One of the questions that occupy the attention of many people who are seeking answers is the question of the extent to which human beings have free will, or whether they are automatically compelled to act the way they do in certain situations. Some people claim that our experience of possessing a free will is merely a delusion and that what we call will is only an automatic release of causes and effects determined by chemical connections in our glands and other organs. There are others who are of the opinion that our will exists as something that is independent of everything and everyone. Their behaviour is evidence of such an attitude to life because they pay no attention to other people's will and way of thinking, but use every available means to seek to impose their own will.

According to this way of thinking, what we call our I and our individuality should emerge when the substances combine, and disappear again when these substances form other connections, and our will should be merely the result of the reaction of chemical substances. A chemist, who uses his ability to think and draw conclusions based on cause and effect with the aim of mixing physical substances so as to bring about desired results, should therefore himself be a mere result of such blind, chemical forces and his ability to exercise his will, which is guided by his experience and his thinking, should be nothing more than an illusion, a deception pure and simple. One could just as well do away with the term "chemist" and just speak about chemistry. The "creator" plays no role whatsoever, as he is merely a product of "what is created" or of the combinations of the substances. But how can "what is created" create a "creator"? Surely a chemist does not occupy himself with chemistry unless he has a wish and a will to do so. He is interested in it, he experiences something as a result of it, and he creates something. He does not create "something" out of "nothing", but with his experience and his thinking in conjunction with his will he changes combinations of matter into other combinations of matter. Creation consists of changing things from one state to another. This also applies in Nature, there is no thing that has come out or nothing, neither is there anything that can become nothing. Everything is in the process of change in the world of matter. And with respect to this process of change, science asserts that it is planned and that it is logical.

The forces of Nature manifest in accordance with what we call the laws of Nature. When human beings create they also have to be familiar with these laws, otherwise what they create will be imperfect or perhaps even a complete and utter mess. Their freedom to create is dependent on their knowledge of the laws of life and their ability to convert the knowledge they have into action. Human beings are thus "creators" to the extent that they know and use the materials and energies of life in harmony with the laws of Nature. But how did Nature come about? Does it consist merely of chance combinations of matter? A flower, a tree, an animal, a human being, are they merely the results of chance causes? And equally the planets, the solar systems and galaxies, all these combinations of heavenly bodies each following its own distinct path, are they merely the expression of pure chance? To say nothing of all the forms of life within the human being's own organism, its organs, cells, molecules, atoms and electrons that, as long as the being is healthy, together perform a wonderful division of labour. Does it not demonstrate logic? Does it not demonstrate thought and foresight? Is it pure chance that our eyes are positioned where they are? Are not our hands ingenious tools? Is it not a proof of thoughtfulness that the nose with its sense of smell is placed as far away from the "drain" as is possible? Who thought of it like that? Who wanted it to be like that? It is the eternal Creator who with his eternal creative ability transforms matter, which is in itself also eternal, from one state to another and from that state to yet another, and so on. The states or combinations of matter are not eternal, they make up the shifting world of time, space and form, in which everything consists of cycles within cycles.

The belief in an eternal God behind everything in Nature is not something that human beings have invented. The primitive human being knows, as a result of its instinct, that there is something invisible behind the visible and a creator behind what is created. The fact that through the ages human beings have created this god in their own image, according to their own highest ideals of might and wisdom, is quite another issue. An understanding of the divine Creator grows as human beings evolve. But, one may say, there are in our time a great many people who do not believe that there is a god at all. Indeed, but this is only a transitional stage. Human beings' instinct has degenerated and their intelligence is in the process of developing, with the result that many human beings at the moment have difficulty in blindly believing. They want to understand. This also shows how the will works. There are many human beings who would like to believe, if only they could. But because their intelligence is now an essential part of the forces that direct their will and as this intelligence can only be satisfied through logical explanations, it is no longer enough for them to be told that "the ways of the Lord are past all understanding". On the other hand their intelligence is still not sufficiently developed to enable them to use it as a guide in cosmic or universal logic. Only local logic, that is to say logic characterised by materialistic thinking, is predominant in the terrestrial human beings' consciousness at the moment. From a cosmic point of view, human beings are like little children that are busy with everything that is happening around them. They are focussed on the world of things, they want to own and possess, and they can often, like children, fly into a rage if they do not get what they want. Like children, they also like to take things apart in order to see what is inside them, but they are not sure that they can put them together again because they are still not yet ready to see how things work. Like children, they have the freedom to gain a great deal of experience of good and evil, to hurt themselves and get burnt, to tear things up and break them to pieces, but they also have to take the consequences. We know that once a child has burnt itself it knows to keep away from fire, and the same principle applies to human beings as a whole. A great many people have not the heart to hurt another person or to cause trouble and they have the greatest compassion for others who have fallen on hard times. This is because they have personal experience of how it is. In previous incarnations they have been through hardship and suffering that has "burnt" them so much that they now shy away from actions that could bring them a similar fate in the future. They have the greatest compassion for people that are experiencing such situations and they do everything they can to help them. These experiences have therefore given them greater freedom, because they can engage their will to avoid a dark fate.

Naturally the chemical combination of the substances in our organism has a tremendous influence on our experience of life as a whole. But by giving these combinations of substances primary importance, by making them into what determines the way we live and experience our lives and the way we think, the materialistically-minded research scientists are turning the essential elements of life on their head. But it is quite natural that they should do so because physical science is based on what one can experience with the physical senses, on what one can weigh and measure and take apart in order to see what it looks like inside. But as long as one cannot experience what is invisible, which is the innermost cause of things being put together the way they are and the cause behind the substances or materials having the very chemical combinations that they have, as long as one knows nothing about the spiritual materials that are found behind and that penetrate the physical materials, the freedom of one's own will is rather limited. Freedom is in fact dependent on what knowledge of both the physical and mental laws of life one is able to put behind one's will, that is to say, what knowledge and capability one has as a power directing one's will.

As long as human beings have a materialistic outlook on life, believing that they began to exist when they were conceived or when they were born and that they will cease to exist when they die, they have locked themselves into a tiny, restricted world in which there is not much freedom. They are able to believe that their will is merely a result of physical-chemical connections in the organism and that everything is, as a result, pointless and down to pure chance. Such an outlook on life makes it difficult for the originator of the outlook to become old. Bitterness, martyr complexes and fear readily ensue as a result, not least the fear of death. But as mentioned earlier, such conditions are merely a temporary stage. Terrestrial human beings, who from a cosmic point of view are like children, will evolve and arrive at greater spiritual maturity. They will gradually learn - first and foremost through their own experiences and later when as a result of these experiences they are ready to understand spiritual science - that life is not merely something that happens, an eternal process of transformation in eternal cycles, but it is also something that is, an eternal, unchanging "something" that we call the "I", and that is the fixed point behind all the movements and actions. This eternal "I" with its eternal "ability to create" is the background for everything that takes place in the eternal cycles of substances or in "what is created". This triune principle, "the creator, the ability to create and what is created", represents the universe itself as the living being or the God in whom we all "live, move and have our being". But it also represents all living beings in the universe, whether they are, from our perspective, atoms or galaxies, or whether they are plant beings, animals or humans. They are "created in God's image after his likeness", and that means that the same eternal principles exist behind their temporal appearance in a temporary form in a physical world. But do all these beings in micro-, meso- and macrocosmos have free will? They do, to the extent that they with their consciousness are one with the laws of life or the divine will. If they are one hundred percent one with the divine will they have the freedom to create combinations of matter merely by concentrating their thought, they can then materialise and dematerialise, they are the Godhead's co-creators and co-workers in the universe. One cannot say this about terrestrial human beings, they are still cosmic children. But over the course of a series of incarnations they will gain the necessary experience and acquire the necessary ability to be of benefit to the whole. And they can do nothing better than to follow the example given to human beings by Christ. He taught people to pray: "Father, not my will, but thy will be done", and however paradoxical it may perhaps sound to some people, this is the way to the highest form of freedom. Such an attitude does not make the person into a blind tool, a puppet or a robot, but into a figure of standing, who with their being and creative faculty are, in an individual way, an expression of divine creative power and love.