Course VIII - Teaching 7: Free Will

Actions and human activities are always the result of feeling and of one or of one or several inner thoughts, and of one o several past actions that at a time contain a seed of subsequent actions.
In the universe and in the world, everything is the result of one cause. Apparently in this sense the man is subject to an absolute destiny, since original causes give the subsequent result of the entire life.
This is true from the viewpoint of the cosmic activity that is the beginning of the sum total of causes and effects.
God plans the universe, and the latter develops according to His divine ideation. But these located causes keep the integrity of their origin and act freely on prevailing conditions at their determined part of the universe.
In its magnetic field of action, the determining and cosmic idea acts in accordance with its own free will.
Likewise in men; they are divinely determined: they will be men. But in the magnetic human field they shall possess freedom of action. However, even in their human field, they respond to a racial determinism because of causes and effects that can be defined as heritage.
Man as such is free because of his inner idiosyncrasy, and able to think and feel. Man determines his personal actions on his own, and so establishes his future destiny. In man, consciousness is a reflection of his divine, eternal and immutable destiny.
In man, will is a reflection of his freedom and a possibility of conquest.
In no way an individual shall surrender to fatality but must follow the Good Way with constant efforts of his Free Will.