Fate vs Free Will

The philosophical battle

Has gone on for millennia. The contemporary doctrines place great emphasis on our gift of absolute free will. As well, one of the cornerstones of the Church’s power is the tenet that individuals need to make a conscious choice as to whether they want salvation or damnation. In the medieval period, orthodox Christianity found no problem with natural astrology that understood the correspondence between the heavens and the material world and used this knowledge in such fields as agriculture and medicine. But for denying human free will and for attributing to the astrologer the omnipotence of God, judicial astrology was roundly condemned by theologians such as St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, for whom the only legitimate means of foreknowledge could be through Divine Revelation, as noted in his Summa Theologiae. On the other hand, traditional astrology seems to fall into the “fate and predestination” camp. Nevertheless, the prevailing approach is rather to look at the birth chart as a map of the types of experience that we need to have in order to be the most fulfilled in our lives. We are by no means required to follow the map and the map is not the actual terrain — we can choose from an infinite number of ways to experience the energy in our charts.

The views

In ancient Egypt

A mythological person named Hermes Trismegistus, supposed author of the Corpus Hermeticum taught that man was created by the supreme mind and receives the qualities of the seven planets which govern his destiny on earth. But he, who shares the essence of mind, also partakes of its utter freedom. In other words, as soon as he desires to overcome fate, he can, by realizing and acting from the immortal part of his soul. All men are guided by destiny, but those who are led by the mind do not suffer as others do. Man is a god, he only has to recognize it, and this very recognition can change his relationship with fate.

Ptolemaic astrology

Firmly upheld a natural process of causation and the Ptolemaic model implied the correlation of effects from the heavens in an objective time with those on earth, unfolding in a predetermined way like the cogs in a great machine of destiny. Ptolemy established the primacy of the seed moment, such as birth itself, at which time the heavens stamped an impression that would indelibly mark the individual. Such a conception of direct, quantifiable astral influence presupposes an omniscient astrologer who observes objectively a fixed pattern; it appears to allow him to give an irrevocable judgment on the “fate” sealed by the birth moment.

In Vedic cosmology

The belief in reincarnation and transmigration makes the practitioner of astrology a fatalist, so far as the rewards and punishments of past lives are concerned, and it is to cause set in motion in a former birth that he traces the inevitable fate of the present life. Crucial to Hinduism is the law of karma – the idea that deeds in this lifetime are determined by the quality of other lifetimes. The Sanskrit word “karma” represents the accumulated actions of former lifetimes that helps to create a person’s present dharma or assigned duties in this lifetime. Karma appears in three aspects: 1. Sanchita, the sum or result of acts committed in the previous incarnation, 2. Prarabda acts of the present incarnation which is subject both to the influence of the previous life and the exercise of free will in the present one, 3. Akami, future, unrealized acts. Thus, the progress of the soul from one incarnation to another is conditioned by a mixture of free will, karma, and fate. In the 2nd century A.D the Stoic astrologer Vettius Valens expressed similar views: “Fate has decreed for every human being the unalterable realization of his horoscope, fortifying it with many causes of good and bad things to come. Because of them, two self-begotten goddesses Hope and Chance, act as the servants of Destiny”.

In the Middle Ages

Arab astrologer Abu Ma’shar (787-886) held that the choice exercised by man’s rational soul is circumscribed by its connection to the physical body, whose potentials are already limited. Man’s rational soul acts in connection with his vital soul, but the latter is influenced by the animated planets. For instance, among the motions within his possibilities through the physical properties of his body, he may select walking, sitting, or standing (but not flying). Once he chooses, the possibilities of his material nature are forthwith determined to this particular motion. Moreover, man’s choice is itself limited to the actual determination caused by the planetary motions. The planets give possibilities because they are ensouled, and, as such, they are in harmony with man’s soul; so they judge and deliberate and so does man. Yet everybody judges and deliberately acts out what the planets have already deliberated. Thus, in man reason and choice merely reflect the celestial reason and choice. In fact, there is little, if any, freedom.

Thomas Aquinas

The official theologian of the Catholic Church was also concerned to reconcile the determinism of astrology with free will. He asserted that one could utilize the power of rationality to overcome fate. The basis for this statement was the distinction between the immortal soul (governed by reason) and the physical body (governed by sensual desire). Astrological forces could, according to Aquinas, affect the physical body. The soul, however, was beyond such forces and individuals could exercise their reason and overcome planetary influences. People in groups were ruled more by their passions than by reason. Thus, the actions of nations, cities, and other organizations were more fated than the actions of individuals. Because of the distinction that Aquinas drew between groups and individuals, it has been said that he was the first person to distinguish natal from mundane astrology.

Carl Jung

In the 20th century conceived an interesting theory on synchronicity and causality. Using the term, ‘synchronicity’ Jung was not referring to a simultaneous coincidence of events; he was rather talking about a relative simultaneity which is comprehended only by a personal subjective experience. It is just this subjective element that is decisive, i.e. the relative simultaneity. However, of equally great importance is the meaningful content of what happens; in other words, it is the sense of experiencing a meaningful connection that welds events that are not linked causally into a single whole. Hence the principle of synchronicity contains two key concepts: the objective phenomenon of events, occurring at more or less the same time without a causal connection between them, and the subjective factor in which the person himself must feel either that the events are a simple ‘accident’ which is devoid of point or meaning or that they form a very significant experience. The subjective element in the synchronicity principle makes it inevitable that not everyone will find significance in events that take place simultaneously and have a possibly meaningful connection. The principle of synchronicity is not a philosophical notion but an empirical idea arising from the lack of any proper way of explaining the growing number of phenomena impossible to account for by cause and effect. Jung’s explanation for the occurrence of synchronistic phenomena is that there is an active and a priori type of knowledge in the unconscious of man that rests on a corresponding arrangement of the microcosm and the macrocosm, in which the archetypes function as classifiers. The collective human unconscious, which we share with all our fellows, contains everything. It is built up of archetypes and their existence is a prerequisite for the formation of everything which takes shape in our world of existence, in which they introduce a certain degree of order.

Contemporary astrologers

Hold that people are free not only in what they intend but also in how they react to events. Choices should be guided by one’s values, ideals, and intuition, not by fear of a capricious and malevolent fate. To the extent that one learns lessons from experience, subsequent experience may be altered. Character is fate, and if we can alter our character, we can mutate our fate. This is an old belief: “Ethos [=character] anthropou [= a man’s] daemon” – Heraclitus, 5th century B.C. The contribution of 20th-century astrology lies in the idea that event-oriented prediction and psychologically oriented anticipation are not necessarily opposed to each other; the psychologically oriented astrologer can make previsions of possible events, but the emphasis is on empowering the individual to effectively meet the situations.

Dennis Elwell

The British astrologer has tried to make ends meet by stating that a good interpretation is like a triangle with three points: (1) the psychological dimension (2) the event dimension, and (3) the meaning dimension. Without including this third point, the client may be left with the impression that the relationship between his subjective and objective experience is a linear, one-way causal train -i.e., he might assume that consciousness is the by-product of environmental influences, whether these influences are parental, genetic, social, or cosmic. Astrology, however, shows that events are also, in some strange synchronicity way, a product of the consciousness of the experiencer. This implies that the relationship between inner and outer is circular, not linear. If fate produces character, then the reverse is also true: the character is fate. The connection is no longer a linear cause-effect relation, but circular, with one feeding into the other so that the two are related by mutual inter-definition.

An erroneous dilemma

Accordingly, many theorists have pointed out that the splitting of astrologers into two camps-the psychological and the predictive- is a false dichotomy. Psychologically oriented astrologers also make predictions, but do so in a manner that is different from astrologers who focus primarily on events without reference to the significance of the client’s inner world. Because the birth chart symbolizes both subjective and objective experience, the point is not whether one emphasis or the other should prevail, but how to show a meaningful connection between the two. Thus there should be no ‘versus’ between psychological and predictive astrology.

In mundane astrology

Expanding this opinion, some specialists in this area have maintained that whatever happens in the world is not the result of isolated configurations but of an accumulation of threads that have been inextricably weaving themselves into this predetermined tapestry of planetary conditions and circumstances. The planetary patterns of all time are there in potential from the beginning of time. They were enfolded within the very structures and geometry of the Cosmos at the outset. The most important role of astrology is to suggest ways in which individuals and collectives may become increasingly conscious of the potential of each cycle and work at its highest unfolding. For, as Jung put it, what we will not accept into our consciousness will simply return to us in an outward guise as Fate. In other words, we can only receive those manifestations of any cycle or moment that we are open to receive. Increased consciousness is the only key. Astrology should be a tool to extend free will by facilitating the understanding of the available choices, rather than a technique to predict the future.

Epilogue

Evidently, the controversy on the subject will last for a long time. Until a generally accepted answer is found, the only way to treat it is with literary texts, even with puns. So I conclude with the best definition of astrology inadvertently given: “Some little oasis of fatality amid a wilderness of error” (E. A. Poe, “William Wilson”). Astrology is neither a delusion nor an illusion. It is an allusion to a will and an elusion from total responsibility. An American writer, Ambrose Bierce (1842-1913), was on the same wavelength: “Responsibility: A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one’s neighbor. In the days of astrology, it was customary to unload it upon a star.”