Theosophical Correspondence.
Translation from German by Robert Hutwohl[1]
Question: — Does man have free will to choose between good and evil?
Answer: — To get the right answer to this question, one has only to examine oneself. Mortal man, considered as an intellectual animal, has no free will, but his actions are determined by his inclinations and experiences; he is driven by his nature and guided by his knowledge. But in every normal human being there is a ray of divine light, which stands above the animal nature in freedom, and by means of which man is able to distinguish and choose between good and evil. As Jacob Boehme clearly explains in his work on “The Three Principles,” there are three worlds, namely:
- The world of light, i.e. of truth, goodness and joy, in which the divine will reigns.
- The world of darkness, i.e. of egoism, lies, evil and suffering, in which the will is perverted and, as a result of selfishness, is opposed to the divine will.
- The earthly world, in which light and darkness, truth and error, love and hate, joy and suffering, good and evil are mixed.
These three worlds represent three principles, each of which has its own center, and each center strongly attracts the will-spirit of the soul to itself so that it may turn into it, and when the souls turn the eternal will into it, they become one or of the same nature with it. Thus we see that a soul, through its own will, if it gives way to the magical attraction of a center and follows it, can make of its eternal will-spirit either a heavenly or a hellish spirit or even a completely earthly, animal spirit.
The Bhagavad-Gītā (Chapter VIII, 4) also teaches the same thing: “He who directs his whole mind towards another being, at the end of his life enters into that being’s essence; for his nature becomes the same as that being’s nature.” It follows from this that man’s free will only begins where his animal nature ends, i.e. when he has come to the knowledge of his higher nature and consequently to the distinction between good and evil. If he has recognized the light within himself, this knowledge also gives him the freedom to choose between the world of light and the kingdom of darkness.
Note
[1] Theosophical Correspondence. Freedom of will. By Dr. Franz Hartmann. [Theosophische Korrespondenz. Willensfreiheit. Von Dr. Franz Hartmann. Theosophischer Wegweiser 8, no, 6 (March 1907), 188-189] {This article was reformatted from the original, but with the content unchanged other than minor typos, translation from German by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025}