Away with your pitchforks! It makes sense. Of course you're free to do something you would never do. Why make pointless rules?
What's funny is how dogma kept the evil assumption but neglected the part that emphasizes love. Dogmatic churchmen would argue its your right to beat your wife - those same people would never notice that that's only the case because you wouldn't do it.
What's interesting about this is it shows the real meaning of liberty, as well as the necessity of a charitable disposition toward that which you could objectively call 'evil.' Liberty is not the right to do horrible things - its the charity towards others that gives the benefit of the doubt. Charity is disinterested. Its non coercive. Thus, liberty is disinterested. Some people say, "why would God make a world full of such evil?" The answer is, because love does not presume an outcome. A bad outcome doesn't invalidate the charity that was misunderstood. You're free to do evil - but if you know its evil, you won't choose it.
Now the first part of the quote is just as interesting, and possibly even moreso. Who's that Guide? What did Jesus say about teachers? Call no one your teacher, for you have but one teacher... Something like that. You remember. The outward world is the opposite of the Guide, as beating your wife is the opposite of love. Finding the Guide causes you to leave the preoccupations of meaningless worldly things. Thats when you see the "unseen world" - no object presents its full nature to the eyes, neither the material nor mental in nature. You still live in the world, and are free to chase those passions, those childhood things (believing the shadows on the cave wall are reality), but why on earth would you? This is one way of seeing the object of, "the truth will set you free."
#Philosophy #gnostr
