“In Established Theology, there have been two great points of conflict between “Predestination” or “Foreordination” on the one hand, and what is known as “Free-Agency” or “Free-Will”, on the other hand. But to quote from Robertson’s Sermon’s: “All high truth is the union of two contradictories. Thus, predestination and free-will are opposites; and the truth does not lie between these two, but in a higher reconciling of truth which leaves both true.”
As we have suggested, man, like the animal world, cannot think or desire anything that is not in himself. He has perfect freedom of will, so far as circumstances and capacity permit; but he can never get the will to be or to do that which is contrary to his nature. He must possess the quality before he can express it. The nature of the life-forces must be such as to produce desire and consequent action. We read that “it is God that worketh in us, both to will, and to do of his good pleasure.” It is true that man is free to do what he wills, but God is our potter, and we are the clay in his hands; and the methods by which man is lifted to a higher degree of existence are the methods by which God is creating within man, his own divine nature and quality.
Predestination is established in God’s purpose, announced in the beginning when he said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” This is his purpose, and this purpose will be accomplished. All nature works together to force its accomplishment (Romans 8:22-23); but man is given a “free-will” to act within the limits of his knowledge and his capacity, and the qualities within him producing desires.
To explain how man becomes Yahveh Elohim, it is necessary to look again at the “Three Steps” for attaining “The Likeness of God.” The “First Step”, inspiring or indrawing from the creative forces, is common to all flesh – the method in pursuance of the law, that as man unfolds, new conditions demand higher qualities which naturally flow in, producing nobler desires, loftier aspirations, and purer thoughts.
The “Second Step”, the incorporating of the paschal lamb or the Divine Word, leads to the next higher plane where the evolutionary forces have refined and qualitated the human organism to a degree which renders it capable of receiving an influx from that spirit-life that was generated and prepared for the world by the Lord Christ.
Up to this time, man has nothing directly to do with these steps, it is all of God. But when, as we have seen, this second quality is obtained, there begins in the man a struggle between the forces of the carnal or animal man, and the forces of the spiritual or divine man, and there are manifested in the man two natures, the one struggling against the other. This is the condition that has been active in the world since the time of the Christ.
At this point man’s responsibility begins. While desire comes from development, yet that desire draws in, gathering to itself the spiritual qualities that were prepared through the Lord Jesus, which cause the individual to aspire to a higher and a holier life.” But there still remain active in the individual, the appetites and passions of the flesh, causing a struggle between the two natures.
Here begins the work of “overcoming”, for by thought and by effort, man can coerce these appetites and passions and give special freedom and culture to the spiritual desires and aspirations, or he is free to neglect the developing of the spiritual qualities, even to the extent of crushing out from his own organism the divine life that God has given him, and thus he is lost, individually lost, in that he will leave the body without being able to carry with him a perpetual consciousness. He will then have to return in another organism, and finish that which he failed to do in his former incarnation.
But if a person turns his thoughts toward God and gives his entire life and all his efforts to know and to do the will of God, suppressing the appetites, passions, and evil desires of the flesh, then will the spirit of life from God grow and mature in him. Before this maturity can take place, however, we are brought face to face with the “Allegory of Eden”, “the fall of man”, and his redemption, through Christ.”
Hiram Butler
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 