predestination

First let me start with a wrap-up from last time. I called it religion, I don't personally believe in a religion technically. If we truly believe in an all powerful God who can do anything and made everything, why would he need us to do his dirty work here on earth, and an even greater question, why would he reward us for the limited and pathetic things we do? Frankly religion is a silly idea, it assumes that God is limited and that he works like people do, you know, do something nice for him and He might do something nice for you. I called it religion because that is what people understand, but it really is just a daily faith. And daily, every day I fail, but the beauty is, since there is nothing I can do to win God's favor, then there is nothing I must do to earn it. I go to a church, and have mentors and relationships within a corporate worship body, but my faith is personal, it is what I believe and not what others tell me to believe. I have personal opinions on the interpretations of things based on how I perceive them, not how others tell me to. I have made my faith my own. But when discussing that topic, another comes up. Namely predestination vs. free choice.

predestination vs. free choice is an important and meaningless point. It is important because it explains something about how God and the universe works, but it is meaningless because it is not something we can control, even if we understood it fully (we being all humans). It is said that God chose his children, and that for those who do not choose him eternal separation from the presence of God is the punishment. But how is it that prophets can see the future and some events must occur? Clearly life is not fully based on free choice if some things will happen and are foreknown. Which brings an even bigger question, is anything done of free will if God knows everything that is and everything that will be and even that which might be.

I know its complicated, but over the years I have formed a basic theory which is loose and weak enough to hold a few drops of water, but its more than any of my alternatives the way I see it. Frankly I have no problem believing that everything that could happen can be known, such a thing implies freedom of choice and action on our parts. Also it would not make any sense to give punishment to a people who are predestined to fail, that just does not make sense. And although the ways of God are above the ways of man, God does tend to make sense in his own way, but being blatantly unfair is not a trait I know to be common of him. That is why I believe in a partiality between the two, a mixed destiny a thing which is some portion fated and unchangeable, and partly driven by our own actions and wills.

This went from slightly confusing to gordian knot sort of confusing, but sadly it gets worse before it gets better, so bear with me. So you may ask, how can something be partially predestined, and foreknown, and not technically be fully predestined, since any amount of fated direction would seem that all other things would then be reactant and contingent on what must be and what cannot be. But follow me for a second, what if some things simply had to happen because they are commonly fated, and others are up to us. For example, using the body, I have to breathe to live, so does that mean that I am fated to go to the store since I live? It may not make sense at first glance, but think about it, living basically necessitates breathing. But that does not mean that I was destined to breathe, nor does it have anything to do with me choosing to go to the store except that if I was not breathing I would be dead and therefore could not go to the store. Likewise, what if some things must happen, things that must happen as a quality and elementary characteristic of the reality around us, and those would be fated as they cannot be changed, but what we do with them is up to us.

The direction I am going is this, what if every person of every religion and every anti religion is given the choice to accept God even if they have no access to Him otherwise. What if the things you go through in your life, the big ones that you can't change were predestined, and what you choose to do with them is up to you. What if your family, your friends, your opportunities, your interests, desires, and even the year and place you were born are all fated, but what if you have the ultimate choice of what you will do with what you have been given. I say given because it is not something you can choose or change any more than you can change who your parents were or history that happened a thousand years ago. I do believe that there are some things we must go through in life that we simply cannot avoid. Some things that we can stall off, run away from, but in the end we will have to face them or not and that is the free choice, but we cannot change the existence of the thing. Who is around us, what is going on, and when things happen is totally out of our hands, and thus either of the free will of others, or perfectly orchestrated to give us choice and chance.

Ok, so its a stretch, and here my hidden optimism shows that I want to believe that in the end everything can work out for good, and that even the bad has a purpose to one day be defeated and overcome. I want to believe that although it may not look it, things are not a blind chaos of random chance, but rather that there is a purpose and a future and a victory.

So that is my belief, that some or even many things are predestined in our lives, but we still have the choice of how we react and what we do with what we have been given. And that the choices we do have, are not unfair, not stacked against us, but are honest and truly in our hands. I believe if God truly does love us, he would not jerk us around with the illusion of free choice where there is none. To truly love something is to love it enough to let it make its own mistakes and live its own life however it chooses, for in its own free choice it will find happiness. Granted it may not be the best choice or the best thing for the person doing the choosing, but forcing a person to do anything is unfair. A large part of free choice is having to live with the consequences of what we have chosen, and therein lies true love. I cannot make you understand what I know, you will have to walk your own path and learn it yourself, forcing you would only be taking away from you power over yourself. But at the same time, I believe that God gives us a fair chance, I have to.

I know that terrible things happen in the world, that the choices of man permanently damage others, I know this first and second hand. I have both held the torch and doused the flames, but I have to believe that beyond my understanding it is fair and that it will work out for good. Even if it is fair in a way we are not able to understand. Otherwise, I'd give up. I want to believe in a happy ending, without that hope, there is too much darkness to convince me to continue living.