Valentinian Freewill Compatibilism

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Contents:

• Intro
• The Ancient Shift from a 2-Level to a 3-Level Model of Transcendence
• Faith + Works; Hyper-Calvinism + Arminianism/Pelagianism
• Twin Truths: God’s Sovereignty and Man’s Responsibility (MacArthur)
• Valentinian “Races” Metaphor

Intro

The Bible asserts, in tension, both freewill and then subsequently no-free-will, in a 2-phase, 2-level approach, forming a 2-layer, hybrid system; a consistently inconsistent system.

After enlightenment, you come away with a combination of two distinct mental models: Possibilism-thinking is retained, and you add Eternalism-thinking.

The mind then has the capability of using and thinking in terms of either model: the workaday model and the religious model.

After perfection or completion of initiation, having washed the mind clean from relying naively on freewill thinking, you retain freewill thinking, while adding no-free-will thinking — and in a way, you can say you have transcended no-free-will; the resulting system can be described as a 3-level system:

1 – You start with naive freewill thinking.

2 – You experience a shattering change into no-free-will thinking.

3 – You restabilize during that intense mystic peak state upon sacrifice, and after the mystic state subsides and you are able to retain full understanding of no-free-will, you return to the freewill state of consciousness (tight cognitive binding), but now are equipped with both mental models.

The Ancient Shift from a 2-Level to a 3-Level Model of Transcendence

It appears that around 100 B.C., the popular thinking was 2-level: first freewill thinking, then awakening to no-free-will. Enlightenment = becoming aware of no-free-will.

Around 150 A.D, the popular thinking changed, and every brand of religion now bragged about being superior, rising even above no-free-will: First naive freewill thinking, then no-free-will, then transcendent virtual freewill thinking.

Per Ken Wilber’s “pre/trans fallacy” explanation, don’t conflate naive freewill thinking with transcendent, virtual freewill thinking.

I’ve held that historical speculation since maybe 2005. Textual analysis just seems to reveal that trend, that transcending no-free-will became a widespread popular theme. That’s a good research topic: confirm or deny that trajectory of religious thinking.

In a 2-level system (100 B.C.?), the block-universe worldline snake = enlightenment = positive valuation = completed transcendence; perfection of initiation.

In a 3-level system (150 A.D.?), the block-universe worldline snake = problematic = negative valuation = incomplete transcendence.

Mithraism per Ulansey is such a 3-level system: the goal is to move the sphere of the fixed stars, with Mithras who is reborn to reside outside of the fatedness-ruled rock block universe.

1 First you are below the sphere of Saturn and the sphere of the Fixed Stars;
2 Then you are in the sphere of the fixed stars (with worldline serpent),
3 Then you are above the sphere of the fixed stars (above the block universe with worldline serpents). With Mithras, you move the pole, to move the sphere of the no-longer fixed stars.

Book: The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries: Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World, David Ulansey, 1989, http://amzn.com/0195067886

Faith + Works; Hyper-Calvinism + Arminianism/Pelagianism

The 2-phase, 2-level position allows affirming two opposed, incompatible schemes, made compatible within a higher, hybrid scheme, while keeping them distinct and opposed; mutually exclusive and yet conjoined into a higher-order system.

I settled on the “2-phase, 2-level, hybrid compatibilism” position after watching Leighton Flowers on YouTube (the Soteriology101 channel). He’s a former Calvinist, who has defined a “Provisionism” position, against Arminianism (freewillism) and Calvinism (no-free-willism).

Freewill thinking is our default, initial, animal-like, daily mode of experiencing & thinking.

The ordinary state of consciousness is the freewill mode of experiencing & thinking.

Freewill & no-free-will aren’t just two different theoretical philosophies or world-models, as conceptualized in the ordinary state of consciousness (OSC); they are two different modes of experiencing; 2 different experiential states, where each state gives rise to a different conceptual model.

Sam Harris wrote a book advocating the no-free-will view, and wrote a pro-entheogens Spirituality book.

While Sam Harris is in the OSC, he thinks in terms of freewill, because in that state, he experiences freewill, with open possibilities branching, and egoic control power, even though freewill (& branching & egoic control) is metaphysically false.

It’s a distinction between cognitive phenomenology vs. metaphysical truth.

The freewill state of consciousness, in our daily life, is a real state of consciousness – yet that doesn’t make freewill true. We experience freewill as if it were metaphysically true, while we are in the OSC.

While the mind is in the OSC, freewill is phenomenologically, experientially the case, but freewill is never metaphysically the case.

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Matthew 16:27 — “For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.” Revelation 20:12-13 — And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.

Ephesians 2:8-10 “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. ¹⁰ For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
31 Bible Verses About Calvinism

Twin Truths: God’s Sovereignty and Man’s Responsibility (MacArthur)

We are commanded by the Bible to believe two contradictory views explicitly as contradictory views that we are not to simply “harmonize”: John MacArthur sermon video: Twin Truths: God’s Sovereignty and Man’s Responsibility, 2020. The entire sermon is relevant; MacArthur discusses the two contrasting perspectives placed in tension, woven all throughout the Bible. 9:14 —

“In the Word of God, these truths run parallel. And the answer is to believe them both with all your heart.

“And the one, divine sovereignty, will inform your worship. And the other, human responsibility, will motivate your evangelism.

“Anybody who ever tries to harmonize those two things destroys one or the other of them, or both of them. You can’t change them, you can’t tamper with them; you must be content to believe them both.

“Now, how can I help you to deal with that? I can’t harmonize it, I can’t bring it all together, I can’t solve your dilemma, I can’t answer the apparent paradox, so what am I left with?

[audience laughter throughout the remainder:]

“I want to make you comfortable with your inability not to get it. That’s my objective, ok? I just want to you be completely happy that you don’t get it, okay? Just put you to rest. Stop fighting that. That’s where we’re going today.

“I want you to be comfortable with the fact that wow, you just might not understand something. I know that’s a big pill to swallow, because of human pride — but get over it, and be content not to get it.”

Valentinian “Races” Metaphor

I didn’t exactly conclude free will; rather, I formulated a particular, heavily qualified definition or conception of ‘freewill’ and ‘compatibilism’, for the purpose of discussing the Egodeath theory with the many people who cannot countenance no-free-will, and who treat no-free-will as an immediate total dealbreaker which prevents learning the Egodeath theory.

It’s fine to advocate for freewill, or for no-free-will. I just want people to understand the mystic-state no-free-will experiential perspective. The Bible contains both views, in a structured tension. The angels debate the issue for eternity.

Pagels’ first 3 books, on Valentianian gnostics, describe their useful, sophisticated idea of unity between two different (figuratively speaking) “races” of Christians: they considered it to be an alliance between two different “races” of Christians: exoteric & esoteric Christians (mind/psychics vs. spirit/pneumatics).

Pagels’ first 3 books are on Valentinian Gnosticism themes in the writings of John; then in the writings of Paul; then in the Gospels.

Lowest “race”: body/soma/somatics/hylics — Non-spiritual non-Christians, who cannot be saved; they are destined for perdition. This category is for symmetry and can be ignored here.

Middle “race”: mind/soul/psyche/psychics — Ordinary-state-based moralist Christians who are saved or damned according to their ordinary-state-based faith in Jesus as Lord and savior, and possibly also based on their mundane moral conduct-of-life, morally rewarded or punished based on actions which the personal control agent initiated and is ultimately culpable for.

Their salvation, their type of salvation or damnation, is subject to and dependent on their personally initiated, mundane moral conduct of life, including their belief in Jesus.

For these “psychics”, freewill-premised morality is to be considered as “true” (in a qualified sense) and applicable for them, by “pneumatics”. This way, pneumatics allow non-spiritual Christians to be saved in some valid sense even though not in the highest sense.

Highest “race”: spirit/pneuma/pneumatics — Valentinian gnostics, who are saved through spiritual rebirth given to them from above.

Pneumatics are the elect, those predestined and given by God for salvation. These “pneumatics” were destined to be given a different moral system of salvation/damnation, than the “psychics” were destined to receive.

Morality, for pneumatics, is a matter of receiving wisdom about moral agency in light of the mystic experience of no-free-will. The same moral system cannot reasonably be applied to the “psychics”.

This allowance for two distinct moral systems within Christianity enables a qualified unity of exoteric and esoteric Christians.

I recently defined a kind of “compatibilism” between no-free-will & freewill. I explained no-free-will to an outsider and they so recoiled, I determined that I had to have some sort of story or accommodation of freewill belief.

Valentinian Gnosticism per Freke and Pagels provides a useful version of ‘compatibilism’. Freke & Gandy’s book The Jesus Mysteries directed me (on that point) to Pagels’ book The Gnostic Gospels, which led me to her 2 previous books.

Book:
The Jesus Mysteries: How the Pagan Mysteries of Osiris-Dionysus Were Rewritten as the Gospel of Jesus Christ / Was the Original Jesus a Pagan God?
Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy
http://amzn.com/0609807986
editions & subtitles

Ever since I have considered the matter, I have believed no-free-will, since late 1987, when I concluded that no-free-will was the key to making sense of satori per Alan Watts’ book The Way of Zen, leading to the January 11, 1988 top breakthrough, which connected Minkowski block-universe “determinism”, the mystic loose cognitive association state, no-free-will, and a kind of cybernetic non-control.

A person believing no-free-will then has to explain how God could possibly be not culpable for evil in the created world. At best, we can say God the creator is not directly morally culpable for the evil in the created world, but is merely indirectly culpable.

Many people would reject the Egodeath theory out-of-hand, because they are closed-minded to no-free-will.

Some kind of story of some kind of freewill affirmation is practically required, some type of “compatibilism”; then it becomes a matter of what kind of determinism-affirming ‘compatibilism’ to express.

If people are dead-set on freewill-premised morality, here is how to relate to them within the Christian framework, while still holding as I do, no-free-will (that God is culpable, whether directly or indirectly, for Satan’s thoughts, per hyper-Calvinism).

I’ve held no-free-will ever since I first considered at, around November 1987 while intensively re-reading the book The Way of Zen by Alan Watts (with Marvin Minsky’s book Society of Mind also in my personal library around that time). Around 2016, I found that I needed a way to discuss the Egodeath theory with people who cannot countenance no-free-will, without instantly completely shattering the Egodeath theory over this matter, in their eyes.