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Are Our Lives Determined by Free Will or Fate? (Part 1–Choice)

Are Our Lives Determined by Free Will or Fate? (Part 1–Choice)

Last updated on: July 7, 2023 at 9:44 am by M. Scott Coffman

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Are Our Lives Determined by Free Will or Fate? (Part 1–Choice) 2023-07-07T09:44:51-05:00 M. Scott Coffman

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If God is both omniscient and omnipotent, do we really have free will, or are our lives determined by fate? To answer this question, we need to go back to the Garden of Eden.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” (Genesis 2:15-17 NIV)

Adam and Eve did not have theology or organized religion; they had ONE rule. Don’t eat off that one tree. That’s it. Only one “don’t.” Everything else was a “go ahead.”

Well, we all know how this turned out. Eve said that the serpent deceived her, but she still chose to eat the fruit. Adam didn’t even have deception as an excuse. Although it is true that a man will do whatever a naked woman says, he also chose to eat the fruit.

Now, theologians have argued for centuries about whether Adam’s choice was predestined. Well, if it was fate, then how can it be a choice? And if Adam had no free will, then it would follow that we wouldn’t either.

This argument makes no sense theologically, or even plain logically. A complete absence of free will would make our creation devoid of purpose. God created us in His own image, and God is not a robot. Therefore, we are not robots.

For some reason, though, we are perceived as such by those who do not choose to follow Christ or even to believe in God. These feel that making the choice to follow Christ somehow constitutes an abdication of free will, and that sharing the gospel with them is a blatant attempt to take away their choice.

This argument makes even less sense. Everything we do is a choice, whether we are conscious of the fact that we are making a choice or not. Some of those choices may be against God’s plan for our lives. So, does that make the consequences of our choices a product of God’s foreknowledge or of the choices themselves?

Colorful word cloud with "decision" prominent

Not all decisions lead to the same fate. (Peer Pressure Images)

If we were to live a perfect life, as Jesus did, then our lives would be like a straight line between point A (birth) and point B (death). This straight line represents God’s predestined fate for our lives.

Only here’s the problem. No one lives a perfect life, on account of our having free will. The choices that we make which are not in accordance with God’s plan will direct us away from God’s straight line from point A to point B.

Since God is omniscient, He knows not only that our rebellion was possible but also all the possible ways in which we could rebel, consciously or unconsciously.

So, how does this concept play out in our lives?

Life is a Highway. For Real.

Picture the predestined straight line of God’s will as an interstate highway taking you on the fastest and easiest route from birth to death. Making a choice contrary to God’s will would be like getting off the interstate and taking a dirt road into the desert.

Road leading into the desert toward the horizon with a road sign reading "Not a Through Street"

Probably shouldn’t have made that left turn at Albuquerque. (pxhere/Public Domain)

The farther you go down that road, the farther away from the interstate you are. In addition, the dirt road may have twists and turns and lead you down into canyons and ravines. Then, not only are you far away from the interstate, but you are also completely lost.

When we stray from God’s path, He sets up detours in our lives to divert us back to His predestined will—the straight line. Nevertheless, we still have the free will to choose whether to allow ourselves to be detoured, or to crash the barricades and continue to go our own way. If we do that enough times, God steps back and lets us go over the cliff. No one is “destined to fail.” Our choices provide that fate.

Fortunately for us, we still have the opportunity to repent and surrender, thereby allowing God to lift us up out of the ditch we have steered ourselves into and put us back on his road (kind of like in Mario Kart). Furthermore, as long as we are alive, God’s grace gives us an unlimited number of do-overs as we continue down the road. Every wrong turn can be made right.

However, it’s not just the people on the interstate making bad exits that create this situation. Some people have never driven on the interstate before, and don’t really know how it works. Their incomplete information results in an unplanned destination.

The area where I live provides a perfect object lesson. I am near Interstate 55, which is the main corridor between Chicago and St. Louis. For this illustration, we will assume that Chicago is the promised land. (Stop laughing. I mean it.) And let us say that our driver is trying to get to the promised land of Chicago as quickly as possible, but the only thing he knows is that you get there on I-55. So, he drives until he gets to the junction and merges onto I-55…South.

Not yet. NOT YET!!! (formulanone/flickr)

In his mind, this driver has done everything right. He found the right road and got on it. Except he is going the wrong way. The longer he persists in going the wrong way, the further he will get from his intended destination.

Now, he has many choices at this point. If he realizes his mistake right away, he can just get off at the next exit and turn around. Or he can continue down the road in blissful ignorance jamming out to his favorite playlist until he sees a broad river and a shiny silver arch.

This ought to be a clear signal that he has made a mistake; however, he still has choices. Does he try to figure out how to turn around and get back across the Mississippi? Does he stop and ask for directions? (You have probably noticed that I made my hypothetical driver a male, so that option is out.) Or does he deny that he has made a mistake and continue all the way to LaPlace, Louisiana, before he finally admits that he has a problem?

That may sound like a ridiculous scenario, but how many people have you seen do that with their lives? Or have you BEEN that driver? Sometimes, we must get all the way to the end of our road before we admit that we made a wrong turn and point our car in the other direction. If you’ve ever driven on an actual expressway, you know that everyone around you has a driver’s license, but it doesn’t mean they know how to drive properly.

When you look at it that way, the issue of whether events of our lives are predestined or not fades in significance. The main question becomes not “Do I have control over my life?” so much as “What will I do with the control that I do have?”

In other words, our free will ultimately determines our fate.

(For more on this topic, come back next week for Part 2–Both/And.)

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