The first three chapters of Genesis are probably some of the most complex and multi-layered parts of the bible. Many things can be said about these chapters, but what Sophians and Gnostics often like to discuss is the story of the “fall” of Adam and Eve from Grace and from the Garden of Eden. Gnostics love to poke at the moralistic lesson of Adam and Eve’s “disobedience” and question to who or what Adam and Eve were “disobedient” to, the “real” God or the pretender God, the Demiurge.
It may be interesting, however to look at the nature of individuality in the tale and contemplate the possibility of such an existence, the possibility of the microcosm which is individual, having “freewill” in the truest sense of the world. In fact, what if this existence as we think of it, this world in a play of “good” and “evil” is really a process of generation, of coming into “freewill” in it’s reality. I wonder if “freewill” in the spiritual sense can even be comprehended from the point of view of a consciousness that is chained to the duality of “good” and “evil”. From our dualistic perspective, we conceive of “freewill” as the possibility of choice between “good” and “evil” in any given moment. I wonder if this conception is the true generation of “freewill”? Within this framework of thinking, in fact, there is often an implied obedience to an outside force, defining “good” and “evil” for us and we must be obedient to that outside intelligence that is telling us what to do. We have the choice to obey or defy. Is this really a choice between “good” and “evil”? Is this really “freewill”? Wouldn’t freewill in the truest sense of the term be an absence of a moral authority that punishes and rewards for “good” or “bad” choices? We must be careful not to interpret this to mean free reign of all of our bestial impulses, for this is the slavery of the animal, who is moved by impulses he does not comprehend. But to conceive of “freewill” as a choice given to us by some force outside of us, thus obedience or disobedience is a slavery as well. We are the good lap dog or we are the dog left out in the rain. Either way, we are something else’s property and not truly “free”.
Such considerations can seem to propose that amoral or unethical behavior is perfectly appropriate and justified, yet I would propose that this would be a misunderstanding of the subtlety of what is being proposed here. In fact, much activity that we could call distinctly “evil” is merely a rebellion against some force we perceive as outside of us, and we act in defiance to that force in some subtle way. Much “good” activity is similarly a seeking of approval, and the reality display changes face to represent each to us in reflection. We see the face of God we manifest in obedience or disobedience. But is this freedom? Is this face that responds to our imagined obedience of disobedience truly God’s face? In both of these, we have not recognized that it is we who are manifesting this face of approval or judgment according to our subtle and unconscious expectations. We fail to see that this is the display of our own energy playing out what we have generated. Freedom, then seems to be the recognition that we generate the reality-display according to our subtle expectations.
What is God, becomes an important question here. Certainly, we cannot say that God is a person outside of us that is rewarding or punishing us, yet as long as we are an individual separate from the universe around us and separate from God, then we unconsciously generate an expectation of God in reflection to our responses. In fact, we may not be so separate at all, and thus the generation of this illusion creates a chain of cause and effect in response, action, response, action and the chain of action and “consequence” or “reward” plays out in unconscious patterns, consistently affirming the dualistic perspective we hold, amplifying it until we see the how the chain of cause and effect leads back to us.
In this sense, we could say that the purpose of the reality display is ultimately liberative, yet as long as we are caught up in dualistic perspectives and reactions, then we cannot ever find “freewill” that is beyond considerations of “me” and “other” or “good” and “evil”. Freewill may be exactly so because it is free of such considerations and so is “free” to play in a play of energy-intelligence, able to imagine outside of dualistic terms conditioned by the considerations of a limited sense of self.
