temporary blockage of his sensory and motor faculties makes the assertion of his will in his body impossible, as well as deprive him of information needed to usefully direct such will, for a while.
45 Believers in God would of course add that it is He who controls birth and death.