Part 1
As a symbolic paradigm for all existence, The Four Pathways must be able to accommodate both the separation and the interaction of Religion and Science. Were that not so, there would be no common ground and any attempt to find one would be pointless. But the common ground is not merely wishful thinking. It is an energetic truth substantiated by the perfected merging of music and mathematics that is Harmonic Creation, as demonstrated earlier. In a planar sense, the East and the West can be said to uphold Religion, while the North and the South uphold Science. However, when the Process of Further Levels is applied to the paths, each path reflects into the others. Essentially, at each path along the horizontal axis of the word equations on these pages, there exists a vertical axis containing all four paths. That is, the energetic principles of each path can be found in the others, though to a greater or lesser degree depending on the core energy for that path. This makes possible the truth of a common ground.
The intersection of horizontal and vertical axes also makes it possible to explain how a Universe whose existence began in a physical sense at the Zero Moment of the Big Bang, could have had an infinite pre-existence in a multidimensional sense. The horizontal axis expresses the Linear evolution of time, which truly did begin at the Zero Moment. Yet, at each moment within that Linear timeline, including the Zero Moment, there exists a Cyclic timeline where past and future are infinite. (See "Further Thoughts on the Multidimensionality of Time.") We'll soon apply the intersection of axes to allow for the existence of True and False within each Path. But here in the context of Cyclic and Linear timelines, it allows for a "God" to pre-exist the Zero Moment of tangible creation.
Recall our definition for The Four Pathways: “the four fundamental courses of action or ways of living a person or group follows to progress through life and its experiences or difficulties.” We’ve established that these courses of action and ways of living could be grouped under the collective energies of Buddhism, Christianity, Philosophy, and Occult, which were aligned with the energy fields of East, West, North, and South - as well as with all the energetic and elemental properties associated with those fields. Moreover, we can surmise that since these paths were providing the roadmaps, so to speak, to progress through life, they must include the knowledge, and the tools, to do so. But what drove humanity, since it first acquired the cognitive ability, to seek such knowledge and acquire those tools? Was it merely survival?
The question is actually deeper. After all, birds, insects, plants and animals in their own way progress through life’s experiences and difficulties! And somehow they must have learned courses of action to do so. What makes us different from all other forms of life? What guidance, what knowledge, what truths were human beings seeking? And where or from whom were they seeking it? We search for more than the mere knowledge and tools to survive. Humanity seems to have been born with the desire to know the reason for it, to learn the Ultimate Truth – the nature of our existence. Perhaps it grew from the evolution of consciousness that provided the spark for our new self-awareness, that took an observation of the human birth process and extrapolated it to ponder the birth of all that is:
Who are we?
Why are we here?
How did we come to be?
The Four Pathways then are seen as the courses and ways humanity followed to answer those questions. For some the answers have been found in acknowledging a cosmic source, an essence without personality; for others the personality of a source is real. These are the Pathways of the East and the West, collectively grouped under the energy of Theism. But there were people who found an answer in rational explanations; still others saw it in the natural order of things. These are the Pathways of the North and the South, collectively grouped under the energy of Deism.
Understood in this sense, The Four Pathways become humanity’s quest for spiritual truth, and yet it is clear that Religion and Science have supplied components. Nonetheless, you may ask where the pure science is in them, the science for which evidence is its "god," and God in any creator context (9) is absent?
Next: IN SCIENCE, Part 2
(9) Note that God in “The Totality Of God" is used in the most inclusive sense possible, as should be evident from the previous description of "the source" in the Pathways. Though its interpretations differ vastly, even spanning agnostic and atheistic aspects of disbelief, the word is widely recognized among English speaking people and it has been chosen by me to represent the above understanding. Doing so permits including those for whom the word may not have relevance or meaning, but the understanding does. To accommodate God’s complete range from essence to personality, the masculine personal pronoun is often substituted. Again, this is a common Western convention. Feel free to choose your own, or none at all.
