On Being and Action - Part Four

    Imagine the implications of this.  It can be understood that all of existence follows a single plan.  This is, most generally, the way of the universe, or more simply and appropriately, THE WAY.
    The Way can account for powerful beings which give rise to certain configurations, based on a larger plan.  In other words, the overarching Way can even account for so-called gods, just as it can account for so-called human beings.  But it goes against the general principle of the Way to assume an author of the way.  This is because so long as there is an author determining existence according to a greater plan, there is a greater plan determining the author.  So if anything at all is to be brought away from this discourse, it is that an overall plan can be safely assumed, but any assumption of an overall planner rests on very thin ice, based on our experience of all that exists.
    Let us once again take note of our methodological rule: that all our knowing and our making-sense-of will be based on what we already know.  On a side note, this explains why the concept of a single god or creator is so appealing to human beings, because human experience itself is always determined by the willing of one, single human subject.  Naturally we project this onto all of being. 
    Let us consider the consequences that this conception, characterized by 'the Way', has for our conception of the free will of human beings.  We have already said that it is possible to have many separate affective entities which can change the configuration of existence at will.  We have also said that overall there is a general plan accounting for all of these entities.  What does this mean for free will?  It means that every choice that is ever made by any one entity is always already necessarily determined by the Way.  There is a plan that accounts for every single thing that you and I do.  And yet, we are still free to do what we choose to do!  It is just that whatever we DO end up choosing, is already planned out.  We cannot but make whichever choice we end up making.  This sort of conception strikes a middle ground between complete determinism and free will.